[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Centauri Dreams considers, in the light of potential climate change extinction, the definitions of habitable exoplanets. Do we assume life to be too flexible?
• D-Brief notes that the Dawn probe found evidence of organic compounds, amorphous carbon, on the surface of Ceres.
• Lauren Madden at the Everyday Sociology Blog urges people to resist the impulse to misclassify the causes of mass shootings as senseless randomness.
• Hornet Stories takes a look at Jobriath, the man who for a brief time in the mid-1970s was an out queer rock god, on what would have been his birthday.
• Imageo notes that anthropogenic climate change risks plunging the global climate back to the heat and high sea levels of 50 million years ago, to the Eocene.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the fairy tale stereotype of the passive female character was created by moral reformers following the Protestant Reformation.
• Language Hat notes the Ao language, created by utopian early 20th century dreamers from Lithuania’s Jewish community as a universal method of communication.
• Mark Liberman at Language Log notes the emergence and evolution of the word “biomarker” over the past half-century.
• Simon Balto at Lawyers, Guns and Money writes about a frightening encounter on a night out with his partner with an aggressive person who kept calling him a “snowflake”. What does this, the embrace of this word as a supposed critique, say about racism and conservatism in the United States now?
• The LRB Blog notes the prosecution of the Stansted 15 for blocking a deportation of refugees on terrorism. What does this say about the administration of justice and borders in the United Kingdom now?
• Marginal Revolution notes that, in China, scientists convicted of fraud will face serious hits to their social credit ratings.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at the “toxic femininity” of women on the American far right.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the struggle of Mayan peoples in Guatemala to secure their land claims in the face of commercial agriculture.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society takes a look at how government enacts policy, not doing so as a unified whole at all.
• Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of Lukashenko in Belarus to any talk of deep integration with Russia, something he sees as tantamount to Belarus’ annexation into Russia.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the remarkable steel-banded sculpture of Fernando Suárez Reguera, and of sculptors like him.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the OSIRIS-REx asteroid probe to Bennu.
• D-Brief notes that the core and the crust of dwarf planet Ceres apparently rotate at different speeds.
• Dangerous Minds shares the early glam rock of Rick Springfield.
• Gizmodo looks at the discovery of a new, oddly faint, sort of supernova explosion, one that explains how neutron stars can ever be so close as to collide.
• JSTOR Daily examines the concept of mana, the mystical power that can be generated by the act of speech.
• The LRB Blog considers how humanity will ever be able to address the rising sea, through geoengineering or techniques still more new to us.
• Window on Eurasia wonders if Belarus is likely to be the new target of Russian expansionism.

[NEWS] Four science links: neutrinos and Antarctica, ‘Oumuamua, Ceres and Pluto, panspermia

• This feature explaining how neutrino telescopes in Antarctica are being used to study the Earth’s core is fascinating. The Globe and Mail has it.
• Universe Today shares “Project Lyra”, a proposal for an unmanned probe to interstellar asteroid ‘Oumuamua.
• Dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto, Nora Redd suggests at Discover, may have much more in common than we might think. Is Ceres a KBO transported into the warm asteroid belt?
• Universe Today reports on one paper that takes a look at some mechanisms behind galactic panspermia.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on the naming of the features of the surface of Ceres.
• D-Brief notes that small-scale robotic manufacturing is now a thing.
• The Dragon’s Gaze reports on a new study of exoplanets and their stars.
• The Dragon’s Tales has a nice round-up of news on hominin research and primates generally.
• Hornet Stories notes that there is apparently a debate about women as drag queens. I don’t see why they should not, frankly.
• Joe. My. God links to a Rolling Stone article celebrating Erotica and Sex, by Madonna, on their 25th anniversary.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the way Dollar General caters to a permanent underclass. Like Dollarama in Canada?
• Language Hat notes that Xibe, related to Manchu, is receiving protection from China.
• The NYR Daily reports on the mass killings, approaching genocide, in Indonesia in 1965.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the proofs we have for the current age of the universe.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the discovery of rings around Kuiper belt dwarf planet Haumea, as does the Planetary Society Blog’s Jason Davis.
• The Big Picture, from the Boston Globe, shares photos of the devastation of Puerto Rico by Maria.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the strong support of many–most?–on the American right for apartheid.
• The LRB Blog shares an article by Mike Davis looking at the vulnerability of California, especially Napa, to wildfires.
• The Map Room Blog links to a beautiful detailed map of the French railway network.
• The NYR Daily reports from Catalonia on the edge of a meltdown.
• North’s Justin Petrone writes about going hunting for mushroooms in Estonia.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel shares five especially noteworthy photos provided by NASA. (What, no Pale Blue Dot?)
• Window on Eurasia suggests Russians in Tatarstan, unlike other groups, are unique in not wanting to learn Tatar.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Dangerous Minds suggests that T-shirts with wildly offensive phrases in English are common in Asia. Asian friends and readers, is this actually true?
• The LRB Blog makes the point that immigration restrictionism is hardly a policy that will aid hard-pressed workers, that only broader reform will do this.
• Marginal Revolution looks at how the state bureaucracy in India can hinder the implementation of reforms.
• The NYRB Daily reviews a grim play, Wallace Shawn’s Evening at the Talk House, set in a near future where cruelty is normalized.
• The Planetary Society Blog talks about the intricate maneuvers of the Dawn probe in Ceres orbit.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw links to photos of a stunning home in Catalonia built in a slightly refurbished industrial plant.
• Peter Rukavina talks about how he built an app for Charlottetown’s City Cinema.
• Seriously Science reports on a study suggesting that most people would not wish to know the future, even if it was a good future.
• Strange Maps links to an online map tool comparing different countries.
• Supernova Condensate shares a fantastic chart showing how much delta-v one would need to expend to reach different points in the solar system from Earth orbit.
• Transit Toronto notes that the Sheppard subway line will be closed this weekend.
• Linguist Arnold Zwicky links to and reflects on a recent article looking at how gendered language for different jobs can discourage, differently, male and female job-seekers.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• blogTO shares ten facts about Union Station.
• Centauri Dreams describes possible ice volcanoes on Ceres.
• Crooked Timber argues in favour of implementing a basic income before a universal income, on grounds of reducing inequality and easing the very poor.
• The Crux shares an argument against dark matter.
• The Dragon’s Gaze talks about nitrogen and oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres as biomarkers.
• Far Outliers looks at intertribal warfare on the American plains in the 19th century.
• The LRB Blog talks about critical shortages of translators, and funding for said, at official functions in the United Kingdom.
• Language Log tries to translate the Chinese word used by the head of the Chinese supreme court to insult Donald Trump.
• The Map Room Blog shares a map showing how particular areas of the United States are especially dependent on foreign trade.
• pollotenchegg maps areas of relative youth and agedness in Ukraine.
• Peter Rukavina looks at what happened to his Twitter stats after he quite.
• Towleroad links to a new duet featuring Chrissie Hynde and Neil Tennant.
• Window on Eurasia warns of a Russian invasion of Belarus and argues that Novgorod’s proto-democratic tradition no longer exists.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• blogTO notes that a Vancouver nerd bar is opening up shop in Toronto.
• Dangerous Minds provides its readers with a take on an upcoming Tom of Finland biopic.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Enceladus seems altogether too hot and notes that dwarf planet Makemake seems to have a surprisingly uniform surface.
• Far Outliers looks at Afghanistan and Poland at the end of the 1970s.

Joe. My. God. and Towleroad each respond to the untimely death of George Michael.

• Language Log explores the evolution of the term “dongle”.
• Marginal Revolution wonders if Donald Trump is guided by his thinking in the 1980s about a Soviet-American condominium.
• Torontoist looks at the Toronto’s century house plaques come to be.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Russian media outside of Russia are gaining in influence and talks about modern Russia as a new sort of “evil empire”.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Big Picture shares photos from Rio in advance of the Olympics.
• James Bow remembers Mel Hurtig, the recently dead Canadian nationalist.
• Centauri Dreams considers space-based collection of antimatter.
• Crooked Timber examines the tyranny of the ideal.
• Dangerous Minds looks at a charming early 1980s board game, Gay Monopoly.
• The Dragon’s Gaze predicts future transits of Beta Pictoris b.
• The Dragon’s Tales examines dwarf planet candidate 2015 RR245.
• Far Outliers shares some odd placenames found in the western United States.
• Language Hat reports on a new English/Yiddish dictionary.
• Language Log looks at how speakers of Slavic and Turkic communicate with each other across Eurasia.
• The Map Room Blog reports on an interesting-sounding exhibition on maps here in Toronto.
• Marginal Revolution considers a link between slow population growth and slow economic growth, and suggests land use policy in Tokyo is ideal for a large city.
• Steve Munro shares exchanges on GO Transit services in the Weston corridor.
• North’s Justin Petrone shares his progress towards
• The NYRB Daily looks at how Russia and China in particular make extensive use of doping at the Olympics, and international sports generally.
• Savage Minds considers how writing can help anthropologists who have witnessed violence heal.
• The Volokh Conspiracy engages with the bloody legacy of Mao.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg notes concerns over Northern Ireland’s frontiers, looks at how Japanese retailers are hoping to take advantage of Vietnam’s young consumers, examines the desperation of Venezuelans shopping in Colombia, looks at Sri Lankan interest in Chinese investment, suggests oil prices need to stay below 40 dollars US a barrel for Russia to reform, observes that Chinese companies are increasingly reluctant to invest, and suggests Frankfurt will gain after Brexit.
• Bloomberg View gives advice for the post-Brexit British economy, looks at how Chinese patterns in migration are harming young Chinese, suggests Hillary should follow Russian-Americans in not making much of Putin’s interference, and looks at the Israeli culture wars.
• CBC considers the decolonization of placenames in the Northwest Territories, notes Canada’s deployment to Latvia was prompted by French domestic security concerns, and looks at an ad promoting the Albertan oil sands that went badly wrong in trying to be anti-homophobic.
• The Inter Press Service considers the future of Turkey and looks at domestic slavery in Oman.
• MacLean’s looks at China’s nail house owners, resisting development.
• The National Post reports from the Colombia-Venezuela border.
• Open Democracy considers the nature of work culture in the austerity-era United Kingdom, looks at traditions of migration and slavery in northern Ghana, examines European bigotry against eastern Europeans, and examines the plight of sub-Saharan migrants stuck in Morocco.
• Universe Today notes two nearby potentially habitable rocky worlds, reports that the Moon’s Mare Imbrium may have been result of a hit by a dwarf planet, and reports on Ceres’ lack of large craters.