Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
UNH: Memory of winter is affected by beliefs about climate change
From UNH News Service: New Hampshire residents who do not believe that human activities are changing the climate, and also those who identify as political independents or Tea Party supporters, were less likely to recall that the record-breaking month of December 2015,...
The technology of “gene drive” (think CRISPR on evolutionary steroids) could alter entire species
I mentioned a few posts ago the possibility of tweaking ticks so they don't pass on Lyme disease. This is part of a process called "gene drive," in which "scientists could alter the DNA of a few individual organisms and use gene drives to spread a modification...
More people paid to talk about math than showed up free to talk about beer
On Tuesday night I moderated Science Cafe Concord's discussion about the science of beer, no cover charge in The Draft Sports Bar. About 40 people showed up. On Wednesday night Ian Underwood of Ask Dr. Math and I hosted a discussion called "What is this thing called...
What Is This Thing Called Math? Help me find out tomorrow (Wed., June 8)
On NHPR today I managed to sneak in the plot of a science-fiction short story I tried to write in my 20s, when I thought I could be the Next Great American Novelist. The plot: Astronauts land on an asteroid and find the Platonic Solids - the actual perfect cube,...
Genetically engineered mice might stop Lyme disease
UPDATE: Wired looks at a similar idea - genetically modified rats for the Galapagos Island - and ponders the whole idea of manipulating genetics to "restore" natural areas. Here's the story. The NY Times has a story about an idea by an MIT evolutionary biologist to...
Recent patents in New Hampshire
By Targeted News Service: DEKA Products of Manchester has been assigned an ornamental design patent (D757,272) developed by two co-inventors for an ornamental design for a “display screen with vertically centered text lines.” The co-inventors are Gregory Distler of...
CRISPR can edit RNA, not just DNA
CRISPR, the gene-editing method that is revolutionizing biology and possibly medicine, is so important that it was the topic of two Science Cafes this year, in both Concord and Nashua, but it's also quite new and still being analyzed. As the NY Times reports: On...
Dead leaves, more than snow, help ticks over-winter
We all like to think that our winters will kill off ticks, but it doesn't - part of the reason that Lyme disease has spread so much in New England. But why doesn't it? Because the ticks are good at finding shelter, according to a study that the Portland Press has...
How about some good news: U.S. teen birth rate is plummeting
How about some good news for a change: The U.S. teen birth rate (that is, rate of women age 19 or less who have babies) has fallen by more than half in a decade and by two-thirds - two-thirds! - since it peaked in 1991. Nobody's entirely sure why, but this Vox piece...
Native brook trout in downtown Manchester? Who knew?!?
There a great piece by Mark Hayward of the Union-Leader about native brook trout being found in muddy little urban stream in Manchester. Read it here; it's very good: This is a neighborhood where the word forest is best used metaphorically to describe the hot asphalt,...
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