September 2020

TikTok's website home page

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The USA government has announced that the social networks TikTok and WeChat will be banned in the USA starting from September 20. It’s another step of President Donald Trump’s administration in the clash with Chinese social media, accused of spying on American citizens. In particular, TikTok’s situation is complicated because in recent days the news of a partnership with Oracle arrived, however, it didn’t satisfy the White House, which demands the social network’s sale to an American company. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce accused the USA of bullying. Behind this clash there’s the problem of controlling user activity, the reason why some American social networks are banned in China.

A Cure for Cancer by Michael Moorcock

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The novel “A Cure for Cancer” by Michael Moorcock was published for the first time in 1971 after various parts were published in different magazines. It’s the second novel in the Jerry Cornelius series and follows “The Final Programme”.

A mirror image of Jerry Cornelius is looking for a device that was stolen from him. It’s capable of manipulating space-time with its cycles and therefore reality reality itself. He intends to use it for a very personal purpose but finding it in the chaotic Europe is difficult even for him.

Norman Spinrad in 2006

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Norman Richard Spinrad was born on September 15, 1940 in New York, USA. Norman Spinrad earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the City College of New York in 1961. Subsequently, he did various jobs living in various cities, also in Europe. He accumulated experience in the media field working for radio programs and, after starting writing, occasionally as a screenwriter writing for example an episode of the original “Star Trek” series.

In the literary field, Norman Spinrad made his debut in 1963, but until 1966 he was only a part-time writer. Even when he went full-time, he wasn’t particularly prolific. Since his first novel, “The Solarians” (1966), one can see his tendency not to go for half measures in the development of themes that can be difficult such as sexuality.
In the course of his career, Norman Spinrad has never won the greatest awards in the field of science fiction, probably also due to the controversies that accompanied his works. He’s undoubtedly an author who develops difficult themes in an extreme way. It’s the reason why he’s at the center of controversy but it’s also his main merit.

Arm CEO Simon Segars

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The leading graphics processor company NVIDIA has reached an agreement to buy the British microprocessor company Arm Ltd. from the Japanese telecommunications holding SoftBank Group Corp. for $12 billion in cash and $21.5 billion in shares. The agreement provides for an additional $5 billion that SoftBank could receive under certain conditions and $1.5 billion for Arm employees for a total of 40 billion dollars. The operation is expected to close in 18 months.

Adelophthalmus pyrrhae specimen (Photo courtesy Melanie Hopkins Photo)

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An article published in the journal “Current Biology” reports a study on an almost complete fossil of Adelophthalmus pyrrhae, a species that lived about 340 million years ago, in the Carboniferous period, in today’s France. This species belongs to the eurypterid group, the arthropods commonly known as sea scorpions. A team of researchers led by Professor James Lamsdell of West Virginia University subjected it to a CT-scan that allowed them to create a 3D reconstruction. This made it possible to carry out a detailed examination that brought to light some anatomical characteristics of its respiratory system that indicate that it could breathe air. These conclusions suggest that the ancestors of the arachnids, related to the eurypterids, were also semi-terrestrial in the Cambrian and Ordovician periods.