NME’s weekly science dose (March 22-28)

This week, it’s genome-sequencing galore, and first up is the falcon.

So, who’s evolving faster: the falcon or the chicken?

In the game of hunter versus hunted, researchers sequencing the genomes of two species of falcon suggest that top predators need to adapt quickly if they are to stay at the top of their game and not risk being ousted from their predatory position.

In the case of the falcons – including the peregrine (the fastest creature on the planet capable of zipping at 320 kilometers per hour) and the saker – their genomes suggest that they are evolving at an accelerated rated when compared to birds such as turkey, chicken and zebra finch.

The finding, contributed to by Jun Wang from Jeddah’s King Abdul Aziz University, supports earlier observations of a rapid rate of new species forming within the falcon lineage.

Another report on a genome sequenced this week features the red seaweed known as the Irish moss. While completely removed from the high speed predatory world of the falcon, this multicellular red algae seems to have quite a unique genome: it only has 9,606 genes, significantly less than even some unicellular algae.

To make sense of such a compact genome, the researchers, including Ahmed Mostafa from the American University in Cairo, hypothesise that more than a billion years ago, red algae experienced a massive loss of genetic material due to extreme environmental conditions. Had this loss not occurred, red algae might have gone on to colonize the terrestrial world – just like green algae, the ancestor of all land plants, did.

A third report highlights the draft sequencing of the genomes of two progenitor wheat species that played important roles in the evolution of modern wheat: Ae. tauschii and the wild einkorn wheat T. urartu.

The Ae. tauschii genome was found to contain a hefty 43,150 protein-coding genes. The data predicted the presence of genes encoding 159 previously unknown microRNAs, some of which may contribute to the ability of bread wheat to grow in low-nutrient soils.

The draft for T. urartu predicted 34,879 protein-coding genes. Its genome also had a slight expansion of the genes associated with disease resistance — containing nearly 600 such genes, compared to 460 in rice and just 106 in maize.

Beyond the hood

Hooked on caffeine? Scientists have just reported on genetically engineered E.Coli bacteria that literally live off of it. The researchers transferred the genetic gear for breaking down caffeine from a natural soil bacterium called Pseudomonas putida – which can actually live solely on caffeine – into E.coli, which is easy to handle and grow.

These can be used to then decaffeinate a drink or even measure the caffeine content of a beverage. Caffeine is already a common water pollutant thanks to its abundance in many drinks and medicines – these bacteria can help decaffeinate our water.

So how would you feel about some decaffeinating E.coli in your next drink?

While you think about that, consider this study just published in the journal Neuron on the nature of decision-making: it suggests that being given time to make a decision does not necessarily lead to making better decisions at all. That, at least, is the case among rats – who according to the study’s author have “surprisingly similar” decision-making processes to humans. Hmm.

In context of this study, when rats were challenged by a series of perceptual decision problems, they fared just as well whether they decided rapidly or took time to respond.

According to the lead author, neuroscientist Zachery Mainen, “There are many kinds of decisions, and for some, having more time appears to be of no help. In these cases, you’d better go with your intuition, and that’s what our subjects did.”

It’s good to be reminded every now and then that the human species can go extinct pretty much any minute – that’s certainly what happened to half the species on the planet 200 million years ago.

Massive volcanic eruptions were thought to have caused the mass extinction, and now new evidence has pinpointed these eruptions as occurring 201,564,000 years ago – exactly when half the planet’s species abruptly disappeared (at least that’s what the fossil record reflects. They may have all been abducted by aliens for all we know, but… no.)

The study, including Mohammed Et-Touhami from Morocco, lends new evidence to the tight chronology between the eruptions and extinction, further suggesting that the former caused the latter.

Fast forward through the millions of years that Young Earth advocates don’t believed ever happened, and we arrive to our modern world of mammals, cars, and alas, HIV. Being HIV-positive can cause significant cognitive deficits with time, but it now seems these may be reduced by using a steroid hormone called dehydroepiandrosterone – at least among cats.

A team of researchers, including Moroccan researcher Samir Ahboucha (Morocco’s on a roll this week!), found that giving this steroid to “FIV-infected cats” – an animal model of HIV infection – significantly reduced their cognitive and behavioural deficits.

Finally, if we can get away with it, most of us are unlikely to tell our bosses we screwed up if it means we’ll get a nasty mark on our record. It’s an understandable tendency that seems to be stopping healthcare providers in Lebanon from reporting mistakes due to the “culture of blaming rather than learning” that seems to be troubling hospitals there.

A survey of nearly 7000 healthcare providers from over half of Lebanon’s hospitals found that over 80% of them believed mistakes were held against them and recorded in their personal files, making them reluctant to report any mishaps – not a huge problem if you are the hospital’s accountant, but potentially a serious issue if you are a heart surgeon.

Beyond the hood

It’s been annoyingly called the “God particle”, but the “Higgs-like” particle that was discovered at CERN eight months ago is officially now just the “Higgs boson” – it’s already somewhat confirmed existence has been well, re-confirmed.

The positive identification came after researchers were able to examine how the discovered particle decayed into smaller particles – that is, two Z bosons, which in turn break down into two muons each – exactly as the Standard Model predicts.

That’s it for this week but stay tuned to next week’s roundup of what’s happening in the world of science in the Middle East and beyond!

Hello reader! Welcome to our new, weekly roundup of what’s happening in the science world. Each week, we will wrap up the latest in science from the region and present it  in one, easily digestible dose. We will also highlight two or three findings from the broader science world that we think are particularly interesting. Enjoy.

Did you know that just 1% of researchers in Saudi Arabia were women in 2011? Geneticist Lihadh Al-Gazali lays into the social barriers shackling women scientists in the Arab world this week, part of our coverage highlighting International Women’s Day.

Egyptian biomedical scientist Nagwa El-Badri also takes a swing at the “arrested potential” of Egyptian women in science — though 60% of entry level faculty positions are held by women, only 20% become professors.

In Lebanon, however, one insidious factor that is affecting all genders is in the very air they are breathing. Our Beirut-based correspondent Andrew Bossone reports here on the public health risk arising from the use of diesel generators in compensation for the country’s chronic energy problem.

But it’s not all bad news: a new strain of the coronavirus (which normally causes only mild respiratory illness) appears to have killed off 7 of the 13 individuals it’s so far infect. No wait, that’s more bad news.

The good news is, researchers — including virologist Ali Zaki from Saudi Arabia — have identified the protein allowing the virus entry into human cells, potentially paving the way to an effective therapy to stop infection.

Beyond the hood (i.e. Middle East)

It’s something that keep us folks at Nature Middle East up all night at times: what if it was our cousins the Neanderthals that had become the supreme homos (of the genus Homo, that is)? What if it was us who had gone extinct instead?

A new study of our relatives’ skulls suggests they may actually have gone extinct because they had larger eyes than ours. Too much of their brains were caught up processing visual stimuli it seems, while our brains had more resources available to endow us with the higher level cognitive processes that eventually led us to invent things like — Facebook?

Speaking of which, it appears each time we hit that Like button on FB, we are giving away all kinds of info about our personal attributes: from sexual orientation, to drug use and religious affiliation.

A new study found that by analysing our Likes, researchers can predict one’s religion with 82% accuracy, political party membership (in the US, 85% accuracy), and even whether we smoke cigarettes (73% accuracy).

The researchers also found that individuals who like Nature Middle East links are highly intelligent and inherently awesome. (Yes, we made that part up, but we all know it’s true).