I encountered this interesting discussion on DSLreports (read it here) which talked about Verizon using its upcoming 4G network called LTE - it starts tests launches this year, in Boston among other cities - to return to Northern New England and scarf up more customers from FairPoint. The writer thinks Verizon ripped everybody off with [...]

One of the models of big media these days is to abandon the race to be first with breaking news that has long been at the heart of journalism, because professionals are hopelessly outnumbered by the sea of “citizen journalism” - cellphone pictures of wrecks or fires, bloggers who find cool tidbits amid the masses [...]

The Wheels blog at the NY Times reports (here) on a study that found no-use-of-cell-phone-in-car laws succeeded in reducing the number of people driving while talking - as determined by standing on a street corner and counting the people going by with a phone to their ear - but didn’t reduce the number of car [...]

Smartphone-toting skiers who find less snow at a ski report than expected can use phone cameras and wireless networks to complain to their buddies. This new transparency might force ski areas to be more honest, or so says Salon in this report, based on part on a study last month by two Dartmouth professors that [...]

“Robot dinosaurs” … need one say more? I hope not, because I don’t know much more.
All I know so far: the SEE Science Museum in the Manchester Millyard will be hauling the dinosaurs through a third-story window on Monday morning in preparation for a new exhibit. (Yes, we’ll have a photographer at the dino haul, [...]

No local angle, but if this NY Times report is true, it’s astonishing:
President Obama will end NASA’s return mission to the moon and turn to private companies to launch astronauts into space when he unveils his budget request to Congress next week, an administration official said Thursday. …
Obama’s request, which will be announced on Monday, [...]

The results from NECAP  - a ridiculously acronymed set of standardized public-school tests run by New Hampshire and a few other states - were released today. Part of my job was gathering data about the results and also looking at some sample questions, which is where I encountered the associated icon: NO CALCULATORS! I couldn’t [...]

A company called SunHydro wants to put 11 hydrogen refueling stations that use electrolysis technology from Proton Energy, which uses solar-power electric to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, all along the East Coast - including one in Portland, Maine, and one in Braintree, Mass. Each station costs about $3 million and will have a [...]

One of the coolest pieces of the most interesting new technology of recent years is made by E-Ink of Cambridge, Mass. - the little rotating black-and-white balls that are the secret behind screens of the Kindle, Sony Reader and other “electronic reader” devices. This system has big advantages (no power draw when a page is static, easier on the eyes due to lack of backlight) but also has problems (no color, slow to refresh). The question is whether really good tablet computers and/or super smartphones can make traditional computer screens useful enough that they’ll kill E-Ink technology.

With the arrival of Apple’s iPad, the Globe asked a few consultants this question, and they all said there’s no E-Ink killer out there … yet. Here’s the story.

Mars, as you may have heard, is relatively nearby - in opposition (that is, directly opposite us from the Sun as Earth passes it on the inside orbit and therefore as close to us as it gets. This makes it somewhat bigger in appearance, also means it rises as the sun sets and vice versa, so it’s visible all night long.

The astronomical community is taking advantage of this period, which officially happens Friday, to show folks the Red Planet. There’s an online organization called Beauty Without Borders sponsoring telescope viewings (that’s their logo above). I don’t seen any hereabouts - too cold, maybe - but it’s still on opportunity to take the binoculars outside and check out the ochre star-like object.

I’m not sure what to make of this opinion piece from the site Moultonboro Speaks about the need to fight invasive milfoil on a New Hampshire lake, spoken via computer-generated voices by computer-generated cartoon characters - except to say that no traditional media outlet would ever have thought of it.

(Spotted via http://www.protectyourwaters.net/)

I have a story in the Telegraph today (read it here) about a Nashua company that has developed an iPhone app which the city of Boston uses to let residents report problems - potholes, graffiti, streetlights, etc. - and put the reports directly into the work flow of city workers. It’s pretty cool.
A side note [...]

First we lost the Old Man of the Mountain - now we’re losing claim to “world’s fastest wind”!
The World Meteorological Organization has confirmed that a gust of 253.5 mph (408 km/h) was directly measured at ground level in Australia during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on April 10, 1996, breaking the 231 mph (372 km/h) maesurement made [...]

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/
This is a blog from Jonah Lehrer, a writer for Wired magazine, among other.
This explains a lot about the way we need an element of surprise, only satisfied when the final chord completes the expectation of the frontal cortex.

From UNH News Service: New research from the University of New Hampshire shows that the last five years have been some of the wettest in more than 100 years.
According to Mary Stampone, assistant professor of geography and the New Hampshire State Climatologist, the years from 2005 to 2009 have broken records for monthly, seasonal, and [...]