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.
African wild asses in a Basel Switzerland zoo. Perhaps the only hope for their survival of this animal which once roamed North Africa.
Wild animals in North Africa and which are/were also found in the Middle East are threatened: there is the Arabian Oryx,a species of leopards and even baby crocodiles. One particular hoofed mammal, the African Wild Ass (Equus asinus), which zoologists say is the ancestor of the domestic donkey, is now considered to be critically endangered and down to less than 600 of its kind in the wild, although a few hundred now live in captivity.
Researchers at Tel Aviv University have just developed the next generation of superconductors, that have the potential to revolutionize energy transfer, carrying about 40 times more electricity than today’s copper wire, in a move that changes the financials of electricity costs completely.
According to Eureka Alert, Dr. Boaz Almog and Mishael Azoulay working under Professor Guy Deutscher at the Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University have developed a new kind of superconducting wire for use in high-powered cables, made not using copper, but using fibers made of single crystals of sapphire.
Iran saw more protests and demonstrations this weekend as green activists call for the protection of the UNESCO-listed salt lake Orumieh
Undeterred by the repressive reaction of the Iranian government- who beat up and violently dispersed environmental protestors a week ago– campaigners gathered again in their thousands this Saturday to call for the protection of the shrinking salt lake Orumieh. Located in north-west Iran, the lake is a UNESCO biosphere reserve and is believed to be one of the largest salt lakes in the world. However, its survival is under threat due to government mismanagement and drought which has led to the halving of its surface area – some experts fear that it could dry out completely in the next few years if nothing changes and efforts to conserve the lake don’t materalise.
Ashley Fruno of ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) speaks to Green Prophet about the difficulties of promoting animal rights in the Middle East
When Ashley Fruno was seven she found a vein in her chicken nugget whilst eating at McDonald’s. Up until that point, she had no idea that the food on her plate was in any way related to the animals raised in her neighbour’s farm which had fascinated her so much. She began to cut out meat from her diet and became a vegetarian by the age of 13, later on when she learnt more about the diary and egg industries she became a vegan. “It was an easy choice for me to get involved with PETA,” Fruno tells me, “I knew from an early age that animal rights would be a big part of my life.”
Since then, Fruno has worked to promote PETA in the Middle East and was even arrested in Jordan for organizing a ‘lettuce lady’ protest. “We were there to promote vegetarianism, not hurt anyone or break the law but they made us feel like criminals,” she says. Although PETA doesn’t have a Middle East affiliate they work with local groups in the region and have held protests and demonstrations in the region- most recently in Cairo, Dubai, Beirut, Damascus, and Amman. In the following Q&A, I quized Fruno on everything from the role religion plays in their campaigns in the Middle East, how the internet is changing people’s attitudes to why PETA activists were attacked by a mob of KFC workers in Cairo.
Yisrael Borochov and his band the East West Ensemble featured at the Jaffa TED event
Green Prophet is happy to support TEDx events organized in the Middle East. While the event today in Jaffa, TEDxJaffa Desire to know The Other is not specifically environment focused, many of the attendees – who are just as important as speakers – come from the clean tech background and have a desire to know more about environmental issues.
Here is more on why I got involved in TEDxJaffa: It’s really easy to sit at your kitchen table in Brooklyn, Toronto, Vancouver, or Berkley and shoot off comments about the Middle East conflict. It’s harder when you live in it. I do. The Middle East is my home. I live in Israel. I live in Jaffa, Israel — a city next to Tel Aviv populated by Muslims, Christians and Jews. Some of us are atheists, some traditional and others defiantly religious. I chose to live here and it’s a crazy place. It’s not crazy because people here care about their religion, enough to fight over it or talk about it incessantly. It’s crazy because of its improbability and its diversity.
In Jaffa, some Muslims call themselves Palestinians. Some Christians call themselves Israeli Palestinian Christian Arabs. The Jews are just Israelis of course, unless they come from Arab countries and they are Sephardic or those from Europe say they are Ashkenazi. You can find escaped donkeys galloping down the streets at midnight. You can find the best European chocolate cake beside a working man’s morning hummous joint.
Missing a lot of environmental awareness, Jaffa has a rich culture and it has its charm. Its own rhythm is marked by the five calls to prayer, with the one at sunset telling my baby daughter (who is Jewish) it’s time to go to sleep. It’s got a roughness, and sharp corners, and just when you think it’s too hard to handle, you’ll catch a new smell reminding you of some other time from our collective memory when civilization began, somewhere around here.
But more than people know, Jaffa — the city of the Bible where Jonah disembarks from before getting swallowed by the whale and spat out on shore near Nineveh — is a lens through which the world can understand cultural diversity, and cultural freedom in Israel. Politics aside, please.
Today at the East West House the TEDxJaffa event will be held under the theme the Desire to Know the Other. There is a strong line-up of people from Jaffa, like my musician husband Yisrael Borochov, but also people from Israel and the Palestinian Authority who will tell their personal and professional stories on working to know the other. One speaker survived a terror attack and was afraid to look in the mirror to see how much of her face was left; one speaker will be a successful Palestinian policeman turned businessman; and if you log on to our simulcast today (or see the videos later) you’ll meet Haya Samir, an Israeli Muslim whose family came to Israel as political refugees from Egypt. Raised as a Jew, she found out as a young woman that she was in fact a Muslim.
Haya is an Israeli diva. And we are so glad to know her. Today she will sing songs of the pioneering days in Israel – Debka Fantasia – before 1948 when young Jews met Bedouin and Arab shepherds. These pioneers longed for a culture that combined, not defined, the Middle East with European values. I think this is what the people in the Arab uprisings are coming to terms with.
Would you like to get off your chair and dance to a little music with us LIVE? Maybe meet someone whose views might change your worldview about the Middle East conflict?
The simulcast starts at at 9 am EST time today Wednesday if you are in New York City. Log on at the TEDxJaffa site to see it. Officially in Israel the event starts at 3.
Alli Meets Aladdin
The idea for TEDx in Jaffa started with my friend Alli Magidsohn, who is producing and curating the event. The fellow Jaffinian, who is from LA, was inspired to fulfill this dream after an encounter with a man (a genie?) in Sinai named Aladdin.
Her words: “We felt lucky to have the opportunity to meet and form a new friendship in an overall context that might have otherwise limited us as enemies and spoke about the area’s conflicts, spirituality, Love, and many other things together. His perspectives broadened my mind and this encounter made me realize that as an American Jew living in Israel, even opposite an Muslim Egyptian man, there is still so much more that we have in common than there is that separates us.
“Other encounters in Sinai, Israel and Palestine led to further ‘broadening’, deeper respect and more curiosity, and TEDxJaffa is the manifestation of this process of personal expansion. ‘The Desire to know The Other’, for me – not necessarily for the event’s speakers – isn’t about explicit things like politics or peace or coexistence, it’s really about that desire to look from the inside, outwards, and to try to take in, understand, or somehow be enriched by exposing oneself to another person’s experience.
Log in folks at 9 am if you are New York or Toronto. All other cities: the event’s at 3 PM + 7 hours EST. Link from here.
No need for irrigation, the Groasis Waterboxx yields plant growth in deserts and on rocks
Have you ever wanted to grow trees without actually planting them? The Groasis Waterboxx is a Jordanian invention that will do just that. Launched in June 2011, the Groasis nurtures a sapling’s growth without the hands-on fuss of shovelling soil and topping up water. With hopes to see it distributed throughout famine struck East Africa, the Groasis Waterboxx could be one solution to natural food shortages.
Breast feeding moms have lower blood pressure and behave more aggressively compared to women who are bottle-feeding their children, suggesting that breast-feeding dampens the body’s typical stress response to fear, new research suggests.
Women who breast-feed are far more likely to demonstrate a “mama bear” effect — aggressively protecting their infants and themselves — than women who bottle-feed their babies or non-mothers, suggests a new study in the September issue of Psychological Science. The small-scale study conducted in the US investigated something known as ‘lactation aggression’ or ‘maternal defense’ in mammals. Previously, we’ve documented benefits of breastfeeding, religious attitudes towards the practice, as well as tips to breastfeed in public in the Middle East.
Zam Zam holy water in Mecca is contaminated with arsenic, but researchers in the US have discovered a ridiculously simple technology that can render contaminated water safe to drink.
Millions of people in the developing world are frequently hapless victims of arsenic poisoning. This is not because they have angry spouses, but because arsenic is an odorless, colorless, and tasteless compound derived from soil and rock deposits, as well as agricultural and industrial sources, that enters the water stream undetected. Even Zam Zam holy water in Mecca is contaminated. Rather than attempt to overhaul the entire drinking water system of these millions of people, Tsanagurayi Tongesayi Ph.D from Monmouth University presented a low-cost, ridiculously simple solution at a recent American Chemical Society meeting in Colorado that uses plastic (our nemesis) to remove arsenic from contaminated water.
A vocational yeshiva in Jerusalem meets a third of its own energy needs.
The Jerusalem Post reports that the Boy’s Town rooftop solar panels have been generating 40 kilowatts per hour since July. Boy’s Town is a vocational yeshiva in Jerusalem for students with socioeconomic challenges. The electricity generated on the school’s rooftop is sold directly to the Israel Electric Corporation for a reduction on the school’s monthly electric bill. Suntech’s offer to sell solar panels to Israel coincides with the all the new electricity in the Israeli air; maybe similar future projects will take advantage of it.
Although long in fulfillment, the project is now generating other tangible benefits. School officials, viewing electricity production via computerized monitors, know how much the school economizes in money ( about NIS 12.000 monthly) and in carbon emissions.
Everyone hates needles, but don’t be a chicken if you want to vaccinate them against the new avian flu
If you’ve been reading the news you’ll know that there is a deadly outbreak of the avian flu virus circling the globe again. This one appears to be deadlier than every, UN health authorities are reporting. The new avian flu virus the H5N1 is rearing its head in the Middle East in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. And I bet in other locales –– places way too busy with political reform and uprisings to take stock of the problem.
For small time egg farmers like myself (see how I made a chicken coop), I am curious: should I be inoculating my birds? I asked, and the UN’s press office contacted a senior vet: it is the prerogative of each country to decide what action to take.
Dear Ms Kloosterman,
FAO Senior Animal Health Officer Jan Slingenbergh has this to say:
“Vaccination in different poultry species and production systems, against the background of a continually changing H5N1 and other Influenza A viruses risk scenario in poultry, is the prerogative of the public veterinary services of the respective country.
FAO keeps a focus on the international / global dynamics and ensuing broad health management ramifications.”
So the answer? It depends. Egg farmers, small or big, should be in touch with their local veterinary services in their respective countries. Read more about the avian flu here. The picture above, by the way, is of me as a young girl. Egg farming.
The revolution in Egypt has left a power vacuum that is allowing unchecked development to take over a once thriving, quiet dive spot.
Apart from the Egyptian revolution itself, a powerful culmination of civil disobedience that roused thousands of somnambulant citizens from decades of political apathy, it’s still hard to see in what way this grand moment in history has been good for that country. While the country attempts to work through its political uncertainty, and as funds that were set aside to help environmental organizations enforce regulations dry up, unscrupulous developers are exploiting the attendant power vacuum with projects that take nary an environmental or social impact into consideration. Just south of its border with Israel on the Sinai peninsula, Dahab is an immensely popular Red Sea dive spot that is in serious jeopardy of losing its precious coral reefs and rustic atmosphere to a series of crowded resorts.
Preserve plenty peppers to produce a plethora of piquant pickles.
The late-summer peppers are excellent right now, firm-fleshed and plump, with smooth skins and that robust flavor that marries so well with vinegar. Why not pickle some of them? Lemon season is just starting too, so try our recipe for preserved lemons while you’re in the pickling mood.
Making pickles is easy. It’s a matter of brine and spices added to the main vegetable, or vegetable mix. Make them as plain or as elaborate as you like, but that’s all it really amounts to. Since olive season will be starting soon, keep our method for making home-made olives in mind too. But let’s return to peppers. Like large, sweet bell peppers? Or do you prefer something fiery to serve as a true Middle-Eastern relish, as pictured above ? Any kind of pepper works in this recipe.
Pickled Middle-Eastern Peppers
Ingredients:
6-7 large bell peppers of different colors
or 8-9 slender hot peppers
2 cups water
2 cups apple cider or white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons salt
3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thicklyIf pickling hot peppers, wear thin gloves to protect your skin. Do not touch your face at any time while processing the peppers. Gloves aren’t necessary to work with bell peppers.
1. Rinse and dry the peppers. For bell peppers, remove the stem ends and slice into quarters or eighths. Remove their seeds and white inner membrane. Leave hot peppers whole.
2. Pack the peppers into a jar that contains 1-1/2 liters (6 cups, 1 -1/2 quart). Stand the jar on a dry towel.
3. Boil the water, vinegar, salt and sugar for 5 minutes, covered.
4. Pour the hot vinegar brine over the peppers, using a funnel. Drop the garlic in.
Suggestion: taste the brine before pouring it over the peppers. Add more salt or sugar to taste.
5. Cover and allow to cool. Store in the refrigerator for 1 month before eating.
Enjoy!
More carefully-concocted Middle-Eastern classics and condiments on Green Prophet:
To all of you out there who used to make seashell necklaces on the beach as kids – did you ever think of making one of these?
Beautiful beaches can be found all over the Middle East, but unfortunately many of them are plagued by unnatural waste. During the hot summer months it is a common pastime to go down to the beach for some natural air conditioning (as opposed to unnaturally air conditioned beaches), but the result is all too often that a lot of waste is left on the beaches. The most ubiquitous form of beach waste is cigarette butts, but Israeli designer Koby Sibony’s beach waste sculptures teach us that there are many other types of beach trash out there.
African wild asses in a Basel Switzerland zoo. Perhaps the only hope for their survival of this animal which once roamed North Africa.
Iran saw more protests and demonstrations this weekend as green activists call for the protection of the UNESCO-listed salt lake Orumieh 
Everyone hates needles, but don’t be a chicken if you want to vaccinate them against the new avian flu
