Nearly a quarter million people (202,586 to be precise) have applied for a one-way ticket to Mars , with candidates from the Middle East making serious headway in the race to become a modern-day Martian! The flight won’t launch for another 11 years, but competition for those four first seats is fierce. (You have far better odds of being hit with lightning — estimated as a chance of one in 3,000 over your lifetime!) Mars One is the inspired (or insane?) global initiative to establish a permanent human settlement on ...

Every morning something magical happens inside the walls of a 19th century mosque in southwestern Iran. When the rays of the rising sun reach the building (tiled in seven colors!) and pass through its magnificent stained glass windows, the interior of Nasīr al-Mulk is transformed into a mesmerizing kaleidoscope. Stained glass windows are de rigeur in Christian churches and are frequently used in modern Jewish temples, but only appear in a handful of the world's mosques . According to photographer Ramin Rahmani Nejad Asil, they are standard in Iranian architecture ...

Sex is a universal interest, and porn a guilty pleasure . Those who search "sex" on Google are most often seeking access to something in the privacy of their own homes, something they would feel ashamed to access by other means. So we asked the question, as conflict has unraveled throughout the Middle East — during the Arab Spring, US invasions, government crackdowns — how has the interest in sex evolved? Online searches can stem from curiosity, unanswered questions, or even health concerns. But often those who google “sex” are ...

Man Utd in Cavani & Thiago Silva double swoop

There are no rules in love and war, and this is especially true in the Middle East. You may feel lost in a lawless land when it comes to an Arab love affair , especially if your man seems to be a keeper one minute (he even put a ring on it) but a goner the next when he vanishes into the Arabian desert in a puff of sand without so much as an apology or reason that doesn’t sound ludicrous to your well-rehearsed dating mind. Truth be told, Arabian ...