Israel‘s health ministry is investigating claims that Ethiopian women are being injected with a controversial contraceptive without their knowledge or consent.
Blog Archives
The marvel of Islamic geometric design
Source: theguardian.com
By: Alex Bellos
To paraphrase Monty Python, what has Islam ever done for us? You know, apart from the algebra, the trigonometry, the optics, the astronomy and the many other scientific advances and inventions of the Islamic Golden Age.
Well, if you like art and interiors, there’s always the stunning patterns that grace mosques, madrasas and palaces around the world.
Islamic craftsmen and artists – who were prohibited from making representations of people in holy sites – developed an instantly recognizable aesthetic based on repeated geometrical shapes.
The mathematical elegance of these designs is that no matter how elaborate they are, they are always based on grids constructed using only a ruler and a pair of compasses.
Islamic design is based on Greek geometry, which teaches us that starting with very basic assumptions, we can build up a remarkable number of proofs about shapes. Islamic patterns provide a visual confirmation of the complexity that can be achieved with such simple tools.
Dust off your old geometry set, and let’s see how.
The line for food at Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp
This jaw-dropping photo published in The Guardian this week shows the line for food at Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp. The UN says that some people in this camp have been reduced to eating animal feed!
Extremely small amounts of aid have gotten in recently but delivery has been suspended repeatedly due to ongoing security concerns. The situation is dire! Take action to end the humanitarian crisis in Syria –>http://bit.ly/1mIYFrT