Monthly Archives: January 2013

Surgical training receives a more humane test dummy

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A donation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals means that healthcare providers in Egypt and neighbouring states no longer have to practice advanced trauma surgery on live sheep.

Trainers preparing TraumaMan for the Advanced Trauma Life Support course in Tripoli, Libya

Patients suffering a life-threatening abdominal or thoracic trauma are unlikely to be relieved to find out that the medic hurriedly cutting into them gained their skills by practicing on livestock.

Until recently, however, practitioners being trained in responding to advanced trauma in patients at the Egyptian Life Support Training Center (ELSTC) had to practice on sedated sheep.

All this changed last August after a donation by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to the training center: three state-of-the-art simulators called TraumaMan now take the place of sheep.

This sophisticated, manikin-like substitute comes with the benefit of not only being mercifully lifeless, but it also provides much more effective surgical training thanks to its accurate simulation of the human body.

It’s a transition that resulted after ELSTC’s director Abdelhakim Elkholy approached PETA and noted the discomfort participants of the advanced trauma course felt while injuring and cutting into live sheep.

The necessity of conducting the training using sheep at a designated animal laboratory restricted the location options for the course. The portable simulators not only made the training more mobile, they also significantly cut the cost of the course for participants as no animal laboratory now requires renting.

“The simulators are allowing us to really expand,” says Elkholy, “and we are hoping to soon set up centers in Minya, Assuit and Alexandria.” Talks are also underway to establish a training site at Zagazig University in Sharqia in northern Egypt.

The ELSTC even took its three TraumaMan simulators last month to Tripoli, Libya, and trained 47 healthcare providers in handling advanced trauma.

“We are in the process of starting an independent training center there,” Elkholy says, who also notes that doctors from Syria will soon undertake the course in Cairo before returning to use the much needed skills in the ongoing crisis of their home country.

However, the TraumaMan simulator, for all its benefits, is a limited resource: the synthetic skin grafts covering its throat and abdomen are used up and disposed after each course. While PETA donated a number of these grafts with the three simulators, the ELSTC has already finished more than half of them since August.

“It’ll be a problem when they run out,” says Elkholy. “They are expensive and importing them is going to be a problem at the moment because of the currency issues we are facing in Egypt. I’m really worried about how we will continue.”

However, Justin Goodman, PETA’s laboratory investigations department director, says they are aware of the issue and keen to help.

“We’ll be helping the center obtain the additional equipment they need for this vital program that is saving humans’ lives and animals’ lives,” he says.

 

Photo credit: ELSTC

Science blogging in the Arab world (or the lack thereof)

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This is a guest post from Rayna Stamboliyska

When I started browsing the web for science blogs from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, I didn’t think it would be such an adventure. And for a quest, it was one.

I thus started entering keywords in the search engine. The outcome was disappointing: one or two blogs in English popped up. I thought it is because I was only searching in English, but French and Arabic searches did not harbour significantly more results. When I asked friends to point me out my wrongdoing, they just laughed and the comment invariably was: “Dear, spare your efforts, there is no such thing like science blogging in the region.”

The blogging culture in the Arab world thus seems to mainly touch opinionated people with a say in politics and economy. There is nothing wrong with this. I’ll spare you a lecture on the importance of social media for changing the society we live in, this has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere. Loads of bits and ink have also been spilled to demonstrate the importance of science blogging. Given the paucity of science blogs in the Arab World, I guess a reminder is more than useful.

Why write about science? Reason #1: scientists get to speak directly to the public. Reason #2: lay scientists or enthusiasts engage and keep up to date with developments in various scientific fields. Reason #3: open discussions on research topics are promoted among peers.

This sounds great, motivating and all that. There is, however, a recurrent feature pointing its nose from this shortlist: scientists should initiate and nurture this dynamics, ideally complemented by active science writers and journalists.

If you are reading this piece, it means you are aware that science is an emerging field in the Arab world. Funding is far from sufficient to secure comfortable or even basal equipment for research. Moreover, political influence in science making and communication is a fundamental characteristics in the region. Doctoral degrees are, however, greatly appreciated in all MENA countries. Additionally, journalism and mass communication are a frequently taught discipline. But science and journalism do not really mingle, after all.

If you browse the websites of major universities in the Arab countries, you realize that they are rarely updated. Even if they are so, press releases about endeavours and achievements seldom land on journalists’ desks. Very often, the few science-related articles one stumbles upon in a newspaper are just a translation from foreign sources. This clearly gives the bitter taste of “nothing happens in our part of the world.” Even such admirable initiatives as publishing 50,000 PhD theses online and using the platform as a networking hub finally fail: the dedicated website does not exist at all.

A different dynamics is operated in the Gulf states where Western universities have started to settle, and scarce reports about conferences see the day. Although progress is clear, science communication still has much room for improvement.

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Features & Commentaries roundup of 2012

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While the political upheavals across several states in the Middle East have taken up the bulk of interest in 2012, there were exciting developments for science research and the science community in the region as well.

Over the past few days, we have looked back at the most important and most read science stories and research published on Nature Middle East throughout the year.

Following up from our roundup of science news from around the Arab world, here are the top most read features and commentaries of 2012, with diverse topics ranging from politics to the challenges of handling mental illnesses in the Arab world.

  1. A constitution not at peace with science: During Egypt’s often rocky transition to a democratic nation, science has been somewhat sidelined. When a first draft of a new constitution was presented to the public, scientists were worried it would negatively affect research in the country. Mohamed Abdel-Mottaleb, a scientist often involved in the country’s politics closely, gave a detailed critique of the constitution and all the dangerous pitfalls it held for research and education. The final constitution, which was ratified following a public referendum on the 26 December 2012, addressed many of the issues Abdel-Mottaleb raised here.
  2. Does the Arab world (not) need basic science?: As the Arab world actively seeks a renaissance to a long dormant culture of science, the question of basic science vs applied science has often cropped up. Many advocate a focus on applied research that would yield much needed economic growth. Nidhal Guessoum, author of Islam’s Quantum Question, argues that there can be no science culture without basic science.
  3. Reversing the brain drain: A Lebanese model: Every year, thousands of graduates of science and medicine schools in the Arab world flock to the West seeking better opportunities in renowned universities, depriving their countries from their expertise. Lebanese researchers Mohamed Sayegh and Kamal Badr suggest setting up local networks of expertise, linked with European and North American universities, to attract researchers back to the region, based on a model they are trying out in Lebanon.
  4. Dealing with mental illnesses in the Middle East: Psychiatric disorders are often misdiagnosed in the Arab world, and even when they are properly diagnosed, treatment usually are often developed in the West, ignoring the social intricacies of the region. Ziad Kronfol, a psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) argues the region cannot ignore mental illnesses and longer and needs to develop its research and better train its physicians to address these issues effectively.
  5. NASA maps groundwater beneath Arabian deserts: NASA has made news all over the world this year for its successful Mars landing, launching an ambitious research mission there. Yet before the landing, the space agency worked with Kuwait to test equipment that will be used on Mars to look for water in the arid deserts of the Middle East. Using a low-frequency sounding radar, the research team produced the highest resolution maps yet of groundwater in the Kuwaiti desert.

 

This rounds up the list for our most read and shared commentaries and features from 2012. That’s it for our annual highlights – so stay tuned for what comes in 2013!

What was your favorite feature story on Nature Middle East in 2012? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!

Voluntary slavery? Ancient Egyptians paid a monthly fee to become temple slaves

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{credit}MACMILLAN SOUTH AFRICA{/credit}

Becoming bound by eternal, unquestioning servitude as someone’s property is not likely most people’s career of choice. 2200 years ago, however, it seems some Egyptians voluntarily signed up to become temple slaves.

Not only that, they even paid a monthly fee for the “privilege.”

The revelation comes from the work of Egyptologist Kim Ryholt of the University of Copenhagen, who has been studying papyrus slave contracts found in a rubbish dump in the ancient Egyptian temple city of Tebtunis.

“I am your servant from this day onwards, and I shall pay 2½ copper-pieces every month as my slave-fee before Soknebtunis, the great god.”

This is part of the translation of 100 of these papyrus slave contracts that Ryholt has spent years trying to collect and analyse. The documents were scattered in fragments across Egypt, Europe and the US after they were illicitly excavated. In one example, a contract was divided between Copenhagen and the British Museum.

Ryholt is the first to analyze these papyri collectively, publishing his findings in a recent article titled: A Self-Dedication Addressed to Anubis – Divine Protection against Malevolent Forces or Forced Labour?

Among his findings was that these voluntary slaves also signed up their descendants.

“I am your servant with my children and the children of my children,” read the contracts, which were written in Demotic script – an ancient Egyptian language.

It is unclear how the temple slaves generated any income in order to pay their monthly fee, but Ryholt says that they likely performed various kinds of manual labour in their “spare” time.

“Slaves in antiquity, as in modern times, were generally allowed to earn some money on their own,” says Ryholt. However, he concedes that we are rarely told how they generated income, though he does mention one example of a literate slave called Ptolemy who made some earnings working as a “dream interpreter.”

Ultimately, the real mystery is why anybody would willingly become a slave. Ryholt argues that these individuals were not driven by some inexplicable masochist streak – as one may be tempted to assume – but were poor individuals at the bottom of the social hierarchy seeking asylum from a worse fate: forced labour.

While these contracts bound them as slaves, they also protected them from being subject to forced labours such as digging canals and other harsh and often fatal projects. However, as temple slaves, they were mainly engaged in agriculture and were exempt from forced labour.

This loophole for escaping forced labour was likely only open during a 60 year period from around 190 BC to 130 BC, with no other evidence that this practice existed during other periods in ancient Egypt. Ryholt speculates that this is because reigning monarchs could not afford losing too many potential labourers to temples in the long-run.

Science news roundup for 2012

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While the political upheavals across several states in the Middle East have taken up the bulk of interest in 2012, there were exciting developments for science research and the science community in the region as well.

Over the next few days, we will look back at the most important and most read stories and research published on Nature Middle East throughout the year.

Following up from our roundup of research conducted or partially conducted in the Arab world, here are the top most read news articles of 2012, ranging from health and brain analysis to climate change and water security.

  1. Mummy diagnosed with prostate cancer: Researchers performed X-ray computer tomography scans on three Egyptian mummies and discovered evidence of prostate cancer in one of them. This is the second oldest case of prostate cancer found, prompting researchers to suggest that cancer may not have been as rare in the past as expected, but it was just harder to discover than it is today.
  2. Iraq’s soil turning white: Rising salinity in Iraq’s agricultural land due to an aging and failing drainage system is threatening the country’s food security. With nearly 2 million hectares of agricultural land becoming unsuitable for crop cultivation, the Iraqi government has reached out to ICARDA to launch an initiative to address the problem. They are working with local farmers to determine best cultivation practices and develop ways to improve the drainage system.
  3. The unseen risks of water pipe smoking: Water pipe smoking, a popular social habit in the Arab world, continues to spread in the region and further to Europe and the US. While the social perception is that it is less harmful than cigarette smoking, new research is suggesting it may be just as bad for health, damaging lung functions as much as deep inhalation cigarette smoking.
  4. Africa floats on underground water reserves: Researchers studying hundreds of underground maps of Africa have produced a comprehensive map of aquifers found in the continent, which has underground water reserves 100 times more than those on the surface. the catch, however, is that these water resources – especially the largest which are located in North Africa – are so deep underground that they cannot be used as a viable source of water for agriculture.
  5. What’s in a language?: Researchers in New York University Abu Dhabi will use a new laboratory in the university housing a magnetoencephalography (MEG) machine to study how the human brain processes languages. They have starting with Arabic, studying how the brain processes the different dialects of the complex language.

This rounds up the list for our most read and shared news stories from 2012. Tomorrow we’ll highlight the best commentaries and features from the year.

What was your favorite news story on Nature Middle East in 2012? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!