[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait tells us what tantalizing little is known about Proxima Centauri and its worlds.
• Centauri Dreams imagines that, for advanced civilizations based on energy-intensive computing, their most comfortable homes may be in the cool dark of space, intergalactic space even.
• D-Brief notes an effort to predict the evolution of stick insects that went in interesting, if substantially wrong, directions.
• Mark Graham notes that, in the developing world, the supply of people willing to perform digital work far outweighs the actual availability of jobs.
• Mathew Ingram announces that he is now chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review.
• JSTOR Daily explores how consumerism was used, by the United States, to sell democracy to post-war West Germany.
• Language Hat explores the script of the Naxi, a group in the Chinese Himalayas.
• Paul Campos considers at Lawyers, Guns and Money the importance of JK Galbraith’s The Affluent Society. If we are richer than ever before and yet our living standards are disappointing, is this not the sort of political failure imagined?
• Russell Darnley takes a look at how the death of a community’s language can lead to the death of that community’s ecosystem.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog considers the possibility of the ISS being replaced by privately-owned space stations.
• Dmitry Ermakov at Roads and Kingdoms shares some photos from his ventures among the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia.
• Peter Rukavina shares a black-and-white photo of Charlottetown harbour covered in ice.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel makes the point that cancelling NASA’s WFIRST telescope would kneecap NASA science.

Advertisements

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Anthro{dendum} examines the politics and the problems involved with accurately representing the history of Taiwan to the world.
• Centauri Dreams notes a paper suggesting not only that it is possible for a pulsar to have a circumstellar habitable zone, but that the known worlds of PSR B1257+12 might well fall into this zone. (!) D-Brief also looks at the topic of pulsar planets and circumstellar habitable zones.
• The Crux reports on how some students are making the case that robotic cricket farming could help feed the world.
• Dangerous Minds shares some Carlo Farneti illustrations for an edition of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal.
• Cody Delistraty writes about the last days of a Paris store, Colette.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that an infrared search for Planet Nine, using WISE and NEOWISE, has turned up nothing.
• JSTOR Daily talks about how the spectre of “white slavery” was used a century ago, in the United States, to justify Progressive reformers.
• Language Hat reports on a former diplomat’s efforts to translate the traditional poetry of Najd, in central Saudi Arabia.
• Language Log takes a look at the ways in which zebra finches learn song, when raised in isolation and otherwise.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money argues in favour of putting up new monuments, to better people, in place of old Confederate memorials.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that the food desert effect is limited, that if poor people choose not to eat healthy foods this relates to their choice not to a lack of options for buying said.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on China’s interest in a Mars sample return mission.
• Seriously Science reports a paper claiming straight women tend to prefer to get dating advice from gay men to getting it from other women.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel makes the point that, without much more funding for NASA, there is going to be no American return to the Moon.
• Window on Eurasia notes that Tatarstan will no longer be providing Tatar inserts for Russian passport users, a sign of Tatarstan’s drifting towards the Russian mainstream.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes that the most plausible explanation for Tabitha’s Star, KIC 8462852, exists in partial eclipses of the star by dust clouds.
• D-Brief notes that the giant stick insects of Lord Howe Island did survive in their forced diaspora.
• The Dragon’s Gaze takes a look at Kelt-9b, a planet so close to its star that it is literally melting away.
• Language Hat looks at a website set up by inhabitants of the Faroe Islands to translate Faroese.
• The LRB Blog shares some of the past appearances of Nobel-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro in the pages of the LRB.
• Neal Ascherson at the NYR Daily looks at the mechanism of the referendum, in Scotland and Catalonia and elsewhere.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the import of Mike Pence’s promise to send Americans to the Moon again.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how the cosmic phenomenon of inflation explains the entire modern universe.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov is trying to establish himself as a Russian political figure.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the latest on fast radio burst FRB 121102.
• D-Brief makes a good case for the human diet to expand to include insects. I’d like to try an insect burger myself.
• Dangerous Minds shares some wonderful photos of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper suggesting up to 1% of stars could capture, at least temporarily, rogue planets.
• Hornet Stories–the new name for Unicorn Booty–notes the latest shake-up in German-language LGBTQ media.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money shares a thoughtful essay by Christa Blackmon, drawing from her experiences as a survivor of Hurricane Andrew. How do you best take care of child survivors?
• The Map Room Blog links to a fascinating-sounding book, Alastair Bonnett’s new Beyond the Map.
• The NYR Daily reviews a documentary about the Venerable W, a Buddhist monk in Burma who has led anti-Muslim violence.
• The Planetary Society Blog considers the way forward for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the search for Texas barbecue in Mexico City.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at some stunning imagery of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.
• Inkfish notes that some jumping spiders do not just look like ants, they walk like them, too.
• Language Log has gentle fun with the trend to develop heat maps for American English dialects.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the idea of disgust as it is made to relate to the homeless.
• Siva Vijenthira at Spacing considers the particular importance of biking for the independence of women.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers whether or not terraforming Mars is worth it. (Yes, but it will be costly.)
• Window on Eurasia suggests that China is displacing Russia, despite the latter’s efforts, as the main trade partner of smaller post-Soviet countries.
• Arnold Zwicky shares an amusing photo of the Wonder Bears of Provincetown.

[NEWS] Some Thursday links

• The Sacramento Bee reports that UC Davis spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on trying to salvage its reputation online, after famously being linked with security guards pepper-spraying student protesters.
• Bloomberg notes China’s island-building spree in the South China Sea is causing environmental damage, notes Hungary may lose out on future investment because of labour shortages, and notes London property prices are sliding because of Brexit.
• The Guardian suggests Russians do not care about Putin’s corruption.
• The Independent reports on a Muslim anti-ISIS march not covered by mainstream media.
• MacLean’s writes about the NDP, about the hard left turn, about James Laxer’s criticism of the Leap manifesto, and about the disinterest of Megan Leslie and other NDPers in going for the leadership.
• The National Post notes the potential huge market for insects as human food and notes controversy over First Nations support for a controversial wind energy farm.
• Quartz notes the culture gap between Koreans and Korean-Americans.
• In the Toronto Star, Emma Teitel writes about how the pronoun “they” is easy to use.
• Wired looks at a brain implant that gave a quadriplegic man control of his arm.

[LINK] “Jumping Spiders Can Think Ahead, Plan Detours”

National Geographic‘s Michael Greshko notes the unusual intelligence of a certain kind of predatory spider. (Beautiful pictures, if you’re into this.)

With brains the size of a sesame seed, jumping spiders may seem like mental lightweights.

But a new study shows that many species plan out intricate detours to reach their prey—smarts usually associated with far bigger creatures.

The arachnids, already well known for their colors and elaborate mating rituals, have sharp vision and an impressive awareness of three-dimensional space.

“Their vision is more on par with vertebrates,” says Damian Elias of the University of California, Berkeley, who wasn’t involved in the new research. “And that allows them to do things that are physically impossible for other animals that size.”

Jumping spiders of the subfamily Spartaeinae (spar-TAY-in-ay) are particularly ambitious—they eat other spiders. Researchers suspect that preying on other predators requires extra intelligence and cunning.