The Nahmias Cipher Report

In the Middle East and North Africa women rights are coming to the forefront as they begin their modern-day suffragette movement amidst the recent uprisings – now known as the “Arab Spring”. Suffragette “derived from the word “suffrage“, means the right to vote,” however; women across the Middle East are fighting for more than the [...]

“Ethno-mathematician” Ron Eglash is the author of African Fractals, a book that examines the fractal patterns underpinning architecture, art and design in many parts of Africa. By looking at aerial-view photos — and then following up with detailed research on the ground — Eglash discovered that many African villages are purposely laid out to form perfect fractals, with self-similar shapes repeated in the rooms of the house, and the house itself, and the clusters of houses in the village, in mathematically predictable patterns.

As he puts it: “When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganized and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn’t even discovered yet.”

It is a little disappointing to learn the truth of King Tutankhamun’s death, because like so many others, I reveled in speculations of palace intrigue, royal malfeasance, murder and usurpation. Today the world learned that King Tut was merely a boy, one who had access to and buried with the riches of ages, but a frail boy nonetheless who died from a very treatable infection. Watch the video here.

North African and Middle Eastern Diaspora music videos featuring Rai and traditional Arabic musical styles. Also, featured are contemporary Arabic music by Egyptian and Turkish female singers. These videos display the diversity of Muslim people and the role of women in that society.