Posts tagged science
Introducing Nature Arabic Edition
An important development for science in the Middle East?
Fahad Al-Attiya: A country with no water
Imagine a country with abundant power — oil and gas, sunshine, wind (and money) — but missing one key essential for life: water. Infrastructure engineer Fahad Al-Attiya talks about the unexpected ways that the small Middle Eastern nation of Qatar creates its water supply.
Fahad Al-Attiya’s job is to maintain food security in Qatar, a country that has no water and imports 90 percent of its food.
All this may seem touching – yet the projects and the people behind them command respect. Instead of running away, more and more young Lebanese like Najwa, Hind and Ziad are fighting for futures in their own country. And showing greater enthusiasm and responsibility than the state has seen for decades. Who can say what they might yet achieve?
Inspiring, Lebanon’s Young Fight for the Country’s Future with Thought & Vision
Business Innovation in Lebanon The Other Spring by Mona Sarkis
Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
I like to believe that we will be free, and we will have high-quality research centres in Palestine and the Arab world where students will want to study for PhDs, and continue onto postdocs. The logical progress of research is simply amazing. I honestly have no idea what I will be doing 10 years from now, but I want a world class cancer research centre in Palestine one day and will certainly continue teaching along with my research.
Rula Abdul-Salam Abdul-Ghani - Faculty of Medicine, AL-Quds University, Jerusalem, Palestine
Rula is one of 9 exceptional Arab women scientists who won funding for their research from the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women In Science Pan-Arab Regional Fellowships Program in association with the Arab Science & Technology Foundation (ASTF).
Where next for Arab science? Q&A with Jordan’s Princess Sumaya
How has the Arab Spring provided opportunities for science and technology?
A large part of it is people starting to think in terms of meritocracy. A huge potential of talent has been unleashed — talent that was previously held back by corruption and by cronyism, and by a disregard for meritocratic progress. This is when we can start talking about the Arab Spring becoming the Arab Summer — when we see people assessed on, and acknowledged for what they are able to contribute. You cannot have successful scientific cooperation without meritocracy. The great new freedom has started to entice a lot of the Arab diaspora — we have lost so many of our talented people in the past.
Is there a lesson for other Arab countries that have not experienced protests?
I think so and that’s not just the result of the Arab Spring. Slowly people have started to realise that the way forward is investment in human resources, not in cement or other commodities. And, while some of our neighbouring countries have put huge amounts into science cities and so on, ultimately it’s the working partnerships that we develop between different scientists that will make the big difference. In Jordan, our great resource is human capital and that is what we are investing in. When we think about the Arabic and Islamic world, the contribution we have made to science and technology is a very important part of our heritage, and now is the time for us to continue from where we left off.
Tunisian academics cautiously optimistic on anniversary of revolution
One year since the popular revolution in Tunisia ended the 23-year-old rule of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are starting to enjoy newfound freedoms. Scientists and academics are cautiously hopeful science research and education will benefit in a new era.
“Since the early 2000’s, research has really suffered from the lack of democracy and the police state in place,” says Faouzia Charfi, a physics professor at the University of Tunis. “Seminars and conferences were rare and under surveillance by the repressive regime of Ben Ali. It led to a serious violation of academic freedom.”
Organizers of science conferences or meetings were required to submit full details of the topics or research up for discussion and in advance to receive permission to hold events. “Motivated researchers had to fight to maintain international relations and collaborations, but many potentially good researchers were discouraged and gave up,” says Rim Lahmandi, a professor of economy at the University of Carthage in Tunis.
Essam Sharaf: Science Revolutionary
As academics joined the millions protesting in Egypt’s streets this spring, the voice of one engineer soon began leading chants. Essam Sharaf was in the thick of demonstrations in January, and he became the first prime minister of a post-revolution cabinet in March — promoting science as a solution to the country’s woes. But by November, he had resigned amid a second surge of popular protest.
The 59-year-old Sharaf was born in Egypt and earned degrees in engineering from Cairo University and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. By 2010, he was an academic engineer at Cairo University and a fierce critic of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Sharaf’s stance during the uprising made him popular with the young revolutionaries. He was high on their list of candidates to lead the new transition government, along with Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, a chemist from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. When Sharaf was chosen, hundreds of thousands of revolutionaries gathered to greet him in Tahrir Square. “If I can’t bring the change you want, then I will return to the lines with you,” he told them.
Climate change in the Arab world
A report on climate change in the Arab world highlights the threat to poverty reduction and economic growth. The World Bank report was presented at the United Nations Conference on climate change.
No time in history has it been possible to listen to as much Arab music, to see as much Arab architecture, to read as much Arabic literature as is in the case today. The renaissance that’s happening in the Arab world is fundamentally…changing the whole world.
Florence and Baghdad, Renaissance Art and Arab Science
The use of perspective in Renaissance painting caused a revolution in the history of seeing, allowing artists to depict the world from a spectator’s point of view. But the theory of perspective that changed the course of Western art originated elsewhere—it was formulated in Baghdad by the eleventh-century mathematician Ibn al Haithan, known in the West as Alhazen. Using the metaphor of the mutual gaze, or exchanged glances, Hans Belting—preeminent historian and theorist of medieval, Renaissance, and contemporary art—narrates the historical encounter between science and art, between Arab Baghdad and Renaissance Florence, that has had a lasting effect on the culture of the West.
Harvard University Press
Libyan researchers survey aftermath of revolution
With the demise of Gaddafi, Libyan scientists are looking to international partners to restart a valued agriculture research project.
The conflict in Libya put a project involving the Agricultural Research Centre (ARC) in Tripoli and the Syrian-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Aleppo, on hold for over nine months. This prolonged hiatus has threatened over two years worth of collected data.
Syria’s Scientists & the Uprising Against the Regime
The Arab uprising has both provided an important opportunity to review the state of science in the Arab world, and to offer hope of a new dawn in scientific discovery in the Arab world.
This interview with Syrian-born Rim Turkmani, an astrophysicist at the Imperial College of Science & Technology, gives an insight into Syrian scientific research that is not widely known because the Syrian scientific community like the rest of society is closely monitored, and brutally oppressed if anyone speak out against the injustices of the regime. In September the BBC reported of scientists being targeted in the city of Homs where nuclear physics professor Ous Abdel Karim Khalil was assassinated.
Egypt to Establish $2 Billion Science City
Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail, professor at the California Institute of Technology has realised a long standing ambition of ensuring the growth of scientific research in Egypt. The interim Egyptian government has approved the construction of a $2 billion science city that will establish strong links with the private sector. Ahmed Zewail said:
The Zewail City of Science and Technology will be an incubator for researchers, where they will gain the creative knowledge they need to prepare them to be part of the production process.
The revolution has created the conditions for Ahmed Zewail to realise his vision, which stagnated under the Mubarak regime. The project is part of a US initiative to establish scientific collaborations between the US and the Muslim world; Zewail who is one of three US envoys given the task of improving scientific collaboration with the Muslim world will be hoping such initiatives will help Egypt grow.
Egypt aims to create 50,000 research jobs. However success depends upon a number of factors, as Shehata Smeda, former chair of the Egyptian Chamber of Textile Industries at the Federation of Egyptian Industries highlighted:
Spending on scientific research should be about two per cent of the Egyptian GDP — it is not acceptable to keep it at just 0.3 per cent if Egypt is planning to rely on science and research as the locomotive of development.
ihya
(IMAGE SOURCE: M. AL-SHERBINY)
The Arab Fellows of the Royal Society
The above portrait is of Mohammed Ben Ali Abgali who was the Moroccan ambassador in 1726.
The Royal Society elected three Arab Fellows in the 17th and early 18th centuries. All were prominent ambassadors who showed scientific curiosity, and they provided the fellows with knowledge about popular medical practices and the ancient history of the region. They were Muhammad ibn Haddu and Mohammed Ben Ali Abgali of Morocco and Cassem Algiada Aga of Tripoli.
ihya
Arabick Roots
The Royal Society is hosting a special exhibition to honour the scientific tradition of the Islamic world:
The early Fellows of the Royal Society were keenly aware of the rich scholarly tradition of the Arab and Muslim world. They took every opportunity to read and discuss the works of the Arab and Persian astronomers, physicians and mathematicians and they valued the knowledge shared by ambassadors from Morocco and the kingdom of Tripoli.
ihya
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