Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
If there’s a dumber purchase than bottled water, I can’t think of it at the moment
When it comes to budgeting, you can’t get much worse than bottled water. If your home is connected to “city water” then each sip you take from the plastic Flask-o-Fluid bought at WalMart costs between 1,000 and 10,000 times as much as a sip from your kitchen tap....
Another airport delay: TSA scanners don’t like the new NH license design
The system used by TSA to authenticate people’s identification is having trouble with the new design of New Hampshire drivers licenses, a design that was specifically made to meet the federal Real ID requirements for boarding airplanes. The New Hampshire Division of...
Latest sign that solar panels are important: People are stealing them
By Catherine McLaughlin, Concord Monitor: The pump system that sends water to nearly 200 plots at the Sycamore Community Garden in concord was suddenly dry. Volunteers checked on the problem and discovered the solar panels that powered the system had been stolen,...
If you do an NH trash survey you’ll find a lot that shouldn’t be there
NH Bulletin has a story about an analysis of trash from throughout New Hampshire (story is here) which found, no surprise, that alot of what we shove into landfills could go somewhere else: The team found 41.5% of what was disposed of was not recyclable in New...
A fiberglass house is changing hands
The most unusual home in Hopkinton, one that over the years has been nicknamed the Marshmallow House, the Space Pod, the Fiberglass Folly and more, is changing hands. The house on Jewett Road was built – perhaps “assembled” is a better word – in 1973. Its unusual...
Local food requires local farms – which requires local farmland
Remember all the COVID-related shortages we faced five years ago? I bet you remember toilet paper; it made for the best jokes. But you may have forgotten the big hiccups that occurred in the supply of something more significant than pulp-based hygiene products: Food....
Deaths vs. births in New Hampshire
I made a quick little chart in Infogram of births and deaths each year in New Hampshire as recorded by the bureau of Vital Records. You can see why we need people to keep moving into the state. Interactive chart is here:...
Wildfires increase and air quality decreases
“I think it’s a really fair expectation that one of the most widely experienced impacts of global warming will be reductions in air quality from wildfire,” said Justin S. Mankin, an associate professor in Dartmouth’s Department of Geography. Interesting (i.e.,...
N.H. births hit a modern low in 2024
New Hampshire had 11,761 births in 2024, the lowest number in modern times, as a bump in births after COVID has ended. The 2024 number of births is 330 smaller than the figure in 2023, 540 smaller than a decade ago and 2,400 births or 16% smaller than it was three...
Hopefully the Easter Bunny wasn’t carrying ticks because they might carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever
From UMass Amherst: In a residential backyard in Maine, Project ITCH researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst stumbled upon a surprise finding: rabbit ticks harboring a new type of bacteria related to a group of pathogens that can cause sometimes...
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