Miriam Kresh

The Weekly Vegewarian Recipe: Stuffed Jerusalem Sage

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Food & Health »

image-stuffed-jerusalem-sageThis edible leaf is shooting up all over the Middle East right now. Ask for marmia in Arab markets.

To celebrate the emergence of winter’s wild greens, here is a vegan recipe featuring a Middle Eastern specialty: Jerusalem Sage. See our January Seasonal Produce post for a photo of the raw leaf.

Wild, edible Salvia hierosolymitana has dark-pink or reddish flowers and  is not the same as the decorative garden plant, Phlomis fruticosa. Both are called Jerusalem Sage in English, but the yell0w-flowering Phlomis fruticosa isn’t eaten. To see the edible Middle Eastern Jerusalem Sage in flower, see the photo below.

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Tafline Laylin

DIY Solar Panels Made of Grass That Anyone Can Make

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Cleantech, Science & Technology »

DIY, solar panels, solar, MIT, grass, green design, sustainable design, solar energy, clean tech, photosynthesisMIT researchers say that soon all we’ll need to harvest our vast solar resource is  grass and stabilizing powder. 

While Masdar and Suntech and other solar energy projects are laboring under expensive, high-tech materials in order to improve their energy-absorbing capability, MIT researchers in the United States are taking a different approach. They realized that nothing in nature absorbs energy as well as plants, so they have developed a solar technology that combines a small amount of grass (or other agricultural waste), a stabilizing powder made of zinc oxide and titanium oxide, and a glass or metal substrate which mimics the photosynthesis process. Eventually their technology will be so simple that anybody will be able to make their own solar panels for next to nothing.

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Tafline Laylin

Lebanese Activists Democratically Demand Access to Horsh Beirut Urban Park

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Travel & Nature »

urban park, Horsh Beirut, lebanon, environmental activism, green space, carbon sink, beirut, natureNext Wednesday activists will hold a public forum to democratically demand access to the Horsh Beirut urban park. 

In 1696, the Horsh Beirut Pine forest used to be as large as 1,250,000 square meters but the Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, and World War II allies each took their turn plundering its timber in order to build ships and weapons. Further damage has been done since then to such an extent that today one of the only urban parks in this concrete jungle has shrunk to a mere 255,000 square meters. Although significantly smaller than it once was, Horsh Beirut could still offer residents of Beirut a retreat from the city smog – if the city hadn’t denied access to it for the last two decades. Activists are now speaking out against what they say is a denial of their inalienable rights. 

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Tafline Laylin

Acqua by Raha Shirazi: You’ll Never Take Water for Granted Again

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Lifestyle & Culture »

art, film, culture, environmental art, Acqua, Raha Shirazi, water issues, water scarcity, Iran, short filmA powerful short film by Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Raha Shirazi, Acqua will make you look at water with new eyes.

Raha Shirazi’s film Acqua is almost guaranteed to make you never take water for granted again. In it, a woman walks through snow in search of water with a jar on her back. Everywhere there is water, but after reaching a specific destination, she experiences some kind of trauma that especially resonates with us given our region’s tremendous water scarcity.

“In both Iran, and where I was in Italy, a long time ago women would travel from their village to bring back water,” Shirazi told Twitch Film. “Fetching water was always a woman’s job. Even now for purpose of vigil in these areas, women travel to a specific place and bring back water,” she added. Take a look at this beautiful film clip and let us know if it makes you re-evaluate your relationship to water.

Continue reading: “Acqua by Raha Shirazi: You’ll Never Take Water for Granted Again” »

Susan Kraemer

China’s Suntech is Among Masdar’s Solar Bids for Nour 1

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Business & Politics »

Masdar-Suntech-Nour-1

Frank Wouters of Masdar Power at Abu Dhabi’s World Future Energy Summit.

With its first large scale solar farm expected to be operational by August, Masdar is now about to construct its second utility-scale solar project in the UAE, the 100 MW Nour 1. The first, Shams 1, used concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) technology, that drives a steam turbine with a solar-heated liquid. The second, Nour 1, is to use solar PV panels, that convert sunlight into electricity directly with photo-voltaics (PV).

But the companies that have bid to help build its second large-scale solar power plant must source half of their panels from Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s own clean-energy company.China’s Suntech, the leading solar PV manufacturer globally, is among the half a dozen bidders for Nour 1. Fourteen companies had been pre-qualified in July.

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Tinamarie Bernard

Male Birth Control One Zap Away?

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Food & Health »

naked man sculptureUltrasounds are routinely used in prenatal care in women. New research suggests his testes could be next on the agenda. The lizard look is optional.

Researchers have been exploring a male birth control pill, but with the exception of condoms, vasectomies or coitus interuptus – each with varying success rates and not necessarily halal depending on religious leanings – birth control for men is still limited.  A new study may be changing that. Goodbye unplanned pregnancies, hello ultrasound testes ‘zapper.’

It may not be painful and offers potentially better results with greater flexibility than current contraception options for men. Warning: Do not try this at home, with your laptop or other source of radiation exposure.

Continue reading: “Male Birth Control One Zap Away?” »

Tafline Laylin

Gulf Men and Women Ridicule World’s First Female Falconry Association

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Travel & Nature »

men, women, travel, nature, qatar, falconry, gulf, sports, hunting Join the debate: is the world’s first all-women falconry association in Qatar a bad idea? 

Falconry is a time-honored tradition in the Gulf, but like more recent sports such as race-car driving and rugby, it is a male-dominated sport. So when the Katara cultural village in Qatar recently announced the launch of the world’s first female falconry association, both men and women issued ridiculed the move.

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Laurie Balbo

Underwater Art is Rejuvenating Coral Reefs

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Travel & Nature »

underwater artJason deCaires Taylor uses eco art to conserve a fragile ecosystem

See a starfish caress a schoolgirl’s cheek as she holds hands with the boy with the algae beard. Watch a baby shark swirl‘round that Beetle parked curbside to coral and lobsters. Underwater, everything’s magnified. Changing currents and depths cause kaleidoscopic effects. Dive in next season and all will be changed. Jason deCaires Taylor creates underwater eco-art: offering “eerie encounters where art evolves from the effects of nature on the efforts of man”. Taylor works with marine biologists to create site-specific, underwater sculpture parks that double-duty as artificial coral reefs.

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Tafline Laylin

Treat Your Valentine to a Hot Snowshoeing Tour in Lebanon

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Travel & Nature »

Adventures in Lebanon, snowshoeing, green tours, eco-tours, nature, travel, Lebanon, Valentine's Day, Adventures in Lebanon is offering a Valentine’s Day snowshoeing tour that is bound to heat up this special day!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and if you’re anything like us, you’re scratching your head looking for fun-loving things to do that don’t involve diabetes-inducing chocolate and environmentally destructive flowers. Why not treat your special sweetie to an awesome snowshoeing tour offered by Adventures in Lebanon?

Not only will you have plenty of excuses to snuggle up to stay warm, setting off all kinds of love chemicals, but you’ll burn off so many calories that you don’t have to feel guilty about closing the night with a wonderful meal back in Beirut.

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Maurice Picow

Israel’s Green Shopping Mall Sounds Like A Jet Liner

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Architecture & Urban »

israel green mall netanyaA green shopping mall is not green if its AC sounds like a jet liner taking off

When previous articles of making shopping malls more sustainable and green, such as Amman Jordan’s new Mega Mall, were posted, it appeared that these large enclosed shopping centers are on the right track to becoming more environmentally friendly. The use of energy saving LEED lighting  in super glitzy malls such as those in Dubai may also be showing ways to provide adequate lighting at considerably less environmental risks.

Israel’s soon to be opened Ir Yamim (Sea City) shopping Mall, hailed as being the country’s first “green” shopping mall, was also given a considerable amount of kudos by me. But now it may be that this so-called “green shopping mall” may not be as green after all.

Continue reading: “Israel’s Green Shopping Mall Sounds Like A Jet Liner” »

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