[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Architectuul notes the recent death of I.M. Pei.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes what, exactly, rubble-pile asteroids are.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about definitions of home.
• Centauri Dreams considers white dwarf planets.
• The Crux notes how ultra-processed foods are liked closely to weight gain.
• D-Brief observes that a thin layer of insulating ice might be saving the subsurface oceans of Pluto from freezing out.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the critical role played by Apollo 10 in getting NASA ready for the Moon landings.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the American government’s expectation that China will seek to set up its own global network of military bases.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina reports on the Soviet Union’s Venera 5 and 6 missions to Venus.
• Far Outliers looks at the visit of U.S. Grant to Japan and China.
• Gizmodo notes a recent analysis of Neanderthal teeth suggesting that they split with Homo sapiens at a date substantially earlier than commonly believed.
• io9 notes the sheer scale of the Jonathan Hickman reboots for the X-Men comics of Marvel.
• Joe. My. God. shares the argument of Ted Cruz that people should stop making fun of his “space pirate” suggestion.I am inclined to think Cruz more right than not, actually.
• JSTOR Daily notes the wave of anti-black violence that hit the United States in 1919, often driven by returned veterans.
• Language Hat shares a recognizable complaint, written in ancient Akkadian, of bad customers.
• Language Log shares a report of a village in Brittany seeking people to decipher a mysterious etching.
• This Scott Lemieux report at Lawyers, Guns and Money about how British conservatives received Ben Shapiro is a must-read summary.
• Benjamin Markovits at the LRB Blog shares the reasons why he left his immigrant-heavy basketball team in Germany.
• Marginal Revolution looks at one effort in Brazil to separate people from their street gangs.
• The NYR Daily looks at how ISIS, deprived of its proto-state, has managed to thrive as a decentralized network.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw tells of his experiences and perceptions of his native region of New England, in southeastern Australia.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes how the Chang’e 4 rover may have found lunar mantle on the surface of the Moon.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer notes that while Argentine president Mauricio Macri is polling badly, his opponents are not polling well.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of things to do in see in the Peru capital of Lima.
• The Signal examines how the Library of Congress engages in photodocumentation.
• Van Waffle at the Speed River Journal explains how he is helping native insects by planting native plants in his garden.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how scientific illiteracy should never be seen as cool.
• Towleroad notes the questions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as to why Truvada costs so much in the United States.
• Window on Eurasia notes how family structures in the North Caucasus are at once modernizing and becoming more conservative.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes how the distribution of US carriers and their fleets at present does not support the idea of a planned impending war with Iran.
• Arnold Zwicky examines the tent caterpillar of California.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo taken by the Lunar Reconnaissane Observer looking straight down on Chang’e-4.
• The Crux shares an argument for preserving the Apollo landing areas as part of the common heritage of humanity.
• D-Brief, looking at ancient evidence from Sri Lanka, suggests human beings evolved as hunters of smaller primates like monkeys.
• JSTOR Daily notes the evidence suggesting the limited potential of wildlife to adapt to heat waves.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the racial tonedeafness of Bernie Sanders.
• The LRB Blog takes a look at qanats, the ingenious Persian underground irritation system that has spread worldwide.
• Marginal Revolution considers what Singapore will do with its sovereign investment fund, estimated to be worth at least a half-trillion US dollars.
• Window on Eurasia considers the effects that a merger of Belarus with Russia might have on Russia’s own federal units.
• Arnold Zwicky notes the fun that others have had with puns on Vladimir and Estragon.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul takes a look at a new exhibition exploring women architects in Bauhaus.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Chang’e-4 taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
• Centauri Dreams notes the power of perspective, demonstrated by photos taken in space far from the Earth.
• Far Outliers notes the role of the Indian army, during the Raj, in engaging and mobilizing peasants while allowing recruits to maintain village traditions.
• Joe. My. God. notes a new study from the Netherlands suggesting the children of same-sex parents do better in school than children of opposite-sex parents.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the astonishing plagiarism and sloppy writing of former NYT editor Jill Abramson.
• Michael Hofman at the LRB Blog takes a look at the mindset producing the Brexit catastrophe.
• Marginal Revolution takes a look at the decline of the wealth tax in recent decades in high-income countries. Apparently the revenues collected were often not substantial enough.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares missions updates from Chang’e-4 on the Moon.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Cirque Éloize show Hotel.
• Window on Eurasia notes one call for Tatarstan, and Tatar nationalists, to abandon a territorial model of identity focused on the republic, seeing as how so many Tatars live outside of Tatarstan.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the play in language involved in a recent Bizarro comic.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• The Crux looks at Henrietta Leavitt, the astronomer who helped measure the size of the universe.
• D-Brief notes that the Chang’e-4 rover has briefly woken up to conduct science on the Moon before returning to hibernation.
• Gizmodo notes that an ancient feather thought for generations to belong to Archeopteryx actually belongs to a different feathered animal.
• JSTOR Daily notes the importance of protecting wild plants related to major foodstuffs, like coffee, from extinction.
• Language Hat links to a chart depicting the evolution of alphabets from the original Proto-Sinaitic.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money explores the bizarre scandal surrounding Virginia governor Ralph Northam. (I think him badly compromised, myself.)
• Marginal Revolution looks at the reasons for the unexpected flight of capital from emerging economies. (Insecurity seems to be one cause.)
• The Planetary Society Blog shares some galactic astrophotography of Adam Block.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the importance of continuing to try to answer the big questions of science.
• Window on Eurasia notes the emergence in Russia of people who reject Russian statehood and instead claim Soviet legitimacy, echoes of sovereign citizens and Reichsbürger of Germany.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the idea of alphabetic order, starting with the question of how to learn it.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope notes</u. the many problems appearing already with 2019, starting with Brexit.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait examines the mysterious AT2018cow event. What was it?
• blogTO notes that the Ontario government seems to be preparing for a new round of amalgamation, this time involving Toronto neighbours.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly writes about her strategies for minimizing her personal waste, including buying expensive durables.
• D-Brief shares Chang’e-4 photos taken on the far side of the Moon.
• Bruce Dorminey notes an innovative design for a steam-powered asteroid hopper.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about verstehen, the process of coming to an understanding of a subject, as demonstrated in the Arlene Stein study Unbound about trans men.
• Gizmodo looks at the remarkably complex nascent planetary system of the quarternary star system HD 98800.
• Imageo shares a visualization of the terrifyingly rapid spread of the Camp Fire.
• JSTOR Daily debunks the myth of Wilson’s unconditional support for the Fourteen Points.
• Language Hat notes a new study that claims to provide solid grounds for distinguishing dialects from languages.
• Language Log looks at what David Bowie had to say about the Internet in 1999, and how he said it.
• Christine Gordon Manley writes about her identity as a Newfoundlander.
• Marginal Revolution notes the very variable definitions of urbanization in different states of India as well as nationally.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog shares a few more images of Ultima Thule.
• Drew Rowsome reviews a new Toronto production of Iphegenia and the Furies.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how a fifth dimension might make the instantaneous spore drive of Discovery possible.
• Window on Eurasia links to an article examining eight misconceptions of Russians about Belarus.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy shares a photo taken by the H-ATLAS satellite of deep space, a sea of pale dusty dots each one a galaxy.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares, in photos and in prose, 11 views of New York City. (What a fantastic metropolis!)
• Centauri Dreams hosts an essay from Alex Tolley suggesting that most life in the universe is lithophilic, living in the stable warm interiors of planets.
• Cody Delistraty links to an essay of his looking at the tensions, creative and personal, between Renoir father and son.
• Gizmodo links to a paper suggesting the mysterious ASASSN-14li event can be explained by a star falling into a supermassive galactic black hole, the analysis suggesting the black hole was rotating at half the speed of light.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the mysterious dancing plagues of medieval Europe.
• The LRB Blog looks at casual anti-Semitism in British sports.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that the legacies of Confucian state-building in China may have depressed long-term economic growth in particularly Confucian areas.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the success of the Chang’e-4 probe, complete with photos and videos sent from the far side of the Moon.
• Roads to Kingdoms shares the photography of a changing Vietnam by Simone Sapienza.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the ongoing Toronto comedy show Unsafe Space, and enjoys it.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the achievements of the TESS planet-hunting satellites, looking for nearby planets, emphasizing its achievements in the Pi Mensae system.
• Window on Eurasia considers a fascinating alternate history. Could Beria, had he survived Stalin, have overseen a radical liberalization of the Soviet Union in the early Cold War?

[NEWS] Ten D-Brief links

• Did extraterrestrial sugars seed life on Earth? D-Brief reports.
• A detailed simulation suggests how black holes can function as natural particle accelerators. D-Brief reports.
• This trompe l’oeil photo seemingly combines the two Saturnian moons of Dione and Rhea. D-Brief shares this.
• Evidence of methane in the atmosphere of Mars is strangely lacking. D-Brief reports.
• Astronomers found, with help from a quasar, a patch of gas in deep intergalactic space apparently a pure sampling from the Big Bang. D-Brief reports.
• A species of midge has become an invasive species in Antarctica. D-Brief reports.
• Plants have been made to grow in space. D-Brief reports.
• These remarkable images of Ultima Thule from New Horizons shows a two-lobed world. D-Brief shares them.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, the effect of climate change could lead to greater electricity consumption in China. D-Brief reports.
• Congratulations are due to China for the successful landing of the Chang’e-4 probe on the far side of the Moon.

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: atomic clocks and dark matter, Chang’e-4, Phoebe, health, exoplanets

• D-Brief notes that upcoming generations of atomic clocks can be so accurate that they might be able to detect dark matter.
• China’s Chang’e-4 moon lander is en route to our nearest partner world, D-Brief reports.
• D-Brief notes that the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in the water of the Saturn moon of Phoebe differs not only from that on Earth but that of the icy worlds in the Saturn system, suggesting Phoebe formed elsewhere.
• The stresses of living in space makes organisms like mice and human beings prone to infections, D-Brief notes.
• A study of nascent exoplanets in a starforming region of Taurus, some 450 light-years away, provides invaluable information about how planets form, D-Brief observes.