Where I grew on the coast of Maine, the people weren’t noted for their technical expertise. When the first televisions came to Searsport, people erected huge antennas aimed at the Boston stations, primarily to see the Red Sox games. The pictures were pretty snowy of course. Sometimes though it was good enough so you could [...]

This link is to the survey to find the reaction to the wind project so far. It’s significant that 99% of those participating support the project and have few problems with the noise issue. As expected, the power generated in the summer months matches the lower wind speeds and the reduced power program at night [...]

We went kayaking on Haunted Lake in Francestown today. The weather was about perfect for temperature although the wind came up as we headed back. It was blowing the wrong way, of course.
Along with lots of flowering water lilies, there seemed to be a lot of strange growths on the bottom of the lake. We [...]

http://www.physorg.com/news199362347.html
Last winter’s weather around the North America was unusual for the cold that rolled down the east coast, heavy snows in the midwest, little snow for the winter olympics and I saw actual snow in Florida. This article is a pretty good description of the oscillating patterns that come out of the Pacific.
Looking back is [...]

I’m off hiking for the rest of the week, so no posts from me until the weekend. Enjoy the heat!

A company that makes small (six- to eight-seater) turboprop planes says it wants to establish a manufacturing facility at the closed Brunswick Naval Air Station, about an hour north of Portland on the Maine coast. The planes would have a lot of composite materials in them, as small planes increasingly do for weight reasons, and [...]

Neil Armstrong has never been very comfortable with his first-man-on-moon celebrity, so it was a surprise when an NH auction house put up a signature of his for sale. Turns out, as this story notes, the signature was swiped from a customs declaration form.  From the story:
Armstrong stopped signing items in 1994, greatly increasing [...]

Curt Schilling - whose pitching for the curse-breaking Red Sox, including the “bloody sock” game, is known even to non-sports folks like me - is one of the folks behind a new video gaming company in Massachusetts. The Globe’s Hiawatha Bray has a short item (read it here) about the firm’s planning first game, which [...]

I look at a lot of blogs every day. Mostly science oriented, but others as well. As an information junkie, I’m easily entertained by well done and astonishing facts and videos. The best one today is from
http://www.factodiem.com/
a blog written by an woman who wants to be a full time science writer. The latest one today, [...]

Most parents of teenagers can attest that their children can focus on activities that they like to do, such as video games, but not focus well in other situations, such as when completing homework. A new research project at the University of New Hampshire will look more closely at why this occurs and how drugs [...]

A few weeks ago I wrote about barn swallows that had built their nest on the first floor of our former chicken house, where the sheep live, instead of up on the third floor, where nests usually are built. Well, the babies finally hatched - here’s a photo. Feel free to say “awwwww” but please don’t add a misspelled caption and upload it to LOLBirds.

NASA has released a cool new map (see it here) showing forest heights around the world, taken from satellite data. The Northeast’s trees are relatively short, because of species type more than logging history, it seems:

Temperate conifer forests — which are extremely moist and contain massive trees such as Douglas fir, western hemlock, redwoods, and sequoias–have the tallest canopies, soaring easily above 40 meters (131 feet). In contrast, boreal forests dominated by spruce, fir, pine, and larch had canopies typically less than 20 meters (66 feet). Relatively undisturbed areas in tropical rain forests were about 25 meters (82 feet), roughly the same height as the oak, beeches, and birches of temperate broadleaf forests common in Europe and much of the United States.

As you may know, Maine and New Hampshire are, respectively, the two states in the US with the largest percentage of surface area covered by trees, part of the Great Northern Forest.

(ADDENDUM: Announcement for combined heat-and-power biomass plant in Berlin - see story here - raises some questions about the North Country grid, too, as the first comment notes.)
(ANOTHER ADDENDUM: Turbines aren’t fallible, either: Saco, Maine is suing the manufacturer of a turbine that proved a dud, then broke. Story is here.)
It’s always been clear that [...]

This map says it all: We were about 3C above the 40-year average, and many other places were even hotter. As far as I can tell, virtually all the blue dots, showing cooler than average, are over water. Map is from NOAA, here.

My Telegraph column today (read it here) is about the display at SEE Science Center of six models from the nation’s best collection of patent-application models, which had to accompany U.S. patent applications from 1790 until 1880. Above is a knitting needle model by Walter Aiken, better known as one of the creators of the Cog Railway.

It’s a neat display, but the really neat part is that the entire Rothschild Patent Model Collection - 4000 pieces, a number that include supporting documents, is looking for a permanent home. There’s lots of space in the Manchester Millyard buildings - hmmm …..