[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the possible discovery of Proxima Centauri c.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of a second circumbinary planet in the Kepler-47 system.
• Far Outliers notes the Union reaction to the civil war battle of Shiloh.
• Mark Graham shares a link to an article abstract examining the impact of call centres on social upgrading in South Africa.
• io9 notes plans for closer integration between the movie and television properties of the MCU.
• JSTOR Daily explains how Florida got its name.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the similarities between the Notre Dame fire and the destruction of the National Museum of Brazil last year.
• The LRB Blog notes the appeal of Gothic architecture.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that, in the United States, negative effects of the China Shock had concluded a decade ago.
• The NYR Daily looks at Trump’s agitprop.
• Drew Rowsome interviews actor Nathaniel Bacon on the occasion of his appearance in a new Sky Gilbert show.
• Peter Rukavina shares a map of light pollution on PEI.
• Starts With A Bang shares a plan for reducing light pollution in a n urbanizing world.
• Window on Eurasia complains of a creeping annexation of Belarus by Russia.

[NEWS] Five space science links: Psyche, Proxima Centauri b and c, Voyager and Pioneer, humans

• Evan Gough at Universe Today notes the possibility that the asteroid Psyche, in its hot youth, might have had volcanoes ejecting molten iron.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a new paper suggesting that, on suitable exoplanets orbiting red dwarfs like Proxima Centauri b, their stars produce environments not much more hostile than those suffered by the early Earth.
• Nadia Drake at National Geographic notes the news of the possible discovery of a second exoplanet at Proxima Centauri, c, in a five-year orbit.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today shares a study tracing the paths of the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft over millennia of movement in interstellar space.
• Jason Pontin at WIRED shares the result of a study of twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly, noting how space affected Scott Kelly in negative ways. Long-distance human spaceflight is possible, but more work is definitely needed for it to be safe, even survivable.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Anthrodendum recommends design researcher Jan Chipchase’s Field Study Handbook for anthropologists interested in field practice.
• Architectuul investigates strange similarities between buildings built in far-removed parts of the world.
• Centauri Dreams takes a look at TESS, the next generation of exoplanet-hunting satellite.
• Crooked Timber investigates the connections between the spiritualism of the 19th century and the fiction of the uncanny.
• D-Brief notes the many names, often delightful, that newly-discovered locations on Mercury and Charon have received.
• Cody Delistraty investigates two exhibitions of French satirists, including Charlie Hedo’s Georges Wolinski, to examine the nature of satire.
• The Dragon’s Tales considers the possibility of cryomagna leaving marks on the surface of Europa.
• Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the strangely alien skies of TRAPPIST-1e. What would its sun look like? How would the other planets appear?
• The Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at the new prominence of multigenerational households in the United States. While a response to economic strains, it also looks back to past traditions.
• Hornet Stories notes how, on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Monet X Change gave a decent explanation behind the surprisingly recent birth of the modern British accent.
• Imageo notes how a massive blob of warm water is rising to the surface of the Pacific.
• At In A State of Migration, Lyman Stone explores the unique population history of Maine, to my eyes easily the most Atlantic Canadian of the fifty American states.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper exploring why modern video games can produce such rewarding experiences for players. (We can get meaning from many places.)
• Language Log takes a look at the complexity of Chinese language classifications with a song by Yishi Band. What exactly is Yibin Sichuanese?
• Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a look at an interesting question: When did Jews in the United States become white?
• The LRB Blog takes a look at the baffling reasons behind the poisoning of the Skribins with Novichok, and the science behind it.
• Marginal Revolution notes that this year, GDP per capita measured at PPP in Spain is higher than in Italy. (This probably says more about the disarray in Italy.)
• The NYR Daily shares an interesting interview with cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw tells of his experiences on a trip to the small Australian city of Armidale, in the region of New England.
• Justin Petrone reflects on the tidy and clean, minimalist even, rural landscape of Estonia.
• Progressive Download’s John Farrell notes brain scans that provide evidence of consciousness even in very young infants.
• Drew Rowsome praises the Toronto production of the musical Fun Home, based on the Alison Bechdel graphic novel. I, for one, can’t wait to see it.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, although Proxima Centauri is far too active a star for Proxima Centauri b to be Earth-like, that world could still plausibly host life-supporting environments.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy suggests a recent deal at the federal level in the US between Trump and Cory Gardner has created space for states to legalize marijuana without fear of federal intervention.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that a recent massive flare at Proxima Centauri, one that made the star become a thousand times brighter, not only makes Proxima b unlikely to be habitable but makes it unlikely Proxima has (as some suggested) a big planetary system.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that South Korea, contrary to earlier reports, is not going to ban cryptocurrency.
• Hornet Stories notes that six American states–Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, and Oklahoma–have seen the introduction of legislation replacing marriage with a marriage contract, on account of marriage equality.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the deep similarities and differences between serfdom in Russia and slavery in the United States, both formally abolished in the 1860s.
• Language Hat links to a Telegraph article reporting on the efforts of different people to translate different ancient languages.
• The New APPS Blog notes that, after Delta dropped its discount for NRA members, the pro-NRA governor of Georgia dropped tax breaks for the airline.
• This call for the world to respond to the horrors in Syria, shared at the NYR Daily, is likely to fall on deaf ears.
• At Strange Maps, Frank Jacobs shares some maps showing areas where the United States is truly exceptional.
• Supernova Condensate notes how nested planetary orbits can be used to trace beautiful spirograph patterns.
• Window on Eurasia notes how no one in the Soviet Union in 1991 was prepared to do anything to save the Soviet Union.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait tells us what tantalizing little is known about Proxima Centauri and its worlds.
• Centauri Dreams imagines that, for advanced civilizations based on energy-intensive computing, their most comfortable homes may be in the cool dark of space, intergalactic space even.
• D-Brief notes an effort to predict the evolution of stick insects that went in interesting, if substantially wrong, directions.
• Mark Graham notes that, in the developing world, the supply of people willing to perform digital work far outweighs the actual availability of jobs.
• Mathew Ingram announces that he is now chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review.
• JSTOR Daily explores how consumerism was used, by the United States, to sell democracy to post-war West Germany.
• Language Hat explores the script of the Naxi, a group in the Chinese Himalayas.
• Paul Campos considers at Lawyers, Guns and Money the importance of JK Galbraith’s The Affluent Society. If we are richer than ever before and yet our living standards are disappointing, is this not the sort of political failure imagined?
• Russell Darnley takes a look at how the death of a community’s language can lead to the death of that community’s ecosystem.
• Jason Davis at the Planetary Society Blog considers the possibility of the ISS being replaced by privately-owned space stations.
• Dmitry Ermakov at Roads and Kingdoms shares some photos from his ventures among the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia.
• Peter Rukavina shares a black-and-white photo of Charlottetown harbour covered in ice.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel makes the point that cancelling NASA’s WFIRST telescope would kneecap NASA science.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes J0045, once thought to be a star in Andromeda and but recognized as a binary black hole a thousand times further away.
• Centauri Dreams notes the longevity of the Voyager mission.
• D-Brief notes that some worms can thrive in a simulacrum of Mars soil.
• The Dragon’s Gaze notes an ambitious effort to try to detect a transit of Proxima Centauri b. Did the researchers pick something up?
• Hornet Stories links to a report suggesting HIV denialism is worryingly common in parts of Russia.
• Language Log reports on an apparently oddly bilingual Chinese/Vietnamese poster. Where did it come from?
• The LRB Blog reports on how Tunisian Anouar Brahem fused jazz with Arabic music on his new album Blue Maqems.
• The Map Room Blog links to a lecture by John Cloud on indigenous contributions to mapmaking in Alaska.
• The NYR Daily looks at the grim position of Theresa May in Brexit negotiations.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer considers what would have happened if the Americas had not been populated in 1492. How would imperialism and settlement differ?
• Roads and Kingdoms notes some of the architectural legacies–houses, for instance–of Basque settlement in the American West.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes three conundrums that neutrinos might be able to solve.
• Window on Eurasia notes why Russia is hostile, despite its program of merging federal units, to the idea of uniting Tatarstan with Bashkortostan.
• Using an interwar map of Imperial Airways routes, Alex Harrowell illustrates how the construction of globalized networks can make relatively marginal areas quite central.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Centauri Dreams notes the remarkably complex system of Proxima Centauri, with multiple belts and more possible planets, as does D-Brief.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of a new sort of fusion reactions, involving not atoms but quarks.
• Hornet Stories notes a new acoustic cover of the Kinky Boots song “Not My Father’s Son.”
• Language Hat takes a brief look at Cyrillic, since the Soviet era written in Cyrillic script.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the Trump Administration is unconcerned by the latest report regarding catastrophic climate change.
• The LRB Blog notes how Armenia and Armenians remember past genocides and current refugee flows.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes the further extension of the Dawn mission at Ceres.
• Drew Rowsome shares some of Stephen King’s tips for aspiring writers.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how some long-exposure Hubble photographs of galaxies picked up nearby asteroids.
• John Scalzi shares his cover of “Rocket Man”.
• Window on Eurasia wonders if ISIS is spreading into Russia via migrant workers from Central Asia.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Anthrodendum takes a look at the way community knowledge is now being subject to a privatization.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlyn Kelly starts a discussion about what makes home.
• Bruce Dorminey suggests a pre-Theia, Moon-sized impactor gave the Earth its metal crust.
• The Dragon’s Gaze looks at the current state of knowledge about Proxima b.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Russia is apparently testing advanced nuclear weapons.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas considers the religious impulse in so many technophiles’ view of the world.
• Language Hat considers the dynamics associated with learning minority languages in Europe.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money shares a classic traffic safety clip from 1913.
• The LRB Blog mourns the loss of Glen Newey, long-time contributor.
• Lovesick Cyborg notes a NASA study into the economics of a viable space-based solar power project.
• Roads and Kingdoms takes a look at the açorda of Portugal, a bread-based broth that was a long-time food of the poor.
• Cheri Lucas Rowlands celebrates the passage of summer into fall through photos of her vegetable garden.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the representation of LGBTQ people on television, and sees much reason for cheer.
• Science Sushi notes that different dolphin groups seem to have different dialects.
• Understanding Society takes a look at Robert Merton’s refinement of social functionalism.
• Window on Eurasia notes that many ethnic Russians in Belarus, as in Ukraine, have shifted identity to that of the titular nation.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes one mistake made about artificial intelligence: it is not automatically more accurate.

[NEWS] Five science links: Uganda coffee, the cetenophore, the Rapanui, Proxima b, Przybylski’s star

• National Geographic reports on how, unchecked, global warming may wreck the coffee industry of Uganda.
• Aeon notes the nervous system of the ctenophore, product of a separate evolutionary process from our own.
• Phys.org describes a recent study suggesting Easter Island was not wrecked by ecocide. (The Rapanui were devastated by others, I would add.)
• Even with an active magnetic field, an Earth-like atmosphere of Proxima Centauri b might be eroded away by flares. Universe Today reports on the climate model making this prediction.
• Does bizarre Przybylski’s star, HD 101065, contain exotic superheavy elements in its atmosphere? New Scientist wonders.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Charley Ross notes the belated recovery and identification of Margret Dodd, four decades after her abduction and more than two after her body was found.
• D-Brief notes that the Pale Red Dot is extending their exoplanet search from Proxima Centauri to include Barnard’s Star and Ross 154.
• Dangerous Minds shares colour autochromes of American women from a century ago.
• Gizmodo notes more evidence suggesting Mars’ moons, Phobos and Deimos, are legacies of a massive Mars impact.
• The LRB Blog looks back at the 1951 “Festival of Britain”.
• Roads and Kingdoms’ Karen Dias looks at a girls’ soccer team in Haryana, north India.
• Peter Rukavina shares a sketch of some of the work being done at Province House.
• The Volokh Conspiracy looks at the timeline for Russian influence on the Trump campaign.
• Window on Eurasia comes to worrying conclusions about ethnic conflict in Daghestan.