[BLOG] Five Bad Astronomy links (@badastronomer)

• Bad Astronomy notes the remarkable burst of starbirth at the core of our galaxy one billion years ago, here.
• Bad Astronomy shares a flyby video of the Mars moon of Phobos.
• Bad Astronomer reports on a strange storm around the south pole of Jupiter, here.
• Bad Astronomer reports on an outburst following a debris impact seen by TESS on comet 47P/Wirtanen.
• Bad Astronomer notes the continuing debate over the dynamic nature of the spiral arms of galaxies.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul visits the studio of Barbas Lopes Arquitectos in Lisbon, here.
• Bad Astronomer takes a look at a new paper examining the effectiveness of different asteroid detection technologies, including nuclear weapons.
• Centauri Dreams reports on a new study suggesting potentially habitable planets orbiting Alpha Centauri B, smaller of the two stars, could suffer from rapid shifts of their axes.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber argues some polls suggest some American conservatives really would prefer Russia as a model to California.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the discovery, by the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia, of 27 supernova remnants in our galaxy.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares a collection of links about stealth aircraft, here.
• Gizmodo notes a new study suggesting that DNA is but one of very very many potential genetic molecules.
• Language Hat shares a reevaluation of the Richard Stanyhurst translation of the Aeneid, with its manufactured words. Why mightn’t this have been not mockable but rather creative?
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money celebrated the 50th anniversary of the takeover of Alcatraz Island by Native American activists.
• Chris Bertram writes at the LRB Blog, after the catastrophe of the Essex van filled with dozens of dead migrants, about the architecture of exclusion that keeps out migrants.
• Marginal Revolution shares a comment looking at the fentanyl crisis from a new angle.
• Jenny Uglow writes at the NYR Daily about a Science Museum exhibit highlighting the dynamic joys of science and its progress over the centuries.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw takes a look at the question of how to prevent the wildfires currently raging in Australia. What could have been done, what should be done?
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on proposals from China for two long-range probe missions to interstellar space, including a Neptune flyby.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the wonderfully innocent Pinocchio currently playing at the Young People’s Theatre.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the evidence for the universe, maybe, being closed.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the Alexandria Patriarchate is the next Orthodox body to recognize the Ukrainian church.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at irregular versus regular, as a queer word too.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy notes the mystery of distant active galaxy SDSS J163909+282447.1, with a supermassive black hole but few stars.
• Centauri Dreams shares a proposal from Robert Buckalew for craft to engage in planned panspermia, seeding life across the galaxy.
• The Crux looks at the theremin and the life of its creator, Leon Theremin.
• D-Brief notes that termites cannibalize their dead, for the good of the community.
• Dangerous Minds looks at William Burroughs’ Blade Runner, an adaptation of a 1979 science fiction novel by Alan Nourse.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a new study explaining how the Milky Way Galaxy, and the rest of the Local Group, was heavily influenced by its birth environment.
• JSTOR Daily looks at why the Chernobyl control room is now open for tourists.
• Dale Campos at Lawyers. Guns and Money looks at the effects of inequality on support for right-wing politics.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog looks at the decay and transformation of British politics, with Keith Vaz and Brexit.
• Marginal Revolution shares a paper explaining why queens are more warlike than kings.
• Omar G. Encarnación at the NYR Daily looks at how Spain has made reparations to LGBTQ people for past homophobia. Why should the United States not do the same?
• Corey S. Powell at Out There shares his interview with physicist Sean Carroll on the reality of the Many Worlds Theory. There may be endless copies of each of us out there. (Where?)
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why 5G is almost certainly safe for humans.
• Strange Company shares a newspaper clipping reporting on a haunting in Wales’ Plas Mawr castle.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at all the different names for Africa throughout the years.
• The Volokh Conspiracy considers, in the case of the disposal of eastern Oklahoma, whether federal Indian law should be textualist. (They argue against.)
• Window on Eurasia notes the interest of the government of Ukraine in supporting Ukrainians and other minorities in Russia.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at syntax on signs for Sloppy Joe’s.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a study suggesting the Milky Way Galaxy took many of its current satellite galaxies from another, smaller one.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks of the importance of having dreams.
• Centauri Dreams shares a study explaining how the debris polluting the atmospheres of white dwarfs reveals much about exoplanet chemistry.
• D-Brief notes that the intense radiation of Jupiter would not destroy potential traces of subsurface life on the surface of Europa.
• Dangerous Minds looks at the strange musical career of Vader Abraham, fan of the Smurfs and of the Weepuls.
• Aneesa Bodiat at JSTOR Daily writes about how the early Muslim woman of Haajar inspires her as a Muslim.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how an influx of American guns destabilizes Mexico.
• The LRB Blog looks at the American abandonment of the Kurds of Syria.
• Marginal Revolution notes how many mass protests are driven by consumer complaints.
• The NYR Daily has an interview with EU chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, on the future of sovereignty.
• Strange Company looks at the Dead Pig War between the US and the UK on San Juan Island in 1859.
• Towleroad features the defense of Frank Ocean of his PrEP+ club night and the release of his new music.
• Understanding Society looks at the sociology of norms.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Russia and Ukraine each have an interest in the Donbass being a frozen conflict.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the weird masculinity of the pink jock.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes new research on where the sun is located within the Milky Way Galaxy.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly considers the value of slow fashion.
• Centauri Dreams notes the different gas giants that our early methods have yet to pick up.
• Crooked Timber shares a lovely photo looking back at Venice from across its lagoon.
• D-Brief notes that upcoming space telescopes might find hundreds of rogue planets thanks to microlensing.
• io9 notes that Marvel will soon be producing Warhammer40K comics.
• The Island Review shares some poetry and photography by Ken Cockburn inspired by the Isle of Jura.
• JSTOR Daily notes that different humpback whale groups have different songs, different cultures.
• Language Hat tries to find the meaning of the odd Soviet Yiddish word “kolvirt”.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the history of Elizabeth Warren as a law teacher.
• Map Room Blog shares information from Google Maps about its use of data.
• Marginal Revolution notes that in 2016, not a single child born in the United Kingdom was given the name Nigel.
• Peter Watts talks about AI and what else he is doing.
• The NYR Daily marked the centennial of a horrible massacre of African-Americans centered on the Arkansas community of Elaine.
• Emily Margolis at the Planetary Society Blog looks at how the Apollo moon missions helped galvanize tourism in Florida.
• Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money looks at the constitutional crisis in Peru.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Peter Rukavina looks at a spreadsheet revealing the distribution of PEI public servants.
• Spacing reviews a book imagining how small communities can rebuild themselves in neoliberalism.
• Towleroad shares the criticism of Christine and the Queens of the allegedly opportunistic use of queer culture by Taylor Swift.
• Understanding Society considers, sociologically, the way artifacts work.
• The Volokh Conspiracy argues that the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China should be a day of mourning, on account of the high human toll of the PRC.
• Window on Eurasia suggests the Russian generation of the 1970s was too small to create lasting change.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at how underwear ads can be quite sexualized.

[NEWS] Seven space links: Moon and Mercury, black holes and neutron stars, probes

• Universe Today notes that shadowed areas on the Moon and Mercury might have thick deposits of ice, here.
• Science Alert notes a study suggesting that a large number of black holes might be careening throughout the galaxy, here.
• Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy, recently flared for an unknown reason. Science Alert has it.
• Astronomers have found the most massive neutron star yet known, J0740+6620 at 2.17 solar masses 4600 light-years away. Phys.org reports.
• The environment surrounding a supermassive black hole like Sagittarius A* might actually be a good place to live, if you have the needed technology. Scientific American considers.
• Universe Today notes that the Hubble has been looking at the fading 2017 kilonova GRB 170817A, mapping the fading glow.
• A new study suggests that space is not filled with civilizations of self-replicating probes competing with each other. Cosmos Magazine reports.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Architectuul reports on the critical walking tours of Istanbul offered by Nazlı Tümerdem.
• Centauri Dreams features a guest post from Alex Tolley considering the biotic potential of the subsurface ocean of Enceladus.
• The Crux reports on how paleontologist Susie Maidment tries to precisely date dinosaur sediments.
• D-Brief notes the success of a recent project aiming to map the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy.
• Cody Delistraty considers the relationship between the One Percent and magicians.
• Todd Schoepflin writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about different sociological facts in time for the new school year.
• Gizmodo shares a lovely extended cartoon imagining what life on Europa, and other worlds with subsurface worlds, might look like.
• io9 features an interview with Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders on the intersection between science fiction writing and science writing.
• JSTOR Daily briefly considers the pros and cons of seabed mining.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that a stagnant economy could be seen as a sign of success, as the result of the exploitation of all potential for growth.
• The NYR Daily reports on the photographs of John Edmonds, a photographer specializing in images of queer black men.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map of murders in Denmark, and an analysis of the facts behind this crime there.
• Window on Eurasia reports on an anti-Putin shaman in Buryatia.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on dreams of going back to school, NSFW and otherwise.

[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.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait looks at Westerlund-1, a massive star cluster with many bright stars in our galaxy.
• Centauri Dreams notes a finding that giant planets like Jupiter are less likely to be found around Sun-like stars.
• D-Brief notes how, in a time of climate change, birds migrated between Canada and the equator.
• Bruce Dorminey lists five overlooked facts about the Apollo 11 mission.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that the US House of Representatives has approved the creation of a US Space Corps analogous to the Marines.
• JSTOR Daily considers tactics to cure groupthink.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, looking at the experience of Hong Kong, observes how closely economic freedoms depend on political freedom and legitimacy.
• Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog explains his rationale for calculating that the Apollo project, in 2019 dollars, cost more than $US 700 billion.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the star R136a1, a star in the 30 Doradus cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud that is the most massive star known to exist.
• Window on Eurasia notes how Circassians in Syria find it very difficult to seek refuge in their ancestral lands in the North Caucasus.
• Arnold Zwicky looks, in occasionally NSFW detail, at the importance of June the 16th for him as a date.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait considers the question of where, exactly, the dwarf galaxy Segue-1 came from.
• Centauri Dreams considers the import of sodium chloride for the water oceans of Europa, and for what they might hold.
• D-Brief wonders if dark matter punched a hole in the Milky Way Galaxy.
• JSTOR Daily warns that the increasing number of satellites in orbit of Earth might hinder our appreciation of the night sky.
• The LRB Blog looks at the complications of democracy and politics in Mauritania.
• Marginal Revolution wonders about the nature of an apparently very decentralized city of Haifa.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There notes that, while our knowledge of the Big Bang is certainly imperfect, the odds of it being wrong are quite, quite low.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the Hayabusa 2 exploration of asteroid Ryugu.
• Vintage Space examines how Apollo astronauts successfully navigated their way to the Moon.
• Window on Eurasia looks at press discussion in Russia around the decriminalization of soft drugs like marijuana.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at a comic depicting a “mememobile.”