Monthly Archives: August 2010

Science mapping the Arab world

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<img alt=“Science Map of London.jpg” align= right src=“https://blogs.nature.com/houseofwisdom/images/Science%20Map%20of%20London.jpg” width=“280” height=“195” />

When I first started working as a science journalist, I primarily focused on science in Africa. It was a raw, exciting, and often under-reported region of the world. When I began turning my eyes to the science being conducted in the Arab world, I realized that I know very little about it – even though I have lived here most of my life.

I knew that there was science being conducted, but no one knew were – or how to know more about it. Back then I decided that over the next few years I’ll start gathering information about all places related to science in the region. I wanted to start with Egypt and spread to all the other countries in the region. This data was to act as my own, personally created ‘map’ of where science was being conducted. Over the years I have collected quite a lot of information, but to be honest not as complete as I would have liked.

So I was more than pleasantly surprised to see the excellent maps of scientific locations that started to spring up on the Nature Network’s Schemes and Memes blog. The project is basically to use Google Maps and put markers on all institutes related to science, such as museums, universities, or publishers. These are then easy to share with the whole world by putting them up on the blog.

This is basically the same idea I had some years ago, but taking it to completely new levels of presentation and accessibility. And the fact that the maps are so easy to share is the cherry on top for me!

Scientists have already been invited to start creating maps of their regions and we already have maps for London, San Francisco and Münster.

Obviously, none of the Arab cities are as rich with science locations, unfortunately. But I think it would be a wonderful idea if some of the scientists in the region create similar maps for the most important science cities, such as Cairo, Riyadh, and Doha, and shared them with the world. These may then be linked up into a wider, regional map of what is happening in the Arab world in the realm of science. This can be a collaborative effort through which I’m sure we’ll all learn of places we never knew about right in our backyards.

Nature Network’s Schemes and Memes blog has already posted a details and handy guide to people interested in creating their own maps.

This would also be an invaluable resource for other scientists who are travelling to the Middle East for conferences, work or presentations who want to have a quick tour of scientific institutes in the region. I know I will be printing the London map and taking it with me next time I travel there!

It would also be a wonderful chance to raise the scientific profile of these cities. Many science institutions are unknown and remain low-profile. But such a project might attract the wider general public who are interested in science to these places. It might also attract more media coverage of the work done there, generating more interest in science and research in the region. This is pivotal to the regions strife to create a science culture that transforms them into science powerhouses.

Personally, I know it would make my job tons easier to know about all the places that are most relevant to my work!

Hepatitis C controversy in Egypt

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Hepatitis C syringe.jpg

A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, put the number of new Hepatitis C infections in Egypt at an average of half a million. This is far higher than any other country in the world.

Everyone always knew that Egypt has a serious epidemic of Hepatitis C. When someone visits a hospital, especially one of the public hospitals, there is a real danger of getting infected by the virus. However, the Ministry of Health has always played the numbers down. They have categorically refused international studies that cited high numbers of incidence or prevalence as ‘biased’.

So it wasn’t particularly surprising when Wahid Doss, head of the National Committee for the Control of Viral Hepatitis (NCCVH), came out against the numbers of the new report, saying new infections were closer to 100,00 (less than 20% of the number in the report).

The problem was that Doss did not offer an alternative, scientific study on which he based these numbers. And to make it worse, he refused to talk to any media organizations after that statement he gave to the Egyptian daily newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Granted, the new study doesn’t look too good, especially for the “control” part in the responsibilities of the NCCVH. However, that cannot be a reason to deny the new paper. Hepatitis C is a blood-borne disease. A lot of unhealthy habits, such as barbers in rural Egypt using the same scalpel for male circumcision of dozens of newborns, can spread the virus quickly. But the bulk of infections takes place through the healthcare system. That is why the continued epidemic is particularly embarrassing to the Ministry of Health. When the epidemic keep claiming so many people every year, you’d think something would’ve been done by now.

Half a million new infections of Hepatitis C – every year – is a huge number, especially for a blood-borne disease. The problem is that the continued denial of how serious the epidemic is in the country will not help. It will not up and go away this way.

The policy the government is taking right now is disturbingly similar to what happened with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. The continued denial there led to an explosion of the epidemic which seems impossible to control right now. Those events should have been a lesson for everyone that denial is the biggest weapon a virus has.

If Egypt fails to learn the lesson that sub-Saharan Africa learned the hard way, I’m afraid the Hepatitis C epidemic is here to stay for quite a long time.

KAUST on a roll

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The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) opened its doors for the first time in September 2009. The new university has been a hot topic in discussions worldwide, taunted as the largest and most visionary gamble of the Arab world’s strive to leap into the international science community wagon.

The KAUST model is not the only one in the Arab world’s attempt at science. Qatar has its own plans, attracting international universities to its Education City. The United Arab Emirates has taken a similar path in its bid to bring Western scientists to their shores.

Whichever is the best model remains to be seen, but no doubt KAUST is doing something right. Less than one year after its inauguration, they already have 4 Nature papers under their belt. The papers are varied, from physics to hormones to plants. By most accounts, this is an impressive feat! Most of the much older and established universities in the region still don’t have a single paper published in Nature.

KAUST has not just managed to attract some top international science expertise, but its research grants have led to some excellent collaborations between KAUST and other international research institutes from the US, France, China and Singapore, among others.

For many of the other universities in the Arab world, the problem is they have experience in what they need to do to even stand a chance of getting published in high impact journals such as Nature. But KAUST managed to attracted the right minds internationally, who are able to forge collaborations and produce the kind of work that would be considered for Nature.

As a first year start, this is an impressive record for KAUST. I will personally be keeping my eye on it to see what their second year will be like. One thing’s for sure, I’m excited!

The four papers published can be found below:

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature09025

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08777

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08613

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature08599

The Lancet goes Middle East

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The year 2010 is a special year for science in the Middle East. Earlier this year was the launch of Nature Middle East, a new portal from Nature Publishing Group, which focuses on emerging science in the Arab world. I may, obviously, a little biased, but I try to be as objective as possible when I say this is one of the best things that ever happened to science and research in the Arab world.

Now, hot on the heels of Nature Middle East, and only a few months afterwards, The Lancet Middle East comes to the region. This is another pivotal event for the Middle East. The Lancet is one of the oldest and most respected medical journals in the world.

The website offers a nice introduction in Arabic with some background information about the journal. It also has a news section with stories related to the region it covers.

Apart from the dedicated news section, the rest of the website seems to act as a portal to attract more readers from the Middle East to The Lancet’s popular website and to highlight the different Lancet branded journals. This is different from Nature Middle East, where all material published on the website is directly produced and dedicated to it.

Nevertheless, I love the fact that more people and organizations are turning their eyes towards the Middle East, realizing the potential it holds. On a completely selfish note, this will do wonders to the budding science community in the region. The new portals and journals coming to the region will feed this community, nurturing it quicker than was possible before. But on the other side, there’s also good business here, as these journals tap into a largely maiden region, with great potential. And those who come first will have the upper hand in the long run.

I think the science landscape in the Arab world is gearing up to be very very interesting in the coming months and years.

A dry dry food crisis?

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Food in beaker HoW.jpgLast week’s Nature had a special report titled “Can science feed the world?”

That question is perhaps most relevant to the Middle East, arguably the driest area of the world – and home to one of the fastest growing populations. The 2008 food crisis, which sent prices skyrocketing through the roof, and led to a wave of riots in several countries around the world, was a wake up call for Arab states, especially those in the drier Gulf region. As countries like India reduced their food exports, residents of these countries for the first time realized the reality of going hungry.

This led to a change in policies. Qatar, for example, launched the Qatar National Food Security Programme to push for research and policy to feed the small state’s population. Saudi Arabia has recently been pushing to increase its agricultural production, albeit being mostly covered in desert.

The real challenge, however, remains the limited water resources. Arab states would be well-advised to invest their agricultural research into maximizing crop yield while minimizing water usage. Groundwater resources are already stressed, and the poorest countries, such as Yemen, are in danger of running out of water in the near future. Egypt and Sudan are already suffering water shortage risks due to decreased water flow in the Nile – with a risk of further decrease in the near future.

A commentary published in Nature Middle East a while ago explored the options the Middle East had to achieve food security.

The current track in agriculture in the Middle East region is unsustainable. While it may be a little far-fetched to think that the region may be able to reach full food sustainability through investments in research, it can do wonders to increase production. Newer technologies and agricultural techniques already available can increase yields several folds. Further investments can increase this even further. The fact that all the countries share a very similar challenge in this regard means that there is strong potential to sharing of technology amongst the states, spreading the costs wider.

Not only will the countries be assuring the food security of their fast increasing populations, but they will also be saving up on the most precious resource in the region, water.

Technology for the masses

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Kamil Crater.jpg

Not too long ago, the deserts of the Middle East were largely unexplored. The rough conditions didn’t exactly make them ideal locales for exploration.

Satellite imagery, coupled with the increased usage of remote sensing techniques, made such exploration much easier. Vast areas of desert were mapped, and underground water resources were discovered. Scientists, from different backgrounds, were pouring over images coming from space to study Earth.

But then Google Earth happened. Suddenly, such imagery was not available to scientists alone. Satellite imagery of the whole planet became available at the fingertips of every person with an active internet connection. Updates to Google Earth then also brought space, planets and stars in the picture, allowing millions interested in astronomy around the world to see space like never before.

The availability of these tools so readily has the potential of changing the picture. Scientists are quickly seeing the potential of knowledge crowdsourcing. With millions of people scanning the Earth, there is a true potential to find things that we never did before. And with these tools becoming even better and more accurate, enthusiasts are spending hours everyday exploring, waiting to find “the next big thing.”

A recently discovered meteorite crater in the Western deserts of Egypt was done using Google Earth. Ahmed El-Barkooky, one of the researchers who published a paper in Science studying the crater, said this discovery would not have been possible without Google Earth. The same area where the crater was discovered has been swiped in the 70’s, but low-resolution images meant it was impossible to really make out the crater. The high-resolution images coming up now show the crater in deep detail, with even the ejecta rays showing.

Now, Ahmed El-Fakahany, a developer at IBM in Egypt and astronomy enthusiast, spends hours every day pouring over images of the Sahara desert in Google Earth looking for similar crates. El-Fakahany says he found quite a few craters -as well as several peculiar formations – in the desert in Egypt, though they still need to be verified.

Now Fakahany would like to work with scientists to verify if his finds hold weight or not.

With a few million serious enthusiasts around the world like Fakahany, we might just understand our planet like never possible before.

If the saying that “two minds are better than one” is true, then it is safe to assume that “a million minds are better than one.”