As a kid who grew up in Canada with natural gas heating, cooking and a natural gas clothes dryer, it’s great news to see that a Canadian company, the Bontan Oil and Gas Company, based in Toronto, has found what could be up to $6 billion dollars worth off natural gas off the coast of […]
It can harness 20 times more energy than any other wave technology in existence today and also produce carbon-free desalinated water. How? Seanergy ‘holds the waves.’ To wean America off polluting and politically unstable foreign oil, government members and legislators are advocating technologies such as solar, wind, geothermal and also wave energy to develop new […]
Beirut, the “Paris of the Middle East,” is pouring raw sewage into Mediterranean Sea. It’s not just the Sidon garbage dump that’s polluting the Mediterranean Coast of Lebanon. Irrelevant Combinations blog shows airplane view pictures of raw sewage being dumped into the sea off the coast of Beirut. Although the weather outside may be frightful […]
In this Dec. 10, 2009 photo taken near Indonesia and released by Museum Victoria, a veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, hides in a coconut shell. Photo: AP Not long ago Green Prophet reported strange activity of corals eating large jellyfish, as a possible response to global climate change. A team of young Israeli scientists got the […]
EcoOcean is an Israeli non-profit organization that has been working since 2002 towards maintaining a healthy marine environment in the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The organization’s team of Israeli scientists does this by conducting research and running ecological education programs. (You can read here about its director’s Andreas’ swim with the whales). Education […]
(Bechtel International, Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf), Oil Drill-head; about 1950. Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.) They say the world is a global village. If so, and if the environment is a global concern, more emphasis needs to be put on helping countries like Kuwait where their marine life, its atmosphere and soil levels, according to the […]
(Illustration of Cedar Island, a new artificial island project proposed for off the coast of Lebanon). Environmentalists in Beirut’s American University are calling it a disaster: A Lebanese company is looking to build mega artificial islands like Palm Island in Dubai, but in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lebanon. They are calling it […]
She looks like him and was raised in an enviable way: her grandfather Jacques Cousteau (the legendary marine explorer we’ve written about here) taught Alexandra Cousteau how to dive at the young age of 7 and instilled in her a love for the water that covers two thirds of our planet. Now she’s giving back. […]
The earth is warming up. There is no doubt about that. And carbon dioxide levels are increasing too. New research from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Carnegie Institution in the US suggests that if things get worse, coral reefs will start to dissolve. That’s millions of years of evolution that will simply melt […]
Reporting on a story about the coral monitoring stations in the Persian Gulf, Green Prophet mistakenly labeled the major Middle East waterway the Arabian Gulf. A reader wrote us asking for a correction on the name which has deep historical and new political roots. Today we interview Daniel M. Pourkesali, an Iranian-American who is working […]
No matter how sophisticated modern medicine becomes, common ailments like fungal infections can outrun the best of the world’s antibiotics. In people with compromised immune systems (like premature babies, AIDS victims or those undergoing chemotherapy for cancer) the risk is very high: contracting a fungal infection can be deadly. Now Tel Aviv University zoologists are diving deep […]
In summer, Israelis battle jellyfish, an introduced species that came to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. But that’s nothing compared to what Iran’s battling right now: A weird and wacky red, soap-like super foam is taking over the Persian Gulf in Iran. Known as the “red tide,” it’s the result of an excessive […]
(A photograph of the female C. echinata coral, expelling its eggs into the water around it.) Research from TAU unlocks the secret of coral survival during global warming Trees do it. Bees do it. Even environmentally stressed fish do it. But Prof. Yossi Loya from Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology is the first in […]
The Red Sea is a wonder of the world. Comparing to the Great Barrier Reef in terms of coral diversity and beauty, lack of environmental awareness in the Middle East (in Jordan, Israel and the countries below them), are causing the demise of coral and other marine life. Now, a new global program that recognizes […]
The lush marine habitat by Aqaba Beach in Jordan is among the richest in the world, attracting thousands of visitors per year. But the popularity of the beach is also its downfall: In just 20 minutes, divers recovered more than 150 kilos of garbage from the waters of the reef, including plastic cups, cans, and […]