Topic Reading-Vol.5080-3/22/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

The war created an oil problem. It’s not the only price you’ll pay

Nearly 90% of all the oil and gas flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, a 167km-long strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, goes to Asia. As the traffic through the Strait has been shut down by Iran, Asian countries are struggling to cope with the shortage of those fuels. Sri Lanka has declared every Wednesday a holiday for public institutions to conserve fuel. In Myanmar, private vehicles are allowed only to operate on alternate days depending on their licence plate numbers. Even in the USA, the world’s largest petroleum-extracting country, the prices of oil and gasoline soared recently, putting financial pressure on commuters and drivers. Other countries are also affected by price hikes in various items, including food, AI chips, aluminum, natural gas, plastics, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals, due to rising material and transportation costs. When a flow of oil and natural gas is disrupted, the whole world is affected in some way or another.

Read the article and learn about how the US and Israel’s war on Iran is affecting the lives and economy of the world.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/17/business/price-increases-oil-food-aluminum-iran-war

Topic Reading-Vol.5079-3/21/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

This is why you only breathe out of one nostril at a time

Your nostrils are the entrance to your respiratory system. They warm, condition, and filter the air you breathe. They also house your olfactory organs, which give you the sense of smell. That’s why when your nose gets stuffy or blocked, you don’t smell or taste well. Without noticing, your nostrils naturally switch between a dominant nostril for airflow while the other rests, called the nasal cycle. Regulated by the autonomic nervous system, this work-and-rest cycle prevents drying, cracking, and maintains mucus health. The cycle usually shifts every two to five hours without our recognizing it. Which of your nostrils is at work now?

Read the article and learn about the mechanism of our nostrils and the nasal cycle.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/08/health/nostril-breathing-wellness-conversation

Topic Reading-Vol.5078-3/20/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

How Iranians are evading internet blocks to contact family abroad

Iranians, especially those who live in Tehran, have been under heavy bombardment by Israel and the USA since February 28. Also, they have been under an internet blackout by their own authorities since January 8. Without phone or internet connections, how have they been conveying their situations to those who live abroad? One analogue yet practical way to talk to others abroad is to use a Turkish phone and an Iranian phone near their border, where signals from both countries reach, and hold them together while talking. Another, more digital way is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which secures your internet connection by creating an encrypted tunnel for your interactions. Connecting to the Internet via VPN, your data, location, and online identity are all hidden from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) or sensorship. Because of the desperate demands to hear the voices or messages from their loved ones, the prices of such arrangements have skyrocketed recently. However, there is no other way for Iranians to establish communication with the outside world. And when they talk, they say they are doing OK, no matter how heavy the bombardment around them might be. Who created a situation like this?

Read the article and learn how Iranians are connecting with others abroad.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgl58y5943o

Topic Reading-Vol.5077-3/19/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

How much of the Gulf’s water comes from desalination plants?

The total population of the six Gulf states, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is a little over 60 million, showing an increase of about 20% in the last decade. However, the area has no permanent rivers and receives very little rainfall. How does the arid region supply sufficient water to its growing population, businesses, and farming? Since the GULF countries border the Persian Gulf, they are making water by desalinating seawater. They produce more than 300 liters of water per resident each day from seawater at over 400 desalination plants along their coasts. Desalination of seawater is the process of removing salts, minerals, and impurities from seawater to produce water drinkable or suitable for irrigation and industrial use by membrane filtration or thermal distillation. Once processed, the water is then distributed through pipelines or in containers. In the Gulf region, plants and pipelines seem essential to produce and distribute essential liquids.

Read the article and learn how dependent the Gulf region is on seawater.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/12/how-much-of-the-gulfs-water-comes-from-desalination-plants

Topic Reading-Vol.5076-3/18/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

AI is exhausting workers so much, researchers have dubbed the condition ‘AI brain fry’

What if a dozen browser tabs open all at once, waiting for your judgment or directions? As more efficient and sophisticated AI tools are introduced in workplaces, more workers and managers are experiencing cognitive overload, called AI brain fry. It is mental exhaustion from using or supervising AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity. While asking an AI chatbot questions or having an AI tool do simple tasks like creating charts greatly saves time and workload for most workers, supervising what AI tools produce requires managers and specialists to conduct fact-checking and judgment, and fast. This is not a simple task like driving a car on a highway, but more like riding a monster motorcycle on a race track, where a simple mistake could easily lead to a fatal crash. To avoid such cognitive overload by new tools, users of powerful AI tools need to learn how to make better use of them within their cognitive capacity. Longer work hours certainly won’t help you work with AI, but attention span will.

Read the article and learn about how AI could bring cognitive overload to workers.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/13/business/ai-brain-fry-nightcap

Topic Reading-Vol.5075-3/17/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Former leader Ardern has left New Zealand. She’s not the only one

Compared with New Zealand, Australia is 28 times larger in land size and five times larger in population. Australia’s average economic output per person, GDP per capita, is over USD 65,000, and New Zealand's is around USD 48,000. Last year, both countries had about a 3%+ inflation. Sydney and Melbourne are the two largest cities in Australia, with a population of over five million respectively, while roughly one-third of New Zealanders, or 1.7 million, live in the largest city, Auckland. Thanks to the free movement agreements, citizens of either country can move and live in the other freely. Which of these two closely located Oceanian countries offers economic advantages over the other? Recently, migration between Australia and New Zealand has experienced a significant surge, with record numbers of New Zealanders moving to Australia for higher wages, better opportunities, and lower costs of living. Last year, over 120,000 New Zealanders emigrated, fueled by rising living costs and a weakening job market, and 60% of them settled in Australia, including the former prime minister and her family. Economic advantages seem to overwhelm national identity or values to many young people and families, causing so-called brain-drain to New Zealand.

Read the article and learn about the emigration crisis in New Zealand.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/06/world/new-zealand-australia-emigration-midlife-intl-hnk-dst

Topic Reading-Vol.5074-3/16/2026

Dear MEL Topic Readers, 

Where do the 35 million foreigners living in the GCC come from?

Around 60 million people live in the six Gulf monarchies: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai), Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain. These Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries share the same religious, cultural, and social values, including Islamic identity, Arabic language, and Bedouin-merchant lifestyle, as well as modest behavior and hospitality. These countries are all scarce in water resources, but extremely rich in oil and natural gas resources, which generate the vast majority of their government revenues and contribute a significant portion of their GDPs. Also common among the GCC countries is their heavy dependence on foreign workers, or expatriates. Even though nationals are the majority of the population in Saudi Arabia and Oman, non-nationals outnumber the nationals in the other four countries, most significantly in Qatar and the UAE, where over 80% of their populations are non-nationals. Then where do those expatriates come from?

Read the article and learn how dependent the GCC countries are on foreign workers.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/9/where-do-the-35-million-foreigners-living-in-the-gcc-come-from