Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
My “water year” chart shows how dry we were
The above chart shows my measurements during the "water year" of Oct. 1 through Oct. 1 (an arbitrary period used by meteorologists to analyze precipitation). I make measurements as part of CoCoRaHS, a regional citizen-science precipitation-gathering group. Blue is...
GraniteGeek on the Air: Gender disparity (plus, “buzzwordify” is now a word)
My weekly talk with New Hampshire Public Radio's Peter Biello took a slightly different turn this week; we didn't discuss my Monitor column because NHPR had already done a story about the topic - instead we discussed a short story of that that started as a post in...
UNH: Yes, Voyager 1 did leave the heliosphere, despite those weird readings
By UNH News Service: Why did NASA’s Voyager 1, when it became the first probe to enter interstellar space in mid-2012, observe a magnetic field that was inconsistent with that derived from other spacecraft observations? A UNH-led study published today in the...
Don’t underestimate the joys of not going to the gas station
One of the main reasons I'd like to have an electric car is not having to go to the gas station. Gassing up at home every night (so to speak) sounds awesome, and I've interviewed a few owners over the year who say they love not having to go out of their way to fill up...
Hoisting a tree (not by its own petard, however)
This was my view driving home last night (picture taken through a rain-spotted windshield as I waited for the very damp guy with Mayer Tree Service to flip the Stop sign over to Slow). Instead of cutting down trees next to the power lines, they cut them upward. The...
Bitcoin developer (he knows Satoshi Nakamoto!) will be in Keene on Friday
Keenevention is an awkwardly named but intriguing annual event held by the Free State Project in Keene aimed at the activist portion of the libertarian crowd. I don't count myself among them - too many think "The Fountainhead" is non-fiction - but they bring up some...
In NH, 7.5 boys take AP computer science exam for every girl who takes it
If New Hampshire wants to get more females interested in computer science, they'd better get cracking, judging from high schoolers' interest: For every N.H. girl who took the AP exam in computer science last May, 7.47 boys took it. That 7.47-to-1 ratio is by far the...
Puffins are canaries in a coalmine for the warming Gulf of Maine
The Portland Press-Herald is in the midst of an excellent, in-depth series about changes happening in the Gulf of Maine due to acidification, invasive species, and other stresses - mostly a rise in sea temperatures: "Since 2004 the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than...
Birds of a feather are released together, if they’re pheasants
Sometimes being a reporter is a lot of fun - like this morning, when I covered a pheasant release by N.H. Fish & Game. I took the above picture with my phone while holding a light pole for Geoff Forester - it provided a 1/10,000th-second flash so he could capture...
Check out the pump house at a small ski area – wow
There's not a lot of geekery in my Monitor story today about efforts to reopen long-closed Tenney Mountain Ski Area - but check out Geoff Forester's photo of the pump-house. Four huge diesel engines, consuming 5,000 gallons of fuel a day, are needed to move enough...
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