[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 Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports suggestions the bizarre happenings at Boyajian’s Star could be explained by an evaporating exomoon.
• Centauri Dreams looks at how the crowdsourced evScope telescope is being used to support the Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojans.
• The Crux explains the phenomenon of misophobia.
• D-Brief shares suggestions that an asteroid collision a half-billion years ago released clouds of dust that, reaching Earth, triggered the mid-Ordovician ice age.
• Dangerous Minds shares video of a perhaps underwhelming meeting of William Burroughs with Francis Bacon.
• io9 makes the case for more near-future space exploration movies like Ad Astra.
• Joe. My. God. notes a Trump retweeting of the lie that Ilham Omar celebrated on 9/11.
• JSTOR Daily notes how fire could destroy the stressed rainforest of the Amazon.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how few judges in the US have been impeached.
• The LRB Blog looks at how the already tenuous position of Haitians in the Bahamas has been worsened by Dorian.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the importance of the integrity of official maps in the era of Trump.
• Marginal Revolution looks at the political importance of marriage ceremonies in Lebanon and Gaza.
• Drew Rowsome interviews the Zakar Twins on the occasion of their new play Pray the Gay Away, playing in Toronto in October.
• The Russian Demographic Blog shares statistics on birthrates in the different provinces of the Russian Empire circa 1906.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on the first experiment done on the photoelectric effect, revealing quantum mechanics.
• Window on Eurasia looks at growing anti-Chinese sentiments in Central Asia.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at “The Hurtful Dog”, a Cyanide and Happiness cartoon.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster considers, after Freeman Dyson, the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial civilizations not from their transmissions but rather from their artifacts.
• Discover blog Collideascape links to a paper arguing that ecosystems are not brittle, breaking down after a certain amount of disruption, but rather that they are more resilient.
• The Dragon’s Tales’ Will Baird links to a paper examining the dynamics of the oceans of Earth during periods of global glaciation, and points to another suggestions that quantum mechanical spooky action as a distance propagates very rapidly.
• Daniel Drezner notes the numerous reasons to expect that post-Chavez Venezuela will not become an American ally any time soon, for reasons rooted in the country’s politics and culture. (Cf Cuba, of course.)
• Noel Maurer, at The Power and The Money, reports from Mexico, where officials are unhappy that the American government isn’t doing much of anything to deal with the flow of illicit cash from the United States to Mexico.
• Torontoist pointed to MGM’s proposed plan for a casino complex at Exhibition Place, on the waterfront at the foot of Dufferin Street.
• Window on Eurasia reports from Ukraine, where the notion of legalizing dual citizenship–in practice, dual Russian-Ukrainian citizenship–is controversial for Ukrainians who fear this might undermine their country’s statehood and independence.