[NEWS] Five links about science, from libraries to smartphone sociology to spaceflight

• The Guardian‘s Ian Sample reports a claim that the older a father when a son is conceived, the geekier the son is likely to be.
• Pew Research Group’s Abigail Geiger reports a study’s claim American millennials are likelier than other generations to use libraries.
• This Longreads essay by Adam Greenfield examining the significance of the smartphone in human life is enthralling.
• Universe Today’s Fraser Cain considers whether suspended animation, hibernation, is possible. (Note that this is not cryonics.)
• This Elon Musk sketch at New Space of the case for colonizing Mars and how Mars is to be reached is ambitious, at least.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Apostrophen’s ‘Nathan Smith points to his blog post about the strengths of the chosen families of queer people, in life and in his fiction.
• Beyond the Beyond’s Bruce Sterling revisits the politics behind France’s Minitel network, archaic yet pioneering.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly blogs about meeting her online friends in real life. Frankly, it would never occur to me not to do that.
• Centauri Dreams looks at how Kepler’s exoplanets fall neatly into separate classes, super-Earths and mini-Neptunes.
• The LRB Blog has a terrible report from Grenfell Tower, surrounded by betrayed survivors and apocalypse.
• The Map Room Blog notes the inclusion of Canada’s First Nations communities on Google Maps.
• The NYRB Daily’s Robert Cottrell explores the banalities revealed by Oliver Stone’s interviews of Putin.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Jason Davis considers the likely gains and challenges associated with missions to the ice giants of Uranus and Neptune.
• Towleroad notes the new Alan Cumming film After Louie, dealing with a romance between an ACT-UP survivor and a younger man
• The Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin does not find much good coming from Trump’s announced Cuba policy.
• Window on Eurasia warns about the threat posed by Orthodox Christian fundamentalists in Russia.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Dragon’s Gaze looks at what, exactly, is going on at Boyajian’s Star. Does KIC 8462852 have a large ringed exoplanet with Trojans?
• The Frailest Thing considers modernity as something that has its own sort of enchantments.
• Language Hat examines how Arkansaw was mutated into Arkansas.
• Language Log looks at the etymology for “coral reef” in Chinese.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes Krugman’s subtweet.
• Neuroskeptic considers ketamine as an anti-depressant.
• Torontoist describes two local startups, Partial and Wandervoic, that are trying to connect local artists with non-traditional art buyers.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Language Log reports on the transliterations of “Trump” into Chinese and Chinese social networks.
• Marginal Revolution shares Jill Lepore’s argument that modern dystopian fiction deals with submission to the worst, not resistance.
• At the NYRB Daily, Tim Flannery notes how Trump’s withdrawal from Paris is bad for the environment and for the American economy.
• Peter Rukavina’s photo of stormclouds over Charlottetown is eye-catching. (I have not heard of “dark off” myself.)
• Savage Minds announces a MOOC ANTH 101 course starting tomorrow.
• Window on Eurasia argues that Putin can afford to be aggressive because he is not constrained by Communist ideology.

[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

• Bloomberg looks at the recent surge of Chinese investment in Southeast Asia.
• Culture.pl looks at why Nietzsche falsely claimed Polish ancestry.
• Foreign Policy suggests that this is a new age of German prominence in the West.
• The New Yorker finds Amazon’s new brick-and-mortar bookstores lacking.
• The Toronto Star shares claims that learning a second language provides mental benefits.
• Universe Today notes the discovery of potentially habitable super-Earth Gliese 625 b.
• Vice’s Motherboard notes how the popularization of ayahuasca-driven spirit quests has actually hurt traditional users.
• Vox notes the latest Russia-Ukraine history fight on Twitter.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Beyond the Beyond notes an image of a wooden model of Babbage’s difference engine.
• James Bow talks about the soundtrack he has made for his new book.
• Centauri Dreams considers ways astronomers can detect photosynthesis on exoplanets and shares images of Fomalhaut’s debris disk.
• Crooked Timber looks at fidget spinners in the context of discrimination against people with disabilities.
• D-Brief notes that Boyajian’s Star began dimming over the weekend.
• Far Outliers reports on a 1917 trip by zeppelin to German East Africa.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that there is good reason to be concerned about health issues for older presidential candidates.
• The NYRB Daily reports on Hungary’s official war against Central European University.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the origins of modern immigration to Russia in internal Soviet migration.
• Savage Minds shares an ethnographer’s account of what it is like to look to see her people (the Sherpas of Nepal) described.
• Strange Maps shares a map speculating as to what the world will look like when it is 4 degrees warmer.
• The Volokh Conspiracy argues that the US Congress does not have authority over immigration.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Russia’s population will be concentrated around Moscow, compares Chechnya’s position vis-à-vis Russia to Puerto Rico’s versus the United States, and looks at new Ukrainian legislation against Russian churches and Russian social networks.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes how Evelyn Waugh’s writings on the Horn of Africa anticipate the “Friedman unit”, the “a measurement of time defined as how long it will take until things are OK in Iraq”.

[PHOTO] Me outside, with my Quora Top Writer 2017 jacket

Quora is fun, not least because of the swag you can get if you qualify as a Top Writer.