Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Adults who are 21 or older can carry up to 30 grams. This amount applies to personal use within Pittsburgh’s limits. Carrying more could lead to confiscation or legal action. Staying under the limit avoids problems during any public stop.
In the study, the scientists didn’t just test one plant compound at a time. They tested two traditional Chinese medicine compounds together — luteolin (from flowers like honeysuckle and chrysanthemum) and astragaloside IV (from astragalus root, Huang Qi). These plants have been combined in Chinese herbal formulas for centuries to help the body recover from injury and inflammation.
A new collaboration between luxury brand Coach and textile reuse pioneer Bank & Vogue attempts to stitch those two worlds together: high fashion and the global textile waste stream.
Stepping up to democratize the moon is an EU-funded company, Deep Space Energy, which has just raised more than $1 million USD as a seed fund to help it create energy generators on the moon.
Egypt topped the world Environmental Performance Index for the Middle East and North Africa region, followed closely by Israel
Every two years, Yale University in collaboration with Columbia University release the world Environmental Performance Index which ranks most countries environmental performance. This year, Egypt topped the list for the MENA region, followed closely by Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In the wider context, however, the region is still trailing far behind with Egypt making it only to the ‘modest performers’ list. Egypt was ranked the 60th most environmental country with an EPI score of 55.18 – Switzerland which topped the chart scored 76.69.
As an alternative light fixture, Israeli designer Marina Rudinsky lights up a string of loose tea strainers.
Items found in the kitchen are often endowed with unusual shapes and holes, and many a designer have found ways to convert kitchen tools into light fixtures. Pasta strainers are an obvious choice, but small, delicate loose tea strainers pose a good option too and Israeli designer Marina Rudinsky has assembled them in a luminous fashion. (Tea paraphernalia has been upcycled in other ways as well, with tea wrappers being masterfully crafted into origami pieces.)
Making fuel subsidies a thing of the past may ‘half the global carbon target’, but politics is a real barrier to change in rich gulf nations
Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels could get us half way to meeting our global carbon saving goal – that’s what the International Energy Agency chief economist Faith Birol believes. In a recent statement Birol said that IEA research shows a subsidies phase-out would avoid 750m tonnes of CO2 a year by 2015, potentially rising to 2.6 gigatonnes by 2035. That could provide half of the carbon savings needed to stop dangerous levels of climate change. However, it’s hard to see how Gulf nations would ever consider scrapping subsidies which effectively keep citizens content and compliant.
While snorkeling in the Red Sea just before Valentine’s Day, a Swiss scientist came across a 3-legged turtle.
Ivo Blöchliger was snorkeling in the increasingly vulnerable Red Sea just two days before Valentine’s Day when he came across a 3-legged turtle. The turtle was swimming in front of the Swisscare Reef in Nuweiba in South Sinai. The Swiss scientist proceeded to capture just over four minutes of what seems like a perfectly content turtle swimming peacefully. A few years ago, a You Tube clip depicting a turtle equipped with a prosthetic wheel made the rounds. Do you think this turtle needs a new leg?
Inspired by our rueful post on skin care, Miriam offers 5 easy and totally natural ways to keep your face shining. Looking for a natural advisor? Search no more!
Think of people you love – is it the light in their eyes, or the way they smile, that warms your heart, or is it their perfect appearance? Right, it’s their human beauty and warmth, not a resemblance to some fashion model. Still, everyone wants to look well. Here are some tips for preserving your natural beauty naturally.
1. Keep your skin clean, but never use commercial soap on your face. Most commercial bath soaps are really detergents. Buy handcrafted natural soap. Nowadays you can find handmade soap in drugstores and supermarkets as well as in health food stores.
Or use brown sugar for a gentle scrub that will clean but not dry or damage your skin: take a teaspoon of brown sugar in your damp hand and gently rub it all over your wet face and neck. The grains roll any dirt or grease out and the minerals in the dissolving sugar clean and nourish your skin. This is best done in the shower.
For oily skin and acne, you may use the sugar scrub twice a week. People with dry skin may do this once weekly. Those with delicate or damaged skin should not scrub, but should wipe their face with a soft cloth soaked in warm herbal tea or oatmeal water: 1 tsp. oatmeal in 1 cup water – boiled briefly, strained, and applied warm, not hot.
2. Treat your skin to a stimulating mask with once a week. Mix 1 tablespoon honey with 1 tablespoon mashed avocado, banana, or finely-grated apple. For oily skin, add 1 tablespoon yogurt or kefir and a thick slice of cucumber. For very dry skin, blend 2 tablespoons almond, jojoba, or good olive oil with 2 tablespoons mashed fruit – avocado is especially good.
Apply to face and neck. Sit down with your feet up for 20 minutes. The mask will dry and you will feel it tighten. Rinse off carefully with warm water and pat your skin dry. Again, this is most practical just before a shower.
3. Use only warm water on the skin, never hot. Hot water dries the skin out and makes wrinkles. Forage for skin-friendly flowers to make a tonic facial rinse: purple mallow flowers, orange marigolds, yellow sow-thistle flowers and all yellow wild flowers except for mustard. Pick the flowers in season (now is the time in the Middle East) and dry them for future use. If that’s not realistic for you, use chamomile tea bags or buy your herbs from the health food store.
4. Drinking enough water is essential to flexible, healthy skin. Boost your water power by drinking at least one cup of demulcent tea made with one of these wild herbs: plantain leaves, mallow leaves, hollyhock leaves, chickweed. Ratios are 1 tablespoon chopped herb to 1 cup boiling water. Cover and allow to infuse for 20 minutes. Strain and drink.
5. Eliminate regularly. Lack of sleep, a hangover, or constipation inevitably lead to dingy skin. One advantage to the herbal teas recommended above is that they provide slippery demulcent properties that soothe the digestive track and keep you regular.
And a bonus tip: Always, always moisturize. Learn to make your own natural lotions – there are hundreds of sites that teach how – or use plain almond or olive oil in a pinch. Commercial moisturizers promise all kinds of miraculous improvements, but they inevitably have preservatives and fillers that don’t do you any favors in the end. Good-quality oil – a few drops rubbed into your moist face – will protect and moisturize just as well, even if it doesn’t smell as glamorous. Whichever way you choose, never expose your face to sun or wind without protective moisturizer on it.
Things you should know about commercial skin products:
Late winter in the Middle East brings lower prices in the market
It’s strawberry time again in the Middle East. The sweet red berry’s price has come down to the point where even a careful shopper can allow herself a little indulgence. But let’s wait another 4 to 6 weeks for prices to fall even more; then we can economically make strawberry preserves to last the whole year.
All citrus continue in full flush. Big pomelos with thick rinds, thin-skinned clementines, oranges (see our Moroccan orange salad recipe), lemons – including the little, round lemons so good for pickling in salt – are still abundant and inexpensive. Kumquats are practically falling off the trees in gardens, and in the shuk their price is reasonable.
Vegetables
Artichokes, one of the first vegetables known to mankind
Artichokes are in the markets and coming down in price, but still not in full season. Red and green cabbages are excellent and inexpensive. All the nightshade family vegetables are looking handsome, with fair prices: eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, red and white potatoes.
Root vegetables are always best in winter, when plants store most nutrition in their underground parts: carrots, kohlrabi, beets, turnips and radishes. Now we see black Spanish radishes, daikon and other white radishes as well as the usual round red ones. Celeriac and parsley root are excellent now – peel and put them in your soup, or roast them as you would potatoes. Jerusalem artichokes, full and lovely with their brown/pink coloring, are not cheap but worth buying for an excellent roast vegetable side dish, or soup.
Zucchini and all squashes are at reasonable prices although not at their very best. Pumpkins, however, are good, and not expensive now. Try a soup of pumpkin and squashes, with a bay leaf, some cilantro, an onion and a medium potato. Remove the bay leaf and blend the soup before serving. Simple and comforting.
Slender hot-house cucumbers are always stacked up high on the vendor’s tables. Indeed I wonder how Middle Easterners would survive without their tomatoes and cucumbers. Both are at surprisingly good prices, given that they’re really hot-weather plants. Yellow and red cherry tomatoes, probably hot-house produce, are good but expensive.
Local garlic isn’t worth buying now, being last year’s crop – withered and sprouting. Yet if you’re determined to avoid imported garlic which may be processed with chemicals, it’s a cook’s only choice. I’m still cooking with sprouted garlic – as long as it’s sound inside (not rotten), it still works. Onions are cheap but have to be chosen carefully at this time: most are also sprouting.
Fennel, cauliflower and broccoli are handsome and worth buying, even at the slightly higher price than January’s.
Asparagus, never cheap but now quite attractive, has started its season. Mushrooms seem to be in season all the time nowadays – probably because they’re cultivated indoors. String beans and flat Italian green beans are good now – another slightly expensive vegetable treat.
Herbs in season
Fenugreek, watercress, sour grass (schav), parsley, bitter wormwood (sheba) coriander, dill, mint, Thai basil, tarragon, chives, scallions. Always displayed together with Swiss chard and lettuces, the herb displays at the shuk fill up big tables.
Lettuces are varied and good: cos (Arab) lettuce, iceberg, ruffled purple and green. Celery stalks are fat and good.
Avocados, which we treat as a vegetable although they’re a tree fruit, are very abundant and cheap. Now’s the time for guacamole.
Fruits in Season
Fruit: There are still a surprising amount of beat-up pomegranates. Last season’s big food fad was pomegranate seeds, which is probably why there’s surplus now. Bananas are handsome and sweet. Apples are slightly higher priced. Pears are still in, but not very good – at least, the ones I’ve seen. Persimmons are in season and their high Vitamin A content makes it worth eating a couple every week.
Persimmons
Kiwis are also in full season, but are expensive. Passion fruit is in the shuk now. There are some grape varieties and melons, but unless you have a serious craving, they’re best left for their proper seasons. The yellow, angled carambola fruit is to be found, but being a specialty fruit, is more a treat than part of the daily diet. There are plenty of very small pineapples, each quite cheap but only yielding enough meat for 1-2 servings. The most worthwhile fruit right now is citrus.
Forager’s Notes for February
Wild mustard has turned empty fields and lots yellow now. These weeks are the best for picking wild edibles and medicinals. Pick now before they become infested with warm-weather snails and caterpillars: nettles, mallows, plantain leaves, wild yellow and white mustard, cleavers, chickweed, henbit, chicory, shepherd’s purse, sow thistle, milk thistle, wild marigolds, wild beets, fumaria, herb Robert. In hilly cold regions you may find early dandelions.
Nettles make a great rinse for the hair and are replenishing in tea. Pick them before they flower like this.
Avid photographers may want to go on field trips to capture citrus and almond blooms on the trees. A lovely thing to do with citrus flowers is to stir them into a little honey. Close the jar loosely – the juices in the blooms will ferment on contact with the honey and you may get a pop! when you next open the jar. Leave the honey alone to infuse for a week or two – it will be deliciously flavored with the flowers then.
Start looking for navelwort if you make your own moisturizers – infusion of navelwort is wonderful in lotions. Easy wild skin care recipe: collect all the yellow flowers except for mustard: pour 1 cup boiling water over a good handful of them: allow to steep 4 hours. Strain, warm up gently (do not boil again) and use the tea as a cleansing facial rinse. Pat dry. (You do not want mustard flower tea on your face or in your eyes!)
Seasonal recipes using local ingredients on Green Prophet:
When professional photographer Alex Tricani sent this image, I couldn’t get past the giant red craters on my face.
I’ve always been incredibly lazy about beauty. This isn’t because I don’t dream of being an illustrious goddess who rides into the sunset with an equally exotic suitor, but because tending to my mind and soul has always taken priority. Every so often I’ll spend money on a nice haircut, but most of the time I do as little as possible to retain my youthful looks.
This philosophy used to work pretty well for me and my friends were jealous of my unblemished skin – until I lived in Viet Nam for four months. My skin has never recovered from Ho Chi Minh City’s pollution, and I’ve done a terrible job of bringing it back to life. Don’t be like me. Avoid the following five things to keep your skin looking so much better than mine.
The Stars of Science reality TV show would be so much more exciting if it spurred sustainable ideas.
Perhaps we shouldn’t begrudge the Arab World’s first serious reality TV show, particularly since Stars of Science was designed to encourage more youth in the region to pursue science and technology. But it’s hard to turn a blind eye to some of the inventions coming from this show when the Qatari government is spending tens of millions of dollars to produce it.
Like Abu Dhabi, where Masdar City – the Middle East’s most ambitious study in sustainable development – was born, oil-rich Qatar is building a lagging knowledge base for the day that oil runs out, but that’s where their similarities end. While Abu Dhabi has been voted the “greenest” of Gulf countries, Qatar’s western-ish televised competition has yet to produce genuinely sustainable innovations.
The German renewable energy giant Siemens Energy has just secured its first wind turbine orders within Africa, with orders for two new wind farms going up in Morocco.
Siemens will supply turbines with a total capacity of 100 MW, 50 MW to the Haouma Wind Farm project in Northern Morocco, and 50 MW to Foum El Oued in Southern Morocco. Siemens has a 50 year history in Morocco, and supplied the electrical infrastructure for Morocco’s 60 MW-Essaouira wind farm (shown), so it would be natural for Morocco to turn to the engineering giant now that it is launching its renewable energy sector.
On a recent trip to Morocco (during which I had mentally prepared myself that I’d settle for eating vegetable tagines and vegetarian couscous the whole time), I was pleasantly surprised to discover a farm-to-table organic vegetarian/vegan cafe with two locations in Marrakech and one in Essaouira. And after visiting two of the three locations, I was even happier to discover that they were delicious.
Majestic Mt. Ağri presides over Turkey’s Kars region, one of the world’s richest biodiversity areas and the entrance to a new protected area in eastern Anatolia.
The large mammals of Turkey aren’t doing so well these days. As new developments have eaten up more and more of their habitat, leaving them stranded in island forests, their food sources have dwindled and their encounters with human predators have risen.
For the past four years, Çağan Şekercioğlu has been lobbying the Turkish government to create a protected corridor for the country’s diverse wildlife, with the support of various international foundations. Last month, Turkey’s Ministry of Forestry and Water Works finally approved a plan for the corridor.
According to PCHR, poor sewage infrastructure in Gaza poses a threat to “the safety and security of Palestinians – especially children”
On the afternoon of 11th of February, Ahmed al-Zein, 10, from Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip went out with his friends to hunt birds. They made their way to a sewage water basin near the Bedouin Village where the birds gather. Approximately an hour later, Ahmed’s family learnt that he had fallen into the sewage basin. His family rushed to the basin along with crews of civil defense workers, who managed to find his body three hours later.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is now demanding an investigation into the drowning and for those responsible for providing protective measures around the basin to be identified and held responsible.
As increasing levels of greenhouse gases choke the planet and giant plumes of methane fast-track global warming, glaciers and ice caps melt, leaving all low-lying and coastal developments vulnerable to rising sea levels. Take a look at the beautiful Malacca Straits Mosque in Malaysia. It was propped up on concrete pillars, but how will it fare in a few decades when the Strait of Malacca is one meter higher?
In the video below the jump, Maltese hunters are depicted shooting Eagles, Falcons, Vultures and other protected bird species.
The Avian Influenza outbreak had at least one positive outcome in Egypt: it kept both local and migratory birds safe from hunters. But last year in December the government re-opened the country to what seems to be a permanent hunting season without any kind of regulatory oversight, leaving Maltese hunters and others free to conduct wild killing sprees that frequently result in the deaths of untold numbers of birds.
This video was released by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) to raise awareness of what one conservationist called “crazy fanatics” from Malta, who aren’t hunting as much as they’re slaughtering even endangered species.
After hosting a ten day interdisciplinary workshop exploring environmental studies, manufacturing technologies and parametric design, Shenkar will be holding a symposium about new green habitable environments in the desert (and specifically in the Negev desert).
Egypt topped the world Environmental Performance Index for the Middle East and North Africa region, followed closely by Israel
