Who needs to travel abroad when you can see new things (beavers! butterflies!) in your airport’s own backyard? A few notable airports around the world (including Beijing, Boston, and Toronto) have managed to go green with beauty and aplomb. In its June 2009 issue, enRoute profiles the environmentally conscious Zurich Airport, where, in addition to utilizing rainwater, geothermal energy, and solar cells to keep the place running, curious citizens can safely planespot (an activity in sad decline) and observe the airport’s adjoining “safe habitat for over 50 species of flora and fauna.”

Source: enRoute 

Image by GIDESIGN, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Crystal-studded sauna ceilings, glass-tiled Roman bath-inspired pools, and ping pong tables resting on glass floors. Doesn’t sound like the usual workout facility, does it? Air Canada’s magazine enRoute, dug up and showcased some of the most sleek and artful fitness centers on the map. Working out looks (and sounds) so much more appealing when you’re scaling a wall of white picture frames and baroque furniture instead some dull brown surface.

Source: enRoute

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what's landing in our library each week in 'Shelf Life.'

Utne's library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, journals, weeklies, zines, and other dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found in big-box bookstores, or newsstands.

Featured in this week's episode:

- enRoute on Icelandic cuisine

- Science News on “The Dating Go Round”

- A special issue of Southwest Review featuring modern fiction by Arab women (not available online)

- Zine excerpts and Canadian tabloids in Broken Pencil (not available online)

- Nuclear Energy Insight on how a nuclear power plant became a “refuge” for sea turtles 

Sources: enRoute, Science News, Southwest Review, Broken Pencil, Nuclear Energy Insight