Al-Andalus society (711-1492) based its idea of health on the wisdom of Classical Greece, the Hippocratic-Galenic theories, as well as the Persian and Hindu cultures. The twelfth century in al-Andalus is considered to be the most prolific period for works of a scientific and technical nature. At the time, the main treatises on dietetics were written and this science reached its widest expressio...

Marine debris has been found in marine animals since the early 20th century, but little is known about the impacts of the ingestion of debris in large marine mammals. In this study we describe a case of mortality of a sperm whale related to the ingestion of large amounts of marine debris in the Mediterranean Sea (4th published case worldwide to our knowledge), and discuss it within the context ...

The summer daylight and evening surface flows over southern Israel were simulated by a numerical mesoscale model. The overall characteristics of the simulated flow patterns were reasonably resolved as implied by the available observational studies. The nature of specific di~crepancies between predicted and observed flows was evaluated. The development of the flow patterns along the eastern slop...

The city of Lyon is located in south-eastern France at the confluence of the River Saône, connecting from the north and the Rhône, flowing from the Alps, which together run south to the Mediterranean (Figure 1). The earliest evidence for settlement has been identified on the alluvial plain of Vaise in the northwest of the city and on the hills surrounding the Rhône in the east (Corbas, Vénissie...

This study examined the performance and future predictions for the Middle East produced by 18 global climate models participating in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report. Under the Special Report on Emission Scenarios A2 emissions scenario the models predict an overall temperature increase of ∼1.4 K by mid-century, increasing to almost 4 K by late-century for t...

At some point in their history, most forests in the Mediterranean Basin have been subjected to intensive management or converted to agriculture land. Knowing how forest plant communities recovered after the abandonment of forest-management or agricultural practices (including livestock grazing) provides a basis for investigating how previous land management have affected plant species diversity...

One of the effects of fisheries on ecosystems is that they tend to remove the larger, higher-trophic-level species and thus progressively lower the mean trophic level (TL) of the landings. This effect is known as “fishing down the food web” (Pauly et al. 1998; but see also Essington et al. [2006] for addition of low-TL fisheries instead of decline in high-TL fisheries, termed “fishing through m...