From April 26 to April 29, Philadelphia and its adjacent counties will be competing against cities around the world to recruit the greatest number of people to find the most species in their regions. Using the iNaturalist app as a tool, the City Nature Challenge encourages us to explore and document the biodiversity right where
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A keen observer can sometimes hear a “boom” over the row houses on summer evenings in Philadelphia. The sound marks a male common nighthawk defending his territory, flexing his wings as he dives. The insect-eating birds nest on flat, gravelly surfaces. These can be bare patches of ground in a forest, but they can also
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I just bought a sweater. After reading “Worn: A People’s History of Clothing,” by Sofi Thanhauser (interviewed in this issue), I went online and found a second-hand gray wool henley originally sold by a company with a reputation for well-made clothing. I wanted something I could wear this winter and for many winters to come;
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Do you know what it’s made of? Where it came from? Who stitched it together? Go ahead and cheat. Check the label. That will get you part of the way there: a list of materials and a country, but much of the story will remain a mystery. That little tag won’t tell you about the
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Update: Would you like to weigh in on the EPA’s proposed dissolved oxygen standards in the Delaware River? The public can provide comments about the proposed regulation changes through the EPA website no later than February 20, 2024. By Meg McGuire and Katherine Rapin In December 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made a bold
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Update: On February 1, 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a preliminary permit to York Energy Storage, LLC for the pumped hydroelectric storage project the company is proposing in York County. The preliminary permit gives York Energy Storage priority for building a project on the site (essentially calling dibs) and opens up a
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I am desperate for American chestnut trees to make a comeback, even though I know that it’s not happening anytime soon. I long to see our woods as they were 150 years ago. The forager in me misses the chestnuts I never got to gather from the forest floor. As Jessie Buckner writes in her
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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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