Sudan’s Mohammad Baloola says his invention can eradicate an emerging Gulf disease: diabetes.
As a biomedical engineering student at Ajman University of Science and Technology, Mohammad Baloola found homegrown inspiration for his final year project. Four members of his family are diabetic, a collective muse for his ingenious artificial pancreas. The pancreas is the body’s sole provider of insulin, its functionality critcally linked to diabetes.
From urbanisation in Morocco to lake shrinkage in Iran, these shocking NASA photos prove how this region is in dramatic ecological flux.
Unless you have been living in a consumer-induced coma, it will not have escaped your attention that the world is under serious environmental stress. And a large chunk of that stress has been human-induced. Whilst the exact influence of human behaviour is hard to measure, the carbon we keep pumping into the atmosphere is definitely not helping.
Indeed we are seeing more floods, droughts, melting ice, desertification and a continued gutting of our seas. The Middle East is no different and NASA has the pictures to prove it. So brace yourself – this is not going to be pretty.
Turkey has started exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the town of Iskele in northern Cyprus (red arrow), angering the government of the Greek-controlled southern region.
The Turkish Petroleum Corporation began onshore drilling operations on April 26 at a 3,000-meter-deep well, named “Türkyurdu-1” (“Turkish Homeland”), which Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız called a “force for peace in Cyprus.”
So far, however, the well has proven to be just the opposite.
Few ideas are more absurd to me than this: because people refuse to cut back on beef consumption, catastrophic levels of methane are being released into the atmosphere each year. Even Forbes wrote in a recent report that cutting back on meat is one of the fastest ways we can slash our carbon emissions and slow down the pace of global warming.
One cow produces up to 120kg of methane each year, and there are 1.5 billion of them on the planet. This is serious, because as we demonstrated in Giant Plumes of Gurgling Methane Could Fastrack Planetary Warming, methane is 21 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, and by 2050, livestock production is expected to double.
Black smoke billows out of Karantina dump tire fire, near Beirut this weekend. Green groups think the fire was set to pull metal from the rubber tires.
Landfills and garbage dumps in Lebanon have had their share of environmental issues. This reality is an ongoing problem for environmentalists there, and involves giant, smelly garbage mounds in cities like Sidon, as well as garbage trucks dumping their loads straight into the sea.
Giant landfills often contain all kinds of waste items, including discarded appliances, construction materials, and especially old tires form both both cars, trucks, and buses.
Twelve new UAE graduates have been employed to work with the Masdar Institute.
In 2010, Emiratis made up only 13% of their own country’s population. The oil industry and Dubai’s construction boom attracted millions of foreigners, including Indian laborers that just two years ago comprised a whopping 50% of the population, resulting in a tragic dilution of local culture and tradition.
In an interview last year, the Green Sheikh identified restoring the Emirati identity as an important priority and the Masdar Institute is leading the charge with Madeem – a sustainable, skill-based Emirazation Program.
Researchers in Israel have developed a new green plastic for irrigation pipes
Drip irrigation is currently one of the most effective ways for farmers and gardeners to save water. But the method relies on plastic pipes and routinely creates non-recyclable waste. Recently Israeli scientists and professors from the Plastics Engineering department of Shenkar Art School in Tel Aviv collaborated with drip irrigation company Netafim to invent a new biodegradable plastic.This plastic, made from substances such as sugar, corn or lactic acid, is durable enough to make pipes for drip irrigation and yet is still completely compostable.
“When they are put in the ground bio-organisms in the ground begin to dismantle them and thus closes the circle of nature. The goal is to avoid polymers produced by fossil carbon,” said Prof. Shmuel Kenig, dean of Shenkar College of Engineering.
Creating this plastic substance has taken nearly a decade. Developers expect it will take several years until their product can be mass-produced. But when it does hit the market it has the potential to revolutionize sustainable agriculture.
Today, about 40 percent of water used in agricultural irrigation is wasted because of unsustainable practices. Drip irrigation has proven to be among the most feasible, water conserving methods for commercial agriculture. But the byproduct of used, plastic piping that cannot be recycled and needs to be ripped out of the ground each season, is currently one of the method’s greatest downfalls.
According to Avi Schweitzer, VP of Development at Netafim: “The patent application is still far away…It will take a few years before we reach commercial distribution.”
Ukranian president Viktor Yanukovych dedicates construction of new protective cover for damaged Chernobyl reactors
To mark the 26th anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accident, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych presided at a ceremony at the site of the ruined nuclear plant in which a new construction project is being launched. The country will build a new protective cover over the plant that when completed will enable the safe dismantling of the destroyed reactors which still contain “hot spots” of radiation contamination.
A recent Israeli Supreme Court decision has temporarily barred the shipment of 90 monkeys to research labs in the United States. Mazor Farm, where the monkeys are being farmed, must now provide documentation proving it operates within Israel’s legal framework for captive animals.
Many people imagine the typical Israeli farm as a peaceful, lush, agrarian landscape. In the case of Mazor Farm, they would be wrong.
Founded in 1991, this breeding facility for laboratory monkeys has become a primary target of Israel’s animal rights community. Mazor Farm receives monkeys caught in the wild predominantly from the island of Mauritius. These animals are then bred and the offspring sold to laboratories around the world for use in various types of research. The facility currently holds an estimated 1,500 long tailed macaque monkeys.
Spencer Tunick is one of the world’s most celebrated and controversial photographers with no fewer than 75 large-scale nude photo shoots under his proverbial belt. The New York-based artist has amassed thousands of volunteers to pose nude in dozens of symbolic locations across the planet, from Brazil to Ireland and most recently in Israel.
To the horror of some and delight of thousands, Tunick’s latest shoot brought the Dead Sea’s shrinking state to the awareness of 15 million people around the world. And now it’s possible for collectors to place bids on an 11×14 C-print of his remarkable images, which are valued at $2,000 each.
DIY, make your own chemical-free hand and body lotion.
At the end of our post on 5 natural ways to keep your skin beautiful, we note how important it is to moisturize. Now, take a good squint at the ingredients on your moisturizer’s label. There’s petroleum in one form or another. Alcohol. One or more kind of parabens, a preservative that has a weak estrogen-like effect.
Mercury – the American Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about high levels of mercury in skin products, as of this past March. To enhance the fragrance, phthalates; chemicals that may act as hormone disruptors.
To top the soup off, there’s retinyl palmitate, derived from Vitamin A and which may increase skin cancer risk when the moisturized skin is exposed to the sun.
Yes, commercial moisturizers are so lovely and fragrant. But as with so many industrial products, you pay for fast satisfaction with your health. We’ve written about scary things in skin-care products in the past, and here’s an extensive list. It’s so easy to avoid the chemicals and make your own silky, fragrant moisturizer that it’s silly not to. All it takes is four ingredients, a small jar and some ziploc bags.
Natural Hand and Body Moisturizer
Makes 2 cups
Ingredients:
1 cup good-quality water or strong, strained herb tea. Suggested herbs: chamomile, marigold, lavender.
¾ cup sweet almond, avocado, or olive oil
3 tablespoons grated beeswax (or use shea butter if vegan)
5 drops essential oil of lavender or other favored essential oil (rose, jasmine and ylang ylang, while expensive, are heavenly)
Equipment:
A standing blender or a stick blender
If using a stick blender, you will need a jar or bowl with a 3- cup capacity.
1 small jar for daily use, washed in very hot water and absolutely dry
Small zip-loc or freezer bags
Rubber spatula
An improvised double-boiler: one smaller pot on top of a larger one containing water half-way up the top pot.
Put the beeswax and the oil in the smaller pot. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat to allow the wax to melt gently. When the wax has incorporated into the oil, remove the pot from the hot water and set aside.
Put the water in the blender jar or bowl. Blend it for a few minutes to agitate it.
Slowly add the wax/oil mixture to the water, blending meanwhile. Keep blending until you have obtained a smooth emulsion: this may take several minutes.
Blend in the essential oil.
Cover the cream with a clean cloth. Allow it to cool to room temperature.
Use the spatula to fill the small jar for daily use. Transfer the bulk of the cream to as many small zip-loc bags as it takes. Seal the bags shut and freeze the cream. Thaw it out as needed to replace the contents of the small jar.
Notes:
Wash and dry the jar thoroughly before filling it with newly-thawed cream.
The fragrance of the essential oils made fade with freezing. In that case, add a drop or two – no more – to each thawed batch.
As there’s no preservative in this cream, store the jar for daily use in the refrigerator. Very refreshing to apply cold cream on a hot day!
This cream is considered too heavy to use as a facial moisturizer, but some people use it as such and like it.
More on natural beauty from Green Prophet:
It has been three decades since Jordan’s national grid has seen substantial infrastructural changes, but the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has recently donated $1.15 million to the kingdom so that it can explore the option of implementing a “smart” upgrade. As new renewable, nuclear and oil-shale power plants are slated to come online in the next decade, a digital electrical system would enhance energy efficiency and safety, writes the Jordan Times. Hit the jump to learn more.
For years, the goldmine for Israeli cleantech companies has been the American economy. And as Israel deploys innovative technologies across the Atlantic, it is increasingly breaking ground and gaining profits ahead of American companies.
Just last week, shares of the Reno, Nevada-based unit of Israeli geothermal company, Ormat Technologies (NYSE: ORA), rose more than 2.7 percent to $18.78 in the US stock exchange yesterday, the most since Feb. 24, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The rise came from a new $61.2 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract the company signed on April 25–for two air-cooled Ormat Energy Converters that will be installed at an unspecified North American geothermal plant–that has traders expecting company earnings per share to jump by 30 cents over 2012 and 2013, according to Avondale Partners LLC, interviewed in the article.
Math helps us understand how people flow, and just maybe it could help Hajj pilgrims stay safe.
A Californian jogs to the beach. Coming towards him on the sidewalk is a Texan. Unless one steps aside they’ll collide. Quick: which way does the jogger move? If this is in Europe or the USA, heavy odds he moves to his right. In Asia (with Asians), the slide would likely be left. A crazy-making observation, and it’s not connected to driving: Irish drive on the left side of the road, but they’ll step to the right on the pavement.
The folks at Berlin’s Max Planck Institute (MPI) say this behavior is based on an improbable marriage of psychology and mathematical probability. When we correctly guess another’s intentions, we get a positive subconscious boost. We’ll probably choose the same move when the same situation arises; get another subliminal “high-five”.
As part of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was restored to Egyptian control – an event that the country celebrated with some fanfare on April 25th, 2012. On that same day, the Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri witnessed two separate development plans that were signed between the Social Development Fund (SFD) and governors of both the Northern and Southern Sinai governorates.
The main goal of these agreements is to extend water networks and create jobs – a welcome move for a largely neglected area of the country. But Sinai development has also become a hot pitching point for presidential candidates, and environmentalists are worried.
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