Soot, the black carbon that results from burning fossil fuels and biomass, is now considered the world’s second most potent climate pollutant, after carbon dioxide. Black carbon is an emission from burned fuels, primarily diesel combustion, industry and residential coal and other solid fuels, and open burning of fields and forests. In an article, “Bounding…
The National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee (NCADAC) released a draft report on the current state of climate change and its growing impacts on the United States. It’s not good news. In fact, perhaps it’s the worst news ever, even though it doesn’t basically say anything different than previous federal reports going back to…
The Complete Streets bill passed December 6th by Philadelphia’s City Council requires streets that accommodate all forms of transportation: transit, cars, bikes, and pedestrian. It squares municipal regulations with the state’s rules of the road, and is a huge victory for cyclists in the city. As people have become more conscious about cutting their contribution…
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), the agency in charge of the Delaware River as it winds through four states, conveniently sidestepped taking responsibility for overseeing the cumulative effects of the many natural gas pipelines being built around or through the Delaware River watershed by saying, essentially, “that’s not our job.” It’s a tried-and-true political…
It looks like a mechanical worm, but it’s a sophisticated building block that takes science one step closer to developing devices that can change shape. Maybe ‘Transformers,’ robots capable of transforming into vehicles and weapons, long a children’s favorite, will no longer be the stuff of science fiction, but rather science fact. The Millimeter-Scale Motorized…
Yesterday, officials detected a spike in vinyl chloride fumes and issued a “shelter-in-place” order for the town of Paulsboro, just across the Delaware River from the Philadelphia airport. The order was for people to stay indoors until the gas fumes had dissipated. Though levels dropped, this morning the order was still in place. Train cars…
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, July 9, 2012, 2 p.m. New research has concluded that salty, mineral-rich fluids deep beneath Pennsylvania’s natural gas fields are likely seeping upward thousands of feet into drinking water supplies. Though the fluids were natural and not the byproduct of drilling or hydraulic fracturing, the finding further stokes the red-hot controversy…
Scientists have sequenced the bee genome and studied a multitude of pathogens from the varroa mite to the Nosema ceranae, to the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IVAP), as well as other environmental stressors such as pesticides to explain bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). CCD is the phenomenon where worker bees in a hive vanish, leading…
