Nature Middle East | House of Wisdom

NME’s weekly science dose (July 26- August 1)

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims have been heading to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for Umrah during Ramadan and millions from around the world will converge on the city for Hajj in October. Could that be the fuel that the new coronavirus causing Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which was first discovered in Saudi Arabia, needs to spread into a pandemic?

But health officials around the world are not too worried, since the virus has not shown much evolution to adapt to humans and become sustained in communities. This might change in the future, of course, but so far, pilgrims on their religious pilgrimage should be safe and just need to keep in mind they adopt common sense practices, such as washing their hands regularly and making sure their food is clean.

Not too far away from Mecca, researchers at KAUST have worked with their colleagues in Texas A&M University in the United States to produce a computer model to estimate the large number of reaction parameters involved in protein production from gene clusters, which are complex networks of genes that influence each other. There was no special model for these reaction parameters before and the new model, called PEDI, has produced better results than any other previously present models.

Finally, in the United Arab Emirates, researchers have managed to get crystals of a cobalt compound to jump huge distances that are up to hundreds of thousands their size. by exposing the crystals to ultraviolet light, the crystals underwent tiny minute structural changes causing strain energy to build up inside. When this energy was released, the crystals went hopping.

Lead researcher Panče Naumov from the New York University in Abu Dhabi suggests this can be a model to develop self-actuating devices – which are devices that can move without external forces – based on biological and chemical systems. This could, for example, help in the creation of artificial muscles.

Beyond the hood

Are you addicted to your cellphone? Then we might have some bad news for you. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have compared the saliva of heavy mobile phone users to non-users. They found that heavy users had indications of higher oxidative stress, which creates free radicals, can damage cell DNA and is considered a major risk factor for cancer.

The researchers studied saliva because when we hold cellphones up to our ears it is very close to the salivary glands. There is still a lot of research needed to reach more conclusive results, but meanwhile, it may be a good idea to use a hands free while talking on the phone for prolonged periods of time.

Finally, when it comes to love, men and women may not be so equal. According to new research, the hormone oxytocin, often called “the love hormone”, affected them differently. It helps men identify competitive relationships better, while it helps women identify kinship.

Interestingly, the so called love hormone did not help either of the sexes to identify intimate relationships better. The researchers suggest this proves that identifying intimate relationships is a more complex process formed of a combination of biological and cultural factors.

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