Marie Antoinette has nothing on the wealthy Arab clients who commissioned a cake commemorating their daughter’s combo birthday and engagement party. The confection whipped up by a British dress designer cost a whopping $74 million USD. That’s a lot of bread for a cake.
An unnamed client hired London-based Baharash Architecture to design a luxury home that could fully function off the energy grid. That’s a tall order for any residence in Abu Dhabi, now consider the challenges for one sited in the punishing clime of the hyper-arid Liwa Desert where summer temperatures top 100°F.
Much of the Levant is under siege from a large dust storm right now covering Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel with parts of Cyprus and Turkey also affected. Meteorologists pin the poor weather on a low-pressure system that’s blanketing the region, and sands blown in from the east. The storm has prompted public health warnings, […]
Ever have a salad that was out of this world? Astronauts aboard International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 44 have. They just dined on the only lettuce ever cultivated without an atmosphere. The produce grew inside “Veggie”, a tiny greenhouse about the size of a computer monitor. Specifically designed for microgravity environments, the technology can potentially benefit food production […]
Scandinavian saunas are so yesterday. UAE trendsetters can now literally chillax in indoor “snow rooms” that create real snow using a snow-making system like that used for the interior ski slopes in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. It’s costly to be cool, prices start at $109,000. But our planet pays the real bill.
Want to sink some money into the latest Dubai folly? A Polish architect has served up a scheme for an underwater tennis center off the coast of Dubai, now he’s fishing for investors to make tennis beneath the ocean a reality in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The unveiling of Dubai’s rooftop solar project during March 2015 is one of many steps the emirate is taking in order to grow a domestic market regarding solar technology and usage. It is clear from these actions that the emirate is setting out to be greener and cleaner. At the same time, it is obvious […]
In the large atrium of Al Wahda Mall in Abu Dhabi, parents, children, staff and tourists are just some of the shoppers that can be found. Only they aren’t shopping – they’re planting small trees. Close by, other visitors stand armed with paint brushes a paint pots, coloring in a large globe. The activities all […]
Dubai has taken a giant step forward in greening up the city with its decision to move away from ordinary Portland cement (OPC) for all new buildings. As of April 1, OPC use is limited across the emirate; building permissions are reliant on developers specifying eco-friendly Supplementary Cementing Materials (SCMs). The new requirement aims to […]
Oryx, giraffes and cheetahs – species once facing regional extinction – are making a robust reappearance on a desert island off the coast of Abu Dhabi. Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan, founder of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), created the remote nature reserve in 1971. Forty years after Sir Bani Yas island received its first ‘imported’ […]
Falcons have been trained for hunting and sport for thousands of years across the Middle East. Now falconers in the United Arab Emirates are turning to drone technology as a new tool to teach their birds to fly increasingly higher and hunt more efficiently. Can technology teach old birds new tricks? Falcons hunt by scanning the ground below […]
We’ve all heard of the benefits of solar power and the emergence of innovative new projects that are making use of the sun’s energy. But one is soaring above the rest of them – a solar-powered plane attempting to fly round the world! Solar Impulse 2 took off from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab […]
The world went wild last week over an unforgettable image of a weasel riding bareback on a woodpecker in flight. It is difficult to imagine a more astonishing moment that the one captured by amateur British photographer Martin Le-May, unless maybe if that woodpecker had a camera strapped to his chest. But that sort of nutty nature photography could only happen […]
Abu Dhabi police unveiled their latest acquisition cop car, a Rolls Royce Phantom tricked out in purple and white, the colors of the state police force. It’s the newest addition to the fleet of United Arab Emirates (UAE) police supercars.
Young men in United Arab Emirates have jumped on a bizarre, and weirdly “green” addiction, passing on cigarettes and sheesha to smoking dead ants to get high. They crush local black ants (Pachycondyla sennaarensis) and blend the crumbs in tobacco, drop them into a medhwak (smoking pipe) or sprinkle them on regular smokes before lighting up, according to Gulf […]