Stories

Why a cookie recipe made this New Hampshire Girl Scout go rogue

March 14, 2023

Sophia Hammond, 11, has been a Girl Scout for more than half of her life. “I started when I was 5, so around six years, I guess,” she said, sitting at the kitchen table in her Plymouth home. That’s six years of camping trips, community service, and planting trees. And while she’s also busy with…

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With more electric cars on the road, training programs aim to get technicians up to speed

March 7, 2023

In the automotive technology wing of White Mountains Community College in New Hampshire, instructor Troy LaChance and his students lean over the steel frame of a half-built electric car. Two students start to pull a cable, colored bright orange to indicate high-voltage, through the car’s floor. They’re building this car from a kit, designed by…

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Maine woods could store more carbon at current harvest with ‘climate smart’ forestry, study finds

March 7, 2023

Maine forests already absorb about 70% of the state’s annual fossil fuel emissions. Now, a new study shows that Maine’s commercial forest landowners could increase annual carbon storage by at least 20% over the next 60 years while maintaining timber harvest levels. The findings are timely as the demand for carbon offset projects accelerates. The…

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Residents in one western Maine town look to curb Poland Spring’s appetite for water

March 4, 2023

In the small Maine town of Denmark, near the New Hampshire border, some residents are calling for more accountability from bottled water giant Poland Spring. The company extracts water from land it owns in Denmark and then sells it to consumers. The town isn’t compensated for what is withdrawn. And climate change is fueling concerns…

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A section of the Housatonic River in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where PCB-contaminated sediment was excavated and removed, in a file photo. Cleanup of the first two miles of the river south of the former GE plant was completed by 2006. River advocates have filed an appeal against the EPA's plan to clean up the rest of the river.

EPA asks federal appeals court to dismiss challenge to Housatonic River cleanup plan

January 31, 2023

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has asked the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss a challenge to the EPA’s Housatonic River cleanup plan. The appeal was brought by two environmental groups. The appeal includes arguments that the EPA should send all PCB-contaminated waste to a licensed off-site facility, rather than putting it in a…

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Brian Lafoe, standing outside the cab of his forwarder, says the warm start to winter in Vermont has already taken a toll on his logging business this year.

A warm start to winter adds to challenges for Vermont’s logging industry

January 30, 2023

Recent snowfall has made it feel more like winter in Vermont. But warm temperatures through December into early January have already taken their toll on one industry: Logging. Loggers rely on frozen ground to access certain forested areas, but that’s been difficult so far this year. And the warming climate is just one of the…

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A giant sand scorpion fluoresces under ultraviolet light.

Scorpion stingers, once thought sterile, are covered in bacteria. That could yield new antibiotics.

January 27, 2023

Barbara Murdoch said scorpions have had about 400 million years of survival to get things right. “For comparison, humans have been on the planet for about 0.2 million years,” Murdoch, an associate professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, said. “There’s got to be just something about [scorpions] that is special. That they can survive through…

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A passive house in the town of Hope into which Patrick McCunney and Madeleine Mackell recently moved.

This Maine home can stay 70 degrees without a furnace, even when it’s freezing outside

January 25, 2023

What if you could design a house that on a cold day in January would stay at 70 degrees inside — without running the furnace? Or even having a furnace? It’s already being done. In fact, what’s known as the passive house concept came to the United States in 2006, and is being used to…

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A 9-year-old female right whale (left) and a smaller right whale spotted earlier this month off the coast of Jekyll Island.

Federal officials shoot down emergency request aimed at protecting right whales from ship strikes

January 23, 2023

Federal officials have denied a request from conservationists to expedite the implementation of proposed ship speed reductions that might help protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale population. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is considering new rules aimed at stopping large vessels from colliding with right whales. A coalition of conservation groups asked that…

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Peconic Bay scallop die-offs are ‘a cautionary tale’ for New England

January 20, 2023

Once one of the largest fisheries on the East Coast, Peconic Bay scallops have faced near complete die-offs on Long Island since 2019. A study by Stony Brook University shows this could be a cautionary tale for New England. Christopher Gobler, a co-author and endowed chair of coastal ecology and conservation in the School of…

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