Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
17 (I think) places will consider community power at town meeting
I've written two stores recently about New Hampshire towns that will decide at town meetings this month whether to contract for community power. It should have been one story but I missed some and had to make up for it - here's a mash-up of the stories: The potential...
Our forests need us to figure out new stuff to do with them
When it comes to making money from a downed tree there aren’t many options: you can slice it into boards, burn it for heat, or mash it into paper. That’s about it. Or so I thought, and you probably did too. “That’s really the tip of the proverbial iceberg,” said Joe...
NH community college adds EV technician certificate, a first
White Mountains Community College in Berlin is the first community college in New Hampshire to offer an electric vehicle technician certificate in its automotive program. This year ... all students must take an EV class to earn their associate’s degree or certificate...
N.H. patents through March 5
(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 March 5. *** Apparatus for Producing Bulk Silicon Carbide GTAT CORPORATION, Hudson, New...
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...
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