February 2020

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and 7 of 9 (Jeri Ryan) in Stardust City Rag (Image courtesy CBS All Access / Amazon Prime Video)

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“Stardust City Rag” is the fifth episode of the TV show “Star Trek: Picard” and follows “Absolute Candor”. It’s available in the USA on the CBS All Access streaming platform and in many other countries on Amazon Prime Video.

The starship La Sirena has reached Freecloud and Raffi Musiker (Michelle Hurd) has found Dr. Bruce Maddox (John Ales), the problem is that he’s in the hands of Bjayzl, the boss of a criminal group on the planet. The woman intends to sell Maddox to Tal Shiar and the only hope of getting in the middle of the deal is to offer her to exchange him with the only alternative that can interest her: 7 of 9 (Jeri Ryan).

Dr. Rodolfo Sánchez and a male carapace of Stupendemys geographicus (Photo courtesy Edwin Cadena)

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An article published in the journal “Science Advances” reports a study on Stupendemys geographicus, a giant turtle that lived in today’s South America between 5 and 10 million years ago, in the Miocene period. A team of researchers led by Dr. Marcelo Sánchez of the University of Zurich studied a number of well-preserved carapaces of this animal that provided much more information than the fossils previously available, such as the fact that the males had horns. It was one of the largest turtles ever lived with a carapace that could be up to almost 3 meters long, lived in the areas around fresh water and was probably prey to the gigantic alligators of the genus Purussaurus.

Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey

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The novel “Babylon’s Ashes” by James S.A. Corey was published for the first time in 2016. It’s the sixth book in the Expanse series and follows “Nemesis Games”.

The Free Navy devastated the Earth, threw Mars into a crisis and caused a deep division among the Belters, with Fred Johnson’s OPA struggling to maintain its importance. Many people try to escape to other solar systems through the portal but there’s no longer anyone able to regulate that traffic and prevent migrants from being attacked.

Necessity leads the former enemies of Earth, Mars and OPA to work together to try to prevent the solar system from falling completely into chaos. James Holden and the crew of the Rocinante return to the center of crucial events in an attempt to change the fate of the war against the Free Navy but its leader Marco Inaros considers them special targets to be strauck at any cost.

Demography of some hominin lineages

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An article published in the journal “Science Advances” reports a genetic research that offers evidence that some West African populations inherited a portion of their genes from an unknown species of hominins. Arun Durvasula and Sriram Sankararaman of UCLA made a genetic comparison of the DNA of 405 African individuals with those available obtained from Neanderthal and Denisovan bones, discovering genetic characteristics that can be attributed to a species other than these.

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in Absolute Candor (Image courtesy CBS All Access / Amazon Prime Video)

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“Absolute Candor” is the fourth episode of the TV show “Star Trek: Picard” and follows “The End is the Beginning”. It’s available in the USA on the CBS All Access streaming platform and in many other countries on Amazon Prime Video.

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) began his journey on the starship “La Sirena” in search of Dr. Bruce Maddox but it’s already time for a detour. The destination is the planet Vashti, where he finds again Zani (Amirah Vann) and the other assassin-nuns of the Romulan order called Qowat Milat.