Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
U.S. electricity use is declining – but will it last?
Probably due to the adaption of LED lighting, electricity use in the U.S. is declining, separate from the bigger economic picture. The question is whether it will last, and this article from UCal-Berkeley says it's too early to tell, if for no other reason than...
Vermont utility and Tesla making Powerwall battery available to homes, pretty cheap
In the latest installment of their interesting collaboration, Vermont's Green Mountain Power and Tesla have announced a low price for home backup batteries ($15 per month) with the utility hoping to recoup the cost partly by linking all the batteries into a virtual...
“Gravity wave” – that word does not mean what you think it means
Terminology can have different meanings in different scientific disciplines ... which is why I was very excited to read this Vermont Public Radio story about a freak storm in Rutland, Vt., that was partly caused by gravity waves. Gravity waves?! Cool! Alas, turns out...
Looks like we won’t be switching time zones
The New Hampshire state Senate on Thursday put the kibosh on one of the silliest (IMHO) ideas floating around these days: Improving our health and productivity by moving coastal New England states into Atlantic standard time, the zone used by Nova Scotia and most...
N.H. bill would give privacy protection against ISPs that federal government has rejected
This story ran in the May 10, 2017 Concord Monitor: Internet providers in New Hampshire would have to alert customers before selling information about their online practices under a proposal that seeks to replicate at the state level internet privacy regulations that...
Hot, humid days raise NH deaths by 5% – and we’ll be seeing more (maybe lots more) of them
Deaths in New Hampshire and two other New England states rose by 5 percent and hospital emergency visits rose by 7.5 percent during hot weather spells that seem likely to increase in frequency. The results come from a study published this week in the...
That drone-pizza-lawsuit story was a joke – fake news, if you will
(Subscribers to my free newsletter saw this yesterday.) Last week I mentioned an online Forbes article that riffed on a New Hampshire lawsuit over damages caused when a pizza was dropped by a delivery drone - an accident, and a lawsuit, that never actually happened....
‘100-year storms’ are becoming routine ‘for whatever reason’ says Eversource head
I have a story in today's Monitor about a project between Eversource Energy (PSNH to us NH old-timers) and Plymouth State University to extend and improve a project that Eversource has with Univ. Connecticut to focus weather forecasting to better predict power outages...
What do a Nashua dam and the Arctic ionosphere have in common?
From UNH news service: UNH’s Broadband Center of Excellence (BCoE) has awarded two grants to UNH researchers: one to a team that will bring the Internet of Things to water quality monitoring in the city of Nashua, and one to researchers who will create sensors to...
Vermont researchers nudge middle-aged forests to be more like old growth forests
Most of the forests in northern New England stopped being logged in the early 20th century, so all the trees tend to be relatively uniform in age - like a city where everybody is 30 years old. This isn't great for environmental diversity and, it turns out, reduces...
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