Imagine the dirtiest engine legal in the United States. It’s an engine responsible for an annual 30 million tons of carbon dioxide, 21,000 tons of fine particulates and 68,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, which are harmful to human health and the environment, PennEnvironment reports. A heavy-duty truck or SUV may spring to mind, but this
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“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” –F. Scott FitzgeraldI believe in the eureka moment: the experience of discovering something about the world or yourself that changes everything. This magazine has sought out those stories
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By Bernard BrownWild turkeys are good neighbors, unless they encounter a polished car.
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By Bernard BrownLocal environmental educator builds wildlife oasis in Fishtown.
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By Bernard BrownA white sheet strung up between two trees in Bartram’s Garden glowed blue in the dark August night. It was speckled with hundreds of insects, ranging in size from tiny wasps and midges, whose identity could only be discerned with a magnifying glass, to geometer moths an inch-and-a-half across. A small crowd of children
MoreBy Bernard BrownGardeners who have taken a peek inside the hand-sized yellow flowers on their squash plants have probably witnessed what looks like a bee dance party. On smaller flowers, bees perch themselves and deploy their long tongues to suck up the tiny droplets of nectar inside. By contrast, on winter squash plants (like pumpkins, butternuts
Moreby Bernard BrownWhen Craig Johnson saw his neighbors getting picked on, he knew he had to get involved. It didn’t matter a bit to Johnson that his neighbors were snakes. Johnson lives in Glen Fern, a historic house dating back to the mid-1700s that sits at the end of Livezey Lane—a street that is crossed
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By Alex MulcahyWe can all breathe a sigh of relief upon hearing the news that the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in Southwest Philly will be closing. And after we exhale, it might finally be safe to inhale again, too. Make no mistake, this is a huge victory for the residents of Philadelphia. PES has been
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By Bernard BrownJust past midnight on Friday, April 26, a common greenbottle fly sleeping on a leaf was immortalized by Navin Sasikumar in iNaturalist as Philadelphia’s first observation for the City Nature Challenge 2019.
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by Bernard BrownImagine you’re a pipevine swallowtail butterfly flying around the rowhouses of southwest Philadelphia. You look like a swatch of velvet. On top, your wings are black toward the front and an iridescent electric blue towards the back; underneath, they flash an array of bright orange spots as a warning to predators. You hatched at
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by Bernard BrownWhat’s your favorite sign of spring? Flowers blooming? Bees buzzing? Raptors hurtling into the water, talons first, emerging with a wriggling fish to rip apart back at the nest? Spring has returned to the Delaware Valley, and with it our local ospreys.
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