Eerie and beautiful, The Scarecrow is a powerful anti-factory-farming message served up in a new commercial that barely refers to what’s actually being pitched. But the intent is as subtle as a brick to the head: Chipotle Mexican Grill is taking on Big Food.
Chipotle Takes on Big Food in Haunting Commercial, The Scarecrow
Tigris River Flotilla Puts Iraq Back in the News
On Sunday, September 15, a fleet of traditional and modern Mesopotamian boats will sail down the Tigris River on an historic voyage of celebration and learning.
Cilantro can clean water
So addicted to technology, we have forgotten that nature has an answer to just about everything – including water purification. Douglas Schauer, a PhD has shown that cilantro – a leafy herb used in Middle East cooking – can clear toxins from contaminated water.
Eschewing the current activated carbon method of water purification, Schauer from Ivy Tech Community College has been working with what he calls biosorbents to clean contaminated water.
Less costly than typical water purification methods, biosorbents are low-cost alternatives such as microbes and plants that are readily available in nature.
While presenting his findings at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that closed yesterday, Schauer said that cilantro, which is also known as coriander, Chinese or Thai parsley, can remove toxic heavy metals with ease.
“Cilantro may seem too pricey for use in decontaminating large amounts of water for drinking and cooking,” Schauer said.
“However, cilantro grows wild in vast amounts in countries that have problems with heavy-metal water pollution. It is readily available, inexpensive and shows promise in removing certain metals, such as lead, copper and mercury, that can be harmful to human health.”
The structure of the other walls of Cilantro’s microscopic cells have the ideal architecture to absorb heavy metals, Physorg reports. Parsley and culantro have similar properties.
Schauer proposes to pack the cilantro into packets that are similar to tea-bags, or the herb can be packed into water filter cartridges.
With so many people without clean drinking water throughout the Middle East, a dedicated awareness campaign could go a long way to informing them of natural methods of purifying one of our planet’s most necessary and increasingly precious resources.
:: Physorg
Image of cilantro, Shutterstock
Israeli Parliament Plans to be Solar Secure by 2014
Years after the plan was first suggested, the Israeli Parliament building will finally boast a large rooftop solar array that will give the Knesset a sound measure of energy security by 2014.
World’s Biggest 100 MW Geothermal Plant Built by Israel’s Ormat in New Zealand
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For Some Iranians Meatless Monday Isn’t a Choice
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“Spy” Stork Arrested Then Released and Eaten in Egypt
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Cyprus Fruit Bats Decline and Head to Turkey?
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Charge Mobile Devices Through the Air
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Free Beach Wifi to Tel Aviv Tourists and Locals
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Divers Will Pay to Protect Coral Reef Biodiversity, New Study
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Saudi Ministry of Health Sued Over Death of Obese Man
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Zaha Hadid Greens Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Stadium Design
Japan has won the bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo and Zaha Hadid has been picked to retrofit its National Stadium. First designed for the 1964 Summer Games, this new stadium boasts a few green credentials.
Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid has never shown a great deal of interest in designing healthy green buildings, but she has incorporated a few meaningful eco features in her design for what will become the Tokyo National Olympic Stadium.
In addition to using geothermal energy, the new building will be cooled using recycled rainwater. Additionally, the stadium’s grey water will be reused – either for plumbing or landscaping. As yet, there has been little mention of what kind of materials will be used for construction or where they will be sourced, but at least Zaha is making some kind of effort to soften her enormous ecological footprint.
The Sports Council is enamored with Hadid’s design – despite complaints that her Aquatic Center built for the London Games was so large that the spectators may as well have watched swimming events at home, so invisible were the athletes from the seats.
Equipped with a sliding roof, the Tokyo National Olympic Stadium has a flexible design that will ensure that the building will not be obsolete when the international sporting event comes to a close. Indeed, this is part of the reason the judges chose her brief above ten other competitors.
They noted, according to Atlantic Cities, its “innovative and fluid design that expresses a sense of dynamism appropriate for sporting activities.”
In addition to serving the Olympic Games, the stadium should be ready in time for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
Zaha Hadid’s studio has been cleaning up with design competitions of late – even adding a touch of star power to the controversial 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
MIT Fog Harvesting Material Yields 5x More H20
Gulf countries like Abu Dhabi may lack freshwater resources, but they also have a lot of humidity. MIT’s new super efficient fog harvesting material could help countries with climates like this capture that moisture for drinking water.
The Christmas-izing of Ramadan and Eid
Recognizing our likenesses even in superficial traditions can chip away at the sense of “otherness” that prevents connection. With Syria on the brink, will anyone dispute that the West and the Middle East need better connection?