July 2020

Aratasaurus museunacionali fossil

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An article published in the “Scientific Reports” journal announces the discovery of a new species of carnivorous feathered dinosaur that lived in today’s Brazil about 104 million years ago, in the Cretaceous period. A team of paleontologists named it Aratasaurus museunacionali and attributed it to the group of coelurosaurs. The examination of the few available bones of the uncovered specimen indicates that it was a juvenile, but its length already exceeded three meters. An interesting conclusion is that the new species according to the researchers is a close relative of Zuolong salleei, a dinosaur that lived in today’s China about 160 million years ago, in the Jurassic period.

The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard (Italian edition)

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The novel “The Drowned World” by J.G. Ballard was published for the first time in 1962, the expansion of a novella published in a magazine.

Dr. Robert Kerans is a biologist who is part of an expedition sent to explore the area that used to be London decades ago. The former British capital has been partially submerged for a long time, transformed into a tropical lagoon by climate change. The expedition members start having strange dreams.

Going to the arctic regions, the only ones left where humans can live in conditions suitable for them, is the only possibility for anyone who lives between new seas and new tropical forests full of large reptiles and insects. Despite this, someone decides to go south. Robert Kerans is among the very few who decide to stay in London, but their tranquility is disturbed by a group of men who are looking for the old treasures of the city.

Patrick Stewart in 2019

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Patrick Stewart was born on July 13, 1940, in Mirfield, West Riding, Yorkshire, England. Patrick Stewart agreed to work in American productions for purely economic reasons. This allowed him to be noticed and picked to play Jean-Luc Picard in the TV show “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. At the time there was skepticism about the possibility of modernizing the Star Trek saga and the actor expected to return to England after one season. In the end, the show lasted seven seasons, Stewart also participated in some movies connected to the saga and lent his voice to some video games connected to the show.

Throughout his life, Patrick Stewart got married three times and had a total of two children. His son Daniel also became an actor. For his acting activity, Patrick Stewart has received various awards and honors. Not only has he not stopped working, but he recently reprised the role of Jean-Luc Picard in the TV show “Star Trek: Picard”. This role gave him international fame, but the actor helped to shape him and is continuing to influence his evolution.

Reconstruction of Turkana Boy's upper body

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An article published in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution” reports a study of the fossils of the so-called Turkana boy, the most complete early human skeleton found so far. A team of paleoanthropologists led by Markus Bastir of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid and Daniel García-Martínez of the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) in Burgos, Spain, created a three-dimensional reconstruction of the Turkana boy’s rib cage to compare their characteristics with those of other hominins. The result is that it was stockier than Homo sapiens, different from the idea of ​​the first runners that paleoanthropologists have of Homo erectus and Homo ergaster.

The Door into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein (Italian edition)

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The novel “The Door into Summer” by Robert A. Heinlein was published for the first time in 1956 serialized in the magazine “The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction” and in 1957 as a book.

Daniel Boone Davis turned to alcohol after his partner and his fiancée tricked him out of the company where he developed robot appliances. He decides to get hibernated to be awakened after thirty years with his cat Pete to be able to start again in a future he hopes will be better, but hasn’t yet settled things with 1970.

When Daniel Boone Davis goes to the headquarters of the company he’s no longer part of in the hope of a clarification, he ends up making his situation worse, and is sent into hibernation. He wakes up in the year 2000 and has to try to fix his situation, but when he starts looking for information on what happened in the years in which he was hibernated he starts discovering strange things.