The short story “The Ethical Treatment of Meat” by Claude Lalumière was published for the first time in 2003.
Raymond and George think that adopting a fleshie could be a good idea for their family. It’s not an easy choice as they’re the first to do it in their neighborhood. However, that growing trend also leads to some social problems because the most radical people think that eating fleshies’ brains when they grew up isn’t right.
An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” describes a research on the consequences of the evolution of the first animals on the Earth’s climate over 500 million years ago. A team of researchers investigated the consequences of the process called bioturbation, the reworking of soil and sediment by animals or plants, the cycles of phosphorus, oxygen and sulfur concluding that it led to a drop in oxygen in the seas and a global warming with various mass extinctions over the next 100 million years.
The novel “Autonomous” by Annalee Newitz was published for the first time in 2017.
Judith “Jack” Chen was able to pirate Zacuity, a new drug that has yet to be officially launched on the market, creating a low-cost version. However, people who tried it soon start suffering from very serious side effects. Jack realizes that her pirate version of Zacuity has the same effects as the official drug, which means that the pharmaceutical company that developed it must be aware of its side effects.
Agent Eliasz is following in Jack’s tracks with the assistance of the robot Paladin. The two of them will stop at nothing to capture Jack, whom Eliasz considers a terrorist. Their mission leads them to infiltrate an anti-patent group with the need to cover each other’s back, a situation that will strengthen their bond in an unexpected way.
An article published in the “Journal of Hymenoptera Research” describes the discovery of some new species of parasitoid wasps endowed with particularly long ovipositors. The most interesting one was named Dolichogenidea xenomorph, a name suggested by the really gruesome life cycle in which its needle-shaped ovipositor is used to inject its eggs into a host and then its larvae devour it from the inside until they burst out of its body, like the xenomorph seen in the movie “Alien” and its sequels.
