2019

Danai Gurira in 2017

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On March 31 the 9th season of the show “The Walking Dead” ended.

The 9th season was produced and broadcast in the format that have become usual: 16 episodes of which 8 were broadcast in October / December 2018 and the other 8 in February / March 2019. Now the ratings decline are no longer news but after an overall negative season like the eighth one more people abandoned the show with a consequent decline even among the ones who recorded the episodes. Angela Kang, already author of several of the show’s episodes, was added to the showrunners for the ninth season and for the tenth, since the show was renewed at least for another season.

The eighth season of “The Walking Dead” told the war between the group of Alexandria, Hilltop and the Kingdom and Negan’s Saviors. A year and a half after the end of the war, the communities are working on a reconstruction but not all of them share the same ideas on how to move forward and who should be the leaders.

Out of This World by Murray Leinster (Italian edition)

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The novel “Out of This World” by Murray Leinster was published for the first time in 1958 fixing up three stories published in 1947 in the magazine “Thrilling Wonder” as William Fitzgerald.

Bud Gregory is a mechanic so lazy that he works only when he needs money to support his family. When he’s offered good money to fix a car, he does it his own way, inventing a solution that seems impossible. However, his action has a series of unanticipated consequences.

David Murfree is a physicist at the Bureau of Standards who discovers what Bud Gregory has done by chance. Finding someone who has a deep understanding of the laws of physics which is completely intuitive since the mechanic is semi-illiterate is incredible but also very frustrating because of his attitude but he could be the only one who has a solution for seemingly impossible problems.

Fossil fish from the Tanis site (Foto courtesy Robert DePalma)

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An article to be published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” reports the discovery of a fossil deposit in North Dakota, USA, which contains the remains of animals and plants that died as a direct consequence of the impact of a large meteorite that about 66 million years ago it caused the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs. A team of researchers led by Robert DePalma of the University of Kansas examined the site, which was named Tanis, finding what they consider evidence of the direct connection to the impact, the extremely strong earthquake that followed it with tsunamis and a debris rain.

Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck) and Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in Perpetual Infinity (Image courtesy CBS / Netflix. All rights reserved)

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“Perpetual Infinity” is the 11th episode of the 2nd season of the TV show “Star Trek: Discovery” and follows “The Red Angel”.

The discovery of the Red Angel’s identity and the reasons behind its actions represents a big step forward but still leaves a series of unanswered questions. Above all, they need to protect the data collected by the USS Discovery to prevent Control from obtaining them.

Medusavirus is a giant virus with strange characteristics even for that type of organism

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An article published in the “Journal of Virology” reports the discovery of a new giant virus that was called Medusavirus. A team of researchers discovered it in northern Japan’s hot springs, where it reproduces by infecting amoebae of the species Acanthamoeba castellanii. The peculiarity of Medusavirus is that it results in the formation of cysts in the infected amoebae, which leads to the growth of a protective covering.