[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: rats and cars, gravitational lensing, black holes, geodes, dark matter

• D-Brief notes the glorious science produced by scientists who trained rats to drive miniature cars and found that, in so doing, the rats’ stress was relieved.
• D-Brief reports on how scientists used gravitational lensing to study a galaxy nine billion light-years away.
• D-Brief explains how, in dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes can stop star formation.
• D-Brief looks at how scientists have found the giant Geode of Pulpi was created.
• D-Brief notes how dark matter is making some spiral galaxies rotate at well over 500 kilometres a second.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Saira Mehmood blogs at {anthro}dendum about her experiences as an ethnographer in her New Orleans community.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait blogs about Supernova 2016iet, a rare example of a pair-instability supernova.
• At the Broadside Blog, Caitlin Kelly writes about the need of people to avoid isolation.
• Centauri Dreams notes that future astronomers might be able to detect the fluorescence of life on exoplanets during flares.
• Why, Crooked Timber asks, shouldn’t children be given the vote?
• D-Brief notes scientists have manufactured a ring of carbon atoms.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the complexities of #VanLife in the United States, at once a lifestyle choice in the US and a response to poverty.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is decidedly unimpressed by the recent rewriting of the Statue of Liberty.
• Neuroskeptic looks at how neuroimaging studies study surprisingly few left-handers, and how this is a problem.
• The NYR Daily looks at how Big Data in China is enhancing state power, concentrating on the situation in Xinjiang.
• Drew Rowsome looks at a new documentary on the genesis of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how dark matter and black holes can interact.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at coded anti-black racism in the 1937 United States.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait considers the question of where, exactly, the dwarf galaxy Segue-1 came from.
• Centauri Dreams considers the import of sodium chloride for the water oceans of Europa, and for what they might hold.
• D-Brief wonders if dark matter punched a hole in the Milky Way Galaxy.
• JSTOR Daily warns that the increasing number of satellites in orbit of Earth might hinder our appreciation of the night sky.
• The LRB Blog looks at the complications of democracy and politics in Mauritania.
• Marginal Revolution wonders about the nature of an apparently very decentralized city of Haifa.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There notes that, while our knowledge of the Big Bang is certainly imperfect, the odds of it being wrong are quite, quite low.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the Hayabusa 2 exploration of asteroid Ryugu.
• Vintage Space examines how Apollo astronauts successfully navigated their way to the Moon.
• Window on Eurasia looks at press discussion in Russia around the decriminalization of soft drugs like marijuana.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at a comic depicting a “mememobile.”

[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.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul looks at some architecturally innovative pools.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at Wolf 359, a star made famous in Star Trek for the Starfleet battle there against the Borg but also a noteworthy red dwarf star in its own right.
• Centauri Dreams looks at how the NASA Deep Space Atomic Clock will play a vital role in interplanetary navigation.
• The Crux considers the “drunken monkey” thesis, the idea that drinking alcohol might have been an evolutionary asset for early hominids.
• D-Brief reports on what may be the next step for genetic engineering beyond CRISPR.
• Bruce Dorminey looks at how artificial intelligence may play a key role in searching for threat asteroids.
• The Island Review shares some poetry from Roseanne Watt, inspired by the Shetlands and using its dialect.
• Livia Gershon writes at JSTOR Daily about how YouTube, by promising to make work fun, actually also makes fun work in psychologically problematic ways.
• Marginal Revolution notes how the relatively small Taiwan has become a financial superpower.
• Janine di Giovanni at the NYR Daily looks back at the 2000 intervention in Sierra Leone. Why did it work?
• Jamais Cascio at Open the Future looks back at a 2004 futurological exercise, the rather accurate Participatory Panopticon. What did he anticipate correctly? How? What does it suggest for us now to our world?
• The Planetary Society Blog notes that LightSail 2 will launch before the end of June.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how the discovery of gas between galaxies helps solve a dark matter question.
• Strange Company shares a broad collection of links.
• Window on Eurasia makes the obvious observation that the West prefers a North Caucasus controlled by Russia to one controlled by Islamists.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at American diner culture, including American Chinese food.

[NEWS] Five space science links: Moon, Titan, Triton, Messier 83, dark matter

• Wired explains what would be the point of a crewed mission to the South Pole of the Moon, and what challenges remain.
• Evan Gough at Universe Today notes the evidence for the surprising depth and complex hydrological cycles of the methane lakes of Titan.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today reports on the interest of NASA in dispatching a low-cost mission to the Neptune moon Triton.
• Universe Today looks at the nearby barred spiral galaxy of Messier 83, just 15 million light-years away.
• Universe Today notes the recent disproof of the theory that dark matter is made up of primordial black holes.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shows four different images of nearby stellar nursery NGC 1333.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the hot Saturn TOI-197, and the way it was detected.
• D-Brief notes how galaxy NGC-1052 DF2 has been confirmed as the second galaxy apparently lacking in dark matter.
• Gizmodo notes new confirmation, from an orbiting probe, that Curiosity detected methane emanating from Mars back in 2013.
• Hornet Stories tries to correct some misconceptions about the Burning Man festival.
• The Island Review links to a New York Times profile of post-Maria Puerto Rico.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Martin Shkreli has been tossed into solitary confinement.
• JSTOR Daily notes the work of psychologists in the 1930s US who profiled individuals who did not fit the gender binary. Would these people have identified themselves as trans or non-binary now?
• The LRB Blog notes the fondness of Jacob Rees-Mogg for extreme-right German politicians from the AfD.
• Language Log shares a written ad in Cantonese from Hong Kong.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money compares China now to the Untied States of the past, and finds interesting correspondences.
• Marginal Revolution notes the deep and significant commitment of China under Mao to providing foreign aid.
• The NYR Daily looks at the complex, once-overlooked, life and career of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, writer of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
• Out There notes that, while dark matter is certainly real, “dark matter” is a poor name for this mysterious substance.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog considers the challenges to be faced by Hayabusa 2 when it fires a sampling probe into asteroid Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how into the universe a spaceship could travel if it accelerated consistently at one gravity.
• Strange Company examines the life and adventures of Jeffrey Hudson, a royal dwarf in 17th century England.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society builds on the work of V.K. Ramachandran in considering the ethics of development ethnography.
• Window on Eurasia notes the new identification of Azerbaijanis as victims of genocide by neighbours, and what this means for the relations of Azerbaijan.
• Arnold Zwicky has fun, in a NSFW fanfic way, with figures from comics contemporary and old.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Ryan Anderson writes at anthro{dendum} about how the counterhistory of Vine Deloria transformed his thinking.
• Architectuul notes some interesting architectural experiments from the post-WW2 United Kingdom.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes the distinctive dustiness of Large Magellanic Cloud globular cluster NGC 1898.
• The Big Picture shares photos from the worldwide student walkout on climate change.
• Corey Robin writes at Crooked Timber about ethics in economics.
• The Crux points its readers to the space art of Chesley Bonestell.
• D-Brief considers the possibility that the distinction between the sounds “f” and “v” might be a product of the soft food produced by the agricultural revolution.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a new study suggesting there might be fifty billion free-floating planets in the Milky Way Galaxy.
• Gizmodo considers the self-appointed archivists of obscure information on the Internet.
• Information is Beautiful shares an informative infographic analyzing the factors that go into extending one’s life expectancy.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that the American system simply cannot be expected to contain the fascist impulses of Donald Trump indefinitely.
• Marginal Revolution considers the future evolution of a more privacy-conscious Facebook.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers the nature of the skies of mini-Neptunes.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the Kirsten McKenzie horror novel Painted.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the possibility that the Milky Way Galaxy, despite having fewer stars than Andromeda, might be more massive.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the genesis of ocean worlds. Having a nearly massive star producing lots of radioactive aluminum when it supernovas might be surprisingly important.
• The Crux takes a look at languages newly forming in the world around us, starting with the Australian language of Light Warlpiri. What does this say about humans and language?
• D-Brief notes that researchers have managed to create cyborg rats whose motions are controlled directly by human thought.
• Gizmodo reports on the abandonment by Amazon of its plan for a HQ2 campus in Queens.
• JSTOR Daily shares the perfectly believable argument that people with autism should not be viewed as people incapable of love.
• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Simon Balto writes about how the Ryan Adams scandal demonstrates the male gatekeeper effect in popular music.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution comes up with a list of winners and losers of the Amazon decision not to set up HQ2 in Queens. (Myself, I am unconvinced New York City is a loser here.)
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how, despite not interacting directly with normal matter, dark matter can still be heated up by the matter and energy we see around us.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, in many post-Soviet countries including the Baltic States and Ukraine, ethnic Russians are assimilating into local majority ethnic groups.

[NEWS] Five space science links: Moon, Mars, Planet Nine, ‘Oumuamua, dark matter

• This Universe Today article takes a look at the idea of building basic installations, the most ambitious like the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, on the Moon.
• Scientific American reports that NASA is preparing to declare the mission of the Mars Opportunity rover, active for 15 years, at an end.
• Popular Science looks at the likely procedures by which Planet Nine, if found, would be given a name.
• Universe Today considers the possibility that ‘Oumuamua might be part of the debris cloud of a disintegrated interstellar comet.
• Scientific American notes the important discovery of two nearby galaxies apparently lacking in dark matter.