[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that Betelgeuse is very likely not on the verge of a supernova, here.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the mapping of asteroid Bennu.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber reposted, after the election, a 2013 essay looking at the changes in British society from the 1970s on.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares a collection of links about the Precambrian Earth, here.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about fear in the context of natural disasters, here.
• Far Outliers reports on the problems of privateers versus regular naval units.
• Gizmodo looks at galaxy MAMBO-9, which formed a billion years after the Big Bang.
• io9 writes about the alternate history space race show For All Mankind.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the posters used in Ghana in the 1980s to help promote Hollywood movies.
• Language Hat links to a new book that examines obscenity and gender in 1920s Britain.
• Language Log looks at the terms used for the national language in Xinjiang.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes issue with Jeff Jacoby’s lack of sympathy towards people who suffer from growing inequality.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that urbanists should have an appreciation for Robert Moses.
• Sean Marshall writes, with photos, about his experiences riding a new Bolton bus.
• Caryl Philips at the NYR Daily writes about Rachmanism, a term wrongly applied to the idea of avaricious landlords like Peter Rachman, an immigrant who was a victim of the Profumo scandal.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking at the experience of aging among people without families.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why the empty space in an atom can never be removed.
• Strange Maps shares a festive map of London, a reindeer, biked by a cyclist.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Mongolia twice tried to become a Soviet republic.
• Arnold Zwicky considers different birds with names starting with x.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.
• P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.
• Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.
• Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.
• Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.
• The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.
• Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.
• Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of “virtue signalling”.
• Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.
• Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.
• Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.
• Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author’s best writings there.
• Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.
• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.
• io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.
• The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother’s Blood, Sister’s Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.
• JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.
• Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.
• Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.
• The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.
• Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.
• Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.
• Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.
• The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.
• Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.
• Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.
• Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.
• The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.
• The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.
• Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?
• Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.
• Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.
• Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l’argent des pauvres?
• John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.
• Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer considers how a stellar-mass black hole of 70 solar masses got so unaccountably huge.
• Alex Tolley at Centauri Dreams considers the colours of photosynthesis, and how they might reveal the existence of life on exoplanets.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares some links on humans in the Paleolithic.
• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the scripts of jokes.
• Gizmodo reports on the repurposed China-Netherlands radio telescope operating from an orbit above the far side of the Moon.
• JSTOR Daily considers the political rhetoric of declinism.
• Language Log considers the controversy over the future of the apostrophe.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog notes a YouGov prediction of a Conservative majority in the UK and how this prediction is not value-neutral.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper from India noting how caste identities do affect the labour supply.
• Ursula Lindsay at the NYR Daily considers if the political crisis in Lebanon, a product of economic pressures and sectarianism, might lead to a revolutionary transformation of the country away from sectarian politics.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections looks at some of the many complicated and intermingled issues of contemporary Australia.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest projects funded by the ESA.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel shares ten beautiful photos taken in 2019 by the Hubble.
• Strange Company reports on the strange unsolved disappearance of Lillian Richey from her Idaho home in 1964.
• Window on Eurasia shares a Russian criticism of the Ukrainian autocephalous church as a sort of papal Protestantism.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the positive potential of homoeros.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Architectuul looks at the winners of an architecture prize based in Piran, here.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes the wind emitted from one distant galaxy’s supermassive black hole is intense enough to trigger star formation in other galaxies.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber pays tribute to Jack Merritt, a young victim of the London Bridge attack who was committed to the cause of prisoner rehabilitation.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the history of French pop group Les Rita Mitsouko.
• Bruce Dorminey reports on the European Space Agency’s belief Earth-observing spacecraft are needed to track ocean acidification.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on the consensus of the Russian scientific community against human genetic engineering.
• Far Outliers reports on the first ambassador sent from the Barbary States to the United States.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the life of pioneering anthropologist Franz Boas.
• Language Log shares images of a bottle of Tibetan water, bought in Hong Kong, labeled in Tibetan script.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money rightly assigns responsibility for the terrible measles outbreak in Samoa to anti-vaxxers.
• The LRB Blog notes how tree planting is not apolitical, might even not be a good thing to do sometimes.
• Marginal Revolution reports on a paper suggesting that food tends to be better in restaurants located on streets in Manhattan, better than in restaurants located on avenues.
• Justin Petrone at north! shares an account of a trip across Estonia.
• The NYR Daily looks at the photography of Michael Jang.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw continues to report from Armidale, in Australia, shrouded in smoke from wildfires.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the early days of the Planetary Society, four decades ago.
• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at how centenarians in Sweden and in Denmark experience different trends in longevity.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the accidental discovery of the microwave background left by the Big Bang in 1964.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little looks at the increasingly poor treatment of workers by employers such as Amazon through the lens of primitive accumulation.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the small differences separating the Kazakhs from the Kyrgyz.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a dance routine, shown on television in France, against homophobia.

[NEWS] Seven science links

• Climate change is playing a major role in the wildfires of California. Are we now in the Fire Age? Global News considers.
• The new normal of the Arctic Ocean is to be ice-free. Global News reports.
• Plants first reached land through unexpected horizontal gene transfers. CBC reports.
• Zebra mussels have made it to the Lake of the Woods. Global News reports.
• An artificial leaf that turns carbon dioxide into usable fuel is a remarkable technology. Universe Today reports.
• Earth once hosted nine human species; now it has one. What happened? National Pot considers.
• Thanks to better medical care and preventative measures, people have longer healthy lifespans than ever before. Global News reports.

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: Nile, apartment fungi, house plants, methane, HR 5183

• D-Brief looks at how the Nile River has kept its current course for 30 million years, here.
• D-Brief notes a study suggesting modern apartments are filled with fungi.
• House plants do not purify the air, D-Brief reports.
• D-Brief notes that 0.2% of the methane emitters in California release a third of the methane released in the entire state.
• A rocky planet in the right orbit in the HR5183 system, with a gas giant in a very eccentric orbit, could have a spectacular sky, D-Brief notes.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the new X-ray telescope eROSITA.
• Centauri Dreams notes evidence of a recent collision between planets in the system of BD +20 307.
• D-Brief notes the appearance of a strange new sort of storm on Saturn.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the discovery by astronomers of a set of orbits that can direct comets into the inner solar system.
• Drew Ex Machina’s Andrew LePage shares some vintage Skylab photos of his native Massachusetts.
• Far Outliers notes how, in 1786, the United states was uninclined to pay tribute to the Barbary States.
• Gizmodo’s George Dvorsky reports on a new fossil discovery showing how quickly mammals took over after the Cretaceous.
• The Island Review shares an essay by photographer Alex Boyd about his new book Isles of Rust, drawing from Lewis & Harris.
• JSTOR Daily looks at sustainable butchery.
• Language Hat notes that Sumerian cuneiform is now in Unicode.
• Victor Mair at Language Log notes how the Indo-Iranian “don” so commonly forms part of the hydronyms for major European rivers.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money calls for an in-depth investigation of Donald Trump, not necessarily an impeachment.
• The LRB Blog examines the background of the mass protests in Santiago and wider Chile.
• The Map Room Blog shares an illuminating cartogram depicting the #elxn43 results in Canada.
• Marginal Revolution looks at how the government of China has been using the NBA to buy social peace.
• The NYR Daily interviews Naomi Oreskes about her campaign to have the science behind global warming, and the actions of the scientists involved, understood.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper concluding that traditional gender specializations in British families no longer provide a reproductive advantage.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why the speed of gravity must equal the speed of light, if general relativity is to work.
• Window on Eurasia examines the rapid and uncontrolled growth of urban populations in Kazakhstan.

[NEWS] Five Universe Today (@universetoday) links: colours, panspermia, Venus, superhabitable worlds

• Brian Koberlein at Universe Today considers the question of what was the first colour in the universe. (Is it orange?)
• Matt Williams at Universe Today considers how comets and other bodies could be exporting life from Earth to the wider galaxy.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today explores one study suggesting Venus could have remained broadly Earth-like for billions of years.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today also notes another story suggesting, based on the nature of the lava of the volcanic highlands of Venus, that world was never warm and wet.
• Fraser Cain at Universe Today took a look at the idea of superhabitable worlds, of worlds better suited to supporting life than Earth.

[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 Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait tells readers how the orbit of a newly-discovered object, like one of the newly found moons of Saturn, is calculated.
• D-Brief looks at the import of observations of the young HD 163296 system, where gas has been detected flowing onto young planets. Is this where atmospheres come from?
• Gizmodo notes the recent claim by Google to have achieved a quantum computing milestone.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how, in the early 20th century, old unpaved country roads gave way to modern ones.
• The LRB Blog looks at the latest on Brexit and British politics.
• Marginal Revolution notes an article arguing Airbnb has helped undermine trust even in Himalayan villages.
• The NYR Daily looks at a landmark exhibition of the works of William Blake at the Tate Britain.
• Rocky Planet shows how the hyper-precise records of ice cores can be used to identify not just the existence but the locations of volcanic eruptions.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at a newly-founded mysterious dark ancient massive galaxy that may have insights on the processes of the wider universe.
• Window on Eurasia looks at a UN report examining how Russia, occupying Crimea, has promoted demographic transformations.
• Arnold Zwicky tells of his experiences with OUTiL, an organization he helped form in 1991 that brought together out linguists.