Posts by David Brooks
Researchers are requesting the participation of New Hampshire firefighters, especially volunteer firefighters, in a huge study about the health risks of toxins, smoke and other carcinogens encountered on the job.
HB-1811, which would completely end mandatory vaccinations for children entering school or daycare facilities, proposes treating the Department of Health and Human Services’ vaccination guidelines as recommendations that “shall not be used to deny services or access.”
“We are reviewing the court’s decision and considering appropriate next steps. We note that the order addresses a preliminary matter and does not resolve the merits of the case,” wrote Michael Garrity, director of communications for the Department of Justice, in response to a Monitor query.
As the New Year approached, the 400 members of the House and 24 senators proposed more than 1,140 potential bills in the form of Legislative Service Requests, or LSRs. Many deal with high-profile subjects like school funding, but a hunt through the list finds plenty of intriguing topics that don’t get as much attention.
A national pro-vaccine group has opened a chapter in New Hampshire, the eleventh state in which it has done so.
Battery-assisted bicycles have been widely available for years, and it’s no longer a surprise to see somebody zipping along without pedaling, but locally it seems e-bikes are still mostly a vehicle for entertainment rather than transportation.
As mythological metaphors go, the one that SNHU Professor David Humphreys gave during a recent talk about the eruption of technologies known as artificial intelligence wasn’t terribly reassuring.
The mixed-use proposal to replace the Steeplegate Mall and adjacent Regal Cinema is one of the biggest that Concord has seen in years. It calls for five residential buildings to be built throughout the property, each four or five stories tall, with a total of 625 units, half one-bedroom and half two-bedrooms. It comes from Needham, Mass.-based Onyx Partners Ltd., a commercial real estate development firm that has developed and owns properties in many states, including several in New Hampshire. It specializes in malls and shopping plazas.
After some poking around I’ve decided on an explanation using an analogy from chemistry class: What happened in our housing market was like dropping a seed crystal into a super-saturated solution.
So I was interested to hear of an MIT startup founded by a physician that makes it easier to do group testing for COVID-19, often called pool testing, via saliva rather than nasal swabs. It seems like it could be a quick and relatively easy way to spot outbreaks.