An article published in the journal “Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology” describes a research of truly exceptional fossils because they kept in ancient ocean sediments the traces left in the Cambrian by trilobites and their prey, worm-like creatures. Their analysis reveals the trilobites’ predatory behavior, which was already sophisticated more than half a billion years ago.
At the TED2016 conference, the XPRIZE founder, president and CEO Peter Diamandis and the head of IBM Watson David Kenny announced a new initiative called IBM Watson AI XPRIZE. There’s a $5 million prize money for those who will be able to give a speech at the TED2020 conference after the participating teams will challenge each other at the IBM’s annual conference called World of Watson. The peculiarity is that the speeches won’t be held by humans but by artificial intelligences.
An article published in the journal “Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology” describes various dinosaur fossils discovered in Idaho, USA. Those are several species belonging to the theropod (Theropoda) suborder showing a much greater diversity than was known. The fossils date back about 95 million years ago and according to the team of paleontologists who examined them also include tyrannosaur ancestors.
The novel “City” by Clifford D. Simak was published for the first time in 1952. It won the International Fantasy Award.
At the beginning of the 21st century technology has made leaps forward in building extraordinarily efficient and fast vehicles. The consequence is that human beings have started abandoning cities because they can go and live in the countryside and move very quickly to go to work anywhere.
The progressive death of cities is just one of many great changes that occur in future human society. Space exploration leads to contacts with aliens, which in various ways affect humans. Over the centuries, on Earth the Webster family, the protagonist of many changes, also contributes to the evolution of dogs.
An article published in “Journal of Human Evolution” describes the exam of some fossils belonging to the genus Homo which may be associated with early stone tools dated at around 2.18 million years ago. Those are a finger bone and of a molar found in the Sterkfontein Caves, in South Africa. Their features make their precise attribution difficult but intriguing.
