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Firefighters Battle Blaze At Abandoned Warehouse On Piasa/Highway 67

4 years 2 months ago
ALTON - Alton Fire Department responded to a fire in an old warehouse at Piasa and Highway 67 in Alton around 11:05 p.m. Friday. East Alton Fire Department also responded to battle the fire. Paper products and more were stored inside the warehouse and that was the area where the fire originated, fire officials said. Alton Fire Department Battalion Chief Derrick Richardson said while the cause is undetermined of what started the fire, it could have been homeless trying to keep warm or a dropped cigarette. "We are still investigating," he said of the origin of the fire. Richardson said the steel structure of the warehouse remains intact because of the quick efforts of the firefighters. The fire started with paper products on the second floor, he said. When Alton Fire received the 911 dispatch, it was reported that there could be two possible homeless people inside the building. However, there were two found outside on arrival, and a primary and secondary search was done to make

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Planting mixes of flowers around farm fields helps keep bees healthy

4 years 2 months ago
THE CONVERSATION - It’s springtime in California, and bees are emerging to feast on flowering fields – acres upon acres of cultivated almonds, oranges, and other fruits and nuts that bloom all at once for just a few weeks. Farmers raise these lucrative crops in monoculture fields, each planted with neat, straight rows of a single type of crop. The agricultural heart of California is the Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. I recently drove north through the valley on Interstate 5, a 450-mile (724-kilometer) stretch of monoculture farms and agricultural land that runs from Bakersfield to Redding. Flowers were blooming as far as the eye could see. There is so much bloom here that commercial beekeepers truck in over 2 million colonies of bees in spring to ensure that every last flower is pollinated. As a bee biologist , I study why bees are dying . Although monoculture blooms provide food for bees, scientists know almost nothing

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