[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shows four different images of nearby stellar nursery NGC 1333.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the hot Saturn TOI-197, and the way it was detected.
• D-Brief notes how galaxy NGC-1052 DF2 has been confirmed as the second galaxy apparently lacking in dark matter.
• Gizmodo notes new confirmation, from an orbiting probe, that Curiosity detected methane emanating from Mars back in 2013.
• Hornet Stories tries to correct some misconceptions about the Burning Man festival.
• The Island Review links to a New York Times profile of post-Maria Puerto Rico.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Martin Shkreli has been tossed into solitary confinement.
• JSTOR Daily notes the work of psychologists in the 1930s US who profiled individuals who did not fit the gender binary. Would these people have identified themselves as trans or non-binary now?
• The LRB Blog notes the fondness of Jacob Rees-Mogg for extreme-right German politicians from the AfD.
• Language Log shares a written ad in Cantonese from Hong Kong.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money compares China now to the Untied States of the past, and finds interesting correspondences.
• Marginal Revolution notes the deep and significant commitment of China under Mao to providing foreign aid.
• The NYR Daily looks at the complex, once-overlooked, life and career of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, writer of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.
• Out There notes that, while dark matter is certainly real, “dark matter” is a poor name for this mysterious substance.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog considers the challenges to be faced by Hayabusa 2 when it fires a sampling probe into asteroid Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how into the universe a spaceship could travel if it accelerated consistently at one gravity.
• Strange Company examines the life and adventures of Jeffrey Hudson, a royal dwarf in 17th century England.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society builds on the work of V.K. Ramachandran in considering the ethics of development ethnography.
• Window on Eurasia notes the new identification of Azerbaijanis as victims of genocide by neighbours, and what this means for the relations of Azerbaijan.
• Arnold Zwicky has fun, in a NSFW fanfic way, with figures from comics contemporary and old.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Indigenous links: film and TV, Mohawk, Iroquois food, Gaspésie, Beothuk

• NOW Toronto reports on the potential of Indigenous films and television shows to gain international markets, so long as they get needed funding.
• Activists seeking to promote the Mohawk language and culture have received needed government funding, Global News reports.
• CBC Montreal notes the visit of a chef from the Six Nations of the Grand River to Montréal to share Iroquois cuisine there, and more.
• A Mi’kMaq community in Gaspésie does not want to preserve the Maison Busteed, a historic house belonging to an early settler who reportedly cheated them of their land, to the dismay of some local history activists. CBC reports.
• The remains of Nonosabasut and Demasduit, two of the last of the Beothuk of Newfoundland, are going to be transfer from Scotland to a new home in Canada, at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. CBC reports.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul looks at the divided cities of the divided island of Cyprus.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares an image of a galaxy that actually has a tail.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber talks about her pain as an immigrant in the United Kingdom in the era of Brexit, her pain being but one of many different types created by this move.
• The Crux talks about the rejected American proposal to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon, and the several times the United States did arrange for lesser noteworthy events there (collisions, for the record).
• D-Brief notes how the innovative use of Curiosity instruments has explained more about the watery past of Gale Crater.
• Bruce Dorminey notes one astronomer’s theory that Venus tipped early into a greenhouse effect because of a surfeit of carbon relative to Earth.
• Far Outliers looks at missionaries in China, and their Yangtze explorations, in the late 19th century.
• Gizmodo notes evidence that Neanderthals and Denisovans cohabited in a cave for millennia.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox writes about his exploration of the solo music of Paul McCartney.
• io9 looks at what is happening with Namor in the Marvel universe, with interesting echoes of recent Aquaman storylines.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the Beothuk of Newfoundland and their sad fate.
• Language Hat explores Patagonian Afrikaans.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on how mindboggling it is to want to be a billionaire. What would you do with that wealth?
• The Map Room Blog shares a visualization of the polar vortex.
• Marginal Revolution reports on the career of a writer who writes stories intended to help people fall asleep.
• The New APPS Blog reports on the power of biometric data and the threat of its misuse.
• Neuroskeptic takes a look at neurogenesis in human beings.
• Out There notes the import, in understanding our solar system, of the New Horizons photos of Ultima Thule.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes that OSIRIS-REx is in orbit of Bennu and preparing to take samples.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of 21 things that visitors to Kolkata should know.
• Mark Simpson takes a critical look at the idea of toxic masculinity. Who benefits?
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why global warming is responsible for the descent of the polar vortex.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the pro-Russian Gagauz of Moldova are moving towards a break if the country at large becomes pro-Western.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the art of Finnish painter Hugo Simberg.

[NEWS] Five politics links: free trade, Brexit, Soviet restoration, Cambodia, Malaysia

• NOW Toronto questions, in the aftermath of the post-NAFTA negotiations, the point of free trade. (I favour it on the condition that it be effective regulated, as effectively regulated as intra-national trade and probably in the same ways.)
• This Bloomberg View article makes the point that the United Kingdom needs to make provisions for the 3.5 million people, including workers, from the EU-27 in its borders, doing necessary work.
• Open Democracy notes a popular movement in Russia aiming to reestablish the Soviet Union, a movement that in its details reminds me a lot of the “sovereign citizens” and Reichsburger movements.
• What place was there for justice, this Open Democracy article asks, in post-genocide Cambodia?
• Ozy notes a new plan to rewrite the history taught in Malaysian schools to be more open to representing non-Malay and non-Islamic influences.

[ISL] Five islands links: Malta/Pantelleria, American Samoa, Chatham Islands, Tasmania, Newfoundland

• The suggestion of Maltese academic Godfrey Baldacchino that Malta relieve its overcrowding by buying the nearby Italian island of Pantelleria has the advantage of being attention-catching. Malta Today has it.
• I wish the lawsuit of American Samoans seeking full citizenship in the United States all possible success. NBC News reports.
• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the distinctive history and culture of the Moriori of the Chatham Islands.
• Tasmania turns out to be a hugely popular destination for tourists from China. Bloomberg reports.
• The Newfoundland government’s program of relocating marginal settlements remains hugely controversial. CBC reports.

[ISL] Five notes about islands: Greenland, South China Sea, Bangladesh, Caribbean, Puerto Rico

• The slow melt of the Greenland icecap will eventually release a Cold War American military base into the open air. VICE reports.
• Robert Farley suggests at The National Interest that China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea would not be of much use in an actual conflict.
• Reuters notes that a mud island in the Bay of Bengal lucky not to be overwhelmed by high tides is being expanded into a compound to hold Rohingya refugees.
• A new study suggests that there was some genetic continuing between pre- and post-Columbian populations in the Caribbean, that as family and local histories suggest at least some Taino did survive the catastrophes of colonialism. National Geographic reports.
• This account from NACLA of Puerto Rico’s perennial problems with the American mainland and the history of migration, culminating in an ongoing disastrous mass emigration after Maria, is pro-independence. Might this viewpoint become more common among Puerto Ricans?

[NEWS] Five links on life and intelligence both near and far: ‘Oumuamua, ET, blue whales, orangutans

• Craig Welch at National Geographic notes how scientists, by carefully decoding the songs of blue whales, are figuring out how they are leading their lives.
• Sarah Gibbens at National Geographic notes a new study suggesting that, since 1999, hunting and environmental devastation has reduced the orangutan population of Borneo by almost half, by 150 thousand individuals. This sounds almost like genocide.
• Universe Today notes evidence that ‘Oumuamua had a very violent past.
• Nadia Drake at National Geographic explores the recent study suggesting that, unless there were signs of menace, most people actually would react well to news of extraterrestrial life.
• Vikram Zutshi at Open Democracy recently suggested that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence could be good for the Earth, might even help us save it. Certainly this civilization would have survived the Great Filter; certainly it’s a corrective to lazy assumptions of automatic menace.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Larisa Kurtović writes at anthro{dendum} about her experiences, as an anthropologist studying Bosnia and a native Sarajevan, at the time of the trial of Ratko Mladić. Representation in this circumstance was fraught.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the remarkable claim that extragalactic planets have been discovered 3.5 billion light-years away through gravitational lensing and does not find it intrinsically implausible. Centauri Dreams also looks at the background behind the claimed detection of two thousand rogue planets, ranging in mass from the Moon to Jupiter, in a distant galaxy.
• Dangerous Minds reviews a fantastic-sounding book reviewing girl gangs and bikers in the pulp fiction of mid-20th century English-language literature.
• Hornet Stories links to the Mattachine Podcast, a new podcast looking at pre-Stonwall LGBTQ history including that relating to the pioneering Mattachine Society.
• JSTOR Daily notes the substantial evidence that fish can actually be quite smart, certainly smarter than popular stereotypes have them being.
• Language Hat reports on the existence of a thriving population of speakers of Aramaic now in existence in New Jersey.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the many ways in which the privatization of state businesses have gone astray in the United Kingdom, and suggests that there is conflict between short-term capitalist desires and long-term needs. Renationalization a solution?
• At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen argues that the prospect of the future financial insolvency of Chicago helps limit the large-scale settlement of wealthy people there, keeping the metropolis relatively affordable.
• Stephen Baker of The Numerati reflected, on the eve of the Superbowl, on the origins of his fandom with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1963 just before the assassination of JFK.
• The NYR Daily shares a rational proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation that, alas, will never fly given irrational reality.
• Seriously Science notes a paper suggesting that Norway rats do, in fact, the reciprocal trade of goods and services.
• Strange Company notes an unfortunate picnic in Indiana in 1931, where the Simmons family was unexpectedly poisoned by strychnine capsules? Who did it?
• Window on Eurasia notes a demographers’ observation that, given the age structure and fertility of the Russian population, even with plausible numbers of immigrants the country’s population may never again grow.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks about a week of her life as a freelance writer, highlighting so much of her work relates to social connections as opposed to actual writing.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas shares an astonishingly prescient take by E.B. White on the power of television from 1938.
• Hornet Stories notes the efforts of the Indonesian government to get the Google Play Store there to block 70 apps used by LGBT people.
• At In a State of Migration, Lyman Stone looks at demographic trends in Hawaii, the other major insular possession of the United States. Low fertility and a high cost of living may actually lead to population decline there, too, in the foreseeable future.
• Joe. My. God. notes the death, at 59, of trailblazing gay comedian Bob Smith.
• JSTOR Daily links/u> to a paper noting how Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Uprising played a critical role in shaping post-war Jewish identity.
• Towleroad notes the announcement of an astonishingly preserved 1945 film clip showing gay men, out, at a pool party in 1945 Missouri.
• Window on Eurasia notes one prominent Donbas separatists’ push for an aggressive response to the Ukrainian government over the collapse of Minsk, including an attempt to reclaim the remainder of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts from Kyiv.

[NEWS] Five links: Brexit, left-wing denialism, Menshevik Georgia, immigrants in cities, Voyager

• Prospect Magazine shares Ivan Rogers’ inside perspective on how David Cameron’s misunderstanding of the political priorities in the wider EU was (mostly) responsible for the ill-judged decision to hold a referendum on Brexit.
• Haaretz shares Oz Katerji’s devastating criticism of many left-wing intellectuals for turning a blind eye to genocides they find politically inconvenient. (Noam Chomsky, stand up please.)
• Eric Lee suggests that the moderate Menshevik government that ruled Georgia for a few brief years offers insight into a more humanistic way that the Russian Revolution could have taken, over at Open Democracy.
• Irena Guidikova suggests that initiatives taken at the level of the cities are most important for the integration of immigrants, that helping them build networks and acquire social capital must be central to any project, over at Open Democracy.
• Matt Novak at Gizmodo’s Paleofuture notes that, after substantial work, copies of the Voyager Golden Record are finally available for purchase.