December 2016

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The novel “The Pnume” by Jack Vance was published for the first time in 1970. It’s the fourth novel in the Tschai tetralogy, also known with the global title “Planet of Adventure”, and follows “The Dirdir”.

Adam Reith has almost completed the difficult task of building a starship to leave the planet Tschai and finally return to Earth. To succeed, he had to pay Aila Woudiver, who supplied him with parts and workforce, well knowing that he couldn’t trust him and that sooner or later his betrayal would come.

Although a prisoner, Aila Woudiver manages to contact the Pnume, one of the species that live on Tschai and native of the planet. The Pnume prove interested in Adam Reith and kidnap him, bringing him to one of their underground cities. The Earthman must again face various dangers to hope to return to Earth.

The valves of an ocean quahog

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An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” describes a research on the climate changes in the last millennium in the north Atlantic Ocean studied by the shells of ocean quahog (photo ©Hans Hillewaert). This species, scientifically called Arctica islandica, is the longest-living animal in the world, therefore the growth rings of its shells can provide a lot of information on the environment in which they formed.

Malpertuis by Jean Ray

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The novel “Malpertuis” by Jean Ray was published for the first time in 1943 in French. In time it was translated into a number of languages.

Jean-Jacques Grandsire is just a boy when his great-uncle Quentin Moretus Cassave dies. His testament is read in circumstances that are already quite strange and Cassave’s last will impose his heirs to live in the Malpertuis mansion. Since the deceased turned out to be even richer than expected, the heirs agree.

Soon, in Malpertuis strange things start happening. Events that seem supernatural suggest that the house is in some way haunted. Among the inhabitants someone knows more than the others because not everybody is exactly what they appear but what secrets are concealed in Malpertuis?

The piece of amber with a dinosaur tail (Photo courtesy Ryan McKellar, Royal Saskatchewan Museum)

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An article published in the journal “Current Biology” describes the study of the tail of a small feathered dinosaur dating back to about 99 million years ago preserved in amber. A team of researchers led by paleontologist Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences in Beijing examined the fossil, the first preserved in this manner directly associated to a dinosaur.