Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Big investment bucks flow toward … culverts?
Body Here’s a sentence I didn’t expect to hear during an interview: “That’s why, all of a sudden, people are talking about culverts.” This might be a bit of an exaggeration – OK, it’s a wild exaggeration – but the statement from Rachel Rouillard, director of...
Why does New Hampshire send hundreds of wild animal teeth to a Montana laboratory every year?
Firearms deer season starts next week, so I get to rerun this piece from 2019. (I was reminded of it because Vermont just sent out a notice asking hunters to help collect deer teeth for their assessment program.) When it comes to corporate bragging points, it’s hard...
Deliberate overvoting may slow election-night results
Election results may take longer than usual to be reported Tuesday night, and part of that could be deliberate. “There is this intent to muck up the election and set it up for failure,” said Natalie Tennant from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University...
Patents filed in N.H. through Oct. 30
(Note: The US Patent Service has changed the way it reports patents and as a result, this report no longer includes direct links to each patent. You can find them here, using the patent number. Sorry for the inconvenience.) By Targeted News Service WASHINGTON – The...
When Granite State College merges into UNH, much will stay the same
For the fourth time in its 50-year history, Concord’s piece of New Hampshire’s state university system is about to get a new name, part of a big change that should raise the profile of this often-overlooked institution but not alter its underlying mission. “Most...
My car-buying conundrum as EVs (slowly) arrive
Note: This is the sort of personal rumination that I would normally put on Twitter, but I'm pulling back on that excellent social site for obvious reasons. At least for the time being, Twitter remains an excellent way to learn about science and energy news. I'm at...
To reduce ticks, burn more! Well, maybe
Ticks often live in litter that falls to forest floors such as leaves and thrive in thick grass which protects them from drying out (a big danger for these flat beasts). Prescribed burning it seems like a reasonable tool to reduce both forest floor debris and...
Two NH school districts get electric bus grants
Electric school buses make a ton of sense. There's less tailpipe pollution while they're idling in the schoolyard or waiting for a line of 7-year-olds to scramble aboard, operating costs are much less, and there are vehicle-to-grid possibilities with these...
N.H. voting population has changed more than you might think
The race for New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate seat will be decided by a different group of voters than when Sen. Maggie Hassan was first elected, because more than one-quarter of people eligible to cast ballots were either too young or didn’t live here in 2016. That’s the...
Gate-stealing is a weird, and mostly departed, Halloween tradition
There's a Concord community that calls Halloween "gate night" for reasons that date back a century - it used to be a common appellation because of the popularity of stealing people's garden gates as the trick part of trick-or-treat. It has faded, presumably because...
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