An article published in the journal “Nature Microbiology” describes a genetic research that offers a broader vision of the tree of life. A team of researchers of the University of California, Berkeley, led by Laura Hug, who now works at the biology faculty of the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, built a new tree of life showing a diversity formed for two thirds by bacteria and archaea.
The novel “The Fugitive Worlds” by Bob Shaw was published for the first time in 1989. It’s the third book of the Land and Overland trilogy and follows “The Wooden Spaceships”.
Toller Maraquine II is following in the footsteps of his famous grandfather and has become the captain of an airship but traveling between Land and Overland has become routine or at least it almost always is. The only hope of glory is in Queen Daseene’s will to return to Land to try to repopulate it.
However, those projects must be put aside when a strange object is detected in the sky. Initially, scientists are puzzled because it doesn’t resemble anything that they know but over time it approaches Land and Overland bringing possible dangers. Is the appearance of a kind of barrier between Land and Overland connected to the strange object?
An article published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” describes the discovery of an arthropod that lived about 430 million years ago. It was named Aquilonifer spinosus, where the genus name means “kite”, a name inspired by the movie “The Kite Runner” because it was carrying its juveniles attached to its body as if they were tiny kites.
A manuscript by Isaac Newton came to light after having been part of a private collection for decades. This year it was purchased by the “Chemical Heritage Foundation” and will be made available online in a partnership with Indiana University and in particular its project “The Chymistry of Isaac Newton”. This manuscript is someway special because it’s about alchemy, a subject Newton was very interested about in the course of his life.
An article published in the journal “Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences” describes the discovery of a fossil of a arachnid dating back some 305 million years ago. Named Idmonarachne brasieri, it shows similarities with modern spiders and its exam could provide a lot of information on the evolution of these animals, known to a limited extent because of the scarcity of fossils of their ancestors.
