Interstellar Communications Portal

Ansible 279 is out!

Stephen Baxter is thrilled that 'some Czech biologists have named a new trilobite after my "Xeelee" books. The beast itself looks like a woodlouse (to me), is about a centimetre long, and apparently was a big cheese about 500 million years ago. "This is very important species with surprisingly very advanced features just very close to the origin of entire group," they say. Quite an honour! For me, I mean, not the trilobite.' From the 10 September paper: 'We place it tentatively in the genus Mezzaluna as a new species Mezzaluna? xeelee ... DERIVATIO NOMINIS: Xeelee – a legendary civilization of very advanced extraterrestrial beings forming a mainstay of excellent science-fiction sequence of Stephen Baxter.' (Journal of the National Museum [Prague])