Articles (Environment)

Wangari Maathai: The Green Belt Movement
(Inventions and Innovations)

Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and feminist, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, making her the first African woman to receive the Prize for her actions to promote sustainable development, democracy, and peace. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree from the University of Nairobi, where she also taught veterinary anatomy. She became the Head of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an Associate Professor, becoming the first woman in the region to hold such positions.


Drought Attack
(Earth Sciences)

Water, the source of life, has come under pressure in recent years; many predict that future wars will be fought to gain control over water supplies. 


Air Conditioners of Ancient Times
(Inventions and Innovations)

Modern air-conditioning has emerged from advances in chemistry during the 19th century; the first large-scale electrical air-conditioning was invented and used in 1902 by American inventor Willis Carrier.

Solar Sisters: Lighting Up Communities
(Physical and Chemical Sciences)

Many across the world still live in a world where clean energy is not available to them; instead, they rely on expensive and hazardous ways.


Al-Karaji and the Secrets of Hydrology
(Inventions and Innovations)

Inbat al-miyah al-khafiya is an excellent manual on the supplies of hydraulic water; it was written by Abu Bakr Muhammed Al-Karaji. Besides its main interest in hydrology, it contains a discussion of many topics related to the geography of the globe, various remarks on soil types and nature, as well as paying great attention to surveying techniques.


Defender of the Environment: Mostafa Tolba, An Egyptian Legacy
(Inventions and Innovations)

A land that is blessed with relatively moderate varying landscape of sea and desert, rivers and farmlands, Egypt is blessed with a beautiful environment. However, this beauty that we are so in awe with has been greatly endangered in the past decades with the rise of industries and lack of concern for sustainability, which has negatively impacted our planet.


Good Agricultural Practices
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are specific methods when applied to agriculture create food for consumers or further processing that is safe and wholesome. While there are numerous competing conceptions of what methods constitute good agricultural practices, there are several broadly accepted schemes that producers can adhere to. Several food and agricultural organizations and authorities, use good agricultural practices as a collection of principles to apply for on-farm production and post-production processes, resulting in safe and healthy food and non-food agricultural products, taking into consideration economic, social and environmental sustainability. These practices may be applied to a wide range of farming systems at different scales.

Agricutural Waste between Feeding Plants, Animals, and People
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

The food problem has become a disturbing global problem for people and organizations; the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has thus taken on the challenge of bringing famine to zero level. The freedom and dignity of people have been attached to this dilemma; communities have thus come to know and believe that “they who do not have power, do not own his freedom”.

Egyptian Food and Agriculture Statistics
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

Since the Pharaonic era, Egypt is an agricultural nation. The Nile River and the fertile soils on its banks have allowed Egyptians to build a splendid civilization based on agriculture. Nowadays, agriculture is one of the main pillars of the Egyptian economy; in 2012, agriculture contributed with 13.4% of the national gross domestic production and employed 27.1% of the total Egyptian workforce.

Shifting Cultivation
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system, in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily then abandoned and allowed to revert to their natural vegetation, while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cultivation is usually terminated when the soil shows signs of exhaustion or, more commonly, when the field is overrun by weeds. The length of time that a field is cultivated is usually shorter than the period over which the land is allowed to regenerate by lying fallow.

Green Walls
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

Living walls, or green walls, are self-sufficient vertical gardens that are attached to the exterior or interior of a building. They differ from green façades in that the plants roots are in a structural support fastened to the wall itself; the plants receive water and nutrients from within the vertical support instead of the ground. The vegetation can partially or completely cover the wall; these green walls may be indoors or outdoors, freestanding or attached to an existing wall, and come in a great variety of sizes.

Eco-Villages
(Education, Business, and Society)

With the increasing evidence of human-initiated climate change, people throughout the world are coming together to try to reduce their carbon footprint. Groups are trying to move away from the dependence of fossil fuels and consumerist practices. There is a focus on producing and consuming locally, and living as sustainably as possible. Many initiatives are encouraged, such as reducing energy use, creating sustainable local businesses, localizing farming and creating environmentally minded communities known as “eco-villages”.

Meat of the Future
(Food, Mood, and Behavior)

In the future, meat will no longer come from animals, or at least that is what scientists are hoping for. Scientists have, in recent years, been working on growing meat in labs, this is produced through “tissue-engineering” technology. The reason researchers are working on developing this new scientific field is to try to provide cruelty-free meat, as well as combat the adverse environmental impact that cattle farming creates. The advantages of growing meat in labs, is that it will take up less space than cattle farming, freeing up fields to be used for farming or other projects.

Light Spead and Measuring the Size of the Universe
(Astronomy and Space Sciences)

Light is fast, but the universe is gigantic. Even light takes time to travel from one place to another. It travels 300,000 kilometers per second. Light from the Sun takes as long as eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach Earth. Far as the Sun is, 150 million kilometers away from Earth, it is the nearest star.

Say Goodbye to the Edison Bulb
(Inventions and Innovations)

Thomas Edison changed the world by inventing the incandescent light bulb; it is time to change the world again by another revolutionary invention.


Light Pollution
(Earth Sciences)

For most of Earth’s history, our spectacular universe of stars and galaxies has been visible in the darkness of the night sky. However, the increasing number of people living on Earth, in addition to the corresponding increase in inappropriate and unshielded outdoor lighting has resulted in the light pollution we are experiencing today.

Save the Trees…Save the Planet
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

Trees do not just offer wonderful scenery, but they offer life also; when they breathe, we breathe.

Synthetic Gas
(Physical and Chemical Sciences)

It is an undeniable fact that the world is now proceeding with fast steps towards an energy crisis that comes shoulder-to-shoulder with the depletion of fossil fuel reserves.

Future of Farming
(Microorganism, Animal and Plant Life)

The critical determinant of production is the quality of farm management that combines available resources to deliver products that meet demand.

Adapting to Extremes
(Human Body)

Since the beginning of time, we humans have been vulnerable to our surroundings; thus have always sought out environments with certain qualities that our bodies can resist without being susceptible to any harmful consequences.

About Us

SCIplanet is a bilingual edutainment science magazine published by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Planetarium Science Center and developed by the Cultural Outreach Publications Unit ...
Continue reading

Contact Us

P.O. Box 138, Chatby 21526, Alexandria, EGYPT
Tel.: +(203) 4839999
Ext.: 1737–1781
Email: COPU.editors@bibalex.org

Become a member

© 2024 | Bibliotheca Alexandrina