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Top science news of 2011 in the Middle East

02 Jan 2012 | 12:00 GMT | Posted by Mohammed Yahia | Category: Research, Science, Science Journalism

The year 2011 was an exciting and pivotal one for the Middle East, mainly for political reasons. However, science also saw some very interesting developments, with a substantial increase in papers from the region published in prestigious journals and a boost to collaborative research between universities in the Arab world and their counterparts in the West.

Following our list of the most read research highlights of 2011 two days ago, here is a list of the five most interesting science news pieces published in 2011 on Nature Middle East, based on how popular they were with you, our readers.

1. The Arab Awakening Special: By far the biggest news in the Arab world has been the spread of the Arab Spring from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, with young people rising against long-time dictators and seeking greater freedoms and democracies. Scientists and university professors and students played an important role in the events, taking to the streets to protest limited academic freedoms, and discussing how science can reshape their countries. Eventually, a scientist became the first post-revolution prime minister of Egypt.
2. Attention drawn to epidemic of HIV in the Arab world: A new paper published in PLoS in 2011 offered the first systematic review of the rate of HIV/AIDS within the men who have sex with men (MSM) community in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This group is often ignored since the subject is taboo in the region, which easily fuels HIV/AIDS spread. The report found concentrated epidemics are starting to show up in several countries among MSM.
3. Report tracks standard of research in Middle East: How has the Middle East performed in terms of science research output over the past decade? According tho a Reuters Thompson report, research output in the region has more than doubled over that period of time, with Turkey and Iran taking the lead. Engineering  is the strongest sector in research, with neuroscience and the social sciences the weakest across the Arab world.
4. KAUST study reveals climate change impact on the Red Sea: Analyzing data collected from the Red Sea since the mid-1980′s, researchers at KAUST have that the temperature of the sea has been increasing sharply since the 1990′s, faster than global averages. The increase may be related to climate change, but its abrupt nature may make it hard to predict future temperature increases in climate models.
5. Genes reveal gender of date palms: Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) were able to determine the date palm genes responsible for gender after assembling a draft of the tree’s genome. This could in the future allow farmers to increase their crop output by up to 100%, once a method is developed to extract DNA from the embryo without destroying the seed, thus determining the sex of the seed early on. They can select and only plant seeds of the fruit-bearing females.