Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Dartmouth launches institute to study “energy and society”
Institutes are an important driver in university research, usually created when a chunk of money is given by a person/place to target a particular topic. Really big institutes have their own offices or even buildings, but usually they exist as a virtual structure...
Road Trip!!!! Dartmouth’s “corpse flower” is about to bloom.
Dartmouth News says that the Life Sciences Greenhouse's "corpse flower" (titan arum) is about to bloom for the first time since 2011, producing the disgusting rotting-body smell that has to be experienced to be believed, or so I've heard. Here's their story. I hope to...
Will you ride my electric bus? (cue early Who nostalgia)
I've always been surprised that delivery vehicles and buses haven't gone the electric-engine route sooner than cars. They're easier to electrify because they have predictable, usually not terribly long, travel paths, and because they return to the same central...
Vermont removes a ‘deadbeat dam’ – one of hundreds in New England
A crummy little dam - 5 feet high, made of interlocking steel plates (a design that's new to me) was removed from the White River in Vermont this week, freeing up 100 miles of river to native trout that previously were blocked. Unlike large-scale dam removals that...
Boston says ‘If Pittsburgh can have self-driving cars, so can we!’ (in several years)
The city of Boston says i will launch a "collaboration that will include a year-long program focused on creating policy recommendations and supporting on-street testing of autonomous vehicles "to advance the safety, access and sustainability goals identified by the...
What’s more interesting, political results or a dead swordfish?
This is the only interesting story on the AP news feed for New Hampshire on this day-after-party-primary-election morning: RYE, N.H. (AP) — Seacoast Science Center officials say an 8-foot swordfish that washed up along Cable Beach in Rye earlier this week appears to...
Yes, ‘ballot selfies’ (a term I invented, sort of) are still legal
Due to complicated legal maneuvering, New Hampshire's law against "ballot selfies" (taking and posting a photo of your completed ballot, before you deposit it with election officials) is not in effect for the state primary election happening today, so people can click...
National offshore-wind push doesn’t go north of Cape Cod, for now
The U.S. is way behind in developing offshore wind. We've got lots of good resources in relatively shallow water (especially on the East Coast, where the continental shelf goes out a long way) but financial, power-grid and political problems have stalled things, as...
‘Dead fish’ be darned – fire up that research MRI!
Dartmouth has a new, more powerful fMRI machines (3 Tesla, as in magnetic field strength, not cars) for studying the workings of the brain and personalities, as I discuss in today's GraniteGeek column in the Concord Monitor. But being knowledgeable, you ask: What...
Nashua makerspace was part of White House conference on makerspaces
Makerspaces aren't exactly going mainstream, but they are mainstream-ish, as you can see in a story in the Sunday Nashua Telegraph Adam Shrey (head of MakeIt Labs in Nashua) was invited by the Office of Science Technology Policy on behalf of the White House to attend...
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