The Boston Globe - 20.08.2019

B2 Metro The Boston Globe TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2019

By Alyssa Lukpat

GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

R

esearchers are hoping a self-tweeting tree in the Harvard For-

est will educate the world about climate change, officials said.

The Harvard Forest Witness Tree is a century-old red oak

programmed since July 17 to tweet updates about the weather

and its health and surroundings, said Tim Rademacher, a co-

lead on the “witness tree” project and a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard

and Northern Arizona universities.

The tree is one of many in the Harvard Forest, a 3,000-acre research ar-

ea in Petersham run by the university. “The witness tree is, in its most sim-

ple form, a data-driven bot that tries to tell a story about nature and cli-

mate change. It’s an organism familiar to most people, but at the same

time, people know very little about it,” Rademacher said. “Through some

scientific interpretation, the bot decides which messages actually get post-

ed, and they’re pre-formulated.”

The tree is equipped with sensors and cameras to monitor its health,

surroundings, and sap and water levels, Rademacher said. The tree sends

data every five minutes to a server Rademacher programmed. The server

tweets occasionally with updates about the forest, the weather, or the tree’s

growth, Rademacher said.The Petersham tree tweets from the account

@awitnesstree. It has tweeted almost 40 times since July 17 and had more

than 4,700 followers by last week.

“I didn’t want to just put data into the public domain that most people

can’t interpret. We use scientific knowledge to make the data more accessi-

ble. The aim behind the bot is to use data to tell a story with this data that

anybody can understand,” Rademacher said.

Rademacher started the witness tree project in 2018 with funding from

the National Science Foundation after he read the 2017 book “Witness

Tree: Seasons of Change with a Century-Old Oak” by Lynda Mapes. The

book followed a tree through four seasons of growth.

Rademacher set up the instruments on the same tree Mapes wrote

about. The tree’s Twitter account is modeled after similar efforts by Tree-

Watch.net, a European tree-monitoring network, Rademacher said.

“We decided on a red oak because it’s one of the most important and

abundant species in New England and it was in Lynda’s book. There’s noth-

ing particularly special about this tree. It could be any tree. That’s why we

took the handle, ‘A witness tree,’ not ‘THE witness tree,’” Rademacher said.

The tree’s researchers are asking people not to go looking for it, to avoid

breaking its equipment or trampling nearby plants.

Rademacher may not work on the project forever, but he wants the tree

to tweet for a long time.

“My hope is it goes on for as long as it lives. My contract could end at

any time, but I very much hope that the project runs by itself. I hope to set

up other trees to set up an Internet of trees,” Rademacher said.

Alyssa Lukpat can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on

Twitter @AlyssaLukpat.

Tweetingtreeasirenonclimate

AROUND THE REGION

WORCESTER

Regionaltransitagency

mullsfare-freesystem

A Massachusetts public transit agency is consid-

ering a fare-free bus system. The Telegram & Ga-

zette reports that the Worcester Regional Transit

Authority Advisory Board voted unanimously

last week to conduct a fare analysis that includes

consideration of a fare-free system. In a report in

May, The Research Bureau called the WRTA ‘‘a

perfect candidate’’ for a fare-free bus system. The

report calculated that the $2 million to $3 mil-

lion annual cost to provide free service could be

made up through cost savings, increased govern-

mental aid and partnerships. The report said of-

fering the service for free would reverse the sys-

tem’s declining ridership. WRTA Administrator

Dennis Lipka says to go fare-free ‘‘we have to find

a sustainable way of making that up’’ and one-

time grants would not be sufficient. (AP)

DURHAM, N.H.

Researcherseesgrowth

inoysterfarming

A University of New Hampshire researcher says

oyster production in the state is only a small frac-

tion of what it could be. Ray Grizzle, research

professor of biological sciences, says the total

number of farms is probably nearing the maxi-

mum for the Little Bay area, but production isn’t

yet. USDA data in the 2017 Census of Agriculture

says the state has 32 commercial mollusk opera-

tions in Strafford and Rockingham counties rep-

resenting $419,000 in sales. Most of them are

oyster farming. New Hampshire only had two li-

censed oyster farms when Grizzle began con-

ducting research about 10 years ago. Grizzle,

who’s with the university’s New Hampshire Agri-

cultural Experiment Station, says some farms

have included improved farming methods and

marketing networks that involve wholesalers as

well as directly selling to local chefs. (AP)

STAMFORD

Newcourtdateincase

ofdisappearedmother

A judge has set a new court date for a woman

charged in connection with the disappearance of

a 50-year-old Connecticut mother of five. Mi-

chelle Troconis made a brief appearance Monday

in Stamford Superior Court. A judge ordered her

to return to court on Sept. 20. She and her attor-

ney did not comment. Jennifer Dulos, of New Ca-

naan, disappeared May 24 and remains missing.

Troconis and her boyfriend, Dulos’ estranged

husband Fotis Dulos, have pleaded not guilty to

evidence tampering and hindering prosecution

charges. Police allege Troconis and Fotis Dulos

were caught on surveillance video in Hartford

disposing of garbage bags later found to contain

items with Jennifer Dulos’ blood on them. Both

are free on $50,000 bail. The children have been

staying with Jennifer Dulos’ mother. (AP)

NORTH PROVIDENCE

R.I.’slastFriendly’s

closesdoorsforgood

The last Friendly’s restaurant in Rhode Island is

no longer in business. The location on Mineral

Spring Avenue in North Providence closed down

Tuesday, according to company officials. “As

shifting consumer demographics and market dy-

namics present challenges across the industry, it

is incumbent on us to regularly evaluate our res-

taurant footprint with a focus on long-term via-

bility and strategic resource investment as we

work to re-invigorate the beloved Friendly’s

brand,” Friendly’s officials said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, in some cases, this process re-

sults in the difficult decision to close underper-

forming locations that can no longer be sus-

tained by the local market.” The first Friendly’s

ice cream shop opened in Springfield in 1935,

and the chain eventually grew to about 800 res-

taurants. Today there are 167 Friendly’s loca-

tions, 40 of which are in Massachusetts, accord-

ing to a company.spokeswoman.

POLICE BLOTTER

RHOUSEFIREA man who was pulled from a two-

alarm house fire in Dorchester Monday morning

later died, officials said. Firefighters were able to

get into the three-storybuilding quickly and find

the man inside, but he was pronounced dead at

Boston Medical Center, officials said. The cause

of death has not been determined. Four people

were displaced. The fire caused an estimated

$400,000 in damage. Firefighters arrived on

Homes Avenue at about 6:25 a.m. to find flames

coming from the third floor, officials said. The

fire was largely put out by 7 a.m. Officials are in-

vestigating the cause of the fire. The victim’s

identity was not released.

RDOUBLESHOOTINGTwo men suffered non-life-

threatening wounds during a shooting in the

busway at the Mattapan MBTA station early

Monday morning, according to Transit Police.

Transit Police and Boston police responded to a

report of shots fired near the station at about

2:10 a.m. and found a 23-year-old man suffering

from a gunshot wound, Transit Police said in a

statement. A second man, 35, also suffered a

wound and went separately to a hospital, Transit

Police said. Detectives are investigating the

shootings.

RTRAINFATALA man was struck and killed by

an MBTA commuter rail train in Belmont on

Monday morning, Transit Police said in a state-

ment. Police received a radio call around 6:

a.m. reporting a person possibly hit by a train at

the Brighton Street crossing in Belmont, the de-

partment said. Transit Police and Belmont Fire

and EMS arrived to find that a man was hit by an

inbound Fitchburg Line train while trespassing

on the right-of-way, Transit Police said. The

man, who is believed to have been about 21, was

pronounced dead. Foul play is not suspected, but

detectives are investigating the death, Transit Po-

lice said.

RGOATSAVEDDartmouth police saved a goat

that was dodging traffic in the middle of a road

Monday morning, police said. The goat was in

the middle of Bakerville Road when he was

scooped up by two officers, Dartmouth police

said in a Facebook post Monday. “When they

asked him where he was going, he told them

that he was running late for his people yoga

class,” the post said. At around 7:30 a.m., David

Medeiros’s son got a call from the police depart-

ment. Medeiros then went to pick up “Marsh-

mallow,” a male miniature goat that he keeps as

a pet for his granddaughter when she comes to

visit. Medeiros said that Marshmallow fre-

quently wanders but that they usually keep him

on a leash. Medeiros, who lives on Russells

Mills Road in Dartmouth, has six goats but said

Marshmallow is the only one he considers a pet.

“I do worry about him and cars that might hit

him,” he said.

GET SMART

By Felice Belman
GLOBE STAFF
How serious is President Trump about ac-
tually trying to purchase Greenland for the
United States? Hard to say, but the notion
hasn’t exactly been well-received overseas.
Some advice for the president: Perhaps he
should start small — making friends in tiny
Greenland, N.H., a lovely town (pop. 4,000)
with a long history.
True, his first foray there wasn’t hugely
successful: In the 2016 presidential election,
Hillary Clinton beat
Trump decisively in
Greenland,
1,396-1,074. But
who knows what
2020 will bring? If
the president ever
decides to visit,
here’s what he
should know:
RGreenland,
N.H., is much easier
to get to than Green-
land the country —
just an hour up the
road from Boston via
I-95.
RGreenland, orig-
inally part of Ports-
mouth, incorporated
as a separate town in
the early 18th centu-
ry. Among its (mod-
est) claims to fame:
Greenland is home
to one of the oldest surviving brick houses in
New England. The Weeks Brick House, built
by Samuel Weeks in 1710, is now part of a 33-
acre farmstead with lovely hiking trails.
RAmong Greenland’s notable residents
was Oney Judge, a fugitive slave who escaped
from the household of George and Martha
Washington. She outlived a husband and all
her children and spent her later years in pov-
erty. Nonetheless, she told a reporter for an
abolitionist paper, that was preferable to the
alternative: “I am free and have, I trust, been
made a child of God by the means.”
RTourists on their way to Portsmouth or
Maine points can stop at the Great Bay Dis-
covery Center in Greenland — and it’s worth
the trip, especially if you’re into bird-watch-
ing. What you might see: Great Bay’s winter-
ing eagles, migratory warblers, waterfowl,
and osprey. There’s also a public boat launch
accessible for kayaks, canoes, and paddle-
boards.
RThe big news in Greenland this summer:
Governor Chris Sununu signed into law an
environmental protection bill aimed at clean-
ing up pollution in Berry’s Brook generated by
a local landfill.
RThe big news in Greenland in 1928: The
Globe reported that a former Harvard football
coach and his brothers were doing well rais-
ing turkeys in Greenland. “Despite the popu-
lar belief that turkeys cannot be hatched in an
incubator, Vic Kennard has had a great deal of
success in his experiment,” the paper noted.
RFormer Massachusetts governor Bill
Weld — running as a Republican challenger to
Trump — spoke in Greenland in July, touting,
among other things, nuclear power. Accord-
ing to the Portsmouth Herald, Weld called nu-
clear power “the future of energy in our grid.”
“People sit around and say why couldn’t
they invent an energy source that generates
an infinite amount of power with no carbon
emissions whatsoever? They invented that a
long time ago and it’s called the atom,” he
said, according to the Herald. “We’ve simply
got to engage there and not close our eyes to
that,” he added.
RGreenland is actually the site of lots of
presidential politicking because of the pres-
ence of the Portsmouth Country Club, a good
spot to draw a crowd. In 2015, Ted Cruz was
there, calling for the repeal of “every word of
Obamacare,” as well as the elimination of the
IRS.
That same year, a 9-year-old Greenland
boy named Ollie Olsen briefly made headlines
when he got a note signed by Hillary Clinton
asking his teacher to excuse his absence from
class. “Dear Mrs. Simons,” the note said. “I’m
missing school today, because I’m going to
meet Hillary.” The note was signed by Ollie
and by Clinton, who added an asterisk and
the word “really!” under her signature.

Felice Belman can be reached at
[email protected].

Greenland,N.H.:

Notforsalebut

quiteahistory

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The MetroMinute

Greenaland,

N.H., is

home to one

of the oldest

surviving

brick houses

in New

England.

The Weeks

Brick House

dates to

1710. 
      

JOHN TLUMACKI/GLOBE STAFF

NATURAL

SPLENDOR—A

rainbow lit up the

early evening sky

over the First Church

in Pembroke on

Monday after a series

of thunderstorms

swept through parts

of New England.

Western

Massachusetts was

first battered by

thunder and

lightning during the

early afternoon,

while Cape Cod was

dealing with the

remnants of the

storms at 8:45 p.m.,

according to the

National Weather

Service. Springfield

saw 1.49 inches of

rainfall, while parts

of Rhode Island saw

between an inch and

an inch-and-a-half.

Weather,C