Monthly Archives: October 2010

In memory of the 80’s greatest Arab science communicator

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Mostafa Mahmoud.jpg

Exactly one year ago, arguably the greatest science communicator in the modern Arab world passed away.

Moustafa Mahmoud, passed away on 31 October, 2009. His 88-year long journey from a rebellious child to a philosophical writer has taken him across the world, always in search of the elusive “truth”.

While Mahmoud is a prolific writer, he is best remembered for the TV series “Science and Belief” (Al-Elm wa Al-Eman). The show produced 400 episodes throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. Those who grew up in the 1980’s will always remember the show fondly. For many of us, this was our first encounter with science communication.

The premises of the show was quite simple, yet it captivated audiences in every home across the region every Monday night. We would gather around the TV in the living room as the Mahmoud presented captivating science stories, coupled with documentary videos. The topics were quite diverse, ranging from how ants can form fantastic cooperating communities to touring the wide Milky Way.

Unfortunately, since the show stopped airing, there hasn’t been a similar science TV show. Most young teenagers now do not even know there was once such a successful science show airing weekly.

Interestingly enough, this TV show was the inspiration for many, if not most, of the 1980’s generation to be fascinated about science. It was a far call from the boring science curriculum in schools, it was actually interesting, fascinating science that captured the imagination of the children watching. That generation had the largest percentage of high school children who wanted to go into science careers.

Nowadays, the number of school children in Egypt who want to pursue a science career is dwindling rapidly. There is no interest anymore in science. Curriculum science courses are still uninspiring, but there is no outside influence to get children to love science.

Mahmoud’s journey in science was driven by a hunger to learn more. This hunger led him down many diverse paths, exploring his spirituality as much as his science. This journey created a man with a vision and a distinct belif in science that was electrifying.

Here’s to wishing that the upcoming second decade of the 2000’s gives children a similar science communicator that would reignite the love if science in them again, in this much needed time.

Stars of Science – Take Two

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Stars of Science

I have to admit that when I first heard about the first season of Stars of Science, a prime time TV show focusing on science and innovation in the Arab world, I was very skeptic. I doubted they’d pull it off, let alone that a second season would see the light. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. High production values (make that extremely high production values), backed by the huge and resourceful Qatar Foundation, gave us an exciting show. I found myself tuning in every week to see who will leave the show that week and voting on my favorite inventions. Towards the end, I was actually routing for my favourite contestants.

Now, the show organizers have announced they just finished the screening phase of season two. They held auditions in all Arab countries, travelling from the Gulf states to the Levant and on to northern Africa.

The show is setup along the same popular formula of X-Factor – only the contestants are convincing the jury they are innovative scientists rather than talented artists. During the screening phase each hopeful contestant must present their idea in a few minutes to the jury, hoping to convince them to pick him/her for the show itself. The ideas can range from the practical, such as motorized trolleys for the handicapped to the outright wild, such as a height-controlled electrical heel for women.

After the screening session, 27 young scientists made it through, but were later screened down to 16 contestants who will carry on to the full programme. Starting with the next prime time episode, aired Sunday 31 October, 2010, the contestants will go through a series of challenges, to prove their concept and the importance of their innovation to the jury. Each week a number will be eliminated, until a final winner is left standing.

Interestingly enough, the show was picked up by 15 different TV channels in the region, with a complete guide available for broadcasting times.

I know I will personally be tuning in next Sunday for the first challenge, the “Proof of Concept” challenge, where the contestants need to convince the jury that their ideas are feasible.

Kudos to Qatar for pulling this. Science shows are not very popular worldwide, and are even less so in the Arab world. Here’s hoping the show will excite more people about science in the region.

A new turn for Saudi Arabia’s education dreams

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When the Gulf States of the Middle East decided it was high time to invest their petrodollars in science and research, each one came up with it’s own approach.

At the heart of it, all the countries have a grander, similar aim: to attract Western academia to their local institutes to jump-start their “science renaissance” back home. The task is easier said than done, however. Apart from large funding, there was not much to attract the best minds to leave the West and live in the Middle East.

Waleed El-Shobakky, a science journalist who has studied the education landscape in the Middle East extensively, outlines the different patterns that each country employed to go about achieving that target.

Qatar spear-headed the movement to convince world-renowned research institutes to open branch campuses in the small, natural gas-rich state. Doha’s Education City is home to campuses of Weill Cornell Medical College, Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and Texas A&M’s school of engineering, amongst others.

Saudi Arabia, however, went into a completely different direction. Instead of opting for local branches of these international universities, the largest Gulf country created the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Their plan was to enter into partnerships with a wide selection of Western institutes, funding researchers in their home countries, only asking them to visit for a few weeks each year to give workshops and symposiums for KAUST faculty and students.

While the two models stand in contrast, it is hard to gauge which is more successful so far. Each has its positives and its shortcomings.

Now, however, Saudi Arabia is shifting from its previous position. They have opted to diversify their approach to boosting science by emulating neighbouring Qatar’s model as well.

The Financial Times reports that Saudi Arabia’s General Investment Authority signed a letter of intent with the United State’s Georgia Institute of Technology to build a centre to provide applied research degrees in the Kingdom. This will be the first foreign-accredited, postgraduate research degree in the country.

This does not in any way amount to admission that the KAUST model has failed. On the contrary, KAUST remains the country’s foremost research institute. As reported earlier in this blog, they have already scored four Nature papers in less than a year. That is a feat to be respected, regardless of who are the nationality of the researchers who actually worked on the paper.

However, the Kingdom still suffers of brain drain. People are still leaving the country to study aboard – and usually not coming back. Maybe this latest approach is an attempt by the government to retain these smart minds. Offering the applied degrees is also an attempt to increase the quality of the workforce, to counter the Kingdom’s increasing unemployment.

Or maybe it is just an attempt to diversify the options. After all, putting all your eggs in one basket is usually not the smartest option. This is especially true in the volatile Middle East.

Egypt’s research woes

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While the bulk of the Middle East and North Africa are realizing (albeit a little late) the importance of promoting science and research for their future, the situation in Egypt is becoming increasingly worrying.

School children are increasingly opting to study arts and literature, rather than sciences and mathematics, for their high school majors. With my utmost respect to the importance of the finer arts, I am a bit biased towards science and am worried about this trend.

I first saw this firsthand when, for a short stunt, I taught science for a semester in a private school in Egypt. All the children I taught told me they “can’t be bothered” to study sciences because they were too hard, too boring, or too unrewarding in the future. They all wanted “an easy way out” so to speak. This trend was confirmed through a study recently reported on here.

The students in the study blamed uninspiring teachers and boring curriculums on their decisions. Reviewing my own experience in an Egyptian school, I can totally agree. My true love and appreciation for science was only rekindled when I decided to study IGCSE (British high school system).

With the new-found focus on sciences in the region, especially in the Gulf States, Egypt has to get its act together if it wants to remain competitive. It will not be an easy endeavour, but a worthy one nonetheless. A clear, multistep plan needs to be put in place with accurate, measurable and timed goals and targets.

1) The education system needs a complete overhaul. To school (and university) students, the science they learn is so out of touch with their everyday lives that they find no reason to be excited about it. The decades-old curriculum currently being taught just don’t cut it any longer, not when the world has moved ahead.

Students need to be excited about science and research again. As it stands, science is very boring when taught in Egyptian schools. An older friend of mine once told me “for us, science was the closest thing to magic.” That spirit needs to be recaptured. The thrill of the discovery can be a strong driver to students to follow a research career.

2) Science teachers need to be better educated, need to be more passionate about the source material they are working with and need to spark their students’ interest. A bored teacher will never get students excited. There is a large role there that includes better conditions for teachers, better education for teachers and better classrooms to conduct their work in.

3) The science and research career needs to be energized again and made into a viable option for the smartest minds. As long as the students look at older family members who followed a science career taking up boring, bureaucratic, uninspiring jobs, they will never want to follow in their footsteps. Nobody wants to invest their time and effort only to get a minimum paying job after many years of hard work.

Research facilities are a necessary investment. If anything, research opportunities have been decreasing in Egypt over the past few years rather than increasing. The trend needs to be reversed while offering unique niche opportunities for a new generation of potential researchers.

Egypt has never been short of smart minds, but they just lack the proper investment in them to truly make them shine.

This may sound like an expensive endeavour, and it must definitely is. However, the important question now is: Can Egypt afford to continue ignoring this pressing need?

Baghdad: The scientific seesaw

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Baghdad University / Wikimedia

A couple of weeks ago, Jim Al-Khalili, a professor of physics who was originally born and raised in Iraq, wrote about the scientific legacy of Baghdad in the Guardian.

The article touches on all the familiar bases that you will find on pieces that talk about the scientific legacy of the Islamic empire, with a special focus on the House of Wisdom, which acted as a beacon of science for centuries. The Caliphs, espeically the young Abu Ja’far al-Ma’mun, were obsessed with collecting every book in the known world in the coveted halls, and translating them into Arabic. Many historians say it was the greatest centre of knowledge humanity has known since the Great Library of Alexandria.

The glorious scientific legacy of Baghdad, however, came to an end after the invasion of the Mongols completely sacked and burned Baghdad. Historians speak of how the invaders gathered the books in Baghdad’s great libraries, including the House of Wisdom, and threw them in the river to create a passage for their troops across it. Survivors say the water ran black due to the ink in the book and red from the blood of scientists killed.

Baghdad never fully recovered from the blow, it was obviously rebuilt as a glorious city, but nothing like its historical rule. And historically, every invasion chipped away at their scientific culture.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US and its allied forces was not too different either. In April 2003, the Iraq National Library and Archive was burned and looted. Over 60% of its archived material was destroyed. The library was home to some of the oldest documents from the Ottoman empire as well as one of the oldest copies of the Q’uran.

A campaign of assassination from 2005 to 2007 killed hundreds, and forced thousands more to flee the country in fear for their lives. Things got so bad that the UNESCO warned that the killings almost collapsed the university system. Attendance dropped in many universities to as low as 30% as even going to the university became an increasingly dangerous endeavour.

Things are much better in Iraq now and it is safer for everyone. The Iraq National Library and Archive was rebuilt and upgraded and became a safe haven for researchers.

Now is the time for the country to live up to the challenge it had endured over the past 1,000 years or so: building up a science culture nearly from scratch once again.

As international aid to the trickles in to the anguished academic sector, the government is trying to send as many students and faculty members as possible to study overseas. A risky strategy, but they hope these individuals will form the nucleus of Iraq’s research efforts.

Now the government would like to reach out to the science Diaspora, and convince them to come back to Iraq. However, the signs are not too encouraging. Iraq is still mired by challenges and problems. For example, steady electricity is still a luxury most universities don’t have.It is hard to believe that Iraq-born scientists currently living in the West will leave their well-equipped laboratories and comfortable lifestyles to return to the dire conditions of their home country.

Baghdad never fully recovered after it was sacked by the Mongols. However, the resilient citizens were always able to rebuild. It may not be as grand as before, but always an impressive feat.

Here’s hoping they can recreate the stunt one more time.

Volcanoes in Saudi Arabia?

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Saudi Arabia earthquake.jpg

The Middle East is home to several underground fault lines, the biggest of which is the Dead Sea System in Lebanon, which separates the African and Asian plates. However, another fault line far out in the Red Sea is causing tremors 200km away in Saudi Arabia.

In May 2009, a ‘failed’ eruption led to over 30,000 earthquakes ripping through Saudi Arabia. Most of these were too small to be felt, but one of them scored 5.7 on the Richter Scale, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The earthquakes took place in Harrat Lunayyir in northwest Saudi Arabia, opening an 8-kilometre-long fissure in the desert. The government evacuated 40,000 residents as buildings cracked in a nearby town. Scientists do not think there is an increased danger of volcanic eruption or for larger earthquakes, however.

The Dead Sea System fault line in Lebanon caused a massive earthquake in 1759, killing 40,000 people in Lebanon and Syria. Seismologists predict that earthquakes along the fault line would occur every 250 to 300 years, which would mean we are due to another earthquake there soon. Today Beirut is a high-rising city, several times bigger than what it was like 250 years ago. Another earthquake could be devastating.

Unfortunately, there is not enough seismic research taking place in the region to prepare for these dangers. The Saudi Geological Survey from the National Center for Earthquakes and Volcanoes has expanded its volcano monitoring and research programme, so this is definitely a good start.

Now hopefully, this will pave the way for more regional collaborative work across the region. The way the busy cities of the Middle East are laid out, none are safe from the catastrophic effects of an eruption of lava or a major earthquake. Since the Earth’s crust itself doesn’t know about our laid borders, it is only safe to assume that cross-border seismic research is the best bit to save lives and prevent unnecessary damage.