An article published in the journal “ACS Nano” describes the tools that scientists need to put into practice the proposal for the formation of the Unified Microbiome Initiative (UMI). An interdisciplinary team of scientists launched this proposal in October to explore the world of microorganisms, which is still in many ways mysterious. The existing tools are not enough so we need to invent other ones to face a new challenge.
An article published in the journal “Journal of South American Earth Sciences” describes a research that connects the discovery of fossils, mostly of turtles and tortoises as well as other organisms, in the Andes of southern Bolivia to the geological changes of the area. According to the researchers, 13 million years ago these mountains were high less than a kilometer above sea level.
This Monday, Intel announced the acquisition of Ascending Technologies, also known simply as AscTec, a German company based in Krailing that produces autopiloted drones. The terms of the agreement not disclosed but in August 2015 Intel invested 60 million dollars in the Chinese aircraft company Yuneec International, which also produces drones. The acquisition of AscTec represents the culmination of a partnership between the two companies that began in 2015.
The novel “Mockingbird” by Walter Tevis was published for the first time in 1980.
In the 25th century the android Robert Spofforth is the dean of the New York University but in fact controls the entire city, in sharp decline, because human beings are stuffed with drugs and machines fail without anybody fixing them. He wants to die but that’s against his programming and only his encounter with an out of the ordinary human being gives him hope.
Paul Bentley is a university professor, for what a work essentially useless is worth. By chance, he finds a way to learn to read and that opens a new world and humanity’s past. The meeting with Mary Lou Borne, a woman who doesn’t want to use drugs, brings a further change in his life but the two of them go against the rules and have to deal with Spofforth.
The discovery of particularly large sea spiders, with a length up to 25 cm (10 inches), in the polar seas both Arctic and Antarctic is causing puzzlement in the scientific world because of the difficulty in finding an explanation to these animals’ size. They’re actually called pycnogonids, but are also known as Pantopoda, and are arthropods belonging to the class Pycnogonida, which means that they are not really spiders.
