[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams notes how gas giants on eccentric orbits can easily disrupt bodies on orbits inwards.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber suggests that the political culture of England has been deformed by the trauma experienced by young children of the elites at boarding schools.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the haunting art of Paul Delvaux.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the work of Tressie McMillan Cottom in investigating for-profit higher education.
• Far Outliers looks at Tripoli in 1801.
• Gizmodo shares the Boeing design for the moon lander it proposes for NASA in 2024.
• io9 shares words from cast of Terminator: Dark Fate about the importance of the Mexican-American frontier.
• JSTOR Daily makes a case against killing spiders trapped in one’s home.
• Language Hat notes a recovered 17th century translation of a Dutch bible into the Austronesian language of Siraya, spoken in Taiwan.
• Language Log looks at the origin of the word “brogue”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the payday lender industry.
• Marginal Revolution notes a new biography of Walter Raleigh, a maker of empire indeed.
• The NYR Daily looks at a new dance show using the rhythms of the words of writer Robert Walser.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how, in a quantum universe, time and space could still be continuous not discrete.
• Strange Company looks at a court case from 1910s Brooklyn, about a parrot that swore.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes an affirmative action court case in which it was ruled that someone from Gibraltar did not count as Hispanic.
• Window on Eurasia notes rhetoric claiming that Russians are the largest divided people on the Earth.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at lizards and at California’s legendary Highway 101.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: horror, returns, communications

• At JSTOR Daily, Stephanie Larson looks at how and why cats have been used in horror films.
• BBC reports on a black cat that was returned to its owners on Halloween six years after it disappeared.
• Sarah Basford as Lifehacker AU explains what different cat vocalizations man.
• Cats show love in many different ways. Non Pareil Online reports.
• Stephen Dowling at BBC Future looks at the different mistakes we make that keep us from understanding the friendliness of cats.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} shares a new take on the atmosphere, as a common good.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Earth taken from a hundred million kilometres away by the OSIRIS-REx probe.
• The Crux tells the story of how the first exoplanets were found.
• D-Brief notes that life could be possible on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, assuming it could deal with the blueshifting.
• io9 looks at the latest bold move of Archie Comics.
• JSTOR Daily explores cleaning stations, where small fish clean larger ones.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role China seeks to play in a remade international order.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the new upcoming national atlas of Estonia.
• Marginal Revolution touches on the great ambition of Louis XIV for a global empire.
• Steve Baker of The Numerati shares photos from his recent trip to Spain.
• Anya Schiffrin at the NRY Daily explains how American journalist Varian Fry helped her family, and others, escape the Nazis.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the classic movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map looking at the barriers put up by the high-income world to people moving from outside.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel answers the complex question of how, exactly, the density of a black hole can be measured.
• John Scalzi at Whatever reviews Gemini Man. Was the high frame rate worth it?
• Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of Tuvins towards a large Russian population in Tuva.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the existential question of self-aware cartoon characters.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes new research on where the sun is located within the Milky Way Galaxy.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly considers the value of slow fashion.
• Centauri Dreams notes the different gas giants that our early methods have yet to pick up.
• Crooked Timber shares a lovely photo looking back at Venice from across its lagoon.
• D-Brief notes that upcoming space telescopes might find hundreds of rogue planets thanks to microlensing.
• io9 notes that Marvel will soon be producing Warhammer40K comics.
• The Island Review shares some poetry and photography by Ken Cockburn inspired by the Isle of Jura.
• JSTOR Daily notes that different humpback whale groups have different songs, different cultures.
• Language Hat tries to find the meaning of the odd Soviet Yiddish word “kolvirt”.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the history of Elizabeth Warren as a law teacher.
• Map Room Blog shares information from Google Maps about its use of data.
• Marginal Revolution notes that in 2016, not a single child born in the United Kingdom was given the name Nigel.
• Peter Watts talks about AI and what else he is doing.
• The NYR Daily marked the centennial of a horrible massacre of African-Americans centered on the Arkansas community of Elaine.
• Emily Margolis at the Planetary Society Blog looks at how the Apollo moon missions helped galvanize tourism in Florida.
• Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money looks at the constitutional crisis in Peru.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Peter Rukavina looks at a spreadsheet revealing the distribution of PEI public servants.
• Spacing reviews a book imagining how small communities can rebuild themselves in neoliberalism.
• Towleroad shares the criticism of Christine and the Queens of the allegedly opportunistic use of queer culture by Taylor Swift.
• Understanding Society considers, sociologically, the way artifacts work.
• The Volokh Conspiracy argues that the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China should be a day of mourning, on account of the high human toll of the PRC.
• Window on Eurasia suggests the Russian generation of the 1970s was too small to create lasting change.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at how underwear ads can be quite sexualized.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul shares photos from a bike tour of Berlin.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on new evidence that exocomets are raining on star Beta Pictoris.
• Larry Klaes at Centauri Dreams reviews the two late 1970s SF films Alien and Star Trek I, products of the same era.
• D-Brief reports on Hubble studies of the star clusters of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• Bruce Dorminey shares Gemini telescope images of interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).
• The Dragon’s Tales shares video of Space X’s Starhopper test flight.
• Far Outliers notes the import of the 13th century Norman king of England calling himself Edward after an Anglo-Saxon king.
• Gizmodo notes that not only can rats learn to play hide and seek, they seem to enjoy it.
• io9 notes the fantastic high camp of Mister Sinister in the new Jonathan Hickman X-Men run, borrowing a note from Kieron Gillen’s portrayal of the character.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Guiliani’s soon-to-be ex-wife says he has descended from 911 hero to a liar.
• Language Log looks at the recent ridiculous suggestion that English, among other languages, descends from Chinese.
• The LRB Blog looks at the brief history of commemorating the V2 attacks on London.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the practice in Saskatchewan of sterilizing First Nations women against their consent.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that farmers in Brazil might be getting a partly unfair treatment. (Partly.)
• The Planetary Society Blog explains why C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) matters.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, for the first time, immigrants from Turkmenistan in Belarus outnumber immigrants from Ukraine.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reports on the fragility of asteroid Ryugu.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the JUICE probe, planned to explore the three icy moons of Jupiter.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber reports on the fact that Jimmy Carter was warned in the 1970s about the possibility of global warming.
• D-Brief notes that the Earth might not be the best world for life, that watery worlds with dense atmospheres and long days might be better.
• Jessica Poling at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the construction of gender.
• Far Outliers looks at the Nigerian city of Agadez, at one point a sort of port city of the Sahel.
• Gizmodo asks a variety of experts their opinion on which species is likely to be next in developing our sort of intelligence. (Primates come up frequently, though I like the suggestion of bacterial colonies.)
• JSTOR Daily looks/a> at the genderless Quaker prophet Publick Universal Friend.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money comments on the interview of Amy Wax with The New Yorker.
• Marginal Revolution shares the enthusiasm of Tyler Cowen for Warsaw and Poland.
• Peter Pomerantsev writes at the NYR Daily about how the alt-right has taken to culture-jamming.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the exceptional power of cosmic rays.
• Window on Eurasia shares the lament of a Chuvash writer about the decline of her people’s language.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul writes about the exciting possibility of using living organisms, like fungi, as custom-designed construction materials.
• Bad Astronomy looks at first-generation stars, the first stars in the universe which exploded and scattered heavy elements into the wider universe.
• Caitlin Kelly writes at the Broadside Blog, as an outsider and an observer, about the American fascination with guns.
• The Toronto Public Library’s Buzz lists some top memoirs.
• Centauri Dreams considers the vexed issue of oxygen in the oceans of Europa. There may well not be enough oxygen to sustain complex life, though perhaps life imported from Earth might be able to thrive with suitable preparation.
• The Crux looks at the well-established practice, not only among humans but other animals, of using natural substances as medicines.
• D-Brief looks at the NASA Dart mission, which will try to deflect the tiny moon of asteroid Didymos in an effort to test asteroid-diversion techniques.
• io9 reports George R.R. Martin’s belief that Gandalf could beat Dumbledore. I can buy that, actually.
• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the local reactions to Woodstock.
• Language Hat looks at the language in a 19th century short story by Nikolai Leskov, concerned with the difficulties of religious conversion for a people whose language does not encompass the concepts of Christianity.
• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to a book review of his examining the Marshall mission to Nationalist China after the Second World War.
• Marginal Revolution links to survey results suggesting that, contrary to the Brexit narratives, Britons have actually been getting happier over the past two decades.
• The NYR Daily reports on an exhibition of the universe of transgressive writer Kathy Acker in London.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the innovative new staging of the queer Canadian classic Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times.
• Towleroad reports on the progress of Pete Buttigieg.
• Window on Eurasia notes that Russia and Ukraine are becoming increasingly separated by their very different approaches to their shared Soviet past.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the latest evolutions of English.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: adoption, sakura, Dwayne, Pouces, feline intelligence

• blogTO reports that some of the 300 cats rescued from a hoarder’s apartment here in Toronto are now available for adoption.
• This r/toronto photo of a cat who came out to enjoy the cherry blossoms at Robarts Library is adorable.
• These images and videos of Dwayne, a cat capable even of riding the TTC, are adorable. blogTO has them.
• CBC Montreal reports on Pouces, a cat who rides with his trucker human Sean Litwack across the country.
• David Grimm at Science Magazine writes about the pioneering work of Kristin Vitale in studying feline cognition. It turns out cats are much smarter, and more attuned to humans, than we might think.

[URBAN NOTE] Five notes about smart animals: bees, wolves/dogs, cetaceans, Denisovans, Neanderthals

• The Conversation notes how urban beekeepers can play a key role in saving bees from extinction.
• Motherboard looks at the comparative intelligence, and generosity, of wolves versus their domesticated dog counterparts.
• National Geographic looks at how marine mammals, particularly cetaceans, have been used in different militaries.
• Smithsonian Magazine looks at how recent studies have demonstrated the diversity among Denisovan populations.
• Smithsonian Magazine looks at the new consensus about the remarkable capabilities of Neanderthals.

[CAT] Five #caturday links: names, declawing, outdoors, Washington D.C., Pet Sematery

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D-Brief was the first news source I noted that explained a study demonstrating that, yes, cats did recognize their names.

Banning the declawing of cats on account of the inhumanity of that action makes perfect sense to me. CTV News reports.

CityLab is perfectly correct to note that, ferociously efficient predators they are, cats should no be let out into the wild.

This Washington Post report of a study seeking to track the location of cat populations in the wild in Washington D.C. is fascinating, and important.

Cinema Blend tells of the specialization, and sensitivity, of the eight different cats used to play the cat Church in the new movie Pet Sematery.