Nature Middle East | House of Wisdom

NME’s weekly science dose (July 19-25)

Paleobiologist digging in Tunisia in 2011 have found the most complete dinosaur skeleton from Africa yet, belonging to a family of sauropods. The new species, Tataouinea hannibalis, probably had hollowed bones and probably large air sacs in its abdomen, morphological traits that are similar to birds and suggesting they may have a bird-like respiratory system. These dinosaurs were not small, however, with the remains suggesting they stood at about 14m in length when they were alive some 136 million years ago.  

Not too far away, researchers diving in the Res Sea are making some interesting discoveries. While bacteria have long been known to live on corals, they found that some species of bacteria may have a much more intimate relationship with the corals – actually living inside the coral cells and tissues.

This close relationship has prompted the researchers to suggest the bacteria most play an important symbiotic role for the corals, maybe acting as the “middleman” between algae and the coral by converting photosynthetic products into a form of energy the corals can use. Conservationists are excited that, if this is true, then the bacteria can serve as a measure of how healthy coral reefs are – acting as ‘alarm bells’ if things aren’t going too well.

This week, we are also highlighting two research papers looking into genetic disorders. In the first paper, researchers have produced the first human trials for a gene therapy to treat metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), a fatal neurodegenerative disorder appearing in children. The trials have been successful, stopping the appearance or progress of the disease in the three patients who underwent the treatment a year afterwards.

In the second paper, researchers produced a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of patients with Brugada syndrome, a rare genetic cardiac disorder that may increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. They found that the risk to develop the disease, which was originally linked to one gene, is actually increased by other genes that are involved in the electric conduction inside the heart. Patients with all three risk alleles identified had an unexpectedly high susceptibility to the disease.

Beyond the Hood

Though millions suffer from epilepsy around the world, our understanding of the disease remains very  limited. Now, however, a team of researchers used stem cells to discover the causes of one type of the disease. They created stem cells from skin cells taken from patients living with epilepsy. They then turned these stem cells into neurons, basically creating an ‘epilepsy in a dish’ to study it. They found high levels of sodium activity bursts in the cells that could set off seizures.

This could be used to test new drugs to try to come up with a treatment for this particular type of epilepsy, called Dravet syndrome. The researchers are also now working on recreating other forms of epilepsy using the same technique to study them and try to find a treatment or medication to handle them.

Have you ever caught yourself staring in awe at a male peacock’s fully-spanned tail? Apparently, without this extra-flamboyant display they would not be able to capture the attention of their mates pretty well. Researchers mounted eye-tracking cameras on peahens to track their eye movement and found it very hard to keep their attention. That is why the males need such large tails. Turns out that the peahens were also not that interested in how tall the tail was, but more interested in its width and the number of eyespots on it when it is further away.

The researchers suggest that, given all the things that can capture the attention of the peahen, the peacock’s tail had to evolve to eclipse everything else that might attract the female to find a possible mate.

Finally, if you suffer from cat allergy, you may be able to visit friends and family that you stopped seeing years ago because they keep pet cats. Researchers from the UK have discovered the mechanism in the body that causes this annoying issue. The culprit is the cat allergen Fel d 1, which is present in cat danders, which is tiny pieces of cat skin, activates a receptor in humans that causes a large immune response. This causes the itching, coughing and runny nose some people get around cats.

Now that the mechanism is known, the researchers hope they can start testing new medication to stop it – allowing many people to start visiting friends again and many cat lovers to finally have cats in their homes without sending their partners running away.

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