Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Run a speed test at home to help expand NH broadband
UPDATE: In seven months leading up to the day before this story rain in the Monitor, the state has seen 915 speed tests. On the day it ran, they got 270 more, and they're still coming in as I write this. New Hampshire is getting ready to take the next step in bringing...
Rhode Island wind farm starts construction
Off the coast of Rhode Idland, Revolution Wind. a joint venture between Ørsted and Eversource, has started building a 704 MW wind farm in Rhode Island Sound south of Point Judith. It will send power to Rhode Island and Connecticut. Quonset, R.I., is going to be a...
Another climate change measurement: The UNH ginkgo tree
Many ginkgo trees are famous for dropping all their leaves at once - whomp! - after the first hard frost. There's one tree on the Durham campus of UNH and people have kept records on its leaf-drop day since the 1970s. This year's drop was the latest on record, as...
NH patents through Nov. 19
(Links to each patent can be found here, using the patent number or inventor’s name.) By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire through Nov. 19. *** Guided Munition Systems for Detecting Off-Axis Targets BAE...
NH Audubon: Where are all the birds?
New Hampshire Audubon has a long post responding to some people who are alarmed that they've seen very few birds at their feeders this year, especially this fall. The post is here. tl'dr - it's not avian flu, it's this year's weather. Warm and rainy summer means...
NHPR: Dean Kamen has complicated financial ties with his biotech non-profit
NH Public Radio's Todd Bookman has a long, detailed piece out today (here it is) detailing the complicated (and maybe eyebrow-raising) financial benefits that inventor Dean Kamen's private firms get from the federally funded non-profit ARMI: The federal government is...
Burlington faces the same wood haters (who indirectly boost natural gas) that Hanover did
UPDATE: The city council supported the plan, 6-4, voting "to institute a measure that would capture more of the power McNeil Generating Station cannot use currently, through waste heat, steam and an electric boiler, and pipe it underground to large entities like the...
Another climate migrant: Fiddler crabs
New Hampshire Bulletin looks at yet another species that is moving north as weather warms: Fiddler crabs. Johnson uses the term “climate migrants” when referring to species like fiddler crabs, blue crabs, and black sea bass, all creatures that have seen expanded...
No dickory or dock, but hickory trees could (should?) be making a resurgence
The Valley News has a story about small efforts to get farmers and others to look at hickory trees, especialy the Yellowbud variety, as a potential nut crop as well as a tree that's resilient in the face of the climate emergency. (The full story is here) Taking...
NH patents through Nov. 12
(Links to each patent can be found here, using the patent number or inventor’s name.) By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The following federal patents were assigned in New Hampshire through Nov. 12. *** Hockey Stick With Variable Geometry Shaft and Paddle BAUER...
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