In 2007 the City of Philadelphia launched the Electric Vehicle Parking Space program, in which EV owners could apply for permission to put a charging post at the curb in front of their house. The parking space by the charging post would be for electric vehicles only. Since few people own electric vehicles, the homeowner
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Researchers at Monmouth University in New Jersey want your mice for a study of the genetic and microbiome differences between mice in urban versus rural settings. Although house mice (Mus musculus) stick pretty close to humans wherever they live, the ones in cities might have different diets or territory sizes from their country cousins, according
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The Da Vinci Art Alliance is in financial distress and needs help staying afloat, according to co-directors Samantha Connors and Bryant Girsch. “As many organizations post-COVID-19 lockdown, we’re struggling financially,” they announced via press release. The Alliance dates back to 1931, when 16 Italian immigrant artists and collectors founded the organization at a time when
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As the inhabitants of Philadelphia roast under the unrelenting sun of July and August, it is easy to dream of shading the entire city with solar panels in an effort to do something useful with the radiation that otherwise renders the daylight hours insufferable. Philadelphia Solar Week, August 15–19 is a start, with Solarize Philly,
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The Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Air Management Services, the division responsible for monitoring air quality in the city, is holding a hearing on Wednesday, August 10 at 6 p.m. for public input into proposed revisions to its regulations. The regulations, which haven’t been updated since 1981, would expand the list of toxic chemicals monitored
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Spring Garden Street, which runs from river to river, is currently a fast but miserable route for a cyclist to cut across Center City. Much of it is unshaded and exposed to the sun, and the bike lane isn’t protected by anything but a white stripe on the asphalt. At the eastern end, cyclists who
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On July 11 Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf vetoed Senate Bill 275, which would have prevented local governments from enacting natural gas hookup bans. Senate Bill 275 is part of a national lobbying effort by the fossil gas industry to head off increasingly popular local initiatives to shift buildings away from fossil fuel use. Washington, D.C.,
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In much of Delaware County, secretive spiders spin tube-like webs along the bases of trees. Atypus snetsingeri (like a lot of bugs, it doesn’t have a common name) waits in a burrow below for an unsuspecting insect to brush against the web. Using enormous chelicerae (fangs) it stabs through the web, paralyzing its prey, and
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I realized also that besides protesting I had to clean up my own act. If I was buying natural gas, I was complicit.” — Judy Wicks, climate activist and former owner of the White Dog Cafe When Judy Wicks, the former owner of the White Dog Cafe, got back from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation
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Acloudy pool of water marks the spot where, every minute, about 1,200 gallons of toxic mine drainage, contaminated with sulfuric acid and iron, flows out of the ground in the hills above New Philadelphia, in Schuylkill County. Below lies a flooded mine void, the space where miners extracted tons of anthracite coal from the ground
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