August 2018

Doctor Who - The Ice Warriors

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“The Ice Warriors” is an adventure of the fifth season of “Doctor Who” classic series, which aired in 1967. It’s a six parts adventure written by Brian Hayles and directed by Derek Martinus.

At Brittanicus Base the staff are trying to use an ionizer to slow down the advance of glaciers that are about to invade Britain. The situation is difficult and the tension is made higher by the fact that recently one of the scientists left the base after a controversy with Leader Clent.

The Tardis materializes on Earth, near Brittanicus base, and the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie (Frazer Hines) and Victoria (Deborah Watling) enter it in a moment of intense work. The Doctor manages to help avoid another crisis while one of the scientists finds a strange humanoid frozen in the glacier.

Dr Cristobal Uauy in a bread wheat greenhouse (Photo courtesy Ruby O'Grady. All rights reserved)

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Three articles, two published in the journal “Science” and one in the journal “Science Advances”, describe various aspects of the sequencing of the genome of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). An international consortium sequenced its huge DNA in an operation illustrated in the first article in “Science”. A map of the so-called transcriptome of this plant is described in the second article in “Science”. 828 genes, which for the most part were unknown, illustrated in the “Science Advances” article, are potentially connected with immune reactions to bread wheat.

The Nano Flower by Peter F. Hamilton

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The novel “The Nano Flower” by Peter F. Hamilton was published for the first time in 1995. It’s the third of the Greg Mandel trilogy and follows “A Quantum Murder”.

Charlotte is a high-class prostitute and while she’s between jobs she gives Julia Evans’ personal assistant a message from her husband Royan, who’s been vanished for months. The message includes a strange flower which, after an analysis, turns out to be fundamentally different from any Earth’s organism. Almost simultaneously, Julia discovers that other companies are developing revolutionary technologies.

Charlotte’s new job is at the service of trader Jason Whitehurst, who hired her to keep company to his young son Fabian. It looks like a job like any other but quickly the situation starts becoming less normal with unforeseen ramifications.

New research on Strelley Pool microfossils confirms that they are among the oldest traces of life forms

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An article published in the journal “Geochemical Perspectives Letters” describes a new research on the microfossils of Strelley Pool Formation, in Western Australia, dated from 3.4 billion years ago. A team of researchers led by Dr Julien Alleon of the French IMPPMC and the American MIT provided evidence that the chemical residues of those ancient microfossils match those of more recent bacteria fossils. It’s a confirmation of the biological origin of those formations, for years at the center of discussions.

3D model of Caelestiventus hanseni skull (Image courtesy Nate Edwards / Brigham Young University. All rights reserved)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution” describes the discovery of a pterosaur that lived in today’s Utah about 210 million years ago. Named Caelestiventus hanseni, it was studied by a team of researchers thanks to a CT-scan that allowed to create a 3D model of the only specimen in the sandstone of the formation in which it was found. It’s one of the oldest known pterosaurs and this will allow to better understand the origin and evolution of that group of reptiles.