The festival of Santa Marta de Ribarteme is an opportunity for those who have survived near-death experiences to give thanks for their lives. A symbolic victory of life The crowd parts, allowing the first coffins to move through. A heavy silence hangs in the air. But all is not quite...
Everyone’s heard stories about certain species on the brink of extinction. A new tally reveals just how many plants and animals are at risk. One million species could vanish, it finds. Some might disappear within a few decades. That number is equal to 1 in every 8 animal or plant...
“Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.” – Wayne Dyer “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” – Marcus Aurelius It is usually pretty...
Wisps of frankincense smoke wafted through the bazaar as I plunged through the crowded, labyrinthine passageways of Muscat’s Mutrah Souq. This alluringly musky scent permeates Omani cities and culture, and I was never far from the distinct, earthen aroma floating through the air. I was lured by the hypnotic perfume...
On 27 May 2019, Kym Purcell’s schedule was thrown into disarray. Usually a Monday morning would follow a strict routine of breakfast and housework followed by a trip to the gym. But today, the 52-year-old retiree was in for a surprise. Her husband, Terry, 54, told her to get ready...
Michael Rakowitz’s work makes the invisible visible – whether it’s the victims of war or those made homeless by the economic downturn. Michael Rakowitz is a connoisseur of ghosts. He is also a teacher, a stone carver, a radio broadcaster, a chef. His work often refers in various ways to...
About once every week at around 21:00, with the light of a million stars to guide them, Raúl Martínez Morales and Amanda Mandry set out to survey Mars. The couple – the former an astrophysicist, the other an obsessive stargazer – start by carefully unpacking their scientific instruments before they...
“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” – Lao Tzu Today I’d like to focus on a negative habit that creates insecurity within, erodes self-esteem and can make you feel quite unhappy with your own life. It’s something that has sprung...
Achieving success in all of your creative endeavors can be difficult and daunting. There are numerous factors that inhibit the actualization of your dreams: fear, procrastination, not enough time, and distractions, to name a few. But you have the tools to overcome these difficulties! Incorporate these tasks into your weekly...
In 2012, Sue Natali arrived in Duvanny Yar, Siberia, for the first time. Then a postdoctoral research fellow studying the effects of thawing permafrost due to climate change, she had seen photos of this site many times. Rapid thawing at Duvanny Yar had caused a massive ground collapse – a...
Do you ever wish you could change your past? We all go through struggles in life, make mistakes, and face certain hardships and challenges that prevent us from moving ahead. The important thing is to learn how to come out stronger, and become even better than you were before. Though,...
As a space-mad boy in suburban England, Benedict Redgrove watched grainy television pictures of the space shuttle Columbia as it soared into Earth’s orbit from Cape Canaveral for the first time, “heart beating, head swimming, and full of nervous excitement”. Decades later, the photographer found himself at the same launchpad,...
“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein “Think simple” as my old master used to say – meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.” –...
Turkey, the Eurasian country, is one of the most beautiful places in the world. People from all around the world travel to different destinations in Turkey, including the modern-day capital of Istanbul, which hosts key attractions like the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque), Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, and many more....
More than 60 years ago, when he was a child, farmer Peter Andrews saw his first dust storm. He still remembers it. “The noise was horrendous,” he says. “We hid in the house waiting for it to pass. The whole sky was dark. And the damage we saw the next...
Sandwiched between the mountains and the sea in Japan’s far-west corner, Fukuoka is a city trying to reinvent itself. In a land long dominated by mega-conglomerates and the inexorable pull of Tokyo, the country’s fastest growing urban centre wants to become Japan’s answer to Silicon Valley. Despite the country’s reputation...
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe Some days are light...
The contributions that the medieval Muslims played in the invention of new drugs and therapeutic agents are great in number as well as in value. The following passages will shed some light on the real contribution of the prominent Muslim scientists and philosophers in the relevant field. Abu `Ali al-Husayn...
My father’s family came to the US in the 1930s, a Jewish family fleeing Nazi Germany. My life has gone well, and I suppose I should be grateful for the way things turned out. However, I can’t help but wonder what would the world look like today if the Holocaust...
Oliver McAfee was supposed to be home in time for Christmas 2017. But the 29-year-old landscape gardener, originally from Dromore in Northern Ireland’s County Down, hasn’t been seen since 21 November 2017. McAfee had been cycling along the Israel National Trail, near the desert city of Mitzpe Ramon, before he...
Recent Comments