Paleobiologist digging in Tunisia in 2011 have found the most complete dinosaur skeleton from Africa yet, belonging to a family of sauropods. The new species, Tataouinea hannibalis, probably had hollowed bones and probably large air sacs in its abdomen, morphological traits that are similar to birds and suggesting they may have a bird-like respiratory system. These dinosaurs were not small, however, with the remains suggesting they stood at about 14m in length when they were alive some 136 million years ago.  

Not too far away, researchers diving in the Res Sea are making some interesting discoveries. While bacteria have long been known to live on corals, they found that some species of bacteria may have a much more intimate relationship with the corals – actually living inside the coral cells and tissues.

This close relationship has prompted the researchers to suggest the bacteria most play an important symbiotic role for the corals, maybe acting as the “middleman” between algae and the coral by converting photosynthetic products into a form of energy the corals can use. Conservationists are excited that, if this is true, then the bacteria can serve as a measure of how healthy coral reefs are – acting as ‘alarm bells’ if things aren’t going too well.

This week, we are also highlighting two research papers looking into genetic disorders. In the first paper, researchers have produced the first human trials for a gene therapy to treat metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), a fatal neurodegenerative disorder appearing in children. The trials have been successful, stopping the appearance or progress of the disease in the three patients who underwent the treatment a year afterwards.

In the second paper, researchers produced a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of patients with Brugada syndrome, a rare genetic cardiac disorder that may increase the risk of sudden cardiac death. They found that the risk to develop the disease, which was originally linked to one gene, is actually increased by other genes that are involved in the electric conduction inside the heart. Patients with all three risk alleles identified had an unexpectedly high susceptibility to the disease.

Beyond the Hood

Though millions suffer from epilepsy around the world, our understanding of the disease remains very  limited. Now, however, a team of researchers used stem cells to discover the causes of one type of the disease. They created stem cells from skin cells taken from patients living with epilepsy. They then turned these stem cells into neurons, basically creating an ‘epilepsy in a dish’ to study it. They found high levels of sodium activity bursts in the cells that could set off seizures.

This could be used to test new drugs to try to come up with a treatment for this particular type of epilepsy, called Dravet syndrome. The researchers are also now working on recreating other forms of epilepsy using the same technique to study them and try to find a treatment or medication to handle them.

Have you ever caught yourself staring in awe at a male peacock’s fully-spanned tail? Apparently, without this extra-flamboyant display they would not be able to capture the attention of their mates pretty well. Researchers mounted eye-tracking cameras on peahens to track their eye movement and found it very hard to keep their attention. That is why the males need such large tails. Turns out that the peahens were also not that interested in how tall the tail was, but more interested in its width and the number of eyespots on it when it is further away.

The researchers suggest that, given all the things that can capture the attention of the peahen, the peacock’s tail had to evolve to eclipse everything else that might attract the female to find a possible mate.

Finally, if you suffer from cat allergy, you may be able to visit friends and family that you stopped seeing years ago because they keep pet cats. Researchers from the UK have discovered the mechanism in the body that causes this annoying issue. The culprit is the cat allergen Fel d 1, which is present in cat danders, which is tiny pieces of cat skin, activates a receptor in humans that causes a large immune response. This causes the itching, coughing and runny nose some people get around cats.

Now that the mechanism is known, the researchers hope they can start testing new medication to stop it – allowing many people to start visiting friends again and many cat lovers to finally have cats in their homes without sending their partners running away.

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.