[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how TESS detected a star being torn apart by a distant black hole.
• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster looks at the past and future of the blog.
• Crooked Timber takes on the sensitive issue of private schools in the United Kingdom.
• The Crux considers the question of why women suffer from Alzheimer’s at a higher frequency than men.
• D-Brief notes a study suggesting that saving the oceans of the Earth could reduce the effects of global warming by 20%.
• Bruce Dorminey considers a paper suggesting that, if not for its volcanic resurfacing, Venus could have remained an Earth-like world to this day.
• The Dragon’s Tale notes that NASA will deploy a cubesat in the proposed orbit of the Lunar Gateway station to make sure it is a workable orbit.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at Soyuz T-10a, the first crewed mission to abort on the launch pad.
• Gizmodo reports on a paper arguing that we should intentionally contaminate Mars (and other bodies?) with our world’s microbes.
• io9 looks at how Warner Brothers is trying to control, belatedly, the discourse around the new Joker movie.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how, in industrializing London, women kidnapped children off the streets.
• Language Hat links to a page examining the Arabic and Islamic elements in Dune.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a new documentary examining the life of Trump mentor Roy Cohn.
• The LRB Blog looks at how BBC protocols are preventing full discussion of public racism.
• The Map Room Blog looks at different efforts to reimagining the subway map of New York City.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper claiming that increased pressure on immigrants to assimilate in Italy had positive results.
• The NYR Daily looks at the background to George Washington’s statements about the rightful place of Jews in the United States.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the political explanation of the massive increase in the planetary defense budget of NASA.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the Rocky Horror Show, with its celebration of sexuality (among other things).
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers why there are so many unexpected black holes in the universe.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps examines why Google Street View is not present in Germany (and Austria).
• The Volokh Conspiracy reports on a ruling in a UK court that lying about a vasectomy negates a partner’s consent to sex.
• Window on Eurasia notes the controversy about some Buryat intellectuals about giving the different dialects of their language too much importance.

[NEWS] Five space links: Hawaii, BepiColombo, Mars, GW170817

• A habitat high in the mountains of Hawaii that once housed simulated Mars missions is now going to be home to a Moon base simulation, following a controversial recent run-through. The Atlantic reports.
• D-Brief examines the electric thrusters of the BepiColombo probe.
• Universe Today offers viewing tips for giant asteroid 3 Juno, here.
• The neutron star collision producing GW170817 seems to have produced not a black hole, but a single hyper-massive neutron star. Science Daily reports.
• Universe Today explores the prospects of the Mars InSight probe, set to land on the 26th, here.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthro{dendum} links to a roundup of anthropology-relevant posts and news items.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shows how the impending collision of galaxies NGC 4490 and NGC 4485 has created spectacular scenes of starbirth.
• Centauri Dreams notes the upcoming stream of new observatories and satellites that will enable better charting of exoplanets.
• Kieran Healy shares a cool infographic depicting the scope of the British baby boom.
• Hornet Stories shares the amazing video for the fantastic new song by Janelle Monáe, “Pynk.”
• JSTOR Daily notes what happens when you send Frog and Toad to a philosophy class.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money makes the obvious point that abandoning civil rights of minorities is a foolish strategy for American liberals.
• The LRB Blog shares a reflection on Winnie Mandela, and the forces she led and represents.
• The Map Room Blog links to detailed maps of the Rohingya refugee camps.
• Marginal Revolution takes issue with a proposal by Zeynep Tufekci for a thorough regulation of Facebook.
• The NYR Daily notes how Israel is making full use of the law to enable its colonization of the West Bank.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla reports from inside a NASA clean room where the new InSight Mars rover is being prepared.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer talks about what is really wrong with a Trump Organization letter to the president of Panama regarding a real estate development there.
• Strange Company looks at the life of 19th century fraudster and murdering John Birchall.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the unusual exoplanet HIP 65426 b, orbiting its parent star in a very distant orbit. Why is that?
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares some photos from an evening spent at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
• Centauri Dreams imagines what could have been if Voyager 1 had, as some hoped, gone on to Pluto. What discoveries would have been made, decades before New Horizons by a probe with less capable instrumentation?
• Dangerous Minds takes a look at David Bowie’s mid-1970s nadir, caught up in an oddly vegetarianism-driven panic over psychic espionage.
• At In A State of Migration, Lyman Stone uses a variety of demographic, cultural, and economic markers to define the Rust Belt of the United States.
• JSTOR Daily notes that, at one point, American funerals included swag, nice gifts to mourners like sets of gloves.
• Language Hat notes a language of the Pakistani Himalayas, Badeshi, that turns out not to be quite completely extinct.
• Justin Petrone, at north!, celebrates his discovery of a familiar type, an Italian coffeeshop owner, in his adopted Estonia.
• Out There considers the remarkable potential of exploration and telescopic study at the edge of our solar system.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla notes that the Japanese Hayabusa 2 probe has detected its target, asteroid Ryugu.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on tuyo, a Filipino comfort food combining dried fish with chocolate-flavoured rice porridge.
• Peter Rukavina reports on an entertaining-sounding club meeting in Charlottetown, of Island subscribers to The New Yorker.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how the new Great Magellan telescope will not have artificial spikes marring its field of vision.
• Towleroad notes< that CNN's Don Lemon is aware of Trump's nickname for him, "Sour Lemon".
• Window on Eurasia notes that Russia’s working-age population is set to decline regardless of recent demographic initiatives.