Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Electrify that bucket truck!
If you can’t buy an electric version of your company’s vehicle, maybe you can take the vehicle and retrofit it to become electric. That’s the route Breezeline has taken in what they say is the first conversion of a bucket truck to electricity, both the motor and...
Everything you wanted to know about a Lyme vaccine
Inverse, a news site, has a long detailed piece about efforts to develop a Lyme vaccine for humans, including the tantalizing possibility of a short-lasting but quick-to-take-effect vaccine using monoclonal antibodies and the need for better tests. Even if you know a...
It’s been 10 years since our offshore wind was kneecapped
This column should have been written 10 years ago. In 2013, construction was about to start on Cape Wind, a 450-megawatt wind farm 7 miles south of Cape Cod. It was an exciting moment: European nations had been constructing wind farms in the North Sea for 22 years at...
Summer wildfire threat could be coming our way
It's been so wet in New Hampshire since May that it's easy to think we're protected from wildfire risk, but looking north shows that this is foolish. Eastern Canada is a place where raging wildfires didn't happen until suddenly they did, and there's no reason we...
NH patents through July 2
(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 July 2. *** Cost Effective Cartridge for a Plasma Arc Torch HYPERTHERM,...
The 16-year effort to bring high-speed internet to ‘the Brooklyn of Vermont’
valley News had a great story about the unveiling of ECFiber, a fiber-optic ISP around White River Junction, Vermont. ECFiber’s story has been through many chapters during its history: the initial 500 investors who kicked in $7.5 million in seed capital; nearly...
Hydroponic greenhouses are better than vertical farms, but not by a whole lot
Vertical indoor farms - growing leafy greens indoors in tall buildings - have many advantages (less water usage, less land occupied, growing close to consumers, faster plant growth) but have all failed financially because of the cost of powering lights to replace the...
Music degree meets a high-tech world: Ability to read music not required
There’s a new bachelor’s degree in music being offered at Plymouth State University, but it’s a music degree with a 21st century twist: You don’t have to know how to play an instrument or even read music. “We have a whole group of musicians that I refer to as...
A simple device tackles a very, very complicated problem
After spending an hour recently with Jeff Moore of Windswept Maples Farm in Loudon as he demonstrated an automated gate system for beef cattle, I came to a realization: Farming is an optimization problem. Optimization problems are common in computing and economics....
50 years from New England’s worst aviation disaster
From NH Aviation Museum: On July 31, 1973, a flight carrying 83 passengers and six crew members departed Manchester for Boston’s Logan airport, where it crashed into a seawall while attempting to land in dense fog. Of those on board, all but two died instantly. One...
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