Monthly Archives: November 2014

Roman Egypt was home to “a good citizenship” youth organisation 2,000 years ago

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Ancient Egypt GOODSHOOT

{credit}© GOODSHOOT{/credit}

Following a study of over 7,500 ancient documents on papyrus, originating from Oxyrhynchos in Egypt and discovered over a hundred years back in a rubbish dump, University of Oslo and the University of Newcastle presented what is perhaps the most systematic research of childhood in Roman Egypt, according to the university’s website.

Among their discoveries? Some 2,000 years ago, Oxyrhynchos, a town of around 25,000 inhabitants, had a youth organisation, called a “gymnasium,” in which any free-born child could enroll – slaves and girls not allowed.

Somewhere between 10 and 25% of local Egyptian boys, in addition to Greek and Roman residents of Egypt would have qualified, but typically members of affluent families and higher tax classes enrolled, according to an overview of the study released earlier this month by social historian Ville Vuolanto of the University of Oslo and April Pudsey of the University of Newcastle.

Enrollment in the gymnasium marked the transition to adulthood.

“It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. By examining papyri, pottery fragments with writing on, toys and other objects, we are trying to form a picture of how children lived in Roman Egypt,” explains Vuolanto.

While well-off boys were part of the prestigious gymnasium, learning to be good citizens, others worked or landed what is termed “apprenticeship contracts,” mainly in the weaving industry. Either way, boys in ancient Egypt were not considered fully adult until they got married, usually in their early twenties. Most girls remained or worked at home, according to the study.

Slave children could also become apprentices, however, unlike “free-born” citizens they lived with their owners or “masters” not their parents during. Vuolanto says that children as young as two were separated from kin and sold as slaves.

“Little is known about the lives of children until they turn up in official documents, which is usually not before they are in their early teens,” says University of Oslo’s press release.

Whale sharks aggregating in Arabian gulf

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whale sharks ARC14

{credit}Mohammed Yahia{/credit}

A few months ago, researchers from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology discovered a gathering site for whale sharks off the Saudi Arabian red sea coast. But that was not the first such site discovered in the relatively warmer waters of the Middle East.

For years, workers in offshore oil rigs in Al Shaheen, the largest offshore oil field in Qatar, have noticed whale sharks aggregating around the platforms. When one of the workers took a picture of dozens of whale sharks swimming around the platform, it ended in the formation of the Qatar Whale Shark Project by the ministry of environment to study the patterns and habits of these vulnerable species.

“In the beginning we had no clue when and where to find the sharks so we had the offshore workers report sightings to us,” said Steffen Sanvig Bach from the Maersk Oil Research and Technology Centre, which has joined the Qatari ministry of environment’s research effort.

Later, they started attaching tracking devices to the whales to try to monitor their habits and movements. “Sometimes we saw over a hundred of them in a group. They start to appear in April, peak in the summer months and disappear in October, said Bach. “We don’t really know where they go after October, they simply disappear and we can’t know where they go except if they are close to the surface. They just return every year in April.”

Whale sharks (Rhincodon Typus) are the biggest fish in the world, with reports of individuals over 20 tonnes in weight. The whale sharks that aggregate at the Al Shaheen location are mostly juvenile, however. The average age of the fish found there is around six.  Whale sharks can live up to 60-100 years, and are only mature and sexually active by the age of 30.

Aggregate sites are often important spots to understand the fish and plan for conservation efforts. “We have identified over 300 whale sharks in the Arabian Gulf and will continue to monitor, but it would take us five years to know the final count and determine if they are decreasing or not.”

But why are these young whale sharks gathering in this location? The researchers have several theories why the fish love this place. The site is rich in tuna mackerel, whose eggs is a favourite food for the whale sharks. The site contains a large amount of these fish, who make their home in the artificial reef created by the offshore rigs.

This is coupled by the warmer waters of the Arabian Gulf, which Bach thinks creates a favourable habitat for the whale sharks. “The area is probably a good feeding spot for the mbecause the water is warm, there’s plenty of prey to feed on and no predators. This is particularly important because these are relatively young fish,” he added.

During Qatar’s Annual Research Conference (ARC14), Bach discussed his the new technologies his team are using to learn more about the fish that aggregate at Al Shaheen every summer, before disappearing again. One such technology they are now using is eDNA, where they take a sample of water and study it to identify all the species that interacted with that sample recently.

What we can do to fight a diabetes pandemic

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On World Diabetes Day, the head of medical core facilities and research platforms at the King Abdullah International Medical Research Center in Saudi Arabia Mohamed Boudjelal writes to Nature Middle East’s House of Wisdom about the region’s type 2 diabetes nightmare, and what could be done, on the individual level, to prevent or at least ease the blow of the yet incurable disease.

World Diabetes Day logoDiabetes is a global issue that strains both the societies it’s rampant within, and the economies that these societies rely on. This is especially true in developing regions like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

According to popular projections, the number of diseased persons worldwide may reach 200 million by 2020. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that by 2035, the MENA region alone will be home to 68 million diabetes cases. As it stands, nearly 35 million are already suffering from the disease across MENA and millions remain undiagnosed.

There are two type of diabetes: type 1 which results from the insufficient secretion of insulin in the body and type 2 diabetes which occurs due to some bodies’ insensitivity towards insulin. Type 2 is more widespread, and is intimately linked to changes in our modern lifestyles.

What causes type 2 diabetes?

Obesity, defined by having a body mass index of 30 kg/cm2 or higher, predisposes to type 2 diabetes , which is mainly characterized by the resistance of the body to burn excess energy and instead gain weight in the form of fat. 

Obese people usually carry the excess weight unevenly throughout the body; usually they have central adiposity in the abdomen. Estimates in the Arab world show that over 30% of the population are obese, measured by waist-hip ratio, and females in particular show a significantly higher prevalence of central obesity than males.

This rampant weight gain in the Arab population is, in some instances, culturally desired. But lately it is more likely to be a direct consequence of unhealthy lifestyle changes that eventually lead to dysfunction and more lethargy. In my opinion, the recent spread of this pandemic was aggravated by the abandonment of a traditional lifestyle – one that used to encourage activity and healthy eating.

In the last few decades, nighttime entertainment changed the way our societies eat and sleep – essentially messing up the body’s biological clock which governs most of its physiological processes. The molecular clock is composed of central and peripheral clocks; the central clock, found in the brain, gets synchronised, sensing the day and night via light captured through the retina. As a consequence, the brain would send signals; channeling melatonin or cortisol to the peripheral organs, to tell them if it is day or night, and in turn the organs would switch on or off their biological processes depending on these signals. Some processes are supposed to function only during the day or during the night.

This cycle regulates the timing of hormone secretion, heart rate, blood pressure, cell cycle, metabolism, and energy burning. For example, DNA repair usually happens during the night while cell division occurs during the day; inflammatory factors are secreted in early morning as the cortisol level in the body is at its lowest. That is why asthmatic and rheumatoid patients suffer more in the early morning.

The continuous perturbation, however, of the body’s biological clock leads to diseases and/or worsen their condition – and it is one of the causes of obesity, since it is why people start eating more during the night when the metabolism is low. On top of that, fast food lovers consume a lot of fat and artificial ingredients leading to obesity and higher levels of insulin secretion.

The cure? It’s partly personal!

Diabetes is not yet curable but could be preventable, and preventing obesity is the first step.

Resisting the side effects of urbanization and avoiding a fast food lifestyle (and what it entails) should be the focus of individuals.

Policymakers should also lend a hand by regulating the life of Arab world populations to a degree: for instance, shops should not stay open late unless there is a necessity to encourage early sleep. Such a small step may on the long run help protect our biological clocks.

Education and the media should play a significant role in raising awareness about healthy eating and sports. Small tips, like teaching people to eat and stop when they are no longer hungry as opposed to when they’re stomach-full, can make a difference. Such campaigns should target schools, mosques, colleges and places frequented by young adults.

In sum the solution is not only in the hands of governments, but every single one of us. So there is an urgent need for each and every one to review their lifestyle choices, and determine how to make positive changes.

 

Mohamed Boudjelal is the head of Medical Research Core Facility and Platforms King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, National Guard Health Affairs. Email: boudjelalmo@ngha.med.sa