A Bit More Detail

Assorted Personal Notations, Essays, and Other Jottings

Posts Tagged ‘dinosaurs

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

  • Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} compares different sorts of public bathing around the world, from Native America to Norden to Japan.
  • Charlie Stross at Antipope is unimpressed by the person writing the script for our timeline.
  • Architectuul reports on an architectural conference in Lisbon.
  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning photos of the eruption of the Raikoke volcano in Kamchatka.
  • Centauri Dreams looks at what the Voyager spacecraft have returned about the edge of the solar system.
  • John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with the idea of bipartisanship if it means compromising on reality, allegorically.
  • The Crux counts the number of people who have died in outer space.
  • D-Brief notes that the Andromeda Galaxy has swallowed up multiple dwarf galaxies over the eons.
  • Dead Things notes the identification of the first raptor species from Southeast Asia, Siamraptor suwati.
  • The Dragon’s Tales notes a paper tracing the origins of interstellar comet 2/Borisov from the general area of Kruger 60.
  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the privilege allowing people access to affordable dental care.
  • Gizmodo tells how Alexei Leonov survived the first spacewalk.
  • io9 looks at the remarkable new status quo for the X-Men created by Jonathan Hickman.
  • Selma Franssen at the Island Review writes about the threats facing the seabirds of the Shetlands.
  • JSTOR Daily looks at what led Richard Nixon to make so many breaks from the American consensus on China in the Cold War.
  • Language Log notes an undergraduate course at Yale using the Voynich Manuscript as an aid in the study of language.
  • Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains her recent experience of the socialized health care system of Israel for Americans.
  • The LRB Blog looks at how badly the Fukuyama prediction of an end to history has aged.
  • The Map Room Blog shares a few maps of the new Ottawa LRT route.
  • Marginal Revolution notes a paper establishing a link between Chinese industries undermining their counterparts in Mexico and Mexican social ills including crime.
  • Sean Marshall reports from Ottawa about what the Confederation Line looks like.
  • Adam Shatz at the NYR Daily looks at the power of improvisation in music.
  • Roads and Kingdoms looks at South Williamsburg Jewish deli Gottlieb’s.
  • Drew Rowsome reviews</a the new Patti Smith book, Year of the Monkey.
  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking as the factors leading into transnational movements.
  • Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the question of the direction(s) in which order in the universe was generated.
  • Window on Eurasia shares a report noting the very minor flows of migration from China to Russia.
  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at the politics in the British riding of Keighley.
  • Arnold Zwicky looks at some penguin socks.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

  • Bad Astronomy notes the remarkably eccentric orbit of gas giant HR 5138b.
  • Centauri Dreams notes the impact that large-scale collisions have on the evolution of planets.
  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber noted yesterday that babies born on September 11th in 2001 are now 18 years old, adults.
  • The Crux notes that some of the hominins in the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain, ancestors to Neanderthals, may have been murdered.
  • D-Brief reports on the cryodrakon, a pterosaur that roamed the skies above what is now Canada 77 million years ago.
  • Dangerous Minds looks at the political artwork of Jan Pötter.
  • Gizmodo notes a poll suggesting a majority of Britons would support actively seeking to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations.
  • io9 has a loving critical review of the first Star Trek movie.
  • JSTOR Daily shares, from April 1939, an essay by the anonymous head of British intelligence looking at the international context on the eve of the Second World War.
  • Language Log notes a recent essay on the mysterious Voynich manuscript, one concluding that it is almost certainly a hoax of some kind.
  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the future of the labour movement in the United States.
  • Marginal Revolution considers what sort of industrial policy would work for the United States.
  • Yardena Schwartz writes at NYR Daily about the potential power of Arab voters in Israel.
  • Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections explains why, despite interest, Australia did not launch a space program in the 1980s.
  • Drew Rowsome provides a queer review of It: Chapter Two.
  • Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how government censorship of science doomed the Soviet Union and could hurt the United States next.
  • Window on Eurasia notes how, in the Volga republics, recent educational policy changes have marginalized non-Russian languages.
  • Arnold Zwicky shares a glossy, fashion photography-style, reimagining of the central relationship in the James Baldwin classic Giovanni’s Room, arranged by Hilton Als.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

  • Architectuul reports on the critical walking tours of Istanbul offered by Nazlı Tümerdem.
  • Centauri Dreams features a guest post from Alex Tolley considering the biotic potential of the subsurface ocean of Enceladus.
  • The Crux reports on how paleontologist Susie Maidment tries to precisely date dinosaur sediments.
  • D-Brief notes the success of a recent project aiming to map the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy.
  • Cody Delistraty considers the relationship between the One Percent and magicians.
  • Todd Schoepflin writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about different sociological facts in time for the new school year.
  • Gizmodo shares a lovely extended cartoon imagining what life on Europa, and other worlds with subsurface worlds, might look like.
  • io9 features an interview with Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders on the intersection between science fiction writing and science writing.
  • JSTOR Daily briefly considers the pros and cons of seabed mining.
  • Marginal Revolution suggests that a stagnant economy could be seen as a sign of success, as the result of the exploitation of all potential for growth.
  • The NYR Daily reports on the photographs of John Edmonds, a photographer specializing in images of queer black men.
  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map of murders in Denmark, and an analysis of the facts behind this crime there.
  • Window on Eurasia reports on an anti-Putin shaman in Buryatia.
  • Arnold Zwicky reports on dreams of going back to school, NSFW and otherwise.

[URBAN NOTE] Some Saturday links

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the possibility that our model for the evolution of galaxies might be partially disproven by Big Data.
  • The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly reports how she did her latest article for the New York Times.
  • Centauri Dreams notes the beginning of a search for habitable-zone planets around Alpha Centauri A and B.
  • The Crux looks at how the skull trophies of the ancient Maya help explain civilizational collapse.
  • D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting that our humble, seemingly stable Sun can produce superflares.
  • Dead Things reports on the latest informed speculation about the sense of smell of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
  • The Dragon’s Tales shares the NASA report on its progress towards the Lunar Gateway station.
  • Gizmodo looks at the growing number of China’s beautiful, deadly, blooms of bioluminescent algae.
  • io9 reports that Stjepan Sejic has a new series with DC, exploring the inner life of Harley Quinn.
  • JSTOR Daily looks at an example of a feminist musical, the Chantal Akerman The Eighties.
  • Language Hat links to a review of a dystopian novel by Yoko Tawada, The Emissary, imagining a future Japan where the learning of foreign languages is banned.
  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reiterates that history, and the writing of history, is an actual profession with skills and procedures writers in the field need to know.
  • Liam Shaw writes at the LRB Blog about how people in London, late in the Second World War, coped with the terrifying attacks of V2 rockets.
  • The Map Room Blog links to a new book, Wayfinding, about the neuroscience of navigation.
  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution reviews a Robert Zubrin book advocating the colonization of space and finds himself unconvinced.
  • The Planetary Society Blog looks at the ancient comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko explored by the ESA Rosetta probe.
  • Roads and Kingdoms provides tips for visitors to the Paraguay capital of Asuncion.
  • Peter Rukavina reports that, on the day the new PEI legislature came in, 105% of Island electricity came from windpower.
  • Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel argues that, in searching for life, we should not look for exoplanets very like Earth.
  • Strange Company shares another weekend collection of diverse links.
  • Understanding Society’s Daniel Little shares the views of Margaret Gilbert on social facts.
  • Window on Eurasia suggests Kadyrov might dream of a broad Greater Chechnya, achieved at the expense of neighbouring republics.
  • Arnold Zwicky considers some superhero identity crises, of Superman and of others.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

  • Centauri Dreams links to a paper noting that the interiors of planets play a critical role in determining planetary habitability.
  • Belle Waring writes at Crooked Timber about imaginative dream worlds, criticized by some as a sort of maladaptive daydreaming I don’t buy that; I am interested in what she says about hers.
  • D-Brief notes the very recent discovery of a small tyrannosaur.
  • Dead Things considers the possibility that a new South African hominin, Australopithecus sediba, might actually be the ancestor of Homo sapiens.
  • JSTOR Daily looks at how one negative side-effect of the renewable energy boom is the mass mining of rare earth elements.
  • Erik Loomis writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the way in which not just history but history fandoms are gendered, the interests of women being neglected or downplayed.
  • Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen reports on how a new US-Chinese trade deal will not do much to deal with underlying issues.
  • The New APPS Blog notes the great profits made by the gun industry in the United States and the great death toll, too, associated with the guns produced.
  • The NYR Daily visits the Northern Ireland town of Carrickfergus, home to Louis MacNeice and made famous by violence as the whole province sits on the edge of something.
  • Drew Rowsome takes a look at the queer horror film The Skin of The Teeth.
  • Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains what the technical limits of the Hubble Space Telescope are, and why it needs a replacement.
  • Window on Eurasia notes changing patters of population change in the different regions of Russia.
  • Arnold Zwicky shares some photos of notable public art in Switzerland, starting with The Caring Hand in his ancestral canton of Glarus.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

  • The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly considers the importance of complete rest.
  • Citizen Science Salon looks at the contributions of ordinary people to Alzheimer’s research.
  • The Crux notes how recent planetary scientists acknowledge Venus to be an interestingly active world.
  • D-Brief notes the carnivorous potential of pandas.
  • Cody Delistraty considers a British Library exhibit about writing.
  • Bruce Dorminey notes the possibility that, in red giant systems, life released from the interiors of thawed outer-system exomoons might produce detectable signatures in these worlds’ atmospheres.
  • The Dragon’s Tales shares reports of some of the latest robot developments from around the world.
  • Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the concepts of gentrification and meritocracy.
  • Gizmodo notes a running dinosaur robot that indicates one route by which some dinosaurs took to flight.
  • At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox talks about bringing some principles of Wendell Berry to a town hall discussion in Sterling, Kansas.
  • io9 notes that a reboot of Hellraiser is coming from David S. Goyer.
  • JSTOR Daily looks at how museums engage in the deaccessioning of items in their collections.
  • Language Log examines the Mongolian script on the renminbi bills of China.
  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Volkswagen in the United States is making the situation of labour unions more difficult.
  • Marginal Revolution notes the effective lack of property registration in the casbah of Algiers.
  • The NYR Daily notes the Afrofuturism of artist Devan Shinoyama.
  • Strange Company examines the trial of Jane Butterfield in the 1770s for murdering the man who kept her as a mistress with poison. Did she do it? What happened to her?
  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes a controversial map identifying by name the presidents of the hundred companies most closely implicated in climate change.
  • Window on Eurasia notes how the Russian Orthodox Church, retaliating against the Ecumenical Patriarchy for its recognition of Ukrainian independence, is moving into Asian territories outside of its purview.
  • Arnold Zwicky starts a rumination by looking at the sportswear of the early 20th century world.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

  • In an extended meditation, Antipope’s Charlie Stross considers what the domestic architecture of the future will look like. What different technologies, with different uses of space, will come into play?
  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the new SPECULOOS exoplanet hunting telescope, specializing in the search for planets around the coolest stars.
  • The Crux looks at the evolutionary origins of hominins and chimpanzees in an upright walking ape several million years ago.
  • D-Brief notes the multiple detections of gravitational waves made by LIGO.
  • The Dragon’s Tales looks at the development of laser weapons by China.
  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the gap between social theory and field research.
  • Gizmodo shares an interesting discussion with paleontologists and other dinosaur experts: What would the dinosaurs have become if not for the Chixculub impact?
  • Hornet Stories notes the ways in which the policies of the Satanic Temple would be good for queer students.
  • io9 notes how the Deep Space 9 documentary What We Leave Behind imagines what a Season 8 would have looked like.
  • Joe. My. God. reports that activist Jacob Wohl is apparently behind allegations of a sexual assault by Pete Buttigieg against a subordinate.
  • JSTOR Daily takes a look at the uses of the yellow ribbon in American popular culture.
  • Language Hat shares an account of the life experiences of an Israeli taxi driver, spread across languages and borders.
  • Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money makes deserved fun of Bret Easton Ellis for his claims to having been marginalized.
  • Marginal Revolution considers, briefly, the idea that artificial intelligence might not be harmful to humans. (Why would it necessarily have to be?)
  • The NYR Daily considers a British exhibition of artworks by artists from the former Czechoslovakia.
  • Peter Rukavina looks at gender representation in party caucuses in PEI from the early 1990s on, noting the huge surge in female representation in the Greens now.
  • The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress is preserving Latin American monographs.
  • Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how Einstein knew that gravity must bend light.
  • Window on Eurasia explains the sharp drop in the ethnic Russian population of Tuva in the 1990s.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

  • Bad Astronomy notes how the occultation of distant stars by nearby asteroids can help astronomers determine stars’ size.
  • D-Brief notes the remarkable achievements of some scientists in reviving the brains of pigs hours after their death.
  • Dangerous Minds takes a look at how David Bowie got involved in The Man Who Fell To Earth.
  • Dead Things looks at the recent identification of the late Cretaceous dinosaur Gobihadros.
  • Bruce Dorminey notes that astronomers have determined an interstellar meteorite likely hit the Earth in 2014.
  • Gizmodo reports on a very dim L-dwarf star 250 light-years away, ULAS J224940.13−011236.9, that experienced a massive flare. How did it do it?
  • Hornet Stories shares some vintage photos of same-sex couples from generations ago being physically affectionate.
  • At The Island Review, Nancy Forde writes about motherhood and her experience on Greenland, in the coastal community of Ilulissat.
  • JSTOR Daily notes how Paris’ Notre-Dame has always been in a process of recreation.
  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns, and Money notes the continuing oppression of workers in Bangladesh.
  • The LRB Blog notes the flaws in the defense, and in the political thinking, of Julian Assange. (Transparency is not enough.)
  • The NYR Daily reports on how photographer Claudia Andujar has regarded the Yanomami as they face existential challenges.
  • The Planetary Society Blog traces the crash of Beresheet on the Moon to a software conflict.
  • Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy warns against the idea of inevitable moral progress.
  • Window on Eurasia notes the desires of some Russian conservatives to see Russia included in a European Union dominated by neo-traditionalists.

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: T-rex, hallucinations, LIGO, bacteria, Magellanic Clouds

  • D-Brief notes new evidence that the biggest Tyrannosaurus was the oldest one.
  • D-Brief notes a new study suggesting that hallucinations are the responses of the body to a lack of sensory stimulation.
  • D-Brief notes that LIGO has resumed its hunt for gravitational wave sources.
  • D-Brief notes that antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be found in abundance at wastewater treatment plants.
  • D-Brief notes a new effort to enlist human eyes to detect stellar clusters in the Magellanic Clouds.

Written by Randy McDonald

April 1, 2019 at 10:30 am

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: Chixculub archive, male pill, Garfield phones, Nova Scotia, ETI wars

  • Journalist Douglas Preston U>writes in The New Yorker about a potentially amazing site in North Dakota, a rich fossil bed that may well have been formed in the first hour after the Chixculub asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous.
  • Arielle Pardes writes at WIRED about how a potential lack of demand among men might hinder the sale of male contraceptives.
  • Vulture reports the identification of the source, at last, of the components of Garfield phones that have been washing up on the French coast in a lost shipping crate from the 1980s.
  • CBC reports on the meticulous reports of environmental changes by Nova Scotia students more than a century ago, collected over years under the order of their teacher Alexander Mackay, that provide invaluable information about climate change.
  • Matt Williams writes at Universe Today about the possibility that the lack of self-replicating probes visible to us might be explainable by conflict between some of these probes and others.