[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul profiles architectural photographer Lorenzo Zandri, here.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes a new study suggesting red dwarf stars, by far the most common stars in the universe, have plenty of planets.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly shares 11 tips for interviewers, reminding me of what I did for anthropology fieldwork.
• Centauri Dreams notes how water ice ejected from Enceladus makes the inner moons of Saturn brilliant.
• The Crux looks at the increasingly complicated question of when the first humans reached North America.
• D-Brief notes a new discovery suggesting the hearts of humans, unlike the hearts of other closely related primates, evolved to require endurance activities to remain healthy.
• Dangerous Minds shares with its readers the overlooked 1969 satire Putney Swope.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that the WFIRST infrared telescope has passed its first design review.
• Gizmodo notes how drought in Spain has revealed the megalithic Dolmen of Guadalperal for the first time in six decades.
• io9 looks at the amazing Jonathan Hickman run on the X-Men so far, one that has established the mutants as eye-catching and deeply alien.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Pentagon has admitted that 2017 UFO videos do, in fact, depict some unidentified objects in the air.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the origin of the equestrian horseback statue in ancient Rome.
• Language Log shares a bilingual English/German pun from Berlin.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reflects on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson at Jefferson’s grave.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution looks at a new book arguing, contra Pinker perhaps, that the modern era is one of heightened violence.
• The New APPS Blog seeks to reconcile the philosophy of Hobbes with that of Foucault on biopower.
• Strange Company shares news clippings from 1970s Ohio about a pesky UFO.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why the idea of shooting garbage from Earth into the sun does not work.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps explains the appearance of Brasilia on a 1920s German map: It turns out the capital was nearly realized then.
• Towleroad notes that Pete Buttigieg has taken to avoiding reading LGBTQ media because he dislikes their criticism of his gayness.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at diners and changing menus and slavery.

[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.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• The Buzz shares a TIFF reading list, here.
• Centauri Dreams notes the growing sensitivity of radial velocity techniques in finding weird exoplanet HR 5183 b, here.
• The Crux reports on circumgalactic gas and the death of galaxies.
• Dead Things notes the import of the discovery of the oldest known Australopithecine skull.
• Dangerous Minds reports on pioneering 1930s queer artist Hannah Gluckstein, also known as Gluck.
• Gizmodo notes that, for an unnamed reason, DARPA needs a large secure underground testing facility for tomorrow.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Jim Crow laws affected Mexican immigrants in the early 20th century US.
• Language Hat looks at a new project to study Irish texts and language over centuries.
• Language Log shares some Chinglish signs from a top university in China.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money shares an interview with Jeffrey Melnick suggesting Charles Manson was substantially a convenient boogeyman.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper suggesting marijuana legalization is linked to declining crime rates.
• Susan Neiman at the NYR Daily tells how she began her life as a white woman in Atlanta and is ending it as a Jewish woman in Berlin.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at Hayabusa2 at Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel celebrated the 230th anniversary of Enceladus, the Saturn moon that might harbour life.
• Window on Eurasia notes how global warming is harming the rivers of Siberia, causing many to run short.

[NEWS] Five science links: geoengineering, Europa probe, ocean worlds, oxygen, black hole portals

• The National Observer takes a look at the challenges, both technological and psychological, facing geoengineers as they and us approach our their hour of trial.
• Evan Gough at Universe Today shares a proposal for a nuclear-fueled robot probe that could tunnel into the possibly life-supporting subsurface oceans of Europa.
• Meghan Bartels at Scientific American notes a new study suggesting that most worlds with subsurface oceans, like Europa, are probably too geologically inactive to support life.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a new study demonstrating mechanisms by which exoplanets could develop oxygen-bearing atmospheres without life.
• Gaurav Khanna writes at The Conversation about how, drawing on research done for the film Interstellar, it does indeed seem as if supermassive black holes like Sagittarius A* might be used as hyperspace portals if they are also slowly rotating.

[NEWS] Links on oceans near and far: mental health, Salton Sea, Europa, Enceladus, Pluto

• There definitely is something to the idea that oceans, and other large bodies of water, can be healing. The immenseness of Lake Ontario (to name one body) is sublime. Global News reports on one study.
• The scale of the disaster in California’s Salton Sea, drying up and poisoning the nearby land, is appalling. The Verge shows the scene.
• NASA notes one mechanism for the gradual recycling of the ocean of Europa, up into its outer icy crust. Universe Today reports.
• Some Earth bacteria could thrive in the predicted environment of Enceladus. Universe Today reports.
• Cold environments still watery thanks to substantial amounts of brine could support life, conceivably on worlds as distant as Pluto. Universe Today reports.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• At Anthro{dendum}, Daniel Miller writes about how some of the food he cooks evokes his history in Cuba-influenced Tampa.
• Bad Astronomer notes an astonishingly high-resolution image of protoplanet Vesta taken from the Earth.
• The Big Picture shares photos of the Kakuma refugee camp, in Kenya.
• Centauri Dreams notes one proposal to help extend the life of a Type III civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy by importing stars from outside of the local group.
• Crooked Timber’s Corey Robin talks about changing minds in politics, inspired by the success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• Dangerous Minds shares the 1978 BBC documentary on surrealism, Europe After the Rain.
• Far Outliers shares the third part of a summary of an article on African and Japanese mercenaries in Asia.
• Hornet Stories reports on the regret of Buffy showrunner Martin Noxon that her show killed off Tara. (I agree: I liked her.)
• At In Medias Res, Russell Arben Fox wonders what American farmers–by extension, perhaps, other farmers in other high-income societies–want. With their entire culture being undermine, what can they hope for?
• Joe. My. God. notes how far-right groups in Europe are increasingly welcoming lesbian, gay, and bisexual members. (Not so much trans people, it seems.)
• JSTOR Daily reports on the obvious utility of the humble beaver (in its North American homelands, at least).
• Language Log considers the politics of the national language policy of China.
• This Language Hat articlereporting on a conference on xenolinguistics, and the discussion in the comments, is fascinating. What can we hope to learn about non-human language? What will it have, and have not, in common?
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer considers the slow corruption of independent institutions in Mexico that may occur under the presidency of AMLO.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, while we have not found life on Enceladus, we have found indicators of a world that could support life.
• Window on Eurasia wonders if Russia is increasingly at risk of being displaced in Central Asia by a dynamic Kazakhstan.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Centauri Dreams notes how the presence of methane in the subsurface oceans of Enceladus helps create a plausible dynamic for life there.
• Crooked Timber notes another risk facing the UK in the era of Brexit, that of the United Kingdom’s already questionable data protection. How likely is it the EU will authorize data sharing with a business in an insecure third party?
• D-Brief notes the conundrum posed by the profoundly corrosive dust of the Moon. How will future probes, never mind outposts, deal with it?
• Cody Delistraty notes the profoundly problematic nature of the ethnographic museum in the post-imperial era. How can they adapt?
• The LRB Blog notes the power of Stravinsky’s recently discovered Chant funebre.
• Marginal Revolution notes how much Trump’s proposed steel tariffs now evoke Bush Jr’s like tariffs proposed a decade and a half ago.
• Justin Petrone at north! writes about his visit to a strangely familiar southern Italy.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at international brands careful to cater to the nationalist sympathies of China, in their advertising and elsewhere.
• At the Planetary Society Blog, Jason Davis explains NASA’s detailed plan for returning people to the Moon.
• Roads and Kingdoms tells the story of a burning-hot street hotpot in Chongqing.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the idea of dark matter not being a particle.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society takes a look at the factors complicating the idea of consensus in a group.
• John Scalzi celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his ownership of his scalzi com website.
• Window on Eurasia wonders if Putin, with his boasting of advanced nuclear weapons, might start a 1980s-style arms race with the United States.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• The Buzz, over at the Toronto Public Library, recommends some audiobooks, here.
• Centauri Dreams features an essay, by Kostas Konstantindis, exploring how near-future technology could be used to explore the oceans of Europa and Enceladus for life.
• Far Outliers takes a look at the many languages used in Persia circa 500 BCE.
• Hornet Stories notes that Fox News has retracted a bizarrely homophobic op-ed on the Olympics by one of its executives.
• JSTOR Daily explores what is really involved in the rumours of J. Edgar Hoover and cross-dressing.
• Language Hat, in exploring Zadie Smith, happens upon the lovely word “cernuous”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an article, and starts a discussion, regarding the possibility of a North Korean victory early in the Korean War. What would have happened next?
• The NYR Daily notes that Donald Trump is helping golf get a horrible reputation.
• Supernova Condensate examines the science-fiction trope of artificial intelligence being dangerous, and does not find much substance behind the myth. If anything, the direction of the fear should lie in the other direction.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little looks at two books which consider the origins of the Cold War from an international relations perspective. What were the actors trying to achieve?
• Window on Eurasia makes the argument that the powerful clan structures of post-Soviet Dagestan are not primordial in origin, but rather represent attempts to cope with state failure in that Russian republic.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at the existential problems facing Capita from a Coasian perspective. How is its business model fundamentally broken?
• Arnold Zwicky, in taking apart an overcorrection, explains the differences between “prone” and “supine.”

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at how contemporary lunar probes are prospecting for ice deposits on the dry Moon.
• Centauri Dreams notes new models for the evolution of the orbit of the early Moon, and how this could well have influence the environment of the young Earth.
• Crooked Timber takes issue with the idea that sponsoring women’s entrepreneurship, rooted in the belief that women are limited by their income, is enough to deal with deeper gender inequity.
• D-Brief notes that a brain implant–specifically, one making use of deep brain stimulation–actually can significantly improve memory in implantees.
• Gizmodo notes that extrasolar objects like ‘Oumuamua may well have played a significant role in interstellar panspermia, introducing life from one system to another.
• At In A State of Migration, Lyman Stone does the work and finds out that the Amish are not, in fact, destined to eventually repopulate the US, that despite high fertility rates Amish fertility rates have consistently fell over time, influenced by external issues like the economy.
• JSTOR Daily has a thought-provoking essay taking a look at the feedback loops between envy and social media. Does social media encourage too narrow a realm of human achievements to be valued?
• Language Hat notes a new book, Giorgio Van Straten’s In Search of Lost Books, noting all those texts which once existed but have since gone missing.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money, noting the strongly negative reaction to Katie Roiphe’s essay in Harper’s against feminism, takes care to note that “disagreement” is not at all the same thing as “silencing”.
• The NYR Daily looks at the many ways in which Sweden has been taken as a symbol for progressivism, and the reasons why some on the right look so obsessively for signs that it is failing.
• At the Planetary Society Blog, Casey Dreier writes about the ways in which the Falcon Heavy, if it proves to be as inexpensive as promised, could revolutionize the exploration of (for instance) outer system ocean worlds like Europa and Enceladus.
• Drew Rowsome quite likes Rumours, a performance of the famous Fleetwood Mac album of that name, at Toronto’s Coal Mine Theatre.

[NEWS] Some sci-tech links: DNA tests, stars, Europa and Enceladus, driverless trucks, Voynich

• Bloomberg notes the impending commercial introduction of DNA tests that can be used to recommend particular diets for customers.
• The Gaia satellite found a vast cluster of stars hidden by our bright neighbour Sirius. Universe Today reports.
• Icy worlds like Europa and Enceladus, famous for their subsurface water oceans, might have surfaces too fluffy for probes to land safely. Universe Today reports.
• The introduction of driverless trucks at the Suncor tar sands developments in Alberta will save on wear and tear, but will also cost 400 jobs. The Toronto Star reports.
• This claim that University of Alberta researchers have decrypted the Voynich manuscript and found it written in a variant of Hebrew seems, perhaps, optimistic. The National Post reports.