As of this past Saturday, Mount Washington was a staggering 7.4 degrees (F) warmer than the average November, 6.71 inches of liquid precipitation dryer then the average November and a whopping three feet of snow behind where we should be.

OK, so we can’t connect particular weather events to climate change - after all, last winter at this time, we were way ahead of the usual snowfall and well below average temperature.

Still, speaking as somebody who thinks it is *wrong* to be wearing shirtsleeves outside when it’s almost December, I demand a scapegoat!

But I agree. Dumb idea. It's important for freshmen to practice with the JV's and varsity teams and learn the game.

BTW, Gatsas bought the election in Manchester. He spent over $200,000 to become mayor of Manchester. That's a joke.

There are plenty of educational concerns when putting ninth-grade back in to the junior high. I just looking at this from an athletics standpoint.

First of all, does he really think Manchester schools will be able to compete with the rest of the state after following through with the above? There are no sports in Manchester junior high schools. Where will these players learn how to play sports without the feeder programs. Freshmen come in very green, and are developed separately from the upper classmen in most big schools. If his ideas go through, sophomores will become the equivalent of freshmen in experience on teams. They will not be able to come with the other much larger schools in Division 1. What was he thinking?

-Bob Hammerstrom

All it would do is shuffle students around, what is the improvement to come out of this? Won't happen.

It really wouldn't impact sports that much either. The better atheletes are playing in Babe Ruth or AAU, they would continue to do so. Manch Vegas has no school feeder system. No soccer, no football, no baseball at the middle schools. The high schools suceed due to the atheletes that play outside of school until they reach high school.

After a lengthy selection process, each has chosen to attend Amherst College. Both looked closely and visited Amherst’s arch rival In the New England Small College Athletic Conference, Williams, before selecting Amherst. Each has applied for early decision in the admissions process and will know by Dec. 15.

Jellison, who finished his senior season with 1,350 yards and 28 touchdowns, gained 237 yards and scored five touchdowns in the 49-29 championship game victory over Portsmouth. He averaged over nine yards a carry this fall.

Petropulos, an accurate and productive passer, didn’t throw his first interception of the season until the title game.

Jellison, who had been offered a scholarship by the University of New Hampshire, let the UNH staff know he was applying for early decision at Amherst. He chose Amherst, in part, because he’ll have an opportunity to continue to play running back. He was projected to play another position at UNH, most likely on the defensive side of the ball.

The all-time leading rusher in the history of Amherst College is Souhegan graduate Fletcher Ladd, who rushed for 3,817 yards from 2001 to 2004. Ladd also has the school record for the longest run from scrimmage, 95 yards, against Bowdoin during his senior year.

regards,
Aries.
Loan modification

Casuarina trees colonizing a lava field on La Réunion island in the Indian Ocean. Photo by Y. Dommergues, courtesy UNH

University of New Hampshire microbiologist Louis Tisa has received two grants totaling $498,115 to advance understanding of the actinorhizal plants, widespread woody plants with potential to enrich nutrient-poor and contaminated soils.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded Tisa, a professor of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences, $399,000 to explore the symbiotic relationship between the bacteria Frankia and Casuarina, an actinorhizal plant. Frankia forms root nodule structures on Casuarina that convert atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia, allowing Casuarina to access nitrogen from the air and to thrive in areas with nitrogen-poor soil.

Working with colleagues at the Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement in Montpellier, France, Tisa is researching the signaling process in the relationship between Frankia and Casuarina that lets each organism identify as beneficial.

“The plant has to know that the microbe is a friend, not a foe, and the microbe needs to tell the plant, ‘build me a structure,’” Tisa says. “What we’re interested in is, what are the words? How are they talking?” Tisa and his collaborators, who together will have sequenced 10 Frankia genomes, know that the signal is chemical but not whether it is secreted or exists on the surface.

The USDA grant will help fund five graduate students and one undergraduate student working with Tisa. “We’re excited. There are lots of preliminary results,” he says. “If we can figure out how these things communicate, we can figure out how to enhance the performance of these trees.” Tisa notes that actinorhizal plants pose a more sustainable solution to stabilizing and enriching soils than the introduction of chemicals.

His second grant, $99,115 from the U.S.-Egypt Science and Technology Joint Research program through the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service, will fund outreach, exchange and collaboration with Egyptian scientists to study Egyptian Frankia strains and their relationship with Casuarina, which is being used in Egypt to reclaim desert areas. The three-year grant supports collaboration with Samira Mansour from Suez Canal University in Egypt, who was a visiting scientist in Tisa’s laboratory.

Tisa’s work receives additional funding from the Agricultural Experiment Station and the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture at UNH.

SH

On Saturday, my wife and son convinced me to go see The Blind Side, starring Sandra Bullock. They didn’t have to twist my arm far. I watched the previews on a commercial, of Bullock walking across the football field with a mammoth player. That football player is the Baltimore Ravens‘ Michael Ohre, a six-foot, four-inch, 309-pound rookie tackle. The movie conveys him as a powerhouse, knocking down defensive linemen like traffic cones.

What amazed me about this movie, is that it’s true. The screen writers didn’t have to make up a bunch of far-fetched, gobbly-gook to make the character stand out. Michael Ohre’s life story is so interesting, that extra drama isn’t needed. I recommend all parents of athletes to go see this one.

Here’s my Top Ten List of Football Movies

1) The Blind Side

2) Brian’s Song

3) Remember the Titans

4) We are Marshall

5) Friday Night Lights

6) The Longest Yard

7) Jerry Maguire

Varsity Blues

9) 4th and Long

10) Invinceable

-Bob Hammerstrom

Photo by Bob Hammerstrom

What brought my attention to them was the bloody looking veins. A few days later the red disappeared into the leaves. In fact, I shot the same leaf a couple days later, and it didn’t look anything like this.

Photo was taken with a Canon EOS 1-D, Mark III, and a 100mm lens. Kind of spooky!

-Bob Hammerstrom

I wrote in June about one bit of debunkery from Dartmouth College geography professor emeritus Vincent Malmström, who pointed out that the supposed end-of-calendar date in December 2012 is an estimate. I’d link to the article, but we’ve changed our Web host and many old links have broken, and I can’t figure out how to make new permanent links - so instead you can click here to read his paper, titled “The Astronomical Insignificance of Maya Date 13.0.0.0.”

(Info-graphic spotted via Bad Astronomy)

As long as we’re talking about traditional audio stuff, take note that the ever-quirky David Sedaris has released his latest audiobook on vinyl. (NY Times item here.) This is so weird a move that I figure it’s done for publicity alone - and hey, it worked!

I have recorded virtually all of my few-hundred LPs into digital, complete with pops and hisses because it’s too much of a pain to clean them up. As a result, I have listened to that music more than I have since early post-college days, when having a record playing at virtually all times was a requirement for daily life.