The founder of THIS – a small design company that is distributing a contemporary version of the Miswack, an organic, biodegradable, all-natural toothbrush that could potentially render both toothpaste and toothbrushes obsolete – is launching a Middle Eastern chapter of the AIGA design hub at the upcoming Beirut Design Week.
Siemens, Germany’s giant electronics firm, appears to be in final stages of pulling out from its investment in Israel’s Solel Solar initiative. The four-year project began in 2009, when Siemens entered into an agreement to buy the Israeli solar company. The beleaguered solar energy projects company received what seems to be a death knell.
Siemens recently announced the firing of 150 of its remaining 200 employees, leaving only a technical staff of 50 employees to deal with some solar energy projects in Spain.
News of this action appeared Sunday in Israel’s Globes financial newspaper, which reported that the action was due to Siemens not being able to find a buyer for the ailing thermal solar projects company.
Solel Solar became known as a global leader in building solar thermal fields, using parabolic mirrors that concentrate the solar energy onto solar thermal receivers containing a heat transfer fluid. The heat transfer fluid is circulated and heated through the receivers, and the heat is released to a series of heat exchangers to generate super-heated steam.
The steam powers a turbine/generator to produce electricity delivered to a utility’s electric grid. Although the company did supply solar thermal plants for some projects, including some in Spain, there has been controversy surrounding using large solar mirror projects which environmental experts fear may cause blindness to animals living in the areas when the solar mirrors are erected making them a “death Knell” for area wildlife.
Siemens acquired Solel Solar in 2009 for $418 million USD and at its peak 400 employees worked there. Besides the environmental issues, the thermal solar technology used became too expensive to compete in a declining solar energy market where photovoltaic solar panels were also having market problems. Siemens made a decision in late 2012 to quit the solar energy business.
A Spanish company, Abengoa SA had made a previous offer to purchase Solel Solar from Siemens. It later withdrew the offer when it became apparent that the future of the solar energy market was uncertain. Siemens has lost “hundreds of millions of Euros” in the project.
Read more on Siemens and Solel Solar:
Siemens Exits Israel’s Solel Solar Initiative
German Giant is Selling off Solel and its Solar Assets
New Study Shows that Negev Solar Farm is a Death Knell for Wildlife.
In a Middle Eastern city with paltry green space, residents gather to object to new development that will destroy one of their few public parks. Sound familiar? Spin the globe, but this time stop at Beirut in Lebanon.
During the last six years, the words energy security, water security, and food security could be found a lot in the Arab media. Since most of the Arab media is controlled by the Arab regimes, the appearance of these items shows that the environmental awareness of the Arab regimes has been on the rise.
World Environment Day festivities came to a close on Friday, June 7 in Qatar as participants in the celebration’s green competitions were crowned winners. The message of the celebration is to save resources for future generations, an important message for the emirate hooked on natural gas and cheap non-renewable resources.
In Qatar, things are looking up: The celebration has grown more successful over the years in terms of participants from schools, colleges, and the larger community. This year, more than 5,000 families and 3,000 contestants participated the celebration’s festivities and competitions.
The celebration’s newest competition, the eco-fashion design competition, was successful for its first year. The competition saw close to 200 entries with more than 500 student participants. Young models showed off the designs that were made out of recyclable materials.
The top three winners of the competition were from AIS Designers, Eco-Friends, and PECians.
The winners were awarded with cash prizes, Apple iPads, Faber-Castell Premium Products, gift vouchers, certificates, trophies, and many more.
Katia Aboud Saba, who is head of PR for Oryx GTL, a sponsor for the event, said, “While the contestants and other activities associated with WED were about having fun, they aimed to convey a serious message. Through WED, we wanted to teach children about the importance of environmental care and conservation in fun and creative ways to drive this message back home.”
Aside from the eco-fashion design contests, winners for the painting competition were also announced. Along with the crowning of the winners, the closing ceremonies also featured musical and dance performances by students of International Academy for Intercultural Development.
Here’s hoping for another successful World Environment Day celebration next year!
Now “Abraham” in Jerusalem will take those interested to meet Palestinians in the West Bank.
Artificial sweeteners in soda and gum may have some complicated side-effects or contra-indications for people with existing health effects. But artificial sweeteners could help people beyond losing weight, cavity prevention and reducing blood sugar: a new study from Israel has found that mannitol, widely used in chewing gum, could slow down the effects of Parksinson’s disease.
Mannitol, a sugar alcohol produced by fungi, bacteria, and algae, now was originally isolated from the secretions of the flowering ash and called manna after its resemblance to the Biblical food.
Besides gum, the sweetener is also used in the medical field — it’s approved by the FDA in the US as a diuretic to flush out excess fluids and used during surgery as a substance that opens the blood/brain barrier to ease the passage of other drugs.
In the new research study Profs. Ehud Gazit and Daniel Segal have found that mannitol also prevents clumps of the protein α-synuclein from forming in the brain — a process that is characteristic of Parkinson’s disease. This disease can appear in normal populations, but is linked also to pesticide and chemical exposure – see our story about the Bedouins in Beersheva, Israel.
These results, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and presented at the Drosophila Conference in Washington, DC in April, suggest that this artificial sweetener could be a novel therapy for the treatment of Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
After identifying the structural characteristics that facilitate the development of clumps of α-synuclein, the researchers began to hunt for a compound that could inhibit the proteins’ ability to bind together. In the lab, they found that mannitol was among the most effective agents in preventing aggregation of the protein in test tubes.
The benefit of this substance is that it is already approved for use in a variety of clinical interventions, Prof. Segal says.
Next, to test the capabilities of mannitol in the living brain, the researchers turned to transgenic fruit flies engineered to carry the human gene for α-synuclein.
To study fly movement, they used a test called the “climbing assay,” in which the ability of flies to climb the walls of a test tube indicates their locomotive capability.
In the initial experimental period, 72 percent of normal flies were able to climb up the test tube, compared to only 38 percent of the genetically-altered flies.
The researchers then added mannitol to the food of the genetically-altered flies for a period of 27 days and repeated the experiment. This time, 70 percent of the mutated flies could climb up the test tube. In addition, the researchers observed a 70 percent reduction in aggregates of α-synuclein in mutated flies that had been fed mannitol, compared to those that had not.
These findings were confirmed by a second study which measured the impact of mannitol on mice engineered to produce human α-synuclein, developed by Dr. Eliezer Masliah of the University of San Diego.
After four months, the researchers found that the mice injected with mannitol also showed a dramatic reduction of α-synuclein in the brain.
The researchers now plan to re-examine the structure of the mannitol compound and introduce modifications to optimize its effectiveness.
For the time being, mannitol may be used in combination with other medications that have been developed to treat Parkinson’s but which have proven ineffective in breaking through the blood/brain barrier, says Prof. Segal. These medications may be able to “piggy-back” on mannitol’s ability to open this barrier into the brain.
Before you start stocking up on gum — although the results look promising, it is still not advisable for Parkinson’s patients to begin ingesting mannitol in large quantities, Segal cautions. More testing must be done to determine dosages that would be both effective and safe. And in an update in 2022, we report on a gum, based on Ayurvedic medicine, that can stop your sweet tooth.
Davide Martello transported a self-made grand piano from his home town in Konstanz, Germany to Taksim Square in Istanbul with peace on his mind. Previously the scene of total mayhem, the square turned into a one-man recital as the young pianist stunned onlookers with an original composition called “Lightsoldiers.”
The Middle East’s leading clean energy developer, Masdar has launched the very first renewable energy plant to be built in The Seychelles – the 6MW Port Victoria Wind Farm.
A corporate natural foods store in the United States has captured a photograph of what their shelves would look like if bee populations completely collapse. Whole Foods teamed up with the Xerces Society, a wildlife conservation group, to illustrate just how important bees are to our food supply in the hopes of raising greater awareness.
Guest writer Brian Blum is an owner of a Better Place car in Israel. Now faced with uncertainty as to how he can charge his car for long range drives, he says that Better Place failed because drivers bought a car, but really it’s more like a personal bus.
Saudi Arabian investment in 76 new environmentally savvy construction projects is estimated to exceed $26 billion, according to Faisal Al-Fadl, Secretary General of the Saudi Green Building Forum (SGB Forum). Over half of those projects are based in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Thirty-three people are dead from MERS, a coronavirus that the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling a “threat to the entire world”. MERS, for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, is a newly discovered virus that causes severe respiratory infection.
The city of Amman in Jordan where I live is experiencing a deteriorating level of municipal services, most notably in garbage collection and public space cleaning. The hills of the city are heaped with trash, and the problem extends to other towns and across the countryside. Even Jordan’s natural jewels are tarnished.
Have news to share? Renewable energy news, architectural, artificial intelligence, biotech, sustainable design ideas, eco-architecture, green travel?
Email us: [email protected]
Get important news delivered directly to your inbox and stay connected!
© 2007 to 2026 Green Prophet, All Rights Reserved
