[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} shares a new take on the atmosphere, as a common good.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Earth taken from a hundred million kilometres away by the OSIRIS-REx probe.
• The Crux tells the story of how the first exoplanets were found.
• D-Brief notes that life could be possible on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, assuming it could deal with the blueshifting.
• io9 looks at the latest bold move of Archie Comics.
• JSTOR Daily explores cleaning stations, where small fish clean larger ones.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role China seeks to play in a remade international order.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the new upcoming national atlas of Estonia.
• Marginal Revolution touches on the great ambition of Louis XIV for a global empire.
• Steve Baker of The Numerati shares photos from his recent trip to Spain.
• Anya Schiffrin at the NRY Daily explains how American journalist Varian Fry helped her family, and others, escape the Nazis.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the classic movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map looking at the barriers put up by the high-income world to people moving from outside.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel answers the complex question of how, exactly, the density of a black hole can be measured.
• John Scalzi at Whatever reviews Gemini Man. Was the high frame rate worth it?
• Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of Tuvins towards a large Russian population in Tuva.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the existential question of self-aware cartoon characters.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul looks at a new architecture project intent on the interface between land and sea.
• Bad Astronomy reports on the impact of a meteorite with a house in Uruguay.
• Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about the importance of lightening the loads of others when one can.
• Centauri Dreams writes about how OSIRIS-REx is responding to unexpected conditions at Bennu like its relative rockiness. https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/03/21/working-with-the-unexpected-at-asteroid-bennu/
• The Crux considers the remarkable versatility of ketamine, as anesthetic and anti-depressant among other things.
• D-Brief notes a report that reveals universal patterns of app usage on cell phones by different people.
• Dangerous Minds shares some vintage R.E.M. performances from 1981.
• Earther notes that temperatures in parts of Alaska have just briefly peaked at 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Gizmodo notes the new accurate guide for walkers provided by a new Google Maps system making use of landmarks.
• Kieran Healy breaks down some data from the 2018 General Social Survey.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Sylvester classic “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” has been selected for preservation by the National Registry of the Library of Congress.
• JSTOR Daily makes a case for treating the art of children not as mere scribblings but rather as art worthy of serious consideration.
• Language Hat notes the sensitive translation by one man of the Bible into the 20th century vernacular Arabic of Egypt.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the Mueller report, what is and is not likely to be in it, and how one should react to it.
• Marginal Revolution notes the extent to which the employment rates of women has been a driving factor in recent American economic history.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw celebrates his 13th anniversary of blogging.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews Shannon Mustipher on Caribbean rum culture.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the new interactive theatre piece Amorous Playlist.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why quantum tunneling does not violate the speed of light.
• Towleroad notes that the André Aciman sequel to Call Me By Your Name, Find Me, is scheduled for an October release.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes how the denaturalization by Italy of a man who committed terrible criminal acts sets a bad precedent for citizenship generally.
• Window on Eurasia lists five tactics that non-Russian republics in Russia could adopt to resist their abolition.
• Arnold Zwicky begins a meditation that starts with the sight of a vegetarian reuben sandwich.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Charlie Stross at Antipope has an open thread regarding Brexit.
• Centauri Dreams considers the dust lanes of the solar system.
• D-Brief reports on the discovery of the first confirmed skull piece of a Denisovan.
• Dangerous Minds considers the filmic history of Baron Munchausen.
• JSTOR Daily considers the past of the Monroe Doctrine, as a marker of American power over the Western Hemisphere.
• Language Log notes that “frequency illusion”, a 2005 coinage of Arnold Zwicky on that blog, has made it to the Oxford English Dictionary. Congratulations!
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the talents of Pete Buttigieg, someone who (among other things) is fluent in the Norwegian language. Could he be a serious challenger?
• Oliver Miles at the LRB Blog notes the threat of new locust swarms across the Sahara and into the Middle East.
• Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution highlights a new paper aiming to predict the future, one that argues that the greatest economic gains will eventually accrue to the densest populations.
• The NYR Daily reports from the scene in a fragmented Libya.
• The Planetary Society Blog reports that the OSIRIS-REx probe has detected asteroid Bennu ejecting material into space.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains the import of having a supermoon occur on the Equinox this year.
• Strange Maps’ Frank Jacobs reports a new finding that Mercury actually tends to be the closest planet in the Solar System to Earth.
• Window on Eurasia notes that fewer Russians than before think highly of the annexation of Crimea.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the astounding precision of the new Habitable Planet Finder telescope.
• D-Brief notes that the lack of small craters on Pluto and Charon suggests there are not many small bodies in the Kuiper Belt.
• Far Outliers notes the many and widely varying transliterations of Bengali to English.
• JSTOR Daily notes the extent to which border walls represent, ultimately, a failure of politics.
• Language Log examines the emergence of the Germanic languages in the depths of prehistory.
• Anna Aslanyan at the LRB Blog considers the eternal search for a universal language.
• Noah Smith shareshis Alternative Green New Deal Plan at his blog, one that depends more on technology and market forces than the original.
• Mitchell Abidor at the NYR Daily writes about the incisive leftism of journalist Victor Sorge.
• Out There notes the reality that the worlds of our solar system, and almost certainly other systems, are united by a constant stream of incoming rocks.
• At the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla examines the data transmitted back by OSIRIS-REx from that probe’s Earth flyby.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel examines cosmic conditions at the time the solar system formed 4.56 billion or so years ago.
• Towleroad notes the censorship of many explicitly gay scenes from Bohemian Rhapsody in its Chinese release.
• Window on Eurasia looks at the many ways in which the social norms of North Caucasian men are converging with those of the average Russian.
• On St. David’s Day, Arnold Zwicky pays tribute to the daffodil and to the Welsh.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul looks at the divided cities of the divided island of Cyprus.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares an image of a galaxy that actually has a tail.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber talks about her pain as an immigrant in the United Kingdom in the era of Brexit, her pain being but one of many different types created by this move.
• The Crux talks about the rejected American proposal to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon, and the several times the United States did arrange for lesser noteworthy events there (collisions, for the record).
• D-Brief notes how the innovative use of Curiosity instruments has explained more about the watery past of Gale Crater.
• Bruce Dorminey notes one astronomer’s theory that Venus tipped early into a greenhouse effect because of a surfeit of carbon relative to Earth.
• Far Outliers looks at missionaries in China, and their Yangtze explorations, in the late 19th century.
• Gizmodo notes evidence that Neanderthals and Denisovans cohabited in a cave for millennia.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox writes about his exploration of the solo music of Paul McCartney.
• io9 looks at what is happening with Namor in the Marvel universe, with interesting echoes of recent Aquaman storylines.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the Beothuk of Newfoundland and their sad fate.
• Language Hat explores Patagonian Afrikaans.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on how mindboggling it is to want to be a billionaire. What would you do with that wealth?
• The Map Room Blog shares a visualization of the polar vortex.
• Marginal Revolution reports on the career of a writer who writes stories intended to help people fall asleep.
• The New APPS Blog reports on the power of biometric data and the threat of its misuse.
• Neuroskeptic takes a look at neurogenesis in human beings.
• Out There notes the import, in understanding our solar system, of the New Horizons photos of Ultima Thule.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog notes that OSIRIS-REx is in orbit of Bennu and preparing to take samples.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a list of 21 things that visitors to Kolkata should know.
• Mark Simpson takes a critical look at the idea of toxic masculinity. Who benefits?
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why global warming is responsible for the descent of the polar vortex.
• Window on Eurasia notes how the pro-Russian Gagauz of Moldova are moving towards a break if the country at large becomes pro-Western.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the art of Finnish painter Hugo Simberg.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the latest images of asteroid Bennu provided by the OSIRIS-REx probe.
• The Crux notes the impact of genetic research on theories of language among the Neanderthals. If they were, as seems very likely, users of language, did their language use differ from that of homo sapiens sapiens?
• D-Brief notes that climate change leads to changes in the microbiology of soils. (What effect would this have on the environment? Unknown, as of yet.)
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that the Indian aircraft Vikramaditya has just had its second refit completed.
• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the social construction of geography. How are categories created, for instance?
• Far Outliers looks at efforts to educate prisoners of war in the Second World War-era United States, to use them even as test-beds for a wider reeducation of their societies.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing, considering the idea of the society of the spectacle of Debord after the thoughts of Foucault, notes the early prediction of a fusion between surveillance and spectacle, of a fusion between the two.
• Hornet Stories notes the anti-gay policies of the government of Tanzania government, arguing that country cannot be allowed to be a second Chechnya.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the rhetoric of Richard Nixon helped pave the way for Donald Trump.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that even if the Democratic Party loses today’s elections in the United States, Americans should still have hope, should still work for a better future. I wish you all luck, myself.
• The Map Room Blog looks at Stanford University’s archive of the Maps of the Office of Strategic Studies.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining immigrant success in Sweden, noting the complicating picture of general success: Children of more deprived refugees do better than more favoured ones.
• The NYR Daily looks at early feminist Ernestine Rose.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the work of Cambodian architect Dy Preoung, who during the Khmer Rouge era managed to preserve his work on Angkor Wat.
• Drew Rowsome looks at the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, focusing on its queer elements.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel examines how black holes actually do evaporate.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy notes the signal flaws with the argument that migrants should stay at home and fix their country. (What if they have no chance to, for instance?)
• Window on Eurasia notes that the West has a vested interest in the survival of Lukashenka in Belarus, if only because a sudden liberalization could well lead to a Russian invasion.
• Nick Rowe at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes a look at “bicycle disequilibrium theory”.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Architectuul talks about the remarkable and distinctive housing estates of south London, like Alexandra Road, currently under pressure from developers and unsympathetic governments.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at Bennu, set to be visited by the OSIRIS-REx probe.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly talks about meeting people you’ve met online via social networks, making friends even. Myself, I’ve done this all the time: Why not use these networks to their fullest in a fragmented vast world?
• Centauri Dreams celebrates the now-completed mission of the exoplanet-hunting Kepler space telescope.
• D-Brief looks at the distinctive seasons of Triton, and the still-open questions surrounding Neptune’s largest moon.
• At JSTOR Daily, Nancy Bilyeau writes about the import of the famous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, something often underplayed despite its potential for huge change and its connection to wider conflicts.
• Language Hat notes the name of God in the Hebrew tradition, Yahweh. Where did it come from?
• Language Log shares an interesting idea for helping to preserve marginalized languages: Why not throw a language party celebrating the language?
• Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the question of what historical general or military leader would do best leading the armies of the living dead.
• The NYR Daily looks at the problems with Erdogan’s big investments in public infrastructure in Turkey, starting with the new Istanbul airport.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the possibility of life in the very early universe. Earth-like life could have started within a billion years of the Big Bang; Earth life might even have begun earlier, for that matter.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shows a map of Europe identifying which countries are the more chauvinistic in the continent.
• Window on Eurasia notes the strength of the relatively recent division between Tatars and Bashkirs, two closely related people with separate identities grown strong in the Soviet era.