Farouk El-Baz

I recently attended a lecture by the Egyptian American scientist Farouk El-Baz. His lecture was about Groundwater in Arab Deserts. The space images in his slide show revealed (well, I took his word for it) that the Deserts of North Africa & Arabia resulted from the alternation of wet and dry climate cycles; with the last wet cycle having ended 5,000 years ago. Radar images of Arab deserts have revealed numerous courses of rivers and streams that led to depressions where lakes formed. Water seepage in the substrate caused groundwater accumulation beneath lake basins and fracture zones.

What did our dear government do about this discovery? Well, according to Dr. El-Baz, it took the government over 10 years to take the first step of digging exploration wells. And even after the results exceeded all expectations, no further action has been taken yet. Surprised? Walla ana!!

I am kind of embarrassed to say that I learned all of the above from my husband who repeated the lecture to me when we returned home. I honestly went to the lecture with the innocent intention of learning something new and getting wiser in the process, yet I ended up not understanding much of what Dr. El-Baz said. Not because the lecture was very complicated, or because he was using scientific jargon that's hard to understand. On the contrary, this genius made geology & remote sensing so easy, that even individuals with IQ scores as low as mine could easily follow. My problem was that I had a huge crush on him! So I could not concentrate on, or actually care about, anything he said.

Good thing my hubby was there with me. Not only to repeat the lecture to me, but I have a feeling that if I was there by myself, Dr. El-Baz would have left the lecture as Dr. Et-Bas!!!