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Archives
Manure Market Emerges
By Dan Gorenstein on Tuesday, May 20, 2008.The price for fertilizer has skyrocketed.
As farmers have scrambled to find alternatives for their crops, they’ve begun to reevaluate the reliable source right under their noses.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports that dairy and poultry manure has never smelled so good.
Inspecting Gerbils
Certified judge Kylee Dickey inspects the senior class at the New England Gerbil Show in Nashua. (Brian Early, NHPR)
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
Today on Word of Mouth, we take a peek behind the gates of America's retirement utopias, we look at the history and modern-day realities of nerds, and we hear about some of the best inventions to come from amateur inventors in the past year.
listen:
Retirement Utopias
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, May 20, 2008.
Free golf, spotless lawns, dinner menus fixed on early bird prices... and no kids allowed! Members of America’s 55+ crowd are moving their lives and tax dollars to age-segregated "geritopias" in big numbers. And with 10,000 boomers reaching retirement age every day, this "lifestyle" industry is preparing for more.
Writer Andrew D. Blechman went behind the gates of the world's largest age-segregated retirement community in Florida, and came away with a new book, "Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias." He joins Word of Mouth with a suprising look behind the white-picket fence.
We also speak with Tom Anderson, president of the board of Summerfield of Amherst, a retirement community in southern New Hampshire.
(Photo from The Villages in Florida)
The Inventions of Tomorrow
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, May 20, 2008.We’re living in challenging times. Global warming and fuel shortages call for new ways to meet our energy needs. Major bridge collapses and earthquakes prompt us to rethink how we construct cities. Terminal illnesses and other injuries drive the search for effective treatment.
Some answers are arriving from laboratories and universities. But solutions are also being dreamed up in garages and the basement next door. For the second year in a row, Popular Science is recognizing ten creative new inventions in its June 2008 issue.
A zero-emission one-wheeled motorcycle, a steam engine for cars, a transmitter that detects lost miners using a motion sensor, and more. To find out about these inventors and the devices that could change our lives, we spoke with Mike Haney, executive editor of Popular Science.
Read the full list of Popular Science's 2008 Invention Awards winners
(Photo of Harry Schoell and his steam engine by John B. Carnett)
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, May 20, 2008.
Nerds take many shapes in our popular imagination; There’s the classic, bookish nerd with big glasses and no friends. There are also the computer geeks, the roll-playing gamers, and the quirky, outspoken dorks who embrace their nerdiness (think Duckie from Pretty in Pink).
But these are all broad generalizations and gross exaggerations. Dorks in the real world don’t always come in cookie-cutter shapes and sizes. A new book by Benjamin Nugent looks at the history and context of the modern geek. It’s called American Nerd: The Story of My People. We get a review of the book from Marie Mundaca, a writer, storyteller, self-described nerd, and contributor to the online literary review Hipster Book Club.
We also hear from radio producer Ethan Lindsey, who revisits the Dungeons and Dragons of his childhood to see how well the game stacks up to today’s role-playing video games. Ethan’s story comes to us from the alt.NPR podcast B-Side Radio. You can hear their full program about nerds and games here.
(Photo by Wouter Kersbergen)
