[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports suggestions the bizarre happenings at Boyajian’s Star could be explained by an evaporating exomoon.
• Centauri Dreams looks at how the crowdsourced evScope telescope is being used to support the Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojans.
• The Crux explains the phenomenon of misophobia.
• D-Brief shares suggestions that an asteroid collision a half-billion years ago released clouds of dust that, reaching Earth, triggered the mid-Ordovician ice age.
• Dangerous Minds shares video of a perhaps underwhelming meeting of William Burroughs with Francis Bacon.
• io9 makes the case for more near-future space exploration movies like Ad Astra.
• Joe. My. God. notes a Trump retweeting of the lie that Ilham Omar celebrated on 9/11.
• JSTOR Daily notes how fire could destroy the stressed rainforest of the Amazon.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how few judges in the US have been impeached.
• The LRB Blog looks at how the already tenuous position of Haitians in the Bahamas has been worsened by Dorian.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the importance of the integrity of official maps in the era of Trump.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the political importance of marriage ceremonies in Lebanon and Gaza.
• Drew Rowsome interviews the Zakar Twins on the occasion of their new play Pray the Gay Away, playing in Toronto in October.
• The Russian Demographic Blog shares statistics on birthrates in the different provinces of the Russian Empire circa 1906.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the first experiment done on the photoelectric effect, revealing quantum mechanics.
• Window on Eurasia looks at growing anti-Chinese sentiments in Central Asia.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at “The Hurtful Dog”, a Cyanide and Happiness cartoon.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber takes us from her son’s accidental cut to the electronic music of Røbic.
• D-Brief explains what the exceptional unexpected brightness of the first galaxies reveals about the universe.
• Far Outliers looks at how President Grant tried to deal with the Ku Klux Klan.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the surprising influence of the Turkish harem on the fashion, at least, of Western women.
• This Kotaku essay arguing that no one should be sitting on the Iron Throne makes even better sense to me now.
• Language Hat looks at the particular forms of French spoken by the famously Francophile Russian elites of the 19th century.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how teaching people to code did not save the residents of an Appalachia community.
• Marginal Revolution notes how, in the early 19th century, the young United States trading extensively with the Caribbean, even with independent Haiti.
• At the NYR Daily, Colm Tóibín looks at the paintings of Pat Steir.
• Peter Rukavina writes about how he has been inspired by the deaths of the Underhays to become more active in local politics.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society shares his research goals from 1976.
• Window on Eurasia notes the conflicts between the Russian Orthodox Church and some Russian nationalists over the latter’s praise of Stalin.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at dragons in history, queer and otherwise.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga, Montréal, Thunder Bay, Port-au-Prince, London

• The City of Mississauga is encouraging residents to take part in a postal campaign to push for independence from Peel Region. Global News reports.
• A Montréal city councillor wants the city to try to get a world’s fair in 2030. CTV reports.
• April Lindgren at The Conversation considersthe important role that local media in Thunder Bay can play in dealing, with, among other issues, Indigenous concerns.
• Amy Wilentz considers at The Atlantic whether France, after the devastation of Notre-Dame in Paris, should perhaps contribute to the reconstruction of the cathedral of Port-au-Prince, a decade after its destruction in the earthquake that devastated an already poor ex-French Haiti.
• Ben Rogers at Open Democracy makes the case for seeing London, despite its position as a global city, as also a metropolis inextricably at the heart of England, too.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the newly-named Neptune moon of Hippocamp, and how it came about as product of a massive collision with the larger moon of Proteus.
• Centauri Dreams also reports on the discovery of the Neptune moon of Hippocamp.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes how the attempt to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum sets a terribly dangerous precedent for the United Kingdom.
• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting the role of the Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions in triggering the Cretaceous extinction event, alongside the Chixculub asteroid impact.
• Far Outliers notes the problems of Lawrence of Arabia with Indian soldiers and with Turks.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing takes issue with the state of philosophical contemplation about technology, at least in part a structural consequence of society.
• Hornet Stories shares this feature examining the future of gay porn, in an environment where amateur porn undermines the existing studios.
• JSTOR Daily considers the spotty history of casting African-American dancers in ballet.
• Language Hat suggests that the Académie française will soon accept for French feminized nouns of nouns links to professionals (“écrivaine” for a female writer, for instance).
• The LRB Blog considers the implications of the stripping of citizenship from Shamima Begum. Who is next? How badly is citizenship weakened in the United Kingdom?
• Marginal Revolution notes the upset of Haiti over its banning by Expedia.
• The NYR Daily notes the tension in Turkey between the country’s liberal laws on divorce and marriage and rising Islamization.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the moment, in the history of the universe, when dark energy became the dominant factors in the universe’s evolution.
• Towleroad remembers Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was the collaborator of Trump up to the moment of Cohn’s death from AIDS.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little takes a look at Marx’s theories of how governments worked.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the existential pressures facing many minority languages in Russia.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the good news: The Andromeda Galaxy will collide with the Milky Way in 4.5 billion years, not 3.9 billion!
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that a new Chinese ground station built in Argentina has not made the promised outreach to locals, with no visitors’ centre and rumours aplenty.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog explains the importance of doing literature reviews.
• Far Outliers notes the Pakhtuns, a Muslim ethnicity of the British Raj in what is now Pakistan noteworthy for being a major source of recruits in the Indian Army.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing notes Iris Murdoch, particularly her emphasis on learning as a process of engaging with something greater on its terms.
• Gizmodo reports on how space sciences appreciate the work done by the noble rover Opportunity on Mars.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how early 20th century African-American artists have represented Haiti in the works.
• Language Hat takes note of some of the mechanisms by which linguistics can neglect the study of indigenous languages.
• Language Log takes a look at the Latin motto of the University of Pennsylvania, a source still of unintentional humour.
• Marginal Revolution takes a look at the high levels of dysfunction in Nigeria, from fighting between herders and farmers to the incapacity of the national government.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at the concept of internal exile, starting with Russia and spiraling out into the wider world.
• Peter Rukavina shares a photo of a payphone that is one of the few remaining used artifacts of old Island Tel.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper considering the demographic peculiarities of the societies of the semi-periphery as contrasted to those of the core.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the surprisingly large amount of information astronomers will be able to extract from the first image of an Earth-like exoplanet.
• Window on Eurasia notes that North Caucasians in Russia no longer stand out as having higher-than-average birth rates in Russia.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a lovely photo of the Earth peeking out from behind the far side of the Moon.
• At the Broadside Blog, Caitlin Kelly shares lovely photos of delicate ice and water taken on a winter’s walk.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the study by Chinese astronomers who, looking at the distribution of Cepheids, figured out that our galaxy’s disk is an S-shaped warp.
• D-Brief notes new evidence that melting of the Greenland ice sheet will disrupt the Gulf Stream.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing takes issue with the uncritical idealization of the present, as opposed to the critical examination of whatever time period we are engaging with.
• Gizmodo notes that an intensive series of brain scans is coming closer to highlighting the areas of the human brain responsible for consciousness.
• Mark Graham links to new work of his, done in collaboration, looking at ways to make the sharing economy work more fairly in low- and middle-income countries.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the mystic Catholicism of the African kingdom of Kongo may have gone on to inspire slave-led revolutions in 18th century North America and Haiti.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at an exhibition examining the ambitious architecture of Yugoslavia.
• The Map Room Blog links to a cartographer’s argument about the continuing importance of paper maps.
• Marginal Revolution shares one commenter’s perception of causes or the real estate boom in New Zealand.
• Neuroskeptic considers the role of the mysterious silent neurons in the human brain.
• At NYR Daily, Guadeloupe writer Maryse Condé talks about her career as a writer and the challenges of identity for her native island.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of ten dishes reflecting the history of the city of Lisbon.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel takes a look at the promise of likely mini-Neptune Barnard’s Star b as a target for observation, perhaps even life.
• Window on Eurasia shares the perfectly plausible argument that, just as the shift of the Irish to the English language did not end Irish identity and nationalism, so might a shift to Russian among Tatars not end Tatar identity.

[NEWS] Five links about identity: Durkheim, working-class, Petra Köpping, Dominican Republic, space

• Galen Watts at The Conversation takes a look at our world in the light of Émile Durkheim’s sociology, arguing that the decline of the sacred in public life has opened the world up to new forces. What next?
• This Justin Quarry essay, republished at The Guardian, arguing that it can be more difficult for people like him to come out as working-class than as gay is provocative.
• Christine Keilholz has written a widely-syndicated article about Petra Kôpping, the integration minister of Saxony, who finds herself dealing as much with older East Germans who lost from reunification as with new immigrants to her state.
• This VICE article takes a look at the humanitarian disaster created by the Dominican Republic’s destruction of birthright citizenship, displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their country on account of their foreign (Haitian) origin.
• Nadia Drake at National Geographic argues that the language used to describe space settlement has to be chosen carefully, that avoiding the rhetoric of past imperial conquests is a must.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Mississauga and Brampton, Montréal, Vancouver, New York City, Miami

• CBC notes</u. the underrepresentation of politicians of visible minority background in the city councils of Mississauga and Brampton.
• MTL Blog reports on the different plans of the different political parties in the Québec election for mass transit plans. (I really like the Québec Solidaire plan’s ambition.)
• Catherine Tse at the SCMP takes a look at the different sorts of businesses run by young wealthy people, often socialites, of Asian immigrant background in Vancouver.
• Henry Grabar at Slate writes about a paper examining the tactics adopted by different groups in New York City–Hasidic Jews, Chinese, and Bangladeshis–faced with high real estate prices, from intensification to diffusion to underground housing.
• Christian Portilla at VICE writes about how gentrification is undermining the basis for the Miami neighbourhood of Little Haiti, driving out long-time residents.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that new astrometric data from Gaia has confirmed that Albiero, Beta Cygni, is only a visual binary, its two components being separated by perhaps dozens of light-years.
• Centauri Dreams notes the details of a new study suggesting the stars at the heart of globular cluster Omega Centauri are too closely packed to be able to support possibly life-bearing planets with stable orbits.
• The Crux examines the question of whether or not astronauts can remain psychologically healthy in deep space.
• D-Brief notes that the shallow stripes of the atmosphere of Jupiter might be explained by the planet’s strong magnetic field.
• Cody Delistraty shares an essay of his on V.S. Naipaul and the difficulties many writers face returning home.
• Hornet Stories notes that some conservative Republicans in Texas would like to deal with same-sex marriage by stripping marriage benefits away from all couples.
• Language Hat notes some appearances of Eurasianism in Russian linguistics.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes an Elizabeth Warren plan for corporate reform in the US.
• The LRB Blog notes a pop-up theatre being maintained by Good Chance Paris for refugees on the fringes of the French capital.
• The NYR Daily looks at the strength, and possible future attenuation, of anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog shares some gorgeous Juno photos of Jupiter.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers what happened in the early universe when antimatter was destroyed.
• Window on Eurasia notes the argument of one Russian journalist that Putin’s maneuvering has made good relations with the West, and the United States, next to impossible for the foreseeable future.

[ISL] Five islands links: Machias Seal, Newfoundland and Labrador, Orkneys, Haiti

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• Global News outlines the state of the Machias Seal island territorial dispute between Canada and the United States.
• Faced with mounting costs owing to an aging and dispersed population, is Newfoundland and Labrador headed for bankruptcy? What would happen then? The National Post reports.
• The selection of names of beers from the new brewery of Dildo, NL, has been undertaken with great care. Global News reports.
• The Island Review shares an extract from the new book by Robin Noble about the Orkneys, Sagas of Salt and Stone. http://theislandreview.com/content/sagas-of-salt-and-stone-orkney-unwrapped-robin-noble-extract
• Ayanna Legros makes a compelling argument for the recognition of Haiti and Haitians as not being somehow foreign to their region, but rather for including them in Latin America.