Sciaphila sugimotoi Location: Ishigaki Island, Japan
Most plants are autotrophic, capturing solar energy to feed themselves by means of photosynthesis. A few, like the newly discovered S. sugimotoi, are heterotrophic, deriving their sustenance from other organisms. In this case, the plant is symbiotic with a fungus from which it derives nutrition without harm to the partner. In fact, the plant family Triuridaceae to which it belongs consists entirely of such mycoheterotrophs (fungus symbionts). The discovery of any new species of plant in Japan is newsworthy as the flora is well-documented, so such a beautiful new flower is an exciting addition. The delicate S. sugimotoi, just under 4 inches in height (10 cm), appears during short flowering times in September and October, producing small blossoms. The species is considered critically endangered as it has been found in only two locations on the island in humid evergreen broadleaf forest, represented by perhaps 50 plants. As with other fungal symbionts, the species depends on a stable ecosystem for survival.
Etymology The species is named in honor of Takaomi Sugimoto who collected the first specimens.
Type locality Japan: Ryukyu: Okinawa Pref.: Ishigaki City, Hirae
Type Kyoto University Herbarium
Description Suetsugu, K. and T. Nishioka (2017) Sciaphila sugimotoi (Triuridaceae), a new mycoheterotrophic plant from Ishigaki Island, Japan. Phytotaxa 314: 279-284
Pseudoliparis swirei Location: Western Pacific Ocean
In the dark abyss of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific lies the deepest spot in the world’s oceans and the deepest-dwelling fish ever discovered with verified depth. Large numbers of the new species were attracted to traps baited with mackerel. Pseudoliparis swirei is a small, tadpole-like fish measuring a little over four inches in length (112 mm) yet appears to be the top predator in its benthic community at the bottom of this particularly deep sea. It was captured at depths between 22,000 and 26,000 feet (6,898 and 7,966 m). A fish was recorded on camera at an even greater depth, at nearly 27,000 feet (8,143 m) but it was not recovered and could not be confirmed to be the same species. P. swireibelongs to the snailfish family, Liparidae. Among the family’s more than 400 named species are fish found at all depths, from intertidal pools to the deepest reaches. It is believed that about 27,000 feet (8,200 m) is a physiological limit below which nearly all fishes cannot survive.
Etymology Named in honor of one of the officers of the HMS Challenger mission that discovered the Mariana Trench in 1875.
Type locality Western Pacific, Mariana Trench, 6898-7966 m
Type Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum of Natural History
Description Gerringer, M.E., Linley, T.D., Jamieson, A.J., Goetze, E., and J.C. Drazen (2017) Pseudoliparis swirei sp. nov.: A newly discovered hadal snailfish (Scorpaeniformes: Liparidae) from the Mariana Trench. Zootaxa4358: 161-177
Until now, only half a dozen non-human great apes have been recognized. The eastern and western gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are more closely related to humans than the orangutans which are the only great apes in Asia. In 2001, the orangutans of Sumatra and Borneo were recognized as distinct species, Pongo abelii and P. pygmaeus. An international team of researchers, examining morphometric, behavioral, and genomic evidence, have concluded that an isolated population at the southern range limit of Sumatran orangutans, in Batang Toru, is distinct from both northern Sumatran and Bornean species. Genomic evidence suggests that while the northern Sumatra and Borneo species separated about 674 thousand years ago, this southern Sumatra species diverged much earlier, about 3.38 million years ago. As soon as the significance of this isolated population was determined, it revealed the most imperiled great ape in the world. Only an estimated 800 individuals exist in fragmented habitat spread over about 250,000 acres (about 1,000 square kilometers) on medium elevation hills and submontane forests from about 1,000 to 4,000 feet (300 to 1,300 m) above sea level, with densest populations in primary forest. Size is similar to other orangutans, with females under 4 feet (1.21 m) in height and males under 5 feet (1.53 m).
Etymology The species name refers to three North Sumatra districts (North, Central, and South Tapanuli) where the new species lives.
Type locality Near Sugi Tonga, Marancar, Tapanuli (Batang Toru) Forest Complex, South Tapanuli District, North Sumatra, Indonesia
Type Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, Indonesia
Description Nater, A., Mattle-Greminger, M.P., Nurcahyo, A., Nowak, M. G., de Manuel, M., Desai, T., Groves, C., Pybus, M., Sonay, T.B., Roos, C., Lameira, A.R., Wich, S.A., Askew, J., Davila-Ross, M., Fredriksson, G., de Valles, G., Casals, F., Prado-Martinez, J., Goossens, B., Verschoor, E.J., Warren, K.S., and I. Singleton (2017) Morphometric, behavioral, and genomic evidence for a new Orangutan species. Current Biology 27: 3487-3498
Nymphister kronaueri is a tiny beetle that lives among ants. At about 1.5 mm in length, 16 of them could line up head-to-tail in the space of an inch (2.5 cm). But their story gets much better. They live exclusively among one species of army ant, Eciton mexicanum. The host ants, as with other army ants, do not construct permanent nests but are nomadic. In the case of E. mexicanum, they spend two to three weeks on the move, making raids each day to capture thousands of prey items, then spend two to three weeks in one location. While the beetle can move about and feed while the host colony is stationary, it must make the trip with the ants when they are on the move to a new location. The beetle’s body is the precise size, shape and color of the abdomen of a worker ant. The beetle uses its mouthparts to grab the skinny portion of the host abdomen and hang on, letting the ant do the walking. At a glance, an ant with the beetle onboard appears to have two abdomens but the upper one is a beetle. Like other myrmecophiles (literally, ant lovers), these beetles must use chemical signals or other adaptations to avoid becoming prey themselves. Exactly how that works in the case of N. kronaueri is yet to be determined.
Etymology Species named in honor of Daniel Kronauer, field biologist and student of army ants, who discovered the species among emigrating ants.
Type locality Costa Rica: Heredia, ~3.5 km SE Puerto Viejo, La Selva Biological Station
Type Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
Description von Beeren, C. and A. F. Tishechkin (2017) Nymphister kronaueri von Beeren & Tishechkin, sp. nov., an army ant-associated beetle species (Coleoptera: Histeridae: Haeteriinae) with an exceptional mechanism of phoresy. BMC Zoology 2:3, 16 pp. DOI 10.1186/s40850-016-0010-x
Here’s a new species whose name might ring a bell. This amphipod, about 2 inches (50mm) in length, Epimeria quasimodo, is named for Victor Hugo’s character, Quasimodo the hunchback, in reference to its somewhat humped back. It is one of 26 new species of amphipods of the genus Epimeria from the Southern Ocean with incredible spines and vivid colors. The number of species, and their extraordinary morphological structures and colors, makes the genus Epimeria an icon of the Southern Ocean that includes both free-swimming predators and sessile filter feeders.
The genus is abundant in the glacial waters circulating south of the Polar Front and their crested adornments are reminiscent of mythological dragons. When a treatment of the genus was published in 2007, many researchers assumed that the species were rather completely known. Using a combination of morphology and DNA evidence, however, a Belgian pair of investigators have demonstrated in their comprehensive monograph just how little we yet know of these spectacular invertebrates.
Etymology Named for the male protagonist Quasimodo in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris
Type locality Southern Ocean: Polarsterncruise PS81, east of Joinville Island
Type Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels
Description d’Udekem d’Acoz, C. and M. L. Verheye (2017) Epimiria of the Southern Ocean with notes on their relatives (Crustacea, Amphipoda, Eusiroidea). European Journal of Taxonomy 359:1-553
The legume genus Dinizia was known, until now, from a single Amazonian tree species, D. excelsa, discovered nearly 100 years ago. Dinizia jueirana-facao, up to 130 feet (40 m) in height, emerges above the canopy of the semi-deciduous, riparian, pristine Atlantic forest where it is found. This massive tree, weighing an estimated 62 tons (56,000 kg), is smaller than its Amazonian sister-species and lacks its buttresses, but is similarly impressive. D. jueirana-facao is known only from within and just beyond the boundaries of the Reserva Natural Vale in northern Espirito Santo, Brazil. While large in dimension, the tree is limited in numbers — it is known from only 25 individuals, about half of which are in the protected area, making it critically endangered. The woody fruits are impressive in size, too, reaching about 18 inches (0.5 m) in length. More than 2,000 species of vertebrate animals live in the Atlantic forest, including almost 200 endemic species of birds. This forest is home to more than half of the threatened animal species in Brazil, but its range has been severely diminished and fragmented, with perhaps 15 percent of its once 330 million acres (more than 1.3 million square kilometers) remaining.
Etymology The species name is the local name for the tree “jueirana-facão.”
Type locality Brazil: Espírito Santo, Linhares, Reserva Natural Vale
Type Herbário da Reserva Natural Vale, Vale – Linhares
Description Lewis, G.P., Siqueira, G.S., Banks, H., and A. Bruneau (2017) The majestic canopy-emergent genus Dinezia(Leguminosae: Caesalpinioideae), including a new species endemic to the Brazilian state of Espirito Santo. Kew Bulletin 72: 48. DOI: 10.1007/s12225-017-9720
ANCORACYSTA TWISTA DIFFERENTIAL INTERFERENCE CONTRAST MICROSCOPY OF A CELL. TWO FLAGELLA, THE FEEDING GULLET, NUCLEUS AND A POSTERIOR DIGESTIVE VACUOLE ARE VISIBLE.
ANCORACYSTA TWISTA ELECTRON MICROSCOPY OF AN ULTRATHIN SECTION THROUGH A CELL. THE CENTRAL NUCLEUS IS POSITIONED BETWEEN TWO DARK-STAINED, OVAL EXTRUSOMES (“ANCORACYSTS”), WHICH ARE INVOLVED IN PREY CAPTURE
About the Protist
Ancoracysta twista Location: Unknown
Discovered in an aquarium in San Diego, California, USA, this new single-celled protist has challenged scientists to determine its nearest relatives. It does not fit neatly within any known group and appears to be a previously undiscovered, early lineage of Eukaryota with a uniquely rich mitochondrial genome. Eukaryotes are organisms with cells in which genetic material is organized in a membrane-bound nucleus. Prokaryotes, like bacteria and archaea, lack such an organized nucleus. Eukaryotes include single-celled protists as well as multi-celled organisms we commonly think of as animals, plants and fungi.
Ancoracysta twista is a predatory flagellate that uses its whip-like flagella to propel itself and unusual harpoon-like organelles, called ancoracysts, to immobilize other protists on which it feeds. The geographic origin of the species in the wild is not known. It was found in a tropical aquarium at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on a brain coral. The unusually large number of genes in its mitochondrial genome opens a window into the early evolution of eukaryotic organisms.
Etymology The species name refers to the twirling motion the protist makes while swimming.
Type locality Origin in wild unknown. Discovered on a tropical brain coral in an aquarium in San Diego, California, USA.
Type Resin-embedded cells deposited in Beaty Biodiversity Museum, University of British Columbia
Description Janouskovec, J., Tikhonenkov, D.V., Burki, F., Howe, A.T., Rohwer, F.L., Mylnikov, P., and P.J. Keeling(2017) A new lineage of Eukaryotes illuminates early mitochondrial genome reduction. Current Biology 27: 1-8
When Huawei started off trying to crack the world of phones, the strategy was pretty simple: make the phones cheaper than just about everyone else’s.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is part of Huawei 2.0, though. Rather than going “cheap”, Huawei’s gone techy.
This is the most gadget-packed phone you’ll find. That it is also one of the most accessible phones at this money-no-object level is what makes the Mate 20 Pro extra-special, though. Huawei’s display design shrinks the phone down, for a more hand-friendly feel than anything but the iPhone XS.
DESIGN AND BUILD: WHAT LIES BENEATH
On paper the Huawei Mate 20 Pro sounds big. It’s a Mate for starters. They’re usually some of Huawei’s largest phones. Its 6.39in display sounds massive too.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is surprisingly, oddly, petite though. It’s far narrower than the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, which Huawei has in its sights. This isn’t a light phone, but makes every other £900-ish Android seem quite a handful.
It otherwise follows today’s usual high-end phone design bible. You get aluminium on the sides, glass on the front and back. And, just like Samsung, the glass is curved. This isn’t “2.5D”, it’s real swooped glass, which only makes the Mate 20 Pro feel slimmer, more dynamic. You can get the phone with either normal glossy glass or a micro-etched finish. It’s still glass, but has a slightly different feel and much higher friction. If you’re tired of your phone slipping off every surface known to man, get this version.
If you met this phone and didn’t know about it, you’d assume it was very pricey, but not necessarily the arch deacon of phone geekery it is. But there are more cutting-edge extras here than in any other phone of 2018.
First up, there’s the in-screen fingerprint scanner. There’s an optical sensor under the screen that fires up through the panel. A light-up guide shows you where to plant your digit. This is the next generation of finger scanner. Now for the sticky bit. In-screen finger scanners are relatively new, and are still slower and less reliable than the lightning-fast rear pads Huawei uses in most of its phones.
The speed is pretty much a non-issue. It’s still very fast, but you do need to be more careful about how you place your finger than usual. Or it won’t be recognised. There’s another option too. The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has an IR-based face ID scanner, much like Apple’s. This is superbly fast. Switch both methods on and you’ll often find the phone unlocked before you even get your finger on the screen.
This dual unlock method is typical of the Huawei Mate 20 Pro’s tech excess. You also get 128GB storage as standard, a now-rare IR blaster and, most unusual of the lot, reverse wireless charging. This phone can charge any phone that supports Qi wireless just by holding them together. Well, that and switching the feature on in Settings. There’s no headphone jack, mind: bummer
SCREEN: TOP OF THE GLASS
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has an extra-tall 6.39-inch screen with a wide-but-shallow notch. And if you don’t like notches you can hide it. As this is an OLED screen, when you block off with a black bar in settings the Mate 20 Pro ends up looking like a trimmer Note 9.
There’s no LCD glow to show the notch is still there. It’s a Samsung AMOLED display, so you get image quality very similar to Samsung’s best phones. But, just like those Samsungs, some of you may find the way the curved sides collect reflections distracting.
However, this is one of the best screens around, with slimmer borders than almost any other.
This will all probably change in 2019, but for now at least the Mate 20 Pro is out front. You get a choice of colour personalities too: super saturated or totally restrained and accurate. Samsung offers a pick of middle ground options too, but there’s otherwise little to complain about.
SOFTWARE: EASY AS PIE
Some of the Huawei haters are probably primed with the question: but what about the software? The Huawei Mate 20 Pro runs EMUI and Android 9.0. And lots of people dislike EMUI.
Huawei says it has trimmed down the interface to make it a bit more friendly. However, it ultimately looks and feels much like the previous version. Hate Huawei software? You won’t like this either.
Those without such a prejudice should have no problems, though. It runs fast, you get loads of control over its look, including whether to have an apps page or not. And It’s actually less disconcerting to use than vanilla Android 9.0.
Google really played with how Android feels in 9.0, jamming the multi-tasking screen in-between the home screens and apps menu. Here it’s where it has always been. Press the right soft key and it pops up. But you still get the new iPhone-style look to app switching added in Android 9.0
PERFORMANCE: KIRIN SLAYS THE DRAGON
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has arguably the most advanced processor seen in an Android, as of October 2018 anyway. It’s the Kirin 980 and has a newer 7nm architecture than the rival Snapdragon 845.
It performs better in some benchmarks too. Scores of around 9740 in Geekbench 4 mean it’s only beaten by the iPhone XS duo, at launch.
As you’d hope, the Huawei Mate 20 Pro runs like a dream. Apps load quickly, parts of the interface are there as soon as you tap or swipe their way.
It’s not actually the best phone at the price for gaming. Not yet, anyway. The Kirin 980’s graphics chipset is a 10-core Mali-G76. And while powerful it’s not quite as punchy as the iPhone XS’s, or the graphics brains of the Galaxy Note 9 and S9 phones.
In 3D Mark’s Sling Shot Extreme, this phone earns 3507 points. The Galaxy S9 with Snapdragon 845 scores around 4537.
In almost all games, you won’t notice the difference. However, in titles ported from consoles like Ark: Survival Evolved that let you push the graphics to a GPU-melting level, the Mate 20 doesn’t handle the pressure as well as some.
GPU Turbo is one possible solution. It’s a turbo charger that works with some high-end games, cutting down overheads to let them use the phone’s resources more efficiently. But right now at least, this is “just” a great gaming phone. Not a standard-setting one.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro’s speakers aren’t class-leading either. You get stereo drivers and perfectly pleasant sound quality. There’s a smidge of bass, clean treble. However, phones like the iPhone XS Max and Pixel 3 XL are much louder. The output just isn’t that high, perhaps because there wasn’t enough spare space inside the phone for a large speaker resonance box.
CAMERA: THREE CHEERS
Some parts of the Mate 20 Pro can be beaten by others at the price. But the camera? This is where the phone shines.
At first you might think it’s all about the phone’s megapixels. There’s a 40-megapixel main camera, just like the P20 Pro. However, most of the time you’ll shoot 10-megapixel photos because the phone uses pixel binning, combining four sensor pixels to make one final image pixel.
You absolutely can shoot 40-megapixel ones if you want. And on a bright, sunny day the detail you’ll get is immense. However, that the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is like a photographic toy box that can handle just about any situation is the real appeal.
The three-lens array on the back offers a 3x zoom plus a 20-megapixel ultra-wide camera. This zoom is better than the Galaxy Note 9’s, the wide is far better than the LG G7 ThinQ’s. And optical stabilisation makes getting sharp zoomed-in shots a doddle.
Its wide camera also doubles as a neat macros shooter, able to focus at just 2.5cm distance.
Huawei’s immense night mode, which debuted in the P20 Pro, returns too. This merges a slew of shots, to deliver clean photos with incredible dynamic range even when there’s barely any light available. You lose out on a little sharpness, but these are easily the best night shots you’ll see from a phone.
Huawei has also cut down the time they take to shoot, keeping it to four seconds instead of up to 6-7. Yes, that’s ages in the world of phone cameras. But to get results like this normally you’d have to shoot an exposure of several seconds anyway.
Need to shoot quickly? Normal night quality is among the best too.
Sure, some of you will prefer the results a Pixel 3XL gets you in normal conditions. Google’s processing is pretty classy. But the Huawei Mate 20 Pro breezes through situations that would completely stump a Pixel.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro’s front camera isn’t quite as hot, despite having a 24-megapixel sensor. Results are still well above average, but the Pixel 3 XL is miles better. Its dual 8-megapixel selfie cameras show everyone else how it’s done.
BATTERY LIFE: SHARING IS CARING
Given the Huawei Mate 20 Pro is smaller than most of its rivals, the 4200mAh battery is surprising. That’s five per cent more capacity than the much larger Note 9 has. This might be the longest-lasting phone in this class right now.
However, the Huawei P20 Pro does, anecdotally at least, seem to last a bit longer. You tend to end up with around 30 per cent charge left after a day’s worth of solid use. At times the P20 Pro goes to bed with up to 50 per cent charge.
Only pretty light use would see the Mate 20 Pro keep that much. This is a very solid one-day battery life phone, not a two-dayer. Well, for most of us anyway.
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro has wireless and, of course, fast charging. And as mentioned earlier you can charge another phone wirelessly just by putting them together, back-to-back. Given this means a bit of glass-on-glass action you might want to get a rubber band around them to make sure they don’t slip off. But that spoils the tech brag look a bit, eh?
HUAWEI MATE 20 PRO VERDICT
The Huawei Mate 20 Pro is a masterclass in how to push phone tech to its limits.
It has the most tech-packed camera around, fits an almost unfeasible amount into what is a bafflingly compact frame and is also one of the best-looking phones around.
It really does have the lot. And the niggles? We’d love a louder speaker, a headphone jack and a more powerful GPU. But aside from that headphone port, those shortcomings are only obvious when you have all the rivals there for a side-by-side comparison.
TECH SPECS
Weight-189g
Screen-6.4in, AMOLED
Camera-Rear camera (40 MP f/1.8), second camera (20 MP, f/2.2), third camera (8MP f/2.4), OIS, Autofocus (Laser, Phase detection)
Tarak is a Kannada movie which was released in the year of 2017. The name of the actress is Shanvi Srivastava. She also does modeling, she works in Telugu film industry also.
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She was born on 8th of December, in the year of 1992. She is 26 years old, born in Kochi. She is quite active on her social media accounts, like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
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She looks very cool in this picture, she is always smiling and cheerful all the time as you can see in the picture. How did you like this actress guys?
Sanjay Dutt became an inspiration for all the aspiring Villains of Bollywood with his negative role in blockbuster film Khalnayak (1993).
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He got married for the 3rd time with 20 year younger B-grade actress Manyata in 2008.
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She gave birth to his 2 kids Iqra and Shahraan. Manyata is no longer active in Bollywood but is still more famous than many top actresses.
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She’s very active on social media and keeps on posting her hot pics. Fans of Manyata never fail to praise her beauty and they even keep on requesting her to do a Bollywood film.
