An article published in the journal “Current Biology” describes a research on a dinosaur belonging to the genus Psittacosaurus that lived in modern China at the beginning of the Cretaceous period, about 120 million years ago. A team from the University of Bristol examined the skin remains of a very well preserved specimen cataloged as SMF R 4970 concluding that its coloration provided it some camouflage.
An article published in the journal “Current Biology” describes a genetic research on giraffes and proposes the division of these animals into four distinct species with a number of subspecies. A team of researchers led by Professor Axel Janke, a geneticist at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and Goethe University, Germany, examined the DNA of 190 giraffes across Africa and concluded that there are four highly distinct groups. The consequences of this research could also affect the giraffe conservation attempts.
The novel “Marooned in Realtime” by Vernor Vinge was published for the first time in 1986 serialized in the magazine “Analog” and then as a book. It’s the sequel to “The Peace War”. It won the Prometheus Award.
About 50 million years in the future, Yelen and Marta Korolev managed to organize the survivors of humanity after its mysterious extinction occurred in the 23rd century. The two women are part of the hi-tech group, people who lived in the last decades before the Extinction, and are trying to create a future for their species.
The survivors leap forward in time using the bobbles, spherical force fields that completely isolate whatever they contain. The computer that runs Yelen and Marta Korolev’s system is sabotaged and the result is that Marta can’t leap forward with the others but gets sort of marooned in time. Wil Brierson, one of the few survivors who has some experience as a police officer is charged with finding the culprit with the help of Della Lu.
An article published in the journal “Nature” describes a research on Acanthostega gunnari (photo ©Ghedoghedo), that about 360 million years ago was one of the first tetrapods as it was one of the first vertebrates to have limbs recognizable as legs. A team of researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen led by Jennifer Clack, who in 1987 discovered a deposit containing many skeletons of Acanthostega, examined those specimens and concluded that they were juveniles.
