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Science on Tap to discuss soil microbes (which is more interesting than it sounds) - Granite Geek
The SEE Science Center’s twelfth season of Science on Tap discussions concludes on Tuesday, May 13. Science on Tap events are informal discussions with local scientists and experts on a particular topic. On Tuesday the topic will be: Something’s Afoot Underfoot. Join us to take a closer look at soil microbes and the role they play in our […]
NH can now gamble with - sorry, I mean invest in - bitcoin and its cronies - Granite Geek
A decade ago the idea that the state could invest in bitcoin would have been exciting. But years of watching cryptocurrency serve only to dodge taxes, launder money and delude small investors, providing no actual use that helps society, makes me realize it is at best a stunt and at worst a scam. So I’m […]
If there's a dumber purchase than bottled water, I can't think of it at the moment - Granite Geek
When it comes to budgeting, you can’t get much worse than bottled water. If your home is connected to “city water” then each sip you take from the plastic Flask-o-Fluid bought at WalMart costs between 1,000 and 10,000 times as much as a sip from your kitchen tap. (Per gallon, bottled water costs $1 to $10, […]
Latest sign that solar panels are important: People are stealing them - Granite Geek
By Catherine McLaughlin, Concord Monitor: The pump system that sends water to nearly 200 plots at the Sycamore Community Garden in concord was suddenly dry. Volunteers checked on the problem and discovered the solar panels that powered the system had been stolen, the wires cut. Ruth Heath, president of the garden’s board of directors, looked at the empty […]
If you do an NH trash survey you'll find a lot that shouldn't be there - Granite Geek
NH Bulletin has a story about an analysis of trash from throughout New Hampshire (story is here) which found, no surprise, that alot of what we shove into landfills could go somewhere else: The team found 41.5% of what was disposed of was not recyclable in New Hampshire. But the other trash included materials that […]
Another airport delay: TSA scanners don't like the new NH license design - Granite Geek
The system used by TSA to authenticate people’s identification is having trouble with the new design of New Hampshire drivers licenses, a design that was specifically made to meet the federal Real ID requirements for boarding airplanes. The New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles said Monday it has been “contacted by some recipients of the State’s […]
Local food requires local farms - which requires local farmland - Granite Geek
Remember all the COVID-related shortages we faced five years ago? I bet you remember toilet paper; it made for the best jokes. But you may have forgotten the big hiccups that occurred in the supply of something more significant than pulp-based hygiene products: Food. “The supply chains were screwed up; people in other places couldn’t […]
A fiberglass house is changing hands - Granite Geek
The most unusual home in Hopkinton, one that over the years has been nicknamed the Marshmallow House, the Space Pod, the Fiberglass Folly and more, is changing hands. The house on Jewett Road was built – perhaps “assembled” is a better word – in 1973. Its unusual structure is the result of a project by […]
Deaths vs. births in New Hampshire - Granite Geek
I made a quick little chart in Infogram of births and deaths each year in New Hampshire as recorded by the bureau of Vital Records. You can see why we need people to keep moving into the state. Interactive chart is here: https://infogram.com/nh-deaths-1hnq41ox7vjdp23?live
Wildfires increase and air quality decreases - Granite Geek
“I think it’s a really fair expectation that one of the most widely experienced impacts of global warming will be reductions in air quality from wildfire,” said Justin S. Mankin, an associate professor in Dartmouth’s Department of Geography. Interesting (i.e., depressing) angle on increasing wildfire risk in New Hampshire and pretty much everywhere else, from […]
Hopefully the Easter Bunny wasn't carrying ticks because they might carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever - Granite Geek
From UMass Amherst: In a residential backyard in Maine, Project ITCH researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst stumbled upon a surprise finding: rabbit ticks harboring a new type of bacteria related to a group of pathogens that can cause sometimes life-threatening spotted fever rickettsioses (SFR) infections in humans. The most common and deadly SFR is Rocky Mountain spotted fever, […]
N.H. births hit a modern low in 2024 - Granite Geek
New Hampshire had 11,761 births in 2024, which appears to be the lowest number in recent decades. That’s a full 16% below the number we saw three decades ago, when the state had almost 200,000 fewer people. As you can see from the above chart, gathered from the state bureau of Vital Records, the bump […]
Want to compost? Interactive map of N.H. shows how and where - Granite Geek
The nonprofit Northeast Resource Recovery Association has a very cool interactive map of where and how to compost in New Hampshire, including places with home pickup, farms that will take your food waste and town drop-off sites, usually at transfer stations.
Easter saw record-low demand for electricity in New England - Granite Geek
Turning on renewables for the electric grid is great but what really needs to happen, to reduce future climate change, is for fossil fuel plants to turn off. That happened Easter Sunday when New England saw a record low “load,” the term for amount of electricity produced by power plants. And it was quite a […]
To celebrate Earth Day, let's stop picking up litter - make the companies do it - Granite Geek
Few activities get more public support than picking up litter from the side of the road. But to mark Earth Day, I’m about to argue that we shouldn’t do it. Wait – don’t go! Hear me out. This idea has been percolating in my head for a while and coalesced after John Kiernan of New London sent me […]
Solar is a brewery's backstop as the industry tightens - Granite Geek
The craft beer industry is undergoing a shakeout after years of growth, so if you’re going to expand your small brewery it helps to have some help. Like 182 solar panels. “It’s the idea of sustainability but I would almost say it’s now survivability,” said David Stewart, owner of Blasty Bough Brewing Company in Epsom. […]
Issues with NH patent list because - well, you know why - Granite Geek
The weekly list of New Hampshire patents gathered by Targeted News Service is facing problems. This appears, I’m told, to be related to gutting the Patent Office along with all the other valuable government agencies decimated by the push to make government small enough “to drown in a bathtub.” Yet another example of things getting […]
Trump exempts coal-fired plants, including the one in Bow, from emissions rule - Granite Geek
From Associated Press: The Trump administration has granted nearly 70 coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals such as mercury, arsenic and benzene. A list quietly posted as of Tuesday on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website lists 47 power providers which operate at least 66 coal-fired plants that are receiving exemptions from the […]
It takes a village to keep invasive bugs at bay - Granite Geek
You don’t have to tell Alan Cattabriga that the invasive spotted lanternfly is a real pain. The senior manager at Millikan Nursery in Chichester has been out in the rain looking for the nasty bugs’ egg masses on imported plants more times than he cares to remember. “We spend an incredible amount of time doing […]
State-owned dams have a deterioration problem - Granite Geek
Interesting look at New Hampshire’s dam situation from New Hampshire Bulletin (story is here), talking about a long-running problem: it costs money to keep dams in shape, we don’t want to spend the money so lots of dams are in bad shape, and most of them serve no purpose any more so we should just […]
Good news, please? Lake trout have returned to Lake Champlain - Granite Geek
VTDigger reports: “Native lake trout has returned to thrive in Lake Champlain. Severely affected by overfishing and habitat destruction in the 1800s, the lake trout in the lake have benefited from a restoration program that cooperating fish and wildlife agencies have run since the 1950s.” The story is here.
Record number of flu fatalities in N.H. this season - Granite Geek
More people have died in New Hampshire from the flu this season than in any other season on record, according to the state. There have been 71 deaths attributed to influenza this season, one of them a child, according to the weekly report from the Department of Health and Human Services. This is the highest […]
N.H. has become majority male for first time in decades - Granite Geek
In 2023 I noted an unusual fact about New Hampshire’s tepid population growth: Through 2021 we were gaining more males than females. I called this shift surprising because males in the US have higher death rates than females for many reasons and it’s not like the gender ratio of births has altered. New Hampshire’s population […]
Climate "realism" or just business as usual? - Granite Geek
I’ve learned to be very suspicious of claims that loudly proclaim themselves to be “pragmatic” or “realistic”. More often than not, those are code words for “we don’t want anything to change so we’ll block all reform, pretending that it’s useless.” I get that vibe from an initiative by the folks who publish Foreign Affairs […]
Science Cafe NH to discuss drug development - Granite Geek
Science Cafe NH in Nashua is discussing drug development at its Tuesday, April 15 meeting: The journey from lab bench to the pharmacy shelf for new drugs is typically long (>10 years) and costly (hundreds of millions of $ or more). This discussion highlight some of the barriers to discover, development, approval, and marketing of […]
Helping the planet - yay! Less odiferous kitchen - super yay! - Granite Geek
Helping to save the planet is all well and good, but if it’s going to inconvenience us, I’d like some immediate benefit. So how about this: My trash doesn’t stink. That is what got me into composting. At my house, all the peels, fat, coffee grounds and other organic detritus from cooking and eating gets […]
Birth rates are falling fast but another billion people are coming - Granite Geek
I am constantly encountering maps online showing falling birth rates in countries around the world with alot of hand-writing about the consequences. And while there are consequences from resulting changes in society in some places – I’ve written about New Hampshire’s “silver tsunami” more times than I can count – I find that people often […]
Two N.E. colleges to test A.I. tool "to help teach users instead of offering shortcuts to an answer" - Granite Geek
Axios Boston has an article about Northeastern University and Champlain College in Vermont testing an “artificial intelligence” program from Anthropic, a California startup. It’s called Claude for Education and there are lots of sweeping but not-very-concrete examples of what it can help people do, such as: This seems to be the sort of thing that […]
NH legislators think they, not doctors, should decide what vaccines are needed - Granite Geek
There’s no limit to vaccine idiocy in Washington or Concord these days. New Hampshire Bulletin reports that the House has decided they, not doctors, should decide what childhood vaccines are necessary because of, you know, freedom. The bill would forbid the state’s commissioner of health and human services from choosing which vaccines children in New […]
Vermont tries to recycle all that plastic used on farms - Granite Geek
I’ve often wonders what happens to all that white plastic used to wrap round bales of hay – which can weigh up to a ton – stored in fields for winter sileage. Vermont is trying to recycle it, which is easier said than done, as the Valley New reports in this story. Many beef and […]
Timber tax is a small example of how complex the energy transition can be - Granite Geek
Timber tax is a pretty big deal in many New Hampshire towns, especially smaller ones in the rural areas. It’s basically a sales tax on trees that have been harvested – cut and sold for timber – and while it’s not a majority part of income for any place, it’s not peanuts. As New Hampshire […]
Moving heat is hard, even (especially?) when it comes from manure - Granite Geek
Compost is useful as fertilizer but it also generates heat, and heat can be useful. Therefore, compost can be doubly useful. That bit of reasoning has been in play at UNH’s Durham campus since 2013. At the university’s Organic Dairy Research Farm, compost manure gets turned into fertilizer so researchers can capture some of the warmth […]
NIMBYs stalled Quebec hydropower for us but Trump, and maybe drought, could be worse - Granite Geek
Canary Media has a story about the uncertain status of hydropower from Quebec coming to New England. The whole story is here. “At a time of year when Canadian hydropower typically supplies up to a tenth of New England’s power, the region has instead gone almost a month with virtually no cross-border flow of electrons. ” Hydro‑Québec leaders […]
A good new potential law: Penalties for balloon releases - Granite Geek
I am no fan of the GOP agenda of the state’s current legislature but that doesn’t mean I disagree with everything they do. Consider HB387 passed by the New Hampshire House on March 20, makes releasing 20 or more balloons into the air a violation offense. First time offenders would face a charge of $250 […]