Cinema of God: Muslims Memorialize Augustine

The students at Wheaton College were surprised: Wait, Saint Augustine was African? Current Issue May 2019.
Shown the international award-winning Augustine: Son of Her Tears for a freshman seminar that reads his Confessions, they witnessed history brought to life beyond the text, said Sarah Miglio, dean of curriculum.
So did the Muslim actors who depicted the story of the Christian theologian. The cast and creators now want to remind the world—and especially their own people in North Africa—that the church father properly belongs to their heritage.

Palestinian architect Nadia Habash discusses

Rima Al Sammarae wrote on November 4th, 2018 about how life carries on in the Palestinian territories, notably for a certain Nadia Habash, co-owner and director of Habash Consulting Engineers and adjunct lecturer at Birzeit University.  Here is, courtesy to Middle East Architect how: Palestinian architect Nadia Habash discusses working with Peter Zumthor and persevering […]

Some call it Little Beirut or Little Cairo

The National on August 30, 2018 holds that “Despite recent criticism, the cosmopolitan area is loved by Londoners and tourists alike.”  It previously, back in 2011, explained how “Its every paving stone seemingly filled with shisha smokers, Edgware Road runs between Marble Arch and the Marylebone flyover in central London. Some call it Little Beirut […]

Why we need the Humanities more than ever

Peter Salovey, President of Yale University, wrote recently that why we need the Humanities more than ever in the training of our leaders. At MENA-Forum, we could not agree more. The study of all aspects of human culture (whether that would be literature, philosophy, history or music) [ . . . ]

Trees are much better at Creating Clouds

and Cooling the Climate than we thought!

The pre-industrial atmosphere contained more particles, and so brighter clouds, than we previously thought. This is the latest finding of the CLOUD experiment, a collaboration between around 80 scientists at the CERN particle physics lab near Geneva. It changes our understanding of what was in the atmosphere before humans began adding pollution – and what it might be like again in the future.
Most cloud droplets need tiny airborne particles to act as “seeds” for their formation and growth. If a cloud has more of these seeds, and therefore more droplets, it will appear brighter and reflect away more sunlight from the Earth’s surface. This in turn can cool the climate. Therefore understanding the number and size of particles in the atmosphere is vital to predicting not only how bright and reflective the planet’s clouds are, but what global temperatures will be.
Today, around half of these particles come from natural sources. That includes dust from the ground, volcanoes, wildfires that make soot, or sea spray that evaporates midair leaving behind tiny specs of salt in the atmosphere.
Many airborne particles also result from us burning fossil fuels. This produces soot, but also sulphur dioxide gas which is made into sulphuric acid in the atmosphere. As well as causing acid rain, sulphuric acid molecules can stick together and grow into particles . . .