April 2020

Norman Reedus in 2017

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The 10th season was produced and broadcast almost all in the format that have become usual: 15 episodes of which 8 were broadcast in October / November 2019 and 7 in February / April 2020. The season finale was postponed to a date yet to be determined because post-production was interrupted when the Covid-19 emergency broke out. The problem could hit the whole saga and has already caused the delay of the airing of the new spinoff “The Walking Dead: Beyond World” as its debut is now announced generically for later in 2020.

The tenth season is entirely dedicated to the clash between the various communities and the Whisperers. There’s a new leap forward from the end of the ninth season, but only a few months. The situation seems to indicate a truce, but it’s clear from the beginning that there’s no real peace and that something can happen at any time.

Memoirs of a Spacewoman by Naomi Mitchison (Italian edition)

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The novel “Memoirs of a Spacewoman” by Naomi Mitchison was published for the first time in 1962.

Mary is a spacewoman expert in communications with alien species. Ther means that in the course of her travels through the cosmos and encounters with various sentient species she contributes to improving relationships between humans and the natives of the various planets visited. A cardinal rule prohibits any interference in other societies, but she can have personal relationships with aliens.

Scientific interest can mix with relationships that can also be sexual in nature, and Mary ends up having children not only from other human beings but also with a Martian. In relationships with aliens, differences can enrich, but can also lead to problems, especially when children are born.

Homo antecessor bones (Image courtesy José María Bermúdez de Castro)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports a study based on the extraction of proteins from a tooth about 800,000 years old attributed to the species Homo antecessor. A team of researchers used a mass spectrometry technique to obtain that information, very useful for a better understanding of the relationships among the various human species. The conclusion is that Homo antecessor could be closely related to the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Dineobellator notohesperus skeleton

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An article published in the journal “Scientific Reports” describes the identification of a feathered dinosaur that lived about 67 million years ago, in the Cretaceous period, in today’s New Mexico, USA. Steven E. Jasinski, Robert M. Sullivan, and Peter Dodson named it Dineobellator notohesperus after studying the available bones, only a few of them but enough to establish that it was a new genus, albeit closely related to the Velociraptor. These species are cataloged in the Velociraptorinae subfamily and in the Dromeosauridae family, a group of generally small and lightly built dinosaurs, so their remains are rare and any new discoveries help to reconstruct the history of the non-avian dinosaurs that could be the closest relatives of modern birds.