Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Hey, math fans: It’s a snowplow story that references the bridges of Königsberg!
Excellent story in the Washington Post about the complications of route optimization for snowplows. It includes the most famous origin story in mathematics - Euler realizing he couldn't cross the seven bridges of Königsberg just once and thus founding graph theory and...
On the third anniversary of COVID in NH, hospitals say their struggles have in some ways gotten worse
From a shortage of wheelchair vans to a looming shortage of nursing-school faculty, from weak Medicare reimbursements to soaring cost of part-time medical staff, from burned-out nurses who quit to patients who get sicker while waiting to be seen, it is hard to find an...
Using your own industrial waste is a no-brainer; why isn’t it done more often?
It’s hard to think of an environmental action that makes more sense than a business using its own waste product to replace something it otherwise has to buy. It makes sense even when it has a goofy name like “spunding.” That’s the term brewers use when using the...
Moose are big but it’s still hard to count them all
Like all good tourists our family once went to "Moose Alley" - the section of Route 3 from Pittsburg to the Canadian border where you're most likely to spot the enormous gangly beasts wandering along or near the road. We did see several moose, so all was good....
N.H. isn’t as much of an EV laggard as I suspected
New Hampshire has more electric vehicles registered per 1,000 people than Maine, Rhode Island or New York state, to my surprise, according to this report from CleanTechnica. With 7.13 registrations per 1,000 we're still behind Massachusetts (9.54), Connecticut (8.07)...
Any NEXTGEN TV users out there?
Loyal readers, I have a request. Do you have a TV that can make use of NEXTGEN TV, the new over-the-air digital technology, and have you tried it? Some stations in Boston have begun broadcasting with it (but not New Hampshire's WMUR, at least not yet) and I’d like to...
N.H. patents through Feb. 26
(Links to each patent can be found here, using the patent number.) By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire through Feb. 26. *** *** Command Center Storage System GIGUNDA GROUP, LLC, Portsmouth, New Hampshire...
To keep staff, employer is building 44 tiny homes
A New Hampshire company that kept losing staffers because they couldn’t afford to live nearby is tackling the problem in an unusual way – using a special zoning program in Dover to build 44 tiny homes on less than 4 acres. The project, a modern twist on the old...
Power out? Forest threats are part of the problem
All the threats to northern forests - invasive bugs like EAB, wooly adelgid, Asian longhorn beetle; invasive plants like bittersweet vine, deer eating all the new shoots, changing climate affecting growth patterns - are also a threat to our electricity, says...
NH may get a sweeping data-protection law (but probably won’t)
Lawmakers are contemplating a sweeping data-protection bill in New Hampshire, reports New Hampshire Bulletin: The whole story is here. Sponsored by Sen. Sharon Carson, Senate Bill 255 would give consumers the right to confirm whether their data is being collected and...