Charlotte Albright

The foam padded android, named MVP — short for Mobile Virtual Player — was designed by graduate engineering students. Players tackle MVP so they don't have to ram into each other.

Last weekend, more than 40 swimmers from around the country competed in the inaugural U.S. Winter Swimming Championship in northern Vermont. They swam in a two-lane pool cut into an icy lake.

Students entering the University of New Hampshire will be required to complete an online seminar about sexual assault and are urged to talk with their parents about it before arriving on campus.

Lots of people have heartburn or gastric reflux, and not all of them are helped by medications. A surgical device may help people with severe symptoms, but it hasn't been tested long term.

The new Common Core State Standards for English have stirred plenty of controversy. In a Vermont classroom full of 8th graders, they are working on a cornerstone of the core: close reading.

Canada invented ice cider in the '90s. Now it's becoming trendy and Vermont wants to cash in, too. The frigid winter has been just the stuff to turn the state's frozen apples into tasty dessert wine.

How about a nice, juicy moose burger with your venison? Wild-game suppers are a rural American harvest tradition dating back to Colonial times. This year, 800 people turned out for the long-running "Superbowl" of these suppers, where hunters donate most of the meat (with some roadkill thrown in).

For one Vermont couple, "local" doesn't mean heading to the farmers market. It means finding a natural salad bar at your picnic spot — or maybe even in your backyard.

As gas prices rise, more people who need to get around rural areas are boarding local transit buses and vans. Many of the low-income riders can't afford to drive. But the cost of transporting the riders is bursting town budgets.

Just after the snow melts but long before the last frost, hardy New Englanders take to moist meadows and muddy riverbanks in search of the fiddlehead fern. It looks like the scrolled top of a violin and tastes a little like asparagus.