[NEWS] Twenty news links

• NOW Toronto looks at the Pickering nuclear plant and its role in providing fuel for space travel.
• In some places like California, traffic is so bad that airlines actually play a role for high-end commuters. CBC reports.
• Goldfish released into the wild are a major issue for the environment in Québec, too. CTV News reports.
• China’s investments in Jamaica have good sides and bad sides. CBC reports.
• A potato museum in Peru might help solve world hunger. The Guardian reports.
• Is the Alberta-Saskatchewan alliance going to be a lasting one? Maclean’s considers.
• Is the fossil fuel industry collapsing? The Tyee makes the case.
• Should Japan and Europe co-finance a EUrasia trade initiative to rival China’s? Bloomberg argues.
• Should websites receive protection as historically significant? VICE reports.
• Food tourism in the Maritimes is a very good idea. Global News reports.
• Atlantic Canada lobster exports to China thrive as New England gets hit by the trade war. CBC reports.
• The Bloc Québécois experienced its revival by drawing on the same demographics as the provincial CAQ. Maclean’s reports.
• Population density is a factor that, in Canada, determines political issues, splitting urban and rural voters. The National Observer observes.
• US border policies aimed against migration from Mexico have been harming businesses on the border with Canada. The National Post reports.
• The warming of the ocean is changing the relationship of coastal communities with their seas. The Conversation looks.
• Archival research in the digital age differs from what occurred in previous eras. The Conversation explains.
• The Persian-language Wikipedia is an actively contested space. Open Democracy reports.
• Vox notes how the US labour shortage has been driven partly by workers quitting the labour force, here.
• Laurie Penny at WIRED has a stirring essay about hope, about the belief in some sort of future.

[URBAN NOTE] Fifteen urban links

• It has been forty years since a train derailment that threatened to unleash toxic chemicals on Mississauga resulted in a remarkably successful mass evacuation. CBC reports.
• There is a Vimy display in Kingston’s Communications and Electronics Museum. Global News reports.
• It is unsettling that the Ontario city of Hamilton reports such a high levels of hate crimes. CBC reports.
• Le Devoir shares a warning that inattention to language means that Longueuil could end up becoming as English/French bilingual as the West Island.
• VICE reports on how the dying desert town of California City is hoping for a revival based on cannabis, here</u.
• MacLean’s tells the story about how an encounter of koi with local otters in Vancouver reflects a human culture clash, too.
• SCMP looks at how planners want to use big data to make Shenzhen a “smart socialist” city, here.
• CityLab hosts an article by Andrew Kenney looking at the importance of an old map of Denver for he, a newcomer to the city.
• These photos of the recent acqua alta in Venice are heartbreaking. CityLab has them.
• JSTOR Daily tells the story of an ill-timed parade in 1918 Philadelphia that helped the Spanish flu spread throughout the city.
• The LRB Blog looks at a corner of Berlin marked by the history of German Southwest Africa.
• Guardian Cities shares a remarkable ambitious plan to remake Addis Ababa into a global city.
• Durban, in South Africa, may offer lessons for other southern African metropolises. Guardian Cities reports.
• The NYR Daily recently took a look at what happened to so completely gentrify the West Village of New York City.
• Feargus O’Sullivan at CityLab takes a look at a new documentary, If New York Was Called Angouleme. What if the site of New York City was colonized by the French in the early 16th century?

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} shares a new take on the atmosphere, as a common good.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Earth taken from a hundred million kilometres away by the OSIRIS-REx probe.
• The Crux tells the story of how the first exoplanets were found.
• D-Brief notes that life could be possible on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, assuming it could deal with the blueshifting.
• io9 looks at the latest bold move of Archie Comics.
• JSTOR Daily explores cleaning stations, where small fish clean larger ones.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role China seeks to play in a remade international order.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the new upcoming national atlas of Estonia.
• Marginal Revolution touches on the great ambition of Louis XIV for a global empire.
• Steve Baker of The Numerati shares photos from his recent trip to Spain.
• Anya Schiffrin at the NRY Daily explains how American journalist Varian Fry helped her family, and others, escape the Nazis.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the classic movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map looking at the barriers put up by the high-income world to people moving from outside.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel answers the complex question of how, exactly, the density of a black hole can be measured.
• John Scalzi at Whatever reviews Gemini Man. Was the high frame rate worth it?
• Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of Tuvins towards a large Russian population in Tuva.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the existential question of self-aware cartoon characters.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait urges caution in identifying K2-18b, a mini-Neptune with water vapour in its atmosphere, as Earth-like.
• Centauri Dreams reports on the discovery of C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), a likely interstellar comet like ‘Oumuamua.
• The Crux reports on the orange roughy, a fish commonly caught as byproduct that can live up to 250 years.
• D-Brief looks at the harm that may be caused by some insecticides to songbirds, including anorexia and delayed migrations.
• Dangerous Minds considers if David Bowie actually did burn his 360-ton Glass Spider stage prop.
• Gizmodo notes the formidable, fanged marsupials once existing in Australia.
• Imageo notes signs that a dreaded blob of hot water, auguring climate change, might now be lurking in the Pacific Ocean.
• io9 notes that Ryan Murphy has shared the official title sequence for the 1984 season of American Horror Story.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the history, in popular culture and actual technology, of the artificial womb.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at how lightly the Sackler family got off for their involvement in triggering the opioid crisis with OxyContin.
• Marginal Revolution notes many companies are now seeking insurance to protect themselves in the US-China trade war.
• Tim Parks writes at the NYR Daily about how every era tends to have translations which fit its ethos.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper suggesting that immigration and immigrants do not have major effects on the overall fertility of highly-developed countries.
• Frank Jacobs notes a mysterious 1920s German map of South America that shows Brasilia, the Brazilian capital built only from 1956. What is up with this?
• Window on Eurasia reports on the negative effects of massive migration of workers from Tajikistan on the country’s women.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Anthro{dendum} features an essay examining trauma and resiliency as encountered in ethnographic fieldwork.
• Architectuul highlights a new project seeking to promote historic churches built in the United Kingdom in the 20th century.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait examines Ahuna Mons, a muddy and icy volcano on Ceres, and looks at the nebula Westerhout 40.
• Centauri Dreams notes the recent mass release of data from a SETI project, and notes the discovery of two vaguely Earth-like worlds orbiting the very dim Teegarden’s Star, just 12 light-years away.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes that having universities as a safe space for trans people does not infringe upon academic freedom.
• The Crux looks at the phenomenon of microsleep.
• D-Brief notes evidence that the Milky Way Galaxy was warped a billion years ago by a collision with dark matter-heavy dwarf galaxy Antlia 2, and notes a robotic fish powered by a blood analogue.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that India plans on building its own space station.
• Earther notes the recording of the song of the endangered North Pacific right whale.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the role of emotional labour in leisure activities.
• Far Outliers looks at how Japan prepared for the Battle of the Leyte Gulf in 1944.
• Gizmodo looks at astronomers’ analysis of B14-65666, an ancient galactic collision thirteen billion light-years away, and notes that the European Space Agency has a planned comet interception mission.
• io9 notes how the plan for Star Trek in the near future is to not only have more Star Trek, but to have many different kinds of Star Trek for different audiences.
• Joe. My. God. notes the observation of Pete Buttigieg that the US has probably already had a gay president.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the many ways in which the rhetoric of Celtic identity has been used, and notes that the archerfish uses water ejected from its eyes to hunt.
• Language Hat looks at why Chinese is such a hard language to learn for second-language learners, and looks at the Suso monastery in Spain, which played a key role in the coalescence of the Spanish language.
• Language Log looks at the complexities of katakana.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the death of deposed Egypt president Mohammed Morsi looks like a slow-motion assassination, and notes collapse of industrial jobs in the Ohio town of Lordstown, as indicative of broader trends.
• The LRB Blog looks at the death of Mohamed Morsi.
• The Map Rom Blog shares a new British Antarctic Survey map of Greenland and the European Arctic.
• Marginal Revolution notes how non-religious people are becoming much more common in the Middle East, and makes the point that the laying of cable for the transatlantic telegraph is noteworthy technologically.
• Noah Smith at Noahpionion takes the idea of the Middle East going through its own version of the Thirty Years War seriously. What does this imply?
• The NYR Daily takes a look at a Lebanon balanced somehow on the edge, and looks at the concentration camp system of the United States.
• The Planetary Society Blog explains what people should expect from LightSail 2, noting that the LightSail 2 has launched.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw points readers to his stories on Australian spy Harry Freame.
• Rocky Planet explains, in the year of the Apollo 50th anniversary, why the Moon matters.
• Drew Rowsome reviews, and praises, South African film Kanarie, a gay romp in the apartheid era.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper examining the relationship between childcare and fertility in Belgium, and looks at the nature of statistical data from Turkmenistan.
• The Strange Maps Blog shares a map highlighting different famous people in the United States.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why different galaxies have different amounts of dark matter, and shares proof that the Apollo moon landings actually did happen.
• Towleroad notes the new evidence that poppers, in fact, are not addictive.
• Window on Eurasia warns about the parlous state of the Volga River.
• Arnold Zwicky takes an extended look at the mid-20th century gay poet Frank O’Hara.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes how the warp in space-time made by the black hole in V404 Cygni has been detected.
• The Crux reports on the discovery of the remains of a chicha brewery in pre-Columbian Peru.
• D-Brief notes a new model for the creation of the Moon by impact with primordial Earth that would explain oddities with the Earth still being molten, having a magma ocean.
• Bruce Dorminey shares the idea that extraterrestrial civilizations might share messages with posterity through DNA encoded in bacteria set adrift in space.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on progress in drones and UAVs made worldwide.
• Gizmodo notes some of the privacy issues involved with Alexa.
• JSTOR Daily explains how some non-mammals, including birds and fish, nurse their young.
• Language Hat reports on the latest studies in the ancient linguistic history of East Asia, with suggestions that Old Japanese has connections to the languages of the early Korean states of Silla and Paekche but not to that of Koguryo.
• Language Log considers the issues involved with the digitization of specialized dictionaries.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money remembers the start of the Spanish Civil War.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution points towards his recent interview with Margaret Atwood.
• The NYR Daily reports on a remarkable new play, Heidi Schreck’s What The Constitution Means To Me.
• Towleroad reports on what Hunter Kelly, one of the men who operatives tried to recruit to spread slander against Pete Buttigieg, has to say about the affair.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that a Russian annexation of Belarus would not be an easy affair.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on the latest signs of language change, this time in the New Yorker.

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: whales, bacteria, offshore platforms, Falcon Heavy, Denisovans

• D-Brief notes the discovery of a fossil of a four-limbed whale in Peru, dating 42.5 million years.
• D-Brief looks at how the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis morphed from normal gut bacteria to potentially fatal hospital-borne infection.
• D-Brief notes a proposal to build offshore platforms as habitat for fish and for birds.
• D-Brief notes how the Falcon Heavy is proving itself a vanguard of progress in spaceflight.
• D-Brief notes new evidence of there having been multiple regional populations of Denisovans, drawing from work in Indonesia.

[NEWS] Seven links about animal intelligence: orangutans, chimpanzees, humpback whales, fish, bees

• Orangutans are smart enough to talk about things not immediately present, D-Brief notes.
• The Crux notes that chimpanzees apparently have not developed small talk.
• The remarkable evolution of the songs of humpback whales over time looks a lot like the evolution of pop culture among humans, I think. D-Brief reports.
• Vox notes how, in many ways, trying to understand and communicate with humpback whales is so close to SETI.
• This article at The Conversation looks at a recent adoption of a narwhal into a group of belugas. What does it mean about these species’ social relationships?
• Gizmodo notes that, recently, the species of fish known as the cleaner wrasse passed the mirror test for self-awareness. What does this mean about fish intelligence? What does this mean about the test?
• Honeybees, it turns out, can add and subtract. Motherboard reports.

[NEWS] Five Indigenous links: Bantford quinoa, Listuguj, Dwawada’enuxw, DeMontigny, healing lodges

• CBC reports on the discovery of a substantial store of quinoa seeds in an Indigenous archeological site in Brantford, showing the existence of vast trade networks connecting the Andes to Canada.
• Oil exploration in the Gaspé peninsula, La Presse reports, upsets the Mi’gmag of the Listuguj there.
• National Observer reports on how the Dzawada’enuxw of British Columbia have filed suit against Canada over fish farm development.
• Angela DeMontigny is the first Indigenous fashion designer in residence at Ryerson University, CBC reports.
• Global News reports on how Sharon McIvor, founder of the first healing lodge in the Canadian correction system, says government interference has undermined its nearly completely.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul looks back at its work over 2018.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reflects on an odd photo of the odd galaxy NGC 3981.
• The Crux tells the story of how the moons of Jupiter, currently enumerated at 79 and including many oddly-shaped objects in odd orbits, have been found.
• Gizmodo notes how some astronomers have begun to use the precise rotations of neutron stars to calibrate atomic clocks on Earth.
• Keiran Healy shares a literally beautiful chart depicting mortality rates in France over two centuries.
• Hornet Stories notes that, two years after his death, the estate of George Michael is still making donations to the singer’s favoured charities.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox celebrates the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Sedated”.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how unauthorized migrants detained by the United States are being absorbed into the captive workforces of prisons.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution approves of the Museum of the Bible, in Washington D.C., as a tourist destination.
• The NYR Daily looks at soccer (or football) in Morocco, as a badge of identity and as a vehicle for the political discussions otherwise repressed by the Moroccan state.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the paiche, a fish that is endangered in Peru but is invasively successful in Bolivia.
• Peter Rukavina makes a good point about the joys of unexpected fun.
• The Signal reports on how the American Folklife Centre processes its audio recordings in archiving them.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel debunks some myths about black holes, notably that their gravity is any more irresistible than that of any other object of comparable mass.
• Strange Company shares the contemporary news report from 1878 of a British man who binge-drank himself across the Atlantic to the United States.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a proposal in the fast-depopulating Magadan oblast of Russia to extend to all long-term residents the subsidies extended to native peoples.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on another Switzerland-like landscape, this one the shoreline around Lake Sevan in Armenia.