[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: ISS internet, Maritimes, CRISPR, machine translation, Trabants

• Universe Today looks at the impressive Internet speed of the ISS, 600 megabits a second, here.
• The National Observer reports on how the infrastructure of the Maritimes will need to be able to handle climate change, here.
• Wired reports on the partially successful effort in China to use CRISPR to cure HIV, here.
• Technology Review looks at how machine learning can be used to translate lost languages and unknown scripts, like Linear A, here.
• Atlas Obscura reports on how the Trabant car of East Germany keeps its fanbase, here.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthropology.net reports on the discovery of footprints of a Neanderthal band in Le Rozel, Normandy, revealing much about that group’s social structure.
• Bad Astronomer’s Phil Plait explains why standing at the foot of a cliff on Mars during local spring can be dangerous.
• Centauri Dreams shares a suggestion that the lakes of Titan might be product of subterranean explosions.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber considers how, and when, anger should be considered and legitimated in discussions of politics.
• The Crux looks at the cement mixed successfully in microgravity on the ISS, as a construction material of the future.
• D-Brief looks at what steps space agencies are considering to avoid causing harm to extraterrestrial life.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes new evidence that the Anthropocene, properly understood, actually began four thousand years ago.
• Jonathan Wynn writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about how many American universities have become as much lifestyle centres as educational communities.
• Far Outliers reports on how, in the 13th century, the cultural differences of Wales from the English–including the Welsh tradition of partible inheritance–caused great instability.
• This io9 interview with the creators of the brilliant series The Wicked and the Divine is a must-read.
• JSTOR Daily looks at a paper considering how teachers of German should engage with the concept of Oktoberfest.
• Language Hat looks at a new study examining the idea of different languages being more efficient than others. (They are not, it turns out.)
• Language Log looks at the history of translating classics of Chinese literature into Manchu and Mongolian.
• Erik Loomis considers the problems the collapse of local journalism now will cause for later historians trying to do research in the foreseeable future.
• Marginal Revolution reports on research suggesting that markets do not corrupt human morality.
• Neuroskeptic looks in more detail at the interesting, and disturbing, organized patterns emitted by organoids built using human brain cells.
• Stephen Baker at The Numerati writes, with photos, about what he saw in China while doing book research. (Shenzhen looks cool.)
• The NYR Daily notes the import of the working trip of Susan Sontag to Sarajevo in 1993, while that city was under siege.
• Robert Picardo at the Planetary Society Blog shares a vintage letter from Roddenberry encouraging Star Trek fans to engage with the Society.
• Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money looks at the economy of Argentina in a pre-election panic.
• Strange Company looks at the life of Molly Morgan, a British convict who prospered in her exile to Australia.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, in 1939, many Soviet citizens recognized the import of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; they knew their empire would expand.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the treatment of cavemen, as subjects and providers of education, in pop culture.

[URBAN NOTE] Five links about cities: tennis, CFL, twin towns, coworking, space company towns

• Joshua Clipperton writes, here at CTV News, about how tennis like the Rogers Cup is much more popular in Montréal than in Toronto for a variety of reasons.
• The CFL’s Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts are set to play another exhibition game in Moncton, as Touchdown Atlantic tries to gather support for an Atlantic Canadian franchise.
• Guardian Cities considers, with interviews, how Brexit might impact the town twinning that united British communities with those of wider Europe.
• Guardian Cities notes how churches and other houses of worship are starting to market themselves as spaces for coworking.
• I think it entirely possible that space settlements may end up evoking the company towns of Earth. Slate has it.

[URBAN NOTE] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the possibility that our model for the evolution of galaxies might be partially disproven by Big Data.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly reports how she did her latest article for the New York Times.
• Centauri Dreams notes the beginning of a search for habitable-zone planets around Alpha Centauri A and B.
• The Crux looks at how the skull trophies of the ancient Maya help explain civilizational collapse.
• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting that our humble, seemingly stable Sun can produce superflares.
• Dead Things reports on the latest informed speculation about the sense of smell of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares the NASA report on its progress towards the Lunar Gateway station.
• Gizmodo looks at the growing number of China’s beautiful, deadly, blooms of bioluminescent algae.
• io9 reports that Stjepan Sejic has a new series with DC, exploring the inner life of Harley Quinn.
• JSTOR Daily looks at an example of a feminist musical, the Chantal Akerman The Eighties.
• Language Hat links to a review of a dystopian novel by Yoko Tawada, The Emissary, imagining a future Japan where the learning of foreign languages is banned.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reiterates that history, and the writing of history, is an actual profession with skills and procedures writers in the field need to know.
• Liam Shaw writes at the LRB Blog about how people in London, late in the Second World War, coped with the terrifying attacks of V2 rockets.
• The Map Room Blog links to a new book, Wayfinding, about the neuroscience of navigation.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution reviews a Robert Zubrin book advocating the colonization of space and finds himself unconvinced.
• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the ancient comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko explored by the ESA Rosetta probe.
• Roads and Kingdoms provides tips for visitors to the Paraguay capital of Asuncion.
• Peter Rukavina reports that, on the day the new PEI legislature came in, 105% of Island electricity came from windpower.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel argues that, in searching for life, we should not look for exoplanets very like Earth.
• Strange Company shares another weekend collection of diverse links.
• Understanding Society’s Daniel Little shares the views of Margaret Gilbert on social facts.
• Window on Eurasia suggests Kadyrov might dream of a broad Greater Chechnya, achieved at the expense of neighbouring republics.
• Arnold Zwicky considers some superhero identity crises, of Superman and of others.

[BLOG] Five D-Brief links: microbiome, genetic engineering, elephant ivory, Moon, O’Neill colonies

• D-Brief examines the importance of the microbiome in human beings.
• D-Brief observes that the genetic engineering of two twins in China to make them resistant to HIV might also shorten their lifespans.
• The poaching of elephants, happily, is decreasing as demand for ivory goes down worldwide. D-Brief reports.
• D-Brief takes a look at the history of imagined landings on the Moon.
• D-Brief looks at the long history of O’Neill colonies in popular culture, as imagined settlements in space itself.

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: dinosaurs, phages, algae, space development, interstellar travel

• MacLean’s notes the controversy surrounding claims of a remarkable find of fossils dating from the very moment, nearly, of the Chixculub impact 66 million years ago.
• Wired looks at how genetically manipulated phages can be used to treat infectious diseases untreatable by antibiotics.
• Universe Today notes the usefulness of algae in life-support systems for long-duration crewed missions.
• Evan Gough at Universe Today notes the need to come up with a system capable of ensuring the sustainable development of space.
• Corey S Powell writes at Discover about new technologies that could conceivably be used for rapid interstellar flight, and about stepping-stone targets worth noting as we work up to the stars.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Larry Claes at Centauri Dreams considers the issues of the alien featuring in the title of the classic The Thing, facing human persecution.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber starts a debate about past blogging and conventional wisdom.
• The Crux reports on a mass rescue of orphaned flamingo chicks in South Africa.
• D-Brief notes new evidence that asteroids provided perhaps half of the Earth’s current supply of water.
• Cody Delistraty looks at how the far-right in Germany is appropriating artworks to support its view of history.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that China may be hoping to build a base at the Moon’s south pole by 2029.
• Far Outliers reports on the 1865 collapse of the Confederacy.
• Gizmodo reports on how astronomers have identified the approximate location of a kilonova that seeded the nascent solar system with heavy elements.
• Joe. My. God. shares the news from yet another study demonstrating that HIV cannot be transmitted by HIV-undetectable people. U=U.
• JSTOR Daily notes how, via Herb Caen, the Beat Generation became known as Beatniks.
• Language Hat shares and comments upon a passage from Dostoevsky noting how an obscenity can be stretched out into an entire conversation.
• Language Log considers a peculiarity of the Beijing dialect.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how statehood has been used to game the American political system.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that countries with greater levels of gender inequality are more likely to produce female chess grandmasters.
• Justin Petrone at North!, considering the history of writers in Estonia, considers what the mission of the writer should be.
• The NYR Daily examines the black people once miners in the Kentucky town of Lynch, remembering and sharing their experiences.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw considers what he has learned from a recent research and writing contract.
• Jason C. Davis at the Planetary Society Blog reports in greater detail on the crater Hayabusa 2 made in asteroid Ryugu.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how the Event Horizon Telescope acts like a mirror.
• Strange Company shares an impressively diverse collection of links.
• Towleroad talks with writer Tim Murphy about his new novel, Correspondents.
• Window on Eurasia considers future directions for Ukrainian language policy.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the artistic riches horded by the Nazis in the Bavarian castle of Neuschwanstein.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Architectuul takes a look at “infrastructural scars”, at geopolitically-inspired constructions like border fences and fortifications.
• Centauri Dreams notes what we can learn from 99942 Apophis during its 2029 close approach to Earth, just tens of thousands of kilometres away.
• D-Brief reports on the reactions of space artists to the photograph of the black hole at the heart of M87.
• Dangerous Minds shares the first recording of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Germany has begun work on drafting laws to cover space mining.
• Gizmodo reports on what scientists have learned from the imaging of a very recent impact of an asteroid on the near side of the Moon.
• io9 makes the case that Star Trek: Discovery should try to tackle climate change.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Verizon is seeking a buyer for Tumblr. (Wouldn’t it be funny if it was bought, as other reports suggest might be possible, by Pornhub?)
• JSTOR Daily reports on a 1910 examination of medical schools that, among other things, shut down all but two African-American medical schools with lasting consequences for African-American health.
• Language Log asks why “Beijing” is commonly pronounced as “Beizhing”.
• Simon Balto asks at Lawyers, Guns and Money why the murder of Justine Ruszczyk by a Minneapolis policeman is treated more seriously than other police killings, just because she was white and the cop was black. All victims deserve the same attention.
• Russell Darnley at Maximos62 shares a video of the frieze of the Parthenon.
• The NYR Daily responds to the 1979 television adaptation of the Primo Levi novel Christ Stopped at Eboli, an examination of (among other things) the problems of development.
• Peter Rukavina is entirely right about the practical uselessness of QR codes.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society points readers towards the study of organizations, concentrating on Charles Perrow.
• Window on Eurasia notes the argument of one Russian commentator that Russia should offer to extend citizenship en masse not only to Ukrainians but to Belarusians, the better to undermine independent Belarus.
• Arnold Zwicky shares photos of some of his flourishing flowers, as his home of Palo Alto enters a California summer.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a strange corridor of ice beneath the surface of Titan, a possible legacy of an active cryovolcanic past.
• D-Brief notes one study suggesting that, properly designed, air conditioners could convert carbon dioxide in the air into carbon fuels.
• Dead Things reports on the discovery of an unusual human skull three hundred thousand years old in China, at Hualongdong in the southeast.
• Gizmodo notes the identification of a jawbone 160 thousand years old, found in Tibet, with the Denisovans. That neatly explains why the Denisovans were adapted to Tibet-like environments.
• JSTOR Daily examines Ruth Page, a ballerina who integrated dance with poetry.
• Language Hat shares a critique of a John McWhorter comment about kidspeak.
• Victor Mair at Language Log shares a well-researched video on the Mongolian language of Genghis Khan.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Donald Trump, in his defiance of investigative findings, is worse than Richard Nixon.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the bombing of London gay bar Admiral Duncan two decades ago, relating it movingly to wider alt-right movements and to his own early coming out.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen notes a recent review article making the case for open borders, disproving many of the claims made by opponents.
• Paul Mason at the NYR Daily explains why the critique by Hannah Arendt of totalitarianism and fascism can fall short, not least in explaining our times.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There explains how, and why, the Moon is starting to get serious attention as a place for long-term settlement, even.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog explores the fund that she had in helping design a set of scientifically-accurate building blocks inspired by the worlds of our solar system.
• Drew Rowsome reports on the new restaging of the classic queer drama Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times by Walter Borden, this one with a new racially sensitive casting.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the massive boom of diversity at the time of the Cambrian Explosion.
• Towleroad features the remarkable front cover of the new issue of Time, featuring Pete Buttigieg together with his husband Chasten.
• Window on Eurasia considers if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the various flowers of May Day.

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: laufmaschine, rocket scavenging, seasteading, Jasons, Moon

• CityLab reports on a replica of a remarkable proto-bicycle, the laufmaschine, first built in 1815 in response to the climate catastrophe of Mount Tambora.
• This Wired feature looking at how northern Russians scavenged and reused rocket components launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome is evocative.
• Seasteading, it turns out, is something that should not be undertaken in waters already claimed by a sovereign power. The National Post reports.
• The Jasons, a think tank of prominent scientists on contract with the Pentagon for decades, are looking for new backers after their contract’s end. NPR reports.
• Nicole Javorsky reports at CityLab on remarkable efforts to try to seriously plan the design of an outpost on the Moon.