[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• The Crux looks at the australopiths, not-so-distant ancestors of modern humans.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the interest of NASA in exploring the lunar subsurface, including lava tubes.
• Far Outliers looks at the politicking of mid-19th century European explorers in the Sahel.
• io9 notes that the new Joker film is getting stellar reviews, aided by the performance of Joaquin Phoenix.
• JSTOR Daily explores how, to meet censors’ demands, Betty Boop was remade in the 1930s from sex symbol into housewife.
• Language Log reports on an utter failure in bilingual Irish/English signage.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money shows that a history of slavery in the US (Canada too, I would add) must not neglect the enslavement of indigenous peoples.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper studying San Francisco looking at how rent control did not work.
• The NYR Daily considers growing protest against air travel for its impact on global climate.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the queer romance film Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the influence of Russia in the former Soviet Union is undone by Russian imperialism.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the striking imagery–originally religious–of “carnal weapons”.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• The Buzz shares a TIFF reading list, here.
• Centauri Dreams notes the growing sensitivity of radial velocity techniques in finding weird exoplanet HR 5183 b, here.
• The Crux reports on circumgalactic gas and the death of galaxies.
• Dead Things notes the import of the discovery of the oldest known Australopithecine skull.
• Dangerous Minds reports on pioneering 1930s queer artist Hannah Gluckstein, also known as Gluck.
• Gizmodo notes that, for an unnamed reason, DARPA needs a large secure underground testing facility for tomorrow.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Jim Crow laws affected Mexican immigrants in the early 20th century US.
• Language Hat looks at a new project to study Irish texts and language over centuries.
• Language Log shares some Chinglish signs from a top university in China.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money shares an interview with Jeffrey Melnick suggesting Charles Manson was substantially a convenient boogeyman.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper suggesting marijuana legalization is linked to declining crime rates.
• Susan Neiman at the NYR Daily tells how she began her life as a white woman in Atlanta and is ending it as a Jewish woman in Berlin.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at Hayabusa2 at Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel celebrated the 230th anniversary of Enceladus, the Saturn moon that might harbour life.
• Window on Eurasia notes how global warming is harming the rivers of Siberia, causing many to run short.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait shares images of Jupiter, imaged in infrared by ALMA.
• Centauri Dreams looks at ocean upwelling on one class of super-habitable exoplanet.
• D-Brief looks at how the Komodo dragon survived the threat of extinction.
• Far Outliers reports on a mid-19th century slave raid in the Sahel.
• Gizmodo notes that the secret US Air Force spaceplane, the X-37B, has spent two years in orbit. (Doing what?)
• JSTOR Daily looks at the economic underpinnings of medieval convents.
• Dave Brockington writes at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the continuing meltdown of the British political system in the era of Brexit, perhaps even of British democracy.
• The LRB Blog looks at the impact of Brexit on the Common Travel Area.
• Marginal Revolution reports on how Poland has tried to deter emigration by removing income taxes on young workers.
• Carole Naggar writes at the NYR Daily about the photography of women photographers working for LIFE, sharing examples of their work.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why time has to be a dimension of the universe, alongside the three of space.
• Frank Jacobs of Strange Maps shares NASA images of the forest fires of Amazonia.
• Window on Eurasia notes that many Russophones of Ukraine are actually strongly opposed to Russia, contrary Russian stereotypes of language determining politics.

[AH] Five r/imaginarymaps #alternatehistory maps: Polabians, Huguenots, Malays, Finland, Ireland

• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines the survival of a Slavic people of east Germany to nation-statehood, not the extant Sorbs but the more obscure Polabians.
• Was there ever a possibility, as imagined in this r/imaginarymaps map, of a Huguenot polity forming and seceding from France?

This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a decidedly different Malay world, with a fragmented Indonesia.

• This r/imaginarymaps map imagines a Finland that grew sharply, to include much more of Karelia and even North Ingria.
• What would have come if, as suggested here, Northern Ireland had been repartitioned in the 1920s, most of the west and south passing to independent Ireland?

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul takes a look at different retrofuture imaginings from the 20th century of what architecture might look like in the 21st century.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the mysteries surrounding a sudden recent eruption of Sagittarius A*.
• Centauri Dreams considers what the James Webb Space Telescope might be able to pick up from TRAPPIST-1.
• Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber considers Ossian’s Ride, a SF novel by Fred Hoyle imagining a progressive Ireland leapfrogging ahead of Britain, and how this scenario is being realized now.
• D-Brief looks at what a glitch in the spin rate of the Vela pulsar reveals about these bodies.
• Dangerous Minds looks at how Rock Hudson came to star in the SF film Seconds.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a new NASA Kepler study suggesting (very) broadly Earth-like worlds might orbit as many as one in six Sun-like stars.
• Gizmodo links</u. to a study suggesting the oddly fuzzy core of Jupiter might be a consequences of an ancient collision with a massive protoplanet.
• Imageo notes that July broke all sorts of climate records.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Trump administration has exempted Bibles from the new China tariffs.
• Language Hat considers, after the space of a decade, why people might say a language is so foreign as to be Greek.
• Robert Farley links at Lawyers, Guns and Money to an analysis of what major battle fleets around the world would have looked like in 1950 absent a Second World War.
• The LRB Blog notes how the UK Conservative government’s turn towards repressive law-and-order measures will please Faragists.
• The Map Room Blog shares maps indicating the scale of the American opioid crisis.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution links to one of his columns noting how two decades of nil economic growth has harmed Italy.
• Peter Watts at his blog has a critical take on the Chinese SF movie The Wandering Earth.
• The NYR Daily looks at how things are becoming quite bad for Kashmiris.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the OSIRIS-REx team is looking for sample sites on asteroid Bennu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the evidence from our solar system’s moons that two planets can indeed stably share the same orbit.
• Towleroad notes how a successful campaign has helped London fetish bar Backstreet survive gentrification.
• Arnold Zwicky shares some gorgeous blue and black flowers in the Gamble Garden of Palo Alto, and meditations on said.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Hillsborough, Derry, Paris, Mecca

• La Presse looks at the challenges facing changing Lachine-Est, here.
• The small New Brunswick town of Hillsborough may lose its only grocery store. Global News reports.
• Guardian Cities looks at the vexed question of how, or if, the Northern Ireland city of Derry should celebrate its political murals.
• Guardian Cities notes that Paris will soon host a substantial rooftop farm.
• Tom van Laer and Elif Izberk-Bilgin at The Conversation explain why reviews of facilities in holy cities, like Mecca, tend to be so inflated.

[NEWS] Five JSTOR Daily links: hobos, bird green, Ireland linen, Frank Lloyd Wright, photosynthesis

• JSTOR Daily looks at how early 20th century Americans facing underemployment and persecution under vagrancy laws organized themselves, ultimately creating the Hobo College of Chicago.
• JSTOR Daily explains how the green that we think we see in the feathers of some birds actually is not really there.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the Napoleonic Wars helped transform the linen industry in Ireland, not least by drawing women into the workforce.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Frank Lloyd Wright was decidedly unhappy with the mass produced Taliesin Line of homewares made in the 1950s.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the amazing potential of artificial photosynthesis, particularly as a source of fuel.