Jordan and Syria capture the limelight this week. The Royal Society’s Atlas of Islamic World Science and Innovation reports on Jordan’s investment in science, technology and innovation, highlighting the need to overhaul its education system.

Specifically, the report underlines the need for Jordanian universities to include entrepreneurial and commercial skills in their curricula. Nevertheless, the Royal Society lauded Jordan’s investment in science and technology, though other critics noted the lack of R&D in high-risk potential areas of growth. Get the full story here.

In Syria, we highlight the conflict’s ongoing toll on ancient monuments and artefacts. While gathering accurate data is difficult in the midst of all the violence, archaeologists and citizens have been trying to document the destruction of historical sites. For instance, an archive of damaged monuments is being compiled by academics and the public in a dedicated multi-lingual Facebook page called Syrian Archaeological Heritage Under Threat.

The page is hoped to help future restoration missions. Read more about this here.

Beyond the hood

The question of whether you can “train your brain” to stave off some of the cognitive decline associated with ageing has been a recurring one. Can cognitive exercise equipment keep our brains nice and cognitively buff? And might video games be the ultimate brain work out?

A new study from the University of California suggests that this may possibly be so. The researchers behind the recently published study designed a video game called NeuroRacer that involves two tasks: pressing a button only when a blue circle appears on the screen and not reacting to other symbols that pop up, all the while using a joystick to control a car zooming down a virtual track.

The experimenters had 16 healthy older adults (aged 60-85) take the game home and play it three times a week for a month. When these subjects returned to the lab, they were found to perform better than untrained 20-year-olds. They also maintained these skills for 6 months after the training without any other further practice.

Beyond the game, these subjects also saw improvements on certain memory and attention tests, suggesting that NeuroRacers changes key mechanisms in the ageing brain. Here’s a link to the study.

The diversity of microbial species living in your gut may serve as markers to identify your likelihood of becoming obese. Researchers, including Jun Wang from King Abdulazziz University, Saudi Arabia, found significant differences in the composition of gut microbes in 169 obese and 123 non-obese Danish individuals.

The research team reports that those with a low diversity of microbial species appear to have more metabolic abnormalities, making them more prone to increased body fat and insulin resistance. Find out more here.

Another research item we highlight this week shows the link between mutations in a specific gene and a group of childhood neurodegenerative disorders. The gene, which codes for the enzyme AMPD2, was found to be mutated in five patients suffering from pontocerebellar hypoplasia (PCH), a disorder characterized by a shrunken brainstem and lower parts of the brain, resulting in cerebral palsy and mental impairment. More details here.

Beyond the hood

It seems that a deficiency in a protein called RbAp48 in the hippocampus is a significant contributor to age-related memory loss. The study, conducted by a team of Columbia University Medical Center researchers, offers the strongest causal evidence yet that age-related memory loss is distinct from and Alzheimer’s disease.

The study entailed performing gene expression analyses of postmortem brain cells from the dentate gyrus (a subregion of the hippocampus) of eight people aged between 33 and 88. While they were free of brain disease, the analyses found a steady decline with ageing across the subjects in the expression of the gene that produces RbAp48.

The research team then genetically inhibited RbAp48 in the brain of healthy, young mice. The result was the same degree of memory loss as among aged mice. When RbAp48 inhibition was turned off, the mice’s memory returned to normal, suggesting that age-related memory loss may be reversible. You can read more about this study here.

Aid organizations are failing to address urgent the health needs of Syrians, domestically and of those driven from home. This conclusion is based on an UNHCR report that highlights the lack of long-term strategies and poor coordination to explain the agencies’ shortfalls.

Already an estimated 70% of medical professionals have fled Syria and 60% of healthcare facilities in opposition-controlled areas have been damaged or destroyed. Facilities in Jordan and Lebanon are strained due to the influx of refugees. With health issues being identified as the most grave risk Syrians face, what’s to be done to minimize this crisis within a crisis? Read more about it here.

On the other hand, in the midst of the political unrest in Egypt, it’s heritage continues to be at risk as violence continues. Raiders broke into the Malawai National Museum and ransacked its collections on two consecutive nights, stealing or destroying almost all of its artefacts.

The museum, 300km south of Cairo in the Upper Egypt city of Minya, is a little-known cultural centre, but is home to a diverse collection that spans Egyptian history from Greco-Roman to the 18th Dynasty eras. Read more about what archeologists are doing to try and salvage what they can of the museum.

In other news, scientists have completed sequencing the genome of Phoenix dactylifera L, more commonly known as the date palm. A team of researchers from Saudi Arabia collaborating with colleagues in China have built on earlier work by a Qatari research team to sequence more than 90% of the genome of an important variety of P. dactylifera called Khalas. More details here.

Beyond the hood

A blood test can tell you all sorts of things about your health, but it does not reveal your deepest, darkest thoughts — unless those thought were about suicide, it now seems. New research from the Indiana University School of Medicine suggests that biomarkers in the bloodstream can indicate whether someone is contemplating killing themselves.

The researchers identified these biomarkers by comparing blood samples drawn when bipolar patients’ suicidal thoughts were low to blood samples drawn when suicidal thoughts were high. A significant increase in the amount of a protein associated with the activity of a gene called SAT1 was observed in those with suicidal thoughts.

The study also examined blood samples taken from nine suicide cases and found this protein to be unusually high–significantly higher than those with suicidal thoughts that didn’t actually kill themselves.

While the sample size used in the study is small, the researchers claim the results reflect a “proof of principle” for a suicide test. More about it here.

The mystery of why the universe contains more matter than antimatter has long puzzled physicists. The standard model of physics predicts that an equal number of particles and antiparticles should have formed soon after the big bang, cancelling each other out and thereby stopping the “content” of the universe (galaxies, stars, planets, etc.) from forming.

Trying to explain this discrepancy, a group of physicists based in Egypt and Mexico have proposed the existence of a new type of particles, called “right-handed neutrinos”. This hypothesized particle is predicted to break down into particles, but not antiparticles — leaving behind more matter than antimatter. But the idea presents some challenges and presupposes an as yet hypothetical extension of the Standard Model: string theory. Read more about this interesting new research here.

In other news, the diodes that light up our streets and panels (LEDs) are apparently in for metamorphic upgrade: researchers—including Safae Aazou from Morocco—have made an ultra-thin, highly flexible and stretchable variety of them. These “polymeric” LEDs are engineered by sandwiching a thin layer of semiconductor photo-emitting material between a metal and a transparent organic electrode, all fixed on top of a thicker flexible polymeric substrate.

This allows the diode to be bent and stretched while still working properly. The entire setup does not exceed two micrometers in thickness. More details here.

Beyond the hood

Here’s a story that’s sure to let the “don’t play God” squad cringe: glow in the dark rabbits. They’ve been bred at the University of Istanbul. And no they don’t run on Energizer batteries.

Out of a litter of eight, the research team (from Turkey and Hawaii) have produced two rabbits that look like normal fluffy bunnies in the light, but glow an eerie green in the dark. The goal of the study was to demonstrate that a particular genetic manipulation technique works effectively—the hope being that it can then be used to develop new medicines.

To create the glowing effect, the researchers injected jellyfish DNA into a female rabbit’s embryos. These were then placed back into the mother, with the effect being that out of its eight offspring, two glow in the dark. Have a look at this extraordinary video of these rabbits.

When epidemiologist Diego Cuadros told fellow scientists that he was moving to Qatar, they looked at him in disbelief. What, they asked, did he hope to gain from doing research in a small Arab emirate, fabulously rich in oil and gas but with no noteworthy tradition in science?

Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE are all providing oases of postdoctoral opportunities for researchers from around the world, but can these institutes offer something on par with the West, or are they mere mirages? Read about the experiences of researchers who have relocated from the West to the Gulf. These centres may still not have the infrastructure of an MIT or the reputation of an Oxford, but with Qatar spending $1 billion on research and higher education each year, and with KAUST running on a $10 billion endowment, the lure of the Gulf for many researchers is starting to prove somewhat irresistible.

On a much smaller scale, exploratory attempts are being made at El-Gouna, an exclusive Egyptian resort by the Red Sea, to transform it into a scientific and research hub. The resort’s developer, Samih Sawiris, CEO of Orascom Development and one of Egypt’s richest businessmen, has single-handedly financed the establishment in El-Gouna of a branch of the prestigious German university, Technische Universität Berlin.

The campus is currently finishing up its first year now, having enrolled 29 students in October 2012 in its three applied technology postgraduate programmes: master’s degrees in water engineering, energy engineering, and urban planning. Read what Kester von Kuczkowski, its managing director, has to say about the campus’s ambitions and the challenges facing it.

Finally, in Morocco, a cigar-shaped fossil unearthed in 2012 is helping explain the origin of starfish and sea lilies. Belonging to a marine animal that lived 515 million years ago, the fossil has features that place it as a missing link between helicoplacoids, the oldest known echinoderms, and the ancestors of echinoderms such as sea lilies and starfish.

The fossil is being heralded as a discovery of exceeding importance in helping scientists understand a major transition in the history of life. Specifically: the development of pentaradial symmetry in echinoderms. More details here.

Beyond the hood

Fancy a €250,000 beef burger? No animal has been killed in the making of it. It’s not made of some vegetable-based substitute, but real beef with real muscles cells and all. Except these cell were grown in a lab, weaved together into fibres, and finally compressed into a burger.

Presenting the burger for the first time, a press conference drew curious journalists from around the world to London this week to witness this product of several years’ work being served up to taste. The two tasters seemed quite impressed with its texture and “mouth feel”, noting that it certainly felt like they were eating meat. But did it actually taste like meat?

Not so much. As the burger is made purely of muscles cells, the lack of any fat gave it a somewhat bland taste. But incorporating fat cells into the next burger is what Mark Post, the scientist behind the burger, is aiming for now. He expects that once mass produced, and presuming that the technology behind it did not advance, a kilogram of cultured beef would cost around $70.

However, the scientist hopes that cultured beef can make its way into supermarkets at a much lower price and with a much better taste in around 10 to 20 years. Currently, around 30% of the Earth’s usable surface is covered by grazing land for animals, while only 4% is being used to directly feed humans. As populations continue to grow towards 9.5 billion by 2060, this trend will become increasingly unsustainable. Beef grown in a lab, however, may provide a more environmentally viable, as well as far more humane, alternative.

You can watch the press conference and get more information here.

It seems that young researchers from the Arab world are missing out on a big opportunity to mix with people from the highest echelons of science. At least that’s the suggestion when only two Arab researchers attended the Nobel Laureate Meeting at Lindau, Germany—an annual conference where Nobel winners present to and interact with young researchers from around the world.

The two researchers from the region, both from Egypt, were among the 625 undergraduate and postgraduate students attending. In 2011, there were 12 Arab participants, raising the question of whether the drop in number reflects a diminished interested between players in Arab research sectors.

The fact that invited ministers from Egypt and Algeria did not attend—nor invited professors from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology—seems to suggest so. But there’s more to this story, and you can find out all about it here.

In other news this week, scientists have come a step closer to understanding the role of intracellular scaffold protein (Sch1) in cell signalling. To do so, the research team, including  Mohamed Soliman from Cairo University, mapped all possible interactions between Sch1 and other cellular proteins and found 23 new Sch1-interacting proteins involved in various cellular processes. Read more details about their findings here.

Beyond the Hood

In case you are not fed up with adding the letter “i” to every new invention, check out the i-knife: it doesn’t pump music out of its handle as you cut your carrots, but it can actually tell surgeons whether the tissue they are cutting into is cancerous or not.

In a freshly published study to test out the “iKnife”, the invention was found to diagnose tissue samples from 91 patients with 100 percent accuracy, almost instantly providing information that normally takes about half an hour to reveal using regular laboratory tests.

Here’s how it works: when relying on electrosurgery—an old technique using knives with an electric current running through them to rapidly heat tissue and minimise blood loss—vapours  arising from the cut tissue creates smoke that is a rich source of biological information. The iKnife works by basically being an electrosurgical knife connected to a mass spectrometer, an instrument that can identify what chemicals are present in the ensuing smoke.

Since different types of cells produce metabolites in different concentrations, these can be used to identify exactly what is being cut into: in this case, whether the tissue is cancerous or not.

It’s uses can potentially go beyond this, helping users identify types of bacteria present in a tissue sample, and more generally determine whether what you are cutting into is, say, beef or horsemeat.

It’s often associated with Egypt, but the Nile River’s water resources are shared by eleven countries. It’s a resource that has been at the center of growing tension between Egypt and Ethiopia, particularly as the latter country moves ahead with plans to build the world’s tallest dam, leaving many in Egypt wary of the impact on its primary source of water.

A leaked report shows the degree of disagreement on how to proceed. It is a story where the political continues to overthrow the scientific in an issue that can only move forward using evidence rather than politics. Read more about it here.

Those curious about how animals got to be the way they now are, check out this story on sequencing the genome of an ancient horse.  A team of researchers has produced the draft genome of a 700,000 year old fossilized horse bone that is shedding light on the lineage of horses. Turns out that Przewalski’s horses—a type of wild horse—are the last surviving wild horse population.

Also, the genetic disorder nephronophthisis—a common cause of kidney failure in children–appears to be linked to a protein called ANKS6, new research suggests. Using knock-out animal models, researchers from Germany and Egypt were able to show how this protein is central to the normal development of kidneys. Click here for more details.

Finally, there’s been a bit of mystery as to why a chronic fungal infection called eumycetoma—which leads to the disfiguration of feet—exists in certain areas of Sudan, while the rest of the population does not develop the disease, despite being similarly exposed to the fungus.

Two studies have now attempted to explain this, highlighted here. Firstly, it appears that pre-existing co-infections dispose individuals to developing eumycetoma. Schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease, is strongly linked with also developing eumycetoma. Eliminating the intermediate host of schistosomiasis, the bilharzia snail, could reduce the prevalence of eumycetoma.

On a similar front, researchers also found that the fungal colonies that cause this disease are linked to a family of fungi that are generally found in animal dung. Not stepping on poo, or wearing shoes, may therefore help reduce the chances of infection.

Beyond the hood

Outdoor air pollution is directly causing over two million deaths each year, according to a study just published here in the journal Environmental Research Letters. While climate change has been suggested as an exacerbating factor to the effects of air pollution, this study was able to show that it plays a minimal role in the number of deaths due to air pollution.

Instead, the deaths are caused by human-caused increases in fine-particulate matter composed of tiny particles that can penetrate into the lungs, causing cancers and respiratory diseases.

In less depressing news, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified, for the first time, the colour of an exoplanet. Known as HD 189733b, the huge gas planet has a deep cobalt blue colour, similar to Earth’s colour seen from space. With temperatures over 1000 degrees Celsius and at 63 light years away, it’s by no means a sister planet on any level.

The astronomers determined its colour by measuring how much light was reflected off its surface, and analysed at the change in the spectrum of the system before, during and after the planet passed behind its star. You can read more details about the study when it’s published in the August 1 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.

It’s not easy being a science researcher starting off a career in Egypt. Sameh Soror, a structural biologist at Helwan University, Cairo, knows this all too well. As the first Arab to now co-chair the Global Young Academy (GYA), an organization that helps support early career scientists across the world, he’s keen to give his colleagues a voice.

The GYA helps its members set up National Young Academies in different countries to lobby national governments to address issues of concern for young researchers. However, bureaucracy continues to complicate the establishment of such academies in the region. Soror tells NME about ongoing plans to establish one in Egypt, amongst other things, here.

In other news, while migraines are a common neurological disorder, little is known about their links to genetic influences. A new study, including researchers from King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, has identified links between 12 gene loci and migraine susceptibility.

The researchers combed through 9 genome-wide association studies involving a total of 23,285 migraine sufferers and 95,425 population-matched controls. Read more about the study here.

Finally, a drug-resistant strain of salmonella has been on the rise in the region for a number of years now, and new research from Morocco and France has highlighted how it has spread and acquired resistance to antibiotics.  The research analyzed hundreds of subcultures of the strain, called  S Kentucky ST198-X1, and found that a far greater percentage of more recently collected isolates were resistant to the commonly-used antibiotic ciprofloxcin. More details here.

Egyptians have access to around 750 cubic metres of water per person per year. That’s significantly less than the water scarcity limit of 1000 cubic metres. The realisation that the Nile cannot continue to sustain Egypt’s growing population has pushed researchers to tackle the possibility of water desalination.

To that end, researchers at the American University in Cairo have come up with a prototype for a hybrid nanocomposite membrane that relies on reverse osmosis to remove salt from seawater. Made of a polymeric material that contains interconnected pores that allow water to pass through while blocking the salt, the prototype may make desalination a far more feasible prospect for Egypt. Read more about it here.

Another membrane making news this week is promising to allow for commercial gas-separation in large-scale operations. By modifying a new class of polymer materials known as polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMSs) with ultraviolet irradiation in the presence of oxygen, the membrane allows small gas molecules to pass while blocking larger ones. See more details here.

Finally, genetic variations in the gene BACH2 is known to have a link with a range of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. A team of researchers probed how BACH2 expression can interfere with the normal functioning of the immune system by creating knockout mice missing the BACH2 gene. The mice were found to develop inflamed lungs and guts, with less immune inhibitory regulatory T cells. More details here.

Beyond the hood

3D printing has been causing a lot of hype lately, and perhaps justifiably so. The latest of its potential has come in the form of a 3D printed battery the size of a grain of sand. The tiny device promises to supply electricity to tiny devices, many of which have been sitting in labs waiting for batteries small enough to fit them (think flying insect-like robots, tiny cameras and medical implants).

The microbattery was made by printing precisely interlaced stacks of tiny battery electrodes, each being less than the width of a human hair. Here’s a link to the study.