Green Prophet offers an exclusive interview with Yago Mancebo, Investment Manager, Masdar, on how to put together partnerships to make solar CSP projects viable in the Middle East. Read below for his talk.
How Masdar joined forces in Solar CSP to energize the Middle East
Mysterious mass fish die-off in Tunisia sparks world-ending debate (video)
Earlier this month several Tunisians in Hammamet, Sphax and Mahdia woke up to their beaches infested with dead fish and jelly fish, a beached whale in Tunis, off the coast of Sidi Bou Saïd was also carried to shore.
Dancing in combat boots, Jerusalem style
A trio of break-dancing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers strutted their stuff in a video uploaded to Facebook on Thursday. About a year ago, another IDF dance – captured again on YouTube – landed a few soldiers in prison. What do you think about acting so freely when wearing a military uniform? Video below.
Environmental Justice Atlas maps out ecological conflicts
For the first time in history we have a real time, comprehensive global map of ecological conflicts thanks to the Atlas of Environmental Justice.
StoreDot’s Flash Battery charges cell phones in 30 seconds flat
StoreDot is the latest Israeli startup to wow the world with a groundbreaking new charger that takes a cell phone battery from 27 percent to 100 percent in 30 seconds flat.
Bamboo WarkaWater tower harvests potable water from air
On a recent trip to Ethiopia, Italian designer Arturo Vittori discovered how collecting water is both dangerous and time-consuming – especially for women and children. He thinks these water-trapping WarkaWater Towers will help.
Arab Gulf super highrise lifestyle is killing kids
A fall from a stepladder can kill you, so what’s your chance of surviving a topple from a high-rise building? Earlier this month, a 9-year-old Syrian girl fell to her death from the eighth floor of her family’s Abu Dhabi apartment. In Sharjah last week a 4-year-old boy died after falling from a window. What’s going to make this terrible tragedy stop?
HA Schult arrives in Israel with an army of 500 ‘Trash People’
German artist HA Schult has spent the last 18 years traveling around the world with his own army of ‘trash people.’ Like a modern version of China’s terra-cotta warriors, the exhibit recently landed in Israel.
World’s largest trash mural makes life in Syria a little less awful
Anyone who hasn’t been to Syria in the last few years can’t possibly grasp the full extent of the horrors Syrians have endured, but we do know it has been unspeakably hard. To take the edge off, a handful of artists in Damascus built what the Guinness Book of Records recently confirmed is the world’s largest mural made with trash.
Is your honey real or fake? Take the test to see if it’s 100% pure honey
Those jars and honey bears full of golden liquid are mostly not honey at all. It’s just syrup that tastes something like the real thing. Commercial processed honey has been heated to high temperatures, which destroys the wealth of nutrients it had when fresh out of the hive. It’s often diluted with water and high-fructose corn syrup to make it more manageable – and to stretch the product out. Its valuable pollen is taken out by forcing it through tiny filters. The result: a liquid that’s pretty to look at but is pretty much dead.
Did you know you can set up your own beehive in your garden? Karin showed us how here. That’s a surefire way to get real honey, almost on tap.
The pollen backstory
Pollen is the part of the honey which can be traced back to its country of origin. If honey suppliers have an interest in hiding the product’s source, they make sure no pollen remains in it. China, whose merchants seem to have no value for human health and safety, flooded USA markets with cheap, processed honey, putting American beekeepers in jeopardy. It’s honey whose valuable friendly bacteria, vitamins and enzymes have been cooked out in processing. Even worse for the consumer, it’s sometimes contaminated with animal antibiotics.
The fake honey of the USA
The Federal Trade Commission in the US slapped a high importation tax on Chinese honey in 2001 but the manufacturers found a way to keep selling fake honey to Americans. They remove the pollen – which is the element that proves country of origin in lab tests. The process also cooks out all nutritional value.Then they ship the denatured honey to countries not subject to the American tax, changing the documentation and packaging to make it pass for not Chinese.
This fake honey is still bought by big supermarket chains to re-package and put on their shelves with the label “Pure Honey” on it.
That’s the US. Where else is fake honey sold? I’d say that most commercial honeys anywhere, especially ones packaged with supermarket logos on the labels, are processed junk. Even here in the land of milk and honey (in Israel), I walk right past industrial brands. They’re good enough to flavor honey cake or honey cookies, but for real honey with nutritious and medicinal value, I head out to the health food store or visit the apiary in the next town.
An advantage to buying from apiaries (see my visit to a local apiary and how I got swarmed here) is that they carry varieties unavailable in supermarkets. Near where I live, there’s an apiary that offers some 15 varieties, including honey from onion flowers. That one, and eucalyptus honey, are popular with Russian immigrants, who appreciate its highly antiviral, antibacterial properties.
Try this honey purity test.
How do you know if your honey is pure?
- Check the label. If the label states the name and contact details of an apiary close to home, you’ve likely to have the real thing in your hands. Also, labels that reveal the presence of additives reveal fake honey.
- Real honey crystallizes over time, while honey diluted with high-fructose corn syrup stays pourable forever.
- Drop a little honey into a small bowl of tap water. If it dissolves right away, it’s fake. Real honey takes a good amount of stirring to melt.
- Taste it. Can you taste more than one flavor, like different flowers or herbs? That’s real honey. Fake honey only tastes sweet, with a little honey-like flavor.
- You’ll be amazed to see how raw honey when added to water creates a beehive structure when stirred.
100% pure honey makes a honeycomb pattern
What’s so great about honey as medicine?
Due to its antioxidant properties, raw honey can heal wounds, even minor burns (in a pinch). While a bad burn or wound should be treated by a qualified practitioner, it’s useful to know that a dab of honey will dry up a pimple overnight or can be applied for soothing and healing to the sort of burns you can get on your arms when taking a hot tray out of the oven. Honey has been used in home-made cough remedies for centuries. Science is now proving what folk medicine has always known: raw honey boosts immunities.
Our cookbook author friend Nawal Nasralla gave us another tip for telling real honey: “Let a drop fall on sandy ground,” she advises. “If it does not spread but stays like a ball, it is genuine.”
Oddly, a Druze grandfather I spoke to uses the same basic method to test olive oil. Taking a drop between thumb and forefinger, he makes sure it doesn’t ooze and drop away but stays firm and sticky between his fingers. It seems that the real thing not only has character, but body too.
Sweet and Healing, Here’s More Honey:
- 8 Types of Delicious Raw Honey From Yemen
- Tej, Ethiopian Honey Beer Recipe
- Green Prophet Visits Apiary – And Gets Swarmed
- Australian Eucalyptus Trees Keep Honey Bees Buzzing Year-Round
Volta’s battery voted NanoIsrael’s nano product of the year
A panel of judges at the NanoIsrael 2014 conference voted Volta’s carbon nanotube (CNT) battery as Nano product of the year. Read more for an explanation of what this means and why nanotechnology may soon be a household word.
Floating Majlis meeting rooms made of recycled fishing nets in Dubai
Majlis are the boardrooms of the Arab world. A traditional ‘place of sitting’ often adorned with cushions on the floor, they are used to receive guests and exchange ideas. In the past, nomadic desert dwellers used special tents. Intercon takes a modern approach to this special meeting room with floating Majlis that are moved daily.
Smile out loud watching 20 Saudi Muslim men “kiss” for the first time (Video!)
Check out this parody of the “first kiss” video – a YouTube hit in Saudi Arabia, now viraling across the Middle East collecting a laundry list of heated commentary. Lighten up people! Check out the video below.
Unless you were in a coma last month, you definitely saw that viral “first kiss” video, where 20 good-looking strangers where partnered off and asked to kiss for the first time.
The original has been watched more than 71 million times. The Saudi version, made by online Saudi entertainment channel UTURNent, is approaching 700,000 hits. It shows men performing the Bedouin tradition of rubbing noses, a tribal greeting that expresses friendship, respect and pride between Arab men. Although it’s still used throughout the Gulf, the young guys in this video don’t seem too practiced in the gesture.
They start by making small talk, then move into the technical requirements. Some seemed reluctant, others jumped right in. The film starts out awkward, and ends up, well – also awkward – but hilariously endearing, too. See more on the making of the video and some of the controversy it’s kicked up, below in a BBC segment:
In the original, the camera captured how a first kiss can go from awkward to awesome in a matter of seconds. Filmed by director Tatia Pilieva, the short was an advertisement for indie clothing label Wren, but it’s stark black and white imagery and curious premise were quickly replicated in copycat spoofs.
Related: the origins of the first kiss
Comedy can bring rapid cohesion between different cultures. The internet allows free sharing of spoofy productions. Instead of grumping in comment boxes, don’t you think we ought to hug (and kiss?) everything that shows that everyone loves a laugh?
Beard transplants are a “growing” Middle East trend
Are beards hipster? A coveted symbol of male virility? Might explain the “growing” trend of beard transplants. And if that pun doesn’t make you bristle, the name of the medical group that tracks transplants surely will.
Virgin’s Branson builds Moon Hotel – for space flight tourists?
Virgin Group founder, Sir Richard Branson yesterday unveiled new architectural designs from his subsidiary Virgin Buildings, including a plane-shaped building for London and a moon hotel that looks like a robotic caterpillar.