2017

Sea sediments examined to look for bacteria (Photo courtesy Michael Graw/ University of Delaware)

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An article published in the journal “Environmental Microbiology” describes a study on a group of bacteria called Parcubacteria, a group that could be so large that it could be a superphylum. A team of scientists studied these bacteria that were found during the Deepsea Challenge expedition in the Mariana Trench by director James Cameron, who is among the authors of the article, to understand their characteristics with similarities and differences from bacteria living on the mainland.

Voyage of the Star Wolf by David Gerrold (Italian edition)

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The novel “Voyage of the Star Wolf” by David Gerrold was published for the first time in 1990. It’s part of the Star Wolf series.

The starship LS-1187 doesn’t have a name for it has to be conquered in battle. It’s assigned to the fleet which has the task of protecting the interstellar commercial route known as Silk Road and the planets on the route from possible attacks by the Morthan Solidarity.

Against any prediction, the fleet is attacked by Morthan starships that outgun them and the result is disastrous. The starship LS-1187 gests severely damaged and ends up drifting into space, with very little chance for the crew members who weren’t killed in the attack to survive. Its Executive Officer Jonathan Thomas Korie must take command to bring the starship to salvation but things start getting bad.

Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in Context Is for Kings (Image courtesy CBS / Netflix)

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“Context Is for Kings” is the third episode of the TV show “Star Trek: Discovery” and follows “Battle at the Binary Stars”.

Note. This article contains several spoilers about “Context Is for Kings”.

As I easily predicted, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) doesn’t remain in jail very long. After 6 months she gets transferred with other prisoners but the shuttle she travels in is intercepted by the starship USS Discovery. There, Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs) assigns Burnham to the engineering section where she discovers that there’s a top secret project under development.

Palaeolenus lantenoisi (Image courtesy Hopkins et al)

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An article published in the magazine “PLOS ONE” describes a research on primitive trilobites with the discovery of the oldest digestive system consisting of digestive glands and a crop. A team of researchers led by Melanie Hopkins, an assistant curator in the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, examined 270 specimens of which most were discovered in Yunnan, China, where they lived more than 500 million years ago, discovering that at least the species Palaeolenus lantenoisi and Redlichia mansuyi had a stomach.

The Prisoner

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On September 29, 1967, in the UK, the TV show “The Prisoner” made its debut. Some sources report October 1 as its debut date: at that time, an episode of a show could be broadcast on different days in different regions of the nation, and this could be one of those cases.

“The Prisoner” is a unique and unrepeatable TV show for many reasons. Some of its elements have become iconic, such as the rover and even Portmeirion, the real village where the show was shot, along with its style. In addition to the remake, it had various influences and homages in other shows, and after 50 years, the portrait of the Village society is more topical than ever.