[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that mysterious Boyajian’s Star has nearly two dozen identified analogues, like HD 139139.
• James Bow reports from his con trip to Portland.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog notes the particular pleasure of having old friends, people with long baselines on us.
• Centauri Dreams describes a proposed mission to interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).
• The Crux notes how feeding cows seaweed could sharply reduce their methane production.
• D-Brief notes that comet C/2019 Q4 is decidedly red.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a claim that water-rich exoplanet K2-18b might well have more water than Earth.
• Gizmodo reports on a claim that Loki, biggest volcano on Io, is set to explode in a massive eruption.
• io9 notes that Warner Brothers is planning a Funko Pop movie.
• Joe. My. God. notes the claim of Donald Trump that he is ready for war with Iran.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how people in early modern Europe thought they could treat wounds with magic.
• Language Hat considers how “I tip my hat” might, translated, sound funny to a speaker of Canadian French.
• Language Log considers how speakers of Korean, and other languages, can find word spacing a challenge.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the partisan politics of the US Supreme Court.
• At the NYR Daily, Naomi Klein makes a case for the political and environmental necessity of a Green New Deal.
• Peter Watts takes apart a recent argument proclaiming the existence of free will.
• Peter Rukavina tells how travelling by rail or air from Prince Edward Island to points of the mainland can not only be terribly inconvenient, but environmentally worse than car travel. PEI does need better rail connections.
• The Russian Demographics Blog examines how different countries in Europe will conduct their census in 2020.
• Window on Eurasia shares the arguments of a geographer who makes the point that China has a larger effective territory than Russia (or Canada).
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at a 1971 prediction by J.G. Ballard about demagoguery and guilt, something that now looks reasonably accurate.
• Arnold Zwicky considers models of segregation of cartoon characters from normal ones in comics.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Ryan Anderson at anthro{dendum} looks at the unnatural history of the beach in California, here.
• Architectuul looks at the architectural imaginings of Iraqi Shero Bahradar, here.
• Bad Astronomy looks at gas-rich galaxy NGC 3242.
• James Bow announces his new novel The Night Girl, an urban fantasy set in an alternate Toronto with an author panel discussion scheduled for the Lillian H. Smith Library on the 28th.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the indirect evidence for an exomoon orbiting WASP-49b, a possible Io analogue detected through its ejected sodium.
• Crooked Timber considers the plight of holders of foreign passports in the UK after Brexit.
• The Crux notes that astronomers are still debating the nature of galaxy GC1052-DF2, oddly lacking in dark matter.
• D-Brief notes how, in different scientific fields, the deaths of prominent scientists can help progress.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how NASA and the ESA are considering sample-return missions to Ceres.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the first test flights of the NASA Mercury program.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at how Japan is considering building ASAT weapons.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the first test flights of the NASA Mercury program.
• Far Outliers looks how the anti-malarial drug quinine played a key role in allowing Europeans to survive Africa.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox considers grace and climate change.
• io9 reports on how Jonathan Frakes had anxiety attacks over his return as Riker on Star Trek: Picard.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the threatened banana.
• Language Log looks at the language of Hong Kong protesters.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how a new version of The Last of the Mohicans perpetuates Native American erasure.
• Marginal Revolution notes how East Germany remains alienated.
• Neuroskeptic looks at the participant-observer effect in fMRI subjects.
• The NYR Daily reports on a documentary looking at the India of Modi.
• Corey S. Powell writes at Out There about Neptune.
• The Planetary Society Blog examines the atmosphere of Venus, something almost literally oceanic in its nature.
• Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money considers how Greenland might be incorporated into the United States.
• Rocky Planet notes how Earth is unique down to the level of its component minerals.
• The Russian Demographics Blog considers biopolitical conservatism in Poland and Russia.
• Starts With a Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers if LIGO has made a detection that might reveal the nonexistence of the theorized mass gap between neutron stars and black holes.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at Marchetti’s constant: People in cities, it seems, simply do not want to commute for a time longer than half an hour.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little looks at how the US Chemical Safety Board works.
• Window on Eurasia reports on how Muslims in the Russian Far North fare.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at cannons and canons.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers nearby galaxy NGC 6744, a relatively nearby spiral galaxy that may look like the Milky Way.
• D-Brief notes the remarkable ceramic spring that gives the mantis shrimp its remarkably powerful punch.
• Far Outliers notes how the north Korean port of Hamhung was modernized in the 1930s, but also Japanized, with few legacies of its Korean past remaining.
• Joe. My. God. notes how the Trump administration plans to define being transgender out of existence. Appalling.
• Alexandra Samuel at JSTOR Daily notes the ways in which the Internet has undermined the traditions which support American political institutions. Can new traditions be made?
• Lawyers, Guns, and Money notes how the Trump’s withdrawal from the INF treaty with Russia on nuclear weapons harms American security.
• Rose Jacobs at Lingua Franca writes about ways in which derision, specifically of other nationalities, enters into English slang.
• Marginal Revolution notes that, in an article surveying the Icelandic language, a report that sales of books in Iceland have fallen by nearly half since 2010.
• The NYR Daily looks at two recent movies, one autobiographical and one fictional, looking at dads in space.
• Jason Perry at the Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest imagery of the volcanoes of Io.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the possibility that time travel might not destroy the universe via paradoxes.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that the experience of post-Soviet Estonia with its two Orthodox churches might be a model for Ukraine.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• ‘Nathan Burgoine at Apostrophen links to a giveaway of paranormal LGBT fiction.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares some stunning photos of Jupiter provided by Juno.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly looks at the desperate, multi-state strike of teachers in the United States. American education deserves to have its needs, and its practitioners’ needs, met.
• Centauri Dreams looks at PROCSIMA, a strategy for improving beamed propulsion techniques.
• Crooked Timber looks at the history of the concept of the uncanny valley. How did the concept get translated in the 1970s from Japan to the wider world?
• Dangerous Minds shares a 1980s BBC interview with William Burroughs.
• The Dragon’s Tales links to a paper tracing the origin of the Dravidian language family to a point in time 4500 years ago.
• JSTOR Daily notes Phyllis Wheatley, a freed slave who became the first African-American author in the 18th century but who died in poverty.
• Language Hat notes the exceptional importance of the Persian language in early modern South Asia.
• Language Log looks at the forms used by Chinese to express the concepts of NIMBY and NIMBYism.
• Language Hat notes the exceptional importance of the Persian language in early modern South Asia.
• The NYR Daily notes that, if the United States junks the nuclear deal with Iran, nothing external to Iran could realistically prevent the country’s nuclearization.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the latest findings from the Jupiter system, from that planet’s planet-sized moons.
• Roads and Kingdoms notes that many Rohingya, driven from their homeland, have been forced to work as mules in the illegal drug trade.
• Starts With A Bang considers how early, based on elemental abundances, life could have arisen after the Big Bang. A date only 1 to 1.5 billion years after the formation of the universe is surprisingly early.
• Strange Maps’ Frank Jacobs notes how the centre of population of different tree populations in the United States has been shifting west as the climate has changed.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little takes a look at mechanisms and causal explanations.
• Worthwhile Canadian Initiative’s Frances Woolley takes a look at an ECON 1000 test from the 1950s. What biases, what gaps in knowledge, are revealed by it?

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net notes that the more Neanderthal DNA gets sequenced, the more we know of this population’s history.
• Anthro{dendum} takes a look at anthropologists who use their knowledge and their access to other cultures for purposes of espionage.
• Crooked Timber tackles the question of immigration from another angle: do states have the authority to control it, for starters?
• Dangerous Minds shares a fun video imagining Netflix as it might have existed in 1995.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog considers how the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico is an instance of American state failure.
• The Frailest Thing’s L.M. Sacasas considers is vows to abandon Facebook are akin to a modern-day vow of poverty.
• JSTOR Daily looks at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and why it still matters.
• Language Log considers the naming practices of new elements like Nihonium.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests that, based on the stagnation of average incomes in the US as GDP has growth, capitalism can be said to have failed.
• Lingua Franca considers the origin of the phrase “bad actor.”
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that the American opioid epidemic is not simply driven by economic factors.
• The NYR Daily considers how Poland’s new history laws do poor service to a very complicated past.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw has an interesting post examining the settlement of Australisa’s inland “Channel Country” by cattle stations, chains to allow herds to migrate following the weather.
• The Planetary Science Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla takes a look at the latest science on famously volcanic Io.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel examines how the Milky Way Galaxy is slowly consuming its neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares beautiful images of nebula Sharpless 2-29, brilliant and beautiful from the heart of our galaxy.
• Centauri Dreams notes how New Horizons is maneuvering for its rendezvous with KBO MU69 on 1 January 2019.
• Daily JSTOR notes how Indian schools were at once vehicles for the assimilation of American indigenous peoples and also sites for potential resistance.
• Dangerous Minds shares the vintage Vampirella art of Enrique Torres-Prat.
• From Tumblr, Explain It Like I’m Not From Lawrence looks at a very unusual tower in the downtown of that Kansas community.
• Hornet Stories notes that PrEP is becoming available in Brazil, but only for a small subset of potential users.
• Imageo notes a recent American study observing that the degree of Arctic heating is in at least two millennia.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Bermuda has repealed marriage equality. I can’t help but think this will not help the island’s tourism.
• Language Hat links to a new encyclopedia article examining the origins of the Japanese language. I’m surprised the article suggests there are no verifiable links to Korean, Paekche aside.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money has an after-action report on the Alabama senate election. I agree with most of the conclusions–certainly it shows a need to contest every election!
• Allan Metcalf at Lingua Franca quite likes the term “fake news” for its specific power, claiming it as his word of 2017.
• The NYR Daily reflects on an exhibition of the powerful works of Modigliani.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on some infrared images taken by Juno of Jupiter and volcanic Io.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares 21 pieces of advice for people interested in visiting Iran as tourists.
• Towleroad’s list of the Top 10 albums of 2017 is worth paying attention to.
• If this Window on Eurasia report is correct and HIV seroprevalence in Russia is twice the proportion officially claimed, 1.5% of the population …

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Anthropology.net reports on the recent discovery in China of two skulls a hundred thousand years old, possible remnants of a hitherto-unknown hominid species.
• blogTO reports on the boom in the Toronto tech community.
• Language Log breaks down the linguistics, specifically word lengths, of audiobooks.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on the difficult position of indigenous peoples in Nicaragua.
• Marginal Revolution reports on the potential health benefits of substances in the blood of the Komodo dragon.
• The NYRB Daily reports on the modernist photography of Berenice Abbott.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the adventures of the Mars rovers.
• Supernova Condensate takes a quick look at Jupiter’s moon, Io.
• Window on Eurasia looks at a new Russian film that transposes the superhero genre with the Soviet era, and argues that Russia is acting these days not as a constructive power but as a spoiler.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Beyond the Beyond considers the floating mountains of Pluto.
• The Boston Globe‘s Big Picture notes the story of a church that transitioned from an old-style church building to a storefront.
• blogTO shares a photo of the Gardiner Expressway, closed for construction.
• Centauri Dreams considers the search for life around red giant stars.
• Crooked Timber criticizes left-wing Brexit proponents for the contradictions in their politics.
• The Dragon’s Tales looks at mountain-building on Io.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas wonders if the kids are all right in an age of ubiquitous technology.
• The LRB Blog notes Trump’s acceptance by Fox.
• Otto Pohl shares a list of his articles dealing with the Crimean Tatars.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer examines air pollution and car traffic in Mexico City.
• Window on Eurasia notes the political popularity of Sufis in Dagestan.
• Arnold Zwicky celebrates actor Joe Dallesandro.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• blogTO explains why there is no Terminal 2 at Pearson.
• Crooked Timber notes the very strong case against coal and new coal mines.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to a paper speculating that the solar system had five large planets.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the Russian war in Syria, updates readers on the Ukrainian war, and suggests Russia is starting to run out of money.
• Joe. My. God. notes Wil Wheaton’s refusal to let the Huffington Post use his material for free.
• Language Log notes the complexities of Chinese language stop signs in Hong Kong.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how elements of climate change like water shortages can make things worse.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw, among other things, notes that Australia’s approach to asylum cannot work in Europe.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes new proposals for exploring the Jovian system.
• Spacing Toronto looks at an old murder on the Toronto Islands in the Second World War.
• Supernova Condensate shares a Tumblr image set noting the need to not discourage women from being interested in science.
• Window on Eurasia notes the awkward position of Crimean Tatar institutions and notes some Belarusians want a Russian military base because they want the income.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• The Boston Globe‘s Big Picture reports on Olympics evictions in Brazil, compares school life in Boston and Haiti, and follows an elderly man climbing Mount Washington.
• blogTO suggests jets will not be coming to the Toronto Island airport and argues the city is unlikely to legalize Uber.
• The Broadside Blog examines the staggering level of income inequality in the United States.
• Centauri Dreams considers, in real-life and science fiction, the problems with maintaining artificial economies and notes the complexities of the Pluto system.
• Crooked Timber notes the problems of organized labour and Labour in the United Kingdom.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes how atmospheric oxygen may not automatically point to the sign of life.
• The Dragon’s Tales maps volcanic heat flow on Io and wonders if that world has a subsurface magna ocean
• Far Outliers notes a popular thief in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan and looks at the politicization of the German military after the 1944 coup.
• Geocurrents calls for recognizing the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan and Somaliland and looks at the geography of American poverty.
• Language Log notes Sinified Japanese.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money examines the complexities of race and history in New Mexico.
• Marginal Revolution notes that India unlike China cannot sustain global growth, approves of Snyder’s Black Earth, and notes poor economic outcomes for graduates of some American universities.
• Otto Pohl is not optimistic about Ghana’s economic future.
• The Planetary Society Blog evaluates the latest images from Mars.
• pollotenchegg evaluates the 1931 Polish census in what is now western Ukraine.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer looks at why Syrian refugees will not be resettled in South America and observes that Mexico has birthright citizenship.
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands describes the negative relationship for her between blogging and writing.
• The Russian Demographics Blog examines rising mortality in Ukraine and notes changing ethnic compositions of Tajikistan’s populations.
• Savage Minds talks about the importance of teaching climate change in anthropology.
• Transit Toronto notes Toronto now has nine new streetcars.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi considers the situation of poor people who go to good schools.
• Window on Eurasia notes the lack of Russian nationalism in the Donbas, observes the scale of the refugee problem in Ukraine, and looks at Russian alienation of Moldova.