[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at stellar nursery NGC 604 in the Triangulum Galaxy.
• Centauri Dreams considers what the rings of Saturn indicate about the inner structure, and formation, of Saturn.
• The Crux looks at the exciting steam-based robot WINE, capable of travelling between asteroids and hopping around larger worlds like Ceres and Europa with steam.
• D-Brief looks at how the colours of the ocean will change over time, some parts becoming bluer and others greener as phytoplankton populations change.
• Gizmodo deals critically with the idea that “permatripping” on LSD is possible. At most, the drug might expose underlying issues.
• Imageo notes that, even with the polar vortex, cold snaps in North America under global warming have been becoming less cold over time.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Cutex, in the early 1910s, created a new market for manicures.
• Language Hat mourns linguist, and fluent speaker of Sumerian, Miguel Civil.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how there is not a centre in American politics to be exploited by the likes of Howard Schultz, that if anything there is an unrepresented left.
• Marginal Revolution shares a commenter’s argument–misguided, I think–that a wealth tax would represent a violation of privacy rights.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog notes that the InSight probe on Mars has placed the Wind and Thermal Shield above its seismometer.
• At Une heure de peine …, Denis Colombi takes issue with the use of statistics without a deeper understanding as to what they represent.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that, while a report that Belarus is investigating the possibility of autocephaly for its national church on the Ukrainian model is likely fake news, it may reflect underlying trends.
• Arnold Zwicky points readers towards the enjoyable music of Americana/folk duo Mandolin Orange.