A real confusing situation: King Salman recently visited Moscow which marks signs of political maturity for the Kingdom while Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s announcement of resignation from Riyadh and seemingly ‘house arrest’ in Saudi Arabia is hundred-eighty degrees turn: lack of maturity, zero respect for a sovereign country. (more…)
Qatar is now completely blocked by its neighbours. White House seems in a ‘can-do-cannot-do’ mode. (more…)
The demand by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain to shut down Al Jazeera does not fall under any rational thoughts. It’s an absurd demand. (more…)
Researchers Get Rare Glimpse into the Lives of Ocean’s Gentle Giants
Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus)—which grow more than 30 feet long—are the largest fish in the world’s ocean, but little is known about their movements on a daily basis or over years. A newly discovered juvenile whale shark aggregation off Saudi Arabia is giving researchers a rare glimpse into the lives of these gentle giants. (more…)
New study shows healthy Red Sea corals carry bacterial communities within
Corals may let certain bacteria get under its skin, according to a new study by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and soon to be published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. The study offers the first direct evidence that Stylophora pistillata, a species of reef-building coral found throughout the Indian and west Pacific Oceans, harbors bacterial denizens deep within its tissues.
“We have evidence that other species of coral also host these bacteria, and that they may play an important role in keeping a coral healthy,” says Amy Apprill, a WHOI assistant scientist who co-directed the study along with KAUST Assistant Professor Christian Voolstra. KAUST post-doctoral scholar Till Bayer was the lead author of the study. (more…)
The crisis in Egypt is already having a negative effect on the Syrian civil war and contributing to further destabilisation of the wider Middle East according to a major new report.
Professor Gareth Stansfield from the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute and the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies wrote the report, for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), an independent think-tank for defence and security which advises governments and the wider policy community.
‘The Remaking of Syria, Iraq and the Wider Middle East’ report suggests that important as events in Cairo are, they distract Western attention from the much bigger game being played out in Syria which significantly risks changing the Levant after a century of relative territorial stability. Professor Stansfield who is also an RUSI’s senior associate fellow analysed the impact the Syrian civil war could have on the future of the Middle East state system across the Levant. (more…)
Epidemiology and gene sequencing technologies have been used by researchers in the UK, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the US and Canada to show that the novel Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus can spread between people in healthcare settings. The work is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The scientists, from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health, UCL, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, University of Toronto, University of Colorado and Johns Hopkins University, rapidly investigated and defined the epidemiology, transmission dynamics and genetic composition of the MERS-CoV cluster of 22 cases of healthcare-acquired MERS coronavirus infections from a recent outbreak in Al-Hasa, Eastern Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. (more…)
Berkeley Lab scientists and their colleagues have discovered the properties that made ancient Roman concrete sustainable and durable
The chemical secrets of a concrete Roman breakwater that has spent the last 2,000 years submerged in the Mediterranean Sea have been uncovered by an international team of researchers led by Paulo Monteiro of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
Analysis of samples provided by team member Marie Jackson pinpointed why the best Roman concrete was superior to most modern concrete in durability, why its manufacture was less environmentally damaging – and how these improvements could be adopted in the modern world. (more…)
