October 2019

Prime editing scheme (Image courtesy Broad Institute)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes a new variant of the CRISPR-Cas9 genetic technique capable of obtaining more targeted modifications by inserting, eliminating and modifying pieces of DNA. A team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard combined the CRISPR-Cas9 technique as it is currently used with a reverse transcriptase, in simple words an enzyme that can transcribe RNA into DNA. The result is what David Liu, one of the senior authors of the research, defined a greater flexibility in the target choice and greater precision in the modifications.

Ares Express by Ian McDonald

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The novel “Ares Express” by Ian McDonald was published for the first time in 2001. It’s the sequel to “Desolation Road”.

Sweetness Octave Glorious-Honeybun Asiim 12th was born into a family that for generations has been running the Bethlehem Ares Railroads Class 22 Heavy Fusion Hauler Catherine of Tharsis, one of the trains that travel across the planet Mars. Her dream is to drive it but there are rules that prevent women from doing it and her family has combined a marriage that she doesn’t want.

Sweetness decides to leave and finds herself part of a story that embraces possible futures because reality can be fluid. There are many alternatives possibilities, managed by technologies so advanced as to be similar to magic because the line between artificial intelligences and angels can be blurred.

The characters celebrate the festival of Obon in Into the Afterlife (Image courtesy AMC Studios / Amazon. All rights reserved)

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“Into the Afterlife” is the tenth and last episode of the second season of the TV show “The Terror”, which was named “The Terror: Infamy”, and follows “Come and Get Me”. It’s broadcast in the USA on AMC Studios and in other nations on Amazon Prime Video.

During his sleep, Nobuhiro Yamato (George Takei) sees his childhood friend Kazu (Sab Shimono), who tells him that many years before he had moved to Hiroshima, where his descendants were born. The war is nearing its end but Chester Nakayama (Derek Mio) has to fight to save his son from Yuko Tanabe (Kiki Sukezane).

Piranhas simultaneously replace all the teeth on one side of their mouth

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An article published in the journal “Evolution & Development” reports a research on the replacement of teeth in piranhas, the famous carnivorous fish that live in South America’s rivers and lagoons. They, like other species of the Serrasalmidae family commonly known as pacus which are omnivorous, simultaneously replace all the teeth on one side on their mouth. It was a known mechanism but only now it’s been observed and therefore proven.

Reconstruction of Siamraptor suwati with the bones available (Image courtesy Chokchaloemwong et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222489)

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An article published in the journal “PLOS ONE” reports the identification of a new species of dinosaur that lived in today’s Thailand around 120 million years ago, in the Cretaceous period, which was named Siamraptor suwati. It belongs to the group of carcharodontosaurian, in turn part of the larger group of allosaurs, carnivorous dinosaurs that were super-predators in their ecosystems. This new species, like its closest relatives, had teeth similar to those of sharks and can provide information on the global spread of these dinosaurs.