Like Israel’s Softwheel for wheelchairs and bikes, Goodyear is asking: Can new ways of engineering tires extend the cruising ranges of electric cars to make them more saleable in the aftermath of the the demise of Shai Agassi’s Better Place electric car venture? Despite some success in selling electric cars like Nissan’s Leaf model and General […]
Iran’s aggressive nuclear energy program seems to be constantly in the news these days; while other regional countries, including Jordan, have nuclear power ambitions of their own. As the fourth anniversary of the March 11, 2011 Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown is commemorated by Japan last week, the world may still not have learned the entire […]
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’ […]
Today is Pi Day. Celebrated around the world every March 14th (3/14), the day focuses on the mathematical symbol that represents the constant ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, approximated as 3.14159. This year’s Pi Day is a once-in-a-lifetime event; it will be 100 years until we experience 3/14/15 9:26:53 again – that’s pi to […]
For the past two decades a 70-year old man lived in a cave in northern Jordan, alone with no water or power or reliable access to food, exposed to the elements and wild animals. An unidentified caller contacted radio station Amen FM to alert them to the modern caveman. Last Thursday the kingdom’s Public Security Department […]
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 […]
What’s the social value of a new app that connects me to the best pizza in town? Or a gadget that can help me talk to a fellow gamer in China? Maybe the answer is zero, but maybe not. There is a new investment trend in town and it’s called Impact Investing. While the East […]
Drones, those small, unmanned remote controlled airplanes with cameras can now be ordered by anyone online. They freak some people out. Not everyone loves the idea of a drone honing in on you in your backyard, but in agriculture, forestry and even in conservation they are the hot topic of the year. How can we […]
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.
South Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station (CBS) sprawls across 10 acres in the poorest part of the city. Inaugurated in 1993 as a “city under a roof”, the neglected station – like many urban transport hubs – has since became a hangout, hotel and unofficial business center for addicts, prostitutes, thieves and homeless. It’s not a place to dawdle. Could […]
Egypt’s tourist hotspot of Sharm el-Sheikh has plenty of sun, sea and sand. Now the popular resort city is set to get a solar power boost too, with plans for all lighting to come from solar energy. Sharm el-Sheikh already relies on solar power for 70 percent of its lighting, but the Egyptian government wants to […]
It’s a first for Palestinians in the West Bank – a planned city that from the ground up has been modelled to be a sustainable home for future generations of Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinian Authority. Last week the city Rawabi was officially hooked up to its lifeline, Israeli water support, and soon will […]
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 […]