Like a human starting to experience Alzheimer’s disease, a deer in the early stages of chronic wasting disease doesn’t look all that sick. You’d have to spend some time with it to notice anything amiss. But in both illnesses, once it starts, there is no stopping the degeneration of the brain tissue and further outward
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Getting a magazine to print on time is a nailbiter in a lot of ways, with every delay you can imagine threatening chaos. One speed bump we often run into is waiting for government sources to respond to our questions. A writer will have the article ready to go except for a pending request for
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Everyone loves Green City, Clean Waters — at least in theory. Twelve years ago the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) rolled out the ambitious, 25-year plan meant to deal with our combined stormwater-sewer system. When it rains, stormwater that flows off of roofs and pavement tends to overwhelm the system, sending raw sewage into our rivers
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The head of the Wampanoag sachem Metacomet (aka King Philip) sat on a spike at the entrance to Plymouth, Massachusetts, for two decades after his failed uprising against the English colonists was crushed in 1676. The colonists sent his family into slavery in the Caribbean. Metacomet was the son of Ousamequin (aka Massasoit), who rescued
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I ventured into the Wissahickon along with Grid photographer Rachael Warriner on an unseasonably warm October afternoon to take a look at some beech trees infected by beech leaf disease (BLD). They were easy to spot. The veins of a beech leaf run out diagonally from a line down the center, dividing the leaf into
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Jonathan Deutsch, the head of Drexel University’s Food Lab, likes to challenge his culinary arts students with cauliflower stems and other trimmings they too-hastily discard. “I’ll pull things out of the compost bin and I’ll say, ‘Look at this. What could we do with this?’” Deutsch asks the students what they could make with the
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Windows of any size can kill birds, but those at Sister Cities Cafe in Center City were particularly lethal. “It’s essentially a glass cube with three sides that are full windows top to bottom,” says Stephanie Egger, a volunteer with Bird Safe Philly. “The problem here is twofold: its transparency, so the birds can see
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I drive, walk and bike with one eye following the pavement, scanning for dead animals. It comes from my background as a herper, someone who recreationally searches for reptiles and amphibians. A popular way to find the critters I love is “road cruising,” in which you drive around and look for them crossing the pavement.
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Anyone who has raised children knows the frustration of watching a kid imitate your worst habits. Maybe you hear them swearing, exactly how you do. Maybe you tell them to get off their phone, and then they catch you checking yours under the table at dinner. Maybe you tell them to eat better, and you
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Michael Cano hadn’t thought much about environmental issues or agriculture before attending Lankenau, the School District of Philadelphia’s environmental sciences magnet high school. “I found out about [Lankenau] because of family that went there before me and told me of a positive experience they had.” By his junior year he found himself in Washington, D.C.,
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