[BLOG] Five Window on Eurasia links

• Window on Eurasia notes the post-Soviet collapse of the numbers of learners of the Russian language, here.
• Window on Eurasia reports the claim of a Russian politician that in 1991, securing the nuclear arsenal of Ukraine was a bigger priority than trying for borders changes, here.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Belarus cannot protect itself from Russia, here.
• Window on Eurasia explains why the Soviet Union let the Armenians and Georgians keep their alphabets, here.
• Window on Eurasia explains how Russia’s naval and marine power is not doing well, here.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes the first time that an exoplanet, HR 8799e, has been directly observed using optical interferometry.
• Centauri Dreams notes the possibility, demonstrated by the glimpsing of a circumplanetary disc around exoplanet PDS 70b, that we might be seeing a moon system in formation.
• The Citizen Science Salon looks what observers in Antarctica are contributing to our wealth of scientific knowledge.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares links to articles looking at the latest findings on the Precambrian Earth.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas writes about his ambivalent response to a Twitter that, by its popularity, undermines the open web.
• Gizmodo notes that NASA is going to open up the International Space Station to tourists.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how croquet, upon its introduction in the 19th century United States, was seen as scandalous for the way it allowed men and women to mix freely.
• Shakezula at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the unaccountable fondness of at least two Maine Republican legislators for the Confederacy.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that the economic success of Israel in recent decades is a triumph of neoliberalism.
• Stephen Ellis at the NYR Daily writes about the gymnastics of Willem de Kooning.
• Drew Rowsome profiles out comic Brendan D’Souza.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the still strange galaxy NGC 1052-DF2, apparently devoid of dark matter.
• John Scalzi at Whatever shares his theory about a fixed quantity of flavor in strawberries of different sizes.
• Window on Eurasia looks at a contentious plan for a territorial swap between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Windsor, Calgary, Mulhouse, Naples, Dhaka

• This Shane Mitchell op-ed at Spacing warns about how plans for a new hospital in Windsor can threaten to promote sprawl.
• Debates over bike traffic laws are ongoing in Calgary. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the downtown of the French city of Mulhouse has been successfully regenerated.
• Guardian Cities looks at how the infamous housing estate of Scampia outside of Naples, famously derelict and a nexus for crime, is finally being torn down.
• Atlas Obscura notes an Armenian church in Dhaka, last remnant of a once-vast Armenian trading diaspora that extended out to Bengal.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kingston, Ottawa, Amsterdam, Madrid, Yerevan

• Kingston, Ontario, is currently doing its best to cope with flood risk from the rising Lake Ontario. Global News reports.
• MacLean’s reports on an appalling expansion of the iconic Chateau Laurier in Ottawa.
• CityLab reports on how Amsterdam is trying to avoid being overwhelmed by tourism.
• Guardian Cities reports on how the new government in Madrid plans to scrap a low-emissions zone because of a belief that congestion is a Madrid tradition.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares some tips for visitors to Yerevan.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility of carbon dioxide being a biosignature in the atmospheres of exoplanets.
• D-Brief notes the discoveries of Hayabusa2 at asteroid Ryugu, including the possibility it was part of a larger body.
• Gizmodo links to a new analysis suggesting the behaviour of ‘Oumuamua was not so unprecedented after all, that it was a simple exocomet.
• JSTOR Daily looks at Agnes Chase, an early 20th century biologist who did remarkable things, both with science and with getting women into her field.
• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to a new article of his analyzing the new aircraft carriers of Japan, noting not just their power but the effective lack of limits on Japanese military strength.
• Marginal Revolution notes the substantial demographic shifts occurring in Kazakhstan since independence, with Kazakh majorities appearing throughout the country.
• Neuroskeptic considers if independent discussion sections for online papers would make sense.
• The NYR Daily shares a photo essay by Louis Witter reporting on Moroccan boys seeking to migrate to Europe through Ceuta.
• Roads and Kingdoms has an interview with photographer Brett Gundlock about his images of Latin American migrants in Mexico seeking the US.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explores the mass extinction and extended ice age following the development of photosynthesis and appearance of atmospheric oxygen on Earth two billion years ago.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, in Karabakh, Jehovah’s Witnesses now constitute the biggest religious minority.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul looks back at its work over 2018.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reflects on an odd photo of the odd galaxy NGC 3981.
• The Crux tells the story of how the moons of Jupiter, currently enumerated at 79 and including many oddly-shaped objects in odd orbits, have been found.
• Gizmodo notes how some astronomers have begun to use the precise rotations of neutron stars to calibrate atomic clocks on Earth.
• Keiran Healy shares a literally beautiful chart depicting mortality rates in France over two centuries.
• Hornet Stories notes that, two years after his death, the estate of George Michael is still making donations to the singer’s favoured charities.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox celebrates the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Sedated”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how unauthorized migrants detained by the United States are being absorbed into the captive workforces of prisons.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution approves of the Museum of the Bible, in Washington D.C., as a tourist destination.
• The NYR Daily looks at soccer (or football) in Morocco, as a badge of identity and as a vehicle for the political discussions otherwise repressed by the Moroccan state.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the paiche, a fish that is endangered in Peru but is invasively successful in Bolivia.
• Peter Rukavina makes a good point about the joys of unexpected fun.
• The Signal reports on how the American Folklife Centre processes its audio recordings in archiving them.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel debunks some myths about black holes, notably that their gravity is any more irresistible than that of any other object of comparable mass.
• Strange Company shares the contemporary news report from 1878 of a British man who binge-drank himself across the Atlantic to the United States.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a proposal in the fast-depopulating Magadan oblast of Russia to extend to all long-term residents the subsidies extended to native peoples.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on another Switzerland-like landscape, this one the shoreline around Lake Sevan in Armenia.

[NEWS] Five language links: Armenian, Icelandic, Irish, Ladino, Scots

• This r/unresolvedmysteries thread asks the question of where the Armenian language, a unique Indo-European language, came from.
• This Ragnar Jónasson article in The Guardian asks the question of how long the Icelandic language, with relatively few speakers and facing a tidal wave of influence from English, can outlast this competition.
• The Irish Times notes that the Irish language was heard in the British House of Commons for the first time in a century, spoken by a Plaid Cymru MP asking why this language has so little institutional support in Northern Ireland.
• Over at the BBC, Susanna Zaraysky takes a look at the Ladino language–a Spanish variant–traditionally used by the Sephardic Jews of Bosnia, and how this language is declining here as elsewhere among the Sephardim.
• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the Scots language, a distinctive Germanic language that was never quite broken away from English, and how this language persists despite everything.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• At Anthropology.net, Kambiz Kamrani notes the Qesem caves of Israel, where four hundred thousand years ago hominids learned to make tools.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that star S2 is about to plunge to its closest approach to Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the heart of our galaxy, and what this means for science.
• Centauri Dreams takes a look at research done on Earth about the atmospheres of super-Earths.
• D-Brief takes a look at the recent research done on the regions on the edges of supermassive black holes.
• Bruce Dorminey notes that the Juno science team thinks that Jupiter probe has exceeded expectations.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the evidence for a massive migration from the steppes into Europe circa 3300 BCE.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas makes the argument that the idea of humane technology is something of an oxymoron.
• Imageo notes evidence that permafrost will melt more quickly than previous predicted under the impact of global warming.
• JSTOR Daily looks at explanations for the unusually strong activism among high school students in East Los Angeles in the 1960s.
• Language Hat looks at evidence for the close relationship, in vocabulary and even in grammar, between the Turkish and Western Armenian languages now separated by bad blood.
• Lingua Franca notes how easy it is to change conventions on language use–like pronouns, say–at a well-functioning institution.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the economic progress made, after a recent lull, by Ghana.
• The NYR Daily looks at the growing involvement of the United States in small wars in Africa, starting with Niger and Cameroon.
• Justin Petrone at north! reports on a family visit to his ancestral home of Bari, seeing what little remains of the past there.
• Peter Rukavina wonders, apropos of a very successful experience shopping online at Amazon, how anyone else will be able to compete.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the difference between mathematics and physics. Where is the line to be drawn?
• Strange Maps’ Frank Jacobs maps obesity in the United States and in Europe.
• Towleroad reports on the apparent interest of actor Cynthia Nixon in becoming governor of New York.
• John Scalzi at Whatever is a big fan of A Wrinkle in Time, a movie that is not perfect but is still quite good. I’m curious to see it myself.
• Window on Eurasia reports on food riots in isolated Turkmenistan.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the remarkably complex system of Proxima Centauri, with multiple belts and more possible planets, as does D-Brief.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of a new sort of fusion reactions, involving not atoms but quarks.
• Hornet Stories notes a new acoustic cover of the Kinky Boots song “Not My Father’s Son.”
• Language Hat takes a brief look at Cyrillic, since the Soviet era written in Cyrillic script.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the Trump Administration is unconcerned by the latest report regarding catastrophic climate change.
• The LRB Blog notes how Armenia and Armenians remember past genocides and current refugee flows.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes the further extension of the Dawn mission at Ceres.
• Drew Rowsome shares some of Stephen King’s tips for aspiring writers.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how some long-exposure Hubble photographs of galaxies picked up nearby asteroids.
• John Scalzi shares his cover of “Rocket Man”.
• Window on Eurasia wonders if ISIS is spreading into Russia via migrant workers from Central Asia.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross bets that barring catastrophe, the US under Trump will dispatch crewed circumlunar flights.
• D-Brief takes a look at the evolution of birds, through speculation on how the beak formed.
• Language Log looks at the ways Trump is represented, and mocked, in the languages of East Asia.
• Noting the death toll in a Mexico City sweatshop, Lawyers, Guns and Money reiterates that sweatshops are dangerous places to work.
• The NYR Daily notes the many structural issues likely to prevent foreign-imposed fixes in Afghanistan.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports from a seemingly unlikely date festival held in the depths of the Saudi desert.
• Rocky Planet reports that Mount Agung, a volcano in Indonesia, is at risk of imminent eruption.
• Drew Rowsome notes a new stage adaptation in Toronto of the Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest.
• Strange Company reports on how the Lonergans disappeared in 1998 in a dive off the Great Barrier Reef. What happened to them?
• Towleroad notes how Chelsea Manning was just banned from entering Canada.
• Window on Eurasia claims that the Russian language is disappearing from Armenia.
• Arnold Zwicky maps the usage of “faggot” as an obscenity in the United States.