Lebanon NH-based Mascoma Corp., which is trying to develop a commercially viable method of turning wood chips, grass and other cellulose-containing plants into ethanol, has bought another company which has a different approach.

We will now demonstrate the difference between a blog and a newspaper. I saw the press release about this yesterday but wasn’t able to do any actual, you know, reporting (e.g., figure out the different technologies). In the old days I’d be in trouble, but now I can … just link to the Xconomy story!

Tags: biofuel, cellulosic ethanol

http://www.physorg.com/news202626863.html
Research by Cornell on the threat to our Ash trees.
Earle Rich            Mont Vernon, NH

Tags: emerald ash borer

The Globe’s tech guru Hiawatha Bray takes the new 4G network from Sprint/Clearwire out for a spin today (read it here, with a video). His lede summarizes it well:
At last, 4G has come to Boston, and I feel like a man who’s gotten a shirt for Christmas. I’m grateful, of course, but I was [...]

Tags: 4g

If you’re sad about the administration’s desire to scrap our return to the moon, you might want to be at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Centerin Concord later this month for International Observe the Moon Night, a NASA-sponsored lunar lovefest.
Harlan Spence, lunar specialist and director of Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and [...]

Can’t find anything local at the moment, so as we prepare for temperatures in the high 90s - HIGH 90s!!!! ARGH!!!!! - let’s note this item: One of the world’s most notable scientific skeptics of fighting human-caused climate change (he wrote “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” which argued that the cost of fighting global warming wasn’t worth [...]

Tags: global warming

A judge has given the final OK for Vermont to build its second major wind farm, near the Connecticut River in the Northeast Kingdom. (I love writing “Northeast Kingdom” - it’s a better nickname even than “North of the Notches”.) Read the Free-Press story here.
Maine remains the region’s wind-power leader of course, with three major [...]

Tags: wind farm, wind power

When I was a kid, newly involved in the Boy Scouts, the emphasis was on acquiring skills that might lead to a badge. As part of the process, we were invited to attend an exposition where we all showed off our skills. My contribution was a stamp collection which got all the attention it deserved.  
Part [...]

GraniteGeek readers have already heard me whine - er, heard my insightful comments about serious middle-age back pain; today the Telegraph readers get to hear it too, in my column. Read it here!
I did at least pretend my column was journalism by interviewing a physician, whose advice was echoed by some comments in this blog: [...]

A proposal to turn soybeans into biodiesel has flamed out in Vermont, taking roughly $2 million in investments with it, reports the Free-Press (read it here). The story says the finances failed because oil prices didn’t stay high and federal subsidies withered, while the technology proved much harder than expected.
This is a common scenario: Turning [...]

Tags: biodiesel

Like many blogs, this one is occasionally hit by pseudo-comments filled with links, which are “written” by an algorithm so they kind of look real and might not get tagged as spam by filters. Those comments are usually really dull (”this is a great blog! I just found it! Keep up the good work!”) but [...]

In Portland, where they know their lobsters, a calico lobster is on display. Click here to see the Portland Press-Herald story with the photo; it looks like a “tortoise-shell” calico cat (orange and brown, no white).  From the story:
Calico lobsters are one of the rarest of miscolored lobsters. A blue lobster is one in [...]

Tags: lobster

It’s hard to pinpoint cause and effect when it comes to short-term demographic changes, but as this Washington Post item (read it here) notes, there is serious speculation that a two-year drop in America’s birth rate has been caused by the recession:
That drop prompted speculation that the fall was the result of the recession–a notion [...]

Tags: demographics

If you need more evidence of the successful return of wild turkeys to New Hampshire - and anybody who drives doesn’t need much evidence, since slowing down for turkey families wandering down the road has become commonplace - then consider this: Turkey population growth is so vigorous that the state is expanding the fall shotgun [...]

Tags: turkeys

I had a speck of wood chip in my eye this morning. I went to the emergency center in Milford to have it taken care of. In the process of checking in, they measured my blood pressure and as usual, it read 100/70. I’m usually on the low side, so nothing to take notice of.
I then [...]

Cameron Wake, a glaciologist who has for years been the most prominent voice at UNH in regards to the reality of climate change, is one of three scientists featured in a new advertising campaign by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The ads depict scientists as kids talking about what things in the natural world made [...]

Tags: climate change