[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Anthro{dendum} features an essay examining trauma and resiliency as encountered in ethnographic fieldwork.
• Architectuul highlights a new project seeking to promote historic churches built in the United Kingdom in the 20th century.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait examines Ahuna Mons, a muddy and icy volcano on Ceres, and looks at the nebula Westerhout 40.
• Centauri Dreams notes the recent mass release of data from a SETI project, and notes the discovery of two vaguely Earth-like worlds orbiting the very dim Teegarden’s Star, just 12 light-years away.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes that having universities as a safe space for trans people does not infringe upon academic freedom.
• The Crux looks at the phenomenon of microsleep.
• D-Brief notes evidence that the Milky Way Galaxy was warped a billion years ago by a collision with dark matter-heavy dwarf galaxy Antlia 2, and notes a robotic fish powered by a blood analogue.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that India plans on building its own space station.
• Earther notes the recording of the song of the endangered North Pacific right whale.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the role of emotional labour in leisure activities.
• Far Outliers looks at how Japan prepared for the Battle of the Leyte Gulf in 1944.
• Gizmodo looks at astronomers’ analysis of B14-65666, an ancient galactic collision thirteen billion light-years away, and notes that the European Space Agency has a planned comet interception mission.
• io9 notes how the plan for Star Trek in the near future is to not only have more Star Trek, but to have many different kinds of Star Trek for different audiences.
• Joe. My. God. notes the observation of Pete Buttigieg that the US has probably already had a gay president.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the many ways in which the rhetoric of Celtic identity has been used, and notes that the archerfish uses water ejected from its eyes to hunt.
• Language Hat looks at why Chinese is such a hard language to learn for second-language learners, and looks at the Suso monastery in Spain, which played a key role in the coalescence of the Spanish language.
• Language Log looks at the complexities of katakana.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the death of deposed Egypt president Mohammed Morsi looks like a slow-motion assassination, and notes collapse of industrial jobs in the Ohio town of Lordstown, as indicative of broader trends.
• The LRB Blog looks at the death of Mohamed Morsi.
• The Map Rom Blog shares a new British Antarctic Survey map of Greenland and the European Arctic.
• Marginal Revolution notes how non-religious people are becoming much more common in the Middle East, and makes the point that the laying of cable for the transatlantic telegraph is noteworthy technologically.
• Noah Smith at Noahpionion takes the idea of the Middle East going through its own version of the Thirty Years War seriously. What does this imply?
• The NYR Daily takes a look at a Lebanon balanced somehow on the edge, and looks at the concentration camp system of the United States.
• The Planetary Society Blog explains what people should expect from LightSail 2, noting that the LightSail 2 has launched.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw points readers to his stories on Australian spy Harry Freame.
• Rocky Planet explains, in the year of the Apollo 50th anniversary, why the Moon matters.
• Drew Rowsome reviews, and praises, South African film Kanarie, a gay romp in the apartheid era.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper examining the relationship between childcare and fertility in Belgium, and looks at the nature of statistical data from Turkmenistan.
• The Strange Maps Blog shares a map highlighting different famous people in the United States.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why different galaxies have different amounts of dark matter, and shares proof that the Apollo moon landings actually did happen.
• Towleroad notes the new evidence that poppers, in fact, are not addictive.
• Window on Eurasia warns about the parlous state of the Volga River.
• Arnold Zwicky takes an extended look at the mid-20th century gay poet Frank O’Hara.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Cody Delistraty considers the new field of dystopian realism–of dystopia as a real thing in contemporary lives–in popular culture.
• D-Brief notes how direct experiments in laboratories have helped geologists better understand the mantle of the Earth.
• Far Outliers shares a terribly sad anecdote of a young woman in China who killed herself, victim of social pressures which claim many more victims.
• Imageo notes how recent headlines about ocean temperature increases are misleading in that they did not represent the steady incremental improvements of science generally.
• Joe. My. God. notes the unexpectedly rapid shift of the location of the northern magnetic pole.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper that links to the quietly subversive aesthetics and politics of the 1950s and 1960s surf movie.
• Language Hat links to an intriguing paper looking at the relationship between the size of an individual’s Broca’s area, in their brain, and the ways in which they can learn language.
• Language Log shares a poster from Taiwan trying to promote use of the Hakka language, currently a threatened language among traditional speakers.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the extreme secrecy of Trump regarding his Helsinki discussions with Putin, going so far as to confiscate his translator’s notes.
• Justin Petrone at north! writes about the exhilarating and liberating joys of hope, of fantasy.
• The NYR Daily examines the new Alfonso Cuarón film, the autobiographical Roma.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the interesting show by Damien Atkins at Crow’s Nest Theatre, We Are Not Alone.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel reports on what a report of the discovery of of the brightest quasar actually means.
• Window on Eurasia notes the historical cooperation, before Operation Barbarossa, between the Nazis’ Gestapo and Stalin’s NKVD.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a video examining Chavacano, the Spanish-based creole still spoken in the Philippines.

[MUSIC] Five music links: Québec, multilingual pop, Paul Simon, streaming, Troye Sivan w/ Kim Petras

• Luke Ottenhof writes at MacLean’s about how English Canadians miss out on the thriving Québécois popular music scene, one enormously successful and engaging with the world nicely.
• This article at Noisey looks at how global pop music is becoming increasingly multilingual, Spanish and Korean being specifically noted here.
• Daniel Drake wrote a touching essay last month about Paul Simon and his father over at the NYR Daily.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution reports on how streaming as a technology for music distribution altered the nature of songcraft.
• This NOW Toronto review by Natalia Manzocco of the performance by Troye Sivan at the local stop of his Bloom tour, backed by Kim Petras, still startles me. That this is mainstream pop is amazing.

[NEWS] Five language links: Arabic, Cantonese, French, Inuktitut, Spanish

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The Economist looks at the low profile of the Arabic language, arguing one factor lies in its division into multiple very distinctive regional dialects.

The SCMP reports on the differences between the Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong and that spoken in Malaysia.

CBC PEI reports on how French-language schools on the Island need more supporting in integrating students whose main language is not French.

CBC North takes a look at the Twitter account of Angus Andersen, where he shares one Inuktitut word a day.

Slate asksa question: Will Spanish-language songs make it into the Great American Songbook?

[NEWS] Five language links: Armenian, Icelandic, Irish, Ladino, Scots

• This r/unresolvedmysteries thread asks the question of where the Armenian language, a unique Indo-European language, came from.
• This Ragnar Jónasson article in The Guardian asks the question of how long the Icelandic language, with relatively few speakers and facing a tidal wave of influence from English, can outlast this competition.
• The Irish Times notes that the Irish language was heard in the British House of Commons for the first time in a century, spoken by a Plaid Cymru MP asking why this language has so little institutional support in Northern Ireland.
• Over at the BBC, Susanna Zaraysky takes a look at the Ladino language–a Spanish variant–traditionally used by the Sephardic Jews of Bosnia, and how this language is declining here as elsewhere among the Sephardim.
• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the Scots language, a distinctive Germanic language that was never quite broken away from English, and how this language persists despite everything.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares the latest from exoplanet PDS 70b, which has a gain in mass that has actually been detected by astronomers.
• The Crux considers what information, exactly, hypothetical extraterrestrials could extract from the Golden Record of Voyager. Are the messages decipherable?
• D-Brief shares the most detailed map yet assembled of Comet 67P, compiled from images taken by the Rosetta probe.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the way changing shopping malls reflect, and influence, changes in the broader culture.
• Hornet Stories notes that, while Pope Francis may not want parents of gay children to cut their ties, he does think the parents should look into conversion therapy.
• JSTOR Daily links to a paper examining how beekeeping in early modern England led to the creation of a broader pattern of communications and discourse on the subject.
• Language Hat shares the story of an American diplomat in 1960s Argentina, and his experiences learning Spanish (after having spoken Portuguese) and travelling in the provinces.
• Language Log shares a biscriptal ad from Hong Kong.
• The LRB Blog shares a story told by Harry Stopes about a maritime trip with harbour pilots from Cornwall.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares an anecdote of a family meal of empanadas in the Argentine city of Cordoba during the world cup.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why, in the early universe, the most massive stars massed the equivalent of a thousand suns, much larger than any star known now.
• Towleroad shares Karl Schmid’s appearance on NBC Today, where he talked with Megyn Kelly about HIV in the era of undetectability.
• Window on Eurasia notes the many obstacles placed by the Russian government in the way of Circassian refugees from Syria seeking refuge in their ancestral North Caucasus homeland.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Raytheon has been awarded a contract to deliver a 100 kilowatt laser weapon system.
• Hornet Stories offers a guide to LGBTQ sites in Manila.
• JSTOR Daily explores the writing career of mid-20th century SF writer “James Tiptree Jr”, the pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money explores the idea of a liberal world order, particularly as a manifestation of American policy post-1945.
• Ben Yagoda at Lingua Franca takes a look at how Big Data–specifically, large archives of the written word–can illuminate lots about patterns of language usage, noting some examples.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the way that maps of population density are being used in the United States to legitimate or delegitimate specific groups of voters.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen considers the concept of “reciprocity anxiety”, of owing people.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer reports on some swear words in Argentine Spanish as well as a case of government expropriation of Mapuche lands.
• Drew Rowsome takes an extended look at Scotty and the Secret Life of Hollywood, an extended documentary looking at the life of scotty Bowers in closeted 20th century Hollywood.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthro{dendum}’s Adam Fish looks at the phenomenon of permissionless innovation as part of a call for better regulation.
• James Bow shares excerpts from his latest book, The Cloud Riders.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how data from Voyager 1’s cosmic ray detectors has been used to study dark matter.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money begins a dissection of what Roe vs Wade meant, and means, for abortion in the United States, and what its overturn might do.
• Ilan Stavans, writing for Lingua Franca at the Chronicle, considers the languages of the World Cup. The prominence of Spanish in the United States is particularly notable.
• The LRB Blog gathers together articles referencing the now-departed Boris Johnson. What a man.
• The Map Room Blog reports/u> on Matthew Blackett’s remarkably intricate transit map of Canada.
• Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution links to a study from Nature exploring how shifts in the definition of concepts like racism and sexism means that, even as many of the grossest forms disappear, racism and sexism continue to be recognized if in more minute form.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how a Japanese experiment aimed at measuring proton decay ended up inaugurating the era of neutrino astronomy, thanks to SN1987A.
• Window on Eurasia reports on how a Russian proposal to resettle Afrikaner farmers from South Africa to the North Caucasus (!) is, unsurprisingly, meeting with resistance from local populations, including non-Russian ones.
• Linguist Arnold Zwicky takes a look at how, exactly, one learns to use the F word.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Adam Fish at Anthro{dendum} takes a look at the roles of drones in capitalism, here.
• Bad Astronomy talks about the discovery of a nascent planet in orbit of young star PDS 70.
• Centauri Dreams notes what the discovery of a Charon eclipsing its partner Pluto meant, for those worlds and for astronomy generally.
• D-Brief notes a demographic study of Italian centenarians suggesting that, after reaching the age of 105, human mortality rates seem to plateau. Does this indicate the potential for further life expectancy increases?
• Dead Things shares the result of a genetics study of silkworms. Where did these anchors of the Silk Road come from?
• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the role of the side hustle in creative professions.
• Far Outliers reports on the time, in the 1930s, when some people in Second Republic Poland thought that the country should acquire overseas colonies.
• Hornet Stories reports on how, in earlier centuries, the English word “pinke” meant a shade of yellow.
• JSTOR Daily reports on how, nearly two decades later, Sex and the City is still an influential and important piece of pop culture.
• Language Hat links to Keith Gessen’s account, in The New Yorker, about how he came to teach his young son Russian.
• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, reports on the decent and strongly Cuban Spanish spoken by Ernest Hemingway.
• The NYR Daily looks at the mystique surrounding testosterone, the powerful masculinizing hormone.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer shares his thoughts on the election, in Mexico, of left-leaning populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Worst-case scenarios aren’t likely to materialize in the short and medium terms, at least.
• Vintage Space notes how, at the height of the Cold War, some hoped to demonstrate American strength by nuking the Moon. (Really.)
• Window on Eurasia links to an essayist who suggests that Russia should look to America as much as to Europe for models of society.

[NEWS] Five language links: Inuktitut, Icelandic, Ladino, Spanish, isiXhosa

• I entirely agree with the argument of Aluki Kotierk, writing at MacLean’s, who thinks the Inuit of Nunavut have been entirely too passive, too nice, in letting Inuktitut get marginalized. Making it a central feature in education is the least that can be done. (Québec-style language policies work.)
• Although ostensibly a thriving language in many domains of life, the marginalization of the Icelandic language in the online world could be an existential threat. The Guardian reports.
• As part of a bid to keep alive Ladino, traditional language of the Sephardic Jews, Spain has extended to the language official status including support and funding. Ha’aretz reports.
• A new set of policies of Spain aiming at promoting the Spanish language have been criticized by some in Hispanic American states, who call the Spanish moves excessively unilateral. El Pais reports.
• isiXhosa, the language of the Xhosa people of South Africa, is getting huge international attention thanks to its inclusion in Black Panther. The Toronto Star reports.