[BLOG] Five Starts With A Bang links (@startswithabang)

• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how the images of galaxies grow with the universe, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how we can know the age of the universe, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains what an octonion is and what it might show about the universe, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains the surprise created by a detailed map of neutron star J0030+0451, here.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel suggests the mysterious near-supernova that Eta Carinae barely survived in the 19th century was actually a stellar collision, here.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait shares a video of the expansion of supernova remnant Cas A.
• James Bow shares an alternate history Toronto transit map from his new novel The Night Girl.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes the Boris Johnson coup.
• The Crux notes a flawed study claiming that some plants had a recognizable intelligence.
• D-Brief notes the mysterious absorbers in the clouds of Venus. Are they life?
• Dangerous Minds shares, apropos of nothing, the Jah Wabbles song “A Very British Coup.”
• Cody Delistraty looks at bullfighting.
• Dead Things notes the discovery of stone tools sixteen thousand years old in Idaho which are evidence of the first humans in the Americas.
• io9 features an interview with authors Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz on worldbuilding.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a bill in Thailand to establish civil unions is nearing approval.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how using plastic in road construction can reduce pollution in oceans.
• Language Log looks to see if some police in Hong Kong are speaking Cantonese or Putonghua.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the perplexing ramblings and–generously–inaccuracy of Joe Biden.
• The LRB Blog asks why the United Kingdom is involved in the Yemen war, with Saudi Arabia.
• The Map Room Blog looks at the different efforts aiming to map the fires of Amazonia.
• Marginal Revolution reports on how some southern US communities, perhaps because they lack other sources of income, depend heavily on fines.
• The NYR Daily looks at the complex literary career of Louisa May Alcott, writing for all sorts of markets.
• Window on Eurasia reports on the apparently sincere belief of Stalin, based on new documents, that in 1934 he faced a threat from the Soviet army.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at fixings, or fixins, as the case may be.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at an evocative corner of the Pelican Nebula.
• Centauri Dreams considers if a supernova might have kickstarted hominid evolution by triggering wildfires.
• D-Brief looks at how scientists examined binary asteroid 1999 KW4 during its flyby on May 25th.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the development of the radical abolitionism of William Blake.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at centrism as not neutrality but rather as an ideology of its own.
• Marginal Revolution suggests that legal emigration is more common from right-wing dictatorships than from left-wing ones. Is this actually the case?
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that an image passed off as a hole in the universe a billion light-years wide is actually a photo of nebula Barnard 68.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that Ukraine, rather than trying to position itself as a bridge between West and East, should simply try to join the West without equivocations.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a Zippy cartoon and moves on to explore the wider world from it.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Matt Thompson at anthro{dendum} writes about the complex, often anthropological, satire in the comics of Charles Addams.
• Architectuul looks at the photography of Roberto Conte.
• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes a new computer model suggesting a supernova can be triggered by throwing a white dwarf into close orbit of a black hole.
• D-Brief notes how ammonia on the surface of Pluto hints at the existence of a subsurface ocean.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how the bombardment of Earth by debris from a nearby supernova might have prompted early hominids to become bipedal.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that NASA has awarded its first contract for its plans in lunar space.
• Far Outliers notes the reactions, within and without the Soviet Union, to the 1991 Soviet coup attempt.
• Matt Novak at Gizmodo’s Paleofuture notes how, in 1995, Terry Pratchett predicted the rise of online Nazis.
• io9 notes the impending physical release this summer of DVDs of the Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind.
• JSTOR Daily suggests some ways to start gardening in your apartment.
• Victor Mair at Language Log claims that learning Literary Chinese is a uniquely difficult experience. Thoughts?
• The NYR Daily features a wide-ranging interview with EU official Michel Barnier focused particularly, but not exclusively, on Brexit.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes that an Internet vote has produced a majority in favour of naming outer system body 2007 OR10 Gonggang.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer considers the possibility that foreign investors in Mexico might be at risk, at least feel themselves at risk, from the government of AMLO.
• The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress archives spreadsheets.
• Van Waffle at the Speed River Journal looks at magenta spreen, a colourful green that he grows in his garden.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how we on Earth are carelessly wasting irreplaceable helium.
• Window on Eurasia refers to reports claiming that a third of the population of Turkmenistan has fled that Central Asian state. Could this be accurate?

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Architectuul looks at the history of brutalism in late 20th century Turkey.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the evidence for the Milky Way Galaxy having seen a great period of starburst two billion years ago, and notes how crowded the Milky Way Galaxy is in the direction of Sagittarius.
• Centauri Dreams considers if astrometry might start to become useful as a method for detecting planets, and considers what the New Horizons data, to Pluto and to Ultima Thule, will be known for.
• Belle Waring at Crooked Timber considers if talk of forgiveness is, among other things, sound.
• D-Brief considers the possibility that the differing natures of the faces of the Moon can be explained by an ancient dwarf planet impact, and shares images of dust-ringed galaxy NGC 4485.
• Dead Things notes the discovery of fossil fungi one billion years old in Nunavut.
• Far Outliers looks at how, over 1990, Russia became increasingly independent from the Soviet Union, and looks at the final day in office of Gorbachev.
• Gizmodo notes the discovery of literally frozen oceans of water beneath the north polar region of Mars, and looks at an unusual supernova, J005311 ten thousand light-years away in Cassiopeia, product of a collision between two white dwarfs.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the colour of navy blue is a direct consequence of slavery and militarism, and observes the historical influence, or lack thereof, of Chinese peasant agriculture on organic farming in the US.
• Language Log considers a Chinese-language text from San Francisco combining elements of Mandarin and Cantonese.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the terrible environmental consequences of the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia, and Shakezula at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a look at how, and perhaps why, Sam Harris identifies milkshake-throwing at far-right people as a form of “mock assassination”.
• The Map Room Blog shares a personal take on mapmaking on the Moon during the Apollo era.
• Marginal Revolution observes a paper suggesting members of the Chinese communist party are more liberal than the general Chinese population. The blog also notes how Soviet quotas led to a senseless and useless mass slaughter of whales.
• Russell Darnley writes about the complex and tense relationship between Indonesia and Australia, each with their own preoccupations.
• Martin Filler writes at the NYR Daily about I.M. Pei as an architect specializing in an “establishment modernism”. The site also takes a look at Orientalism, as a phenomenon, as it exists in the post-9/11 era.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reflects on the meaning of Australia’s New England.
• The Planetary Society Blog notes how Hayabusa 2 is having problems recovering a marker from asteroid Ryugu.
• Peter Rukavina reports on an outstanding Jane Siberry concert on the Island.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map of homophobia in Europe.
• The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress makes use of wikidata.
• The Speed River Journal’s Van Waffle reports, with photos, from his latest walks this spring.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers what the Earth looked like when hominids emerged, and explains how amateur astronomers can capture remarkable images.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a controversial map depicting the shift away from CNN towards Fox News across the United States.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society examines the Boeing 737 MAX disaster as an organizational failure.
• Window on Eurasia looks why Turkey is backing away from supporting the Circassians, and suggests that the use of the Russian Orthodox Church by the Russian state as a tool of its rule might hurt the church badly.
• Arnold Zwicky takes apart, linguistically and otherwise, a comic playing on the trope of Lassie warning about something happening to Timmy. He also
  reports on a far-removed branch of the Zwicky family hailing from Belarus, as the Tsvikis.

[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

• At Antipope, Charlie Stross takes a look at the dystopian future we’ve created for ourselves with the help of Big Data.
• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology net notes the discovery of an Ancient Beringian population involved in the peopling of the Americas.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait considers the awesome possibility of life on pulsar planets, i.e. on planets that survived or were made by a supernova.
• Centauri Dreams suggests that dust, not ET artifacts, may explain the odd light coming from KIC 8462852, aka Boyajian’s Star.
• Crooked Timber considers the surprisingly mixed emotions of unions regarding the idea of a guaranteed minimum income.
• Far Outliers takes a look at the diverse non-German soldiers serving in occupied France in the Second World War.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas considers parallels between the mentality of Silicon Valley and totalitarianism.
• Hornet Stories considers the questionable idea of a “gold star” or “platinum star” gay person. What, exactly, is being celebrated?
• JSTOR Daily notes the gendered nature of the supermarket of mid-20th century North America.
• Language Hat celebrates the establishment of Hakka as an official language in Taiwan, as does Language Log.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that the previous Oregon laws against self-service gas stations helped boost employment for the vulnerable.
• Lingua Franca considers the concept of “ghosting”, linguistically at otherwise.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining how creativity has clustered in cities in the past.
• Out There shares the arguments of Charles Miller for infrastructure to support crewed expansion and settlement in space, starting with the Moon.
• Peter Rukavina talks about his last visit, with his son, to the Sears store in Charlottetown.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that 2018 may be the year we finally take a picture of a black hole, Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy.
• To what extent is history probabilistic? Understanding Society considers.
• Window on Eurasia notes controversy in Siberia over Chinese investors who come in and disregard local sensitivities and regulations.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the effort to name, for New Horizons, Kuiper belt world (486958) 2014 MU69.
• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility that Ceres might have a residual ocean underneath its surface.
• D-Brief notes the bizarre supernova iPTF14hls, which seems to have been a recurrent supernova for the past sixty years.
• The Frailest Thing’s Michael Sacasas argues we are already in a dystopia, one of Huxley not of Orwell.
• Hornet Stories notes that Ezra Miller was advised not to come out by his supposed allies in Hollywood.
• The LRB Blog notes an interesting exhibit, inspired by poetry and the Stalinist camp system, in London’s Bloomsbury Square.
• At Out of Ambit, Diane Duane tells the old Swiss story of Charlemagne and the snake.
• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the last days of bullfighting in Tijuana.
• Mark Simpson considers the state of masculinity in the modern United Kingdom, and calls for some tartiness.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers how the Bullet Cluster of galaxies helps prove the existence of dark matter.
• Understanding Society considers political power in China at the level of the village.
• Window on Eurasia considers a variety of negative demographic trends for ethnic Russians in Russia, including low fertility and emigration.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the role of supernovas in solar system formation and notes new models for gas giant formation.
• Joe. My. God. notes that a trans model now features on one of the Real Housewives shows.
• Marginal Revolution notes that the surge of immigration into Germany might lead to a shutdown.
• Savage Minds considers the issue of how, and if, to achieve anthropological fieldnotes.
• Spacing Toronto notes some cool photographs of early 20th century star Mary Pickford.
• Torontoist reports on Eaton’s 100th anniversary fashion show in 1968.
• Towleroad celebrates Yvonne Craig, best known as Batgirl on the vintage 1960s show Batman.
• Transit Toronto notes that, this weekend, the TTC will be auditioning musicians at the Canadian National Exhibition.
• Window on Eurasia suggests how Ukraine can win over pro-Russian Donbas and Crimea and argues that the Russian economy won’t recover from the current slump unless there are radical changes.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait notes a new study suggesting that the star Betelgeuse will go supernova not imminently, but rather in a hundred thousand years.
• blogTO profiles midtown Toronto’s Merton Street.
• Discover‘s Crux examines the most suitable potential locations for offworld colonies (Venus, the Moon, Mars).
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to one paper suggesting that binary star systems might actually be better-suited to Earth-like worlds that solitary star systems like our our and links to another speculating about the patterns of light emitted by Earth-like worlds.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes an archeological study suggesting that chocolate was eaten in the Mississippian civilization of Cahokia, and looks at an ongoing dispute over rocket development between France and Germany in the European Space Agency.
• Languages of the World’s Asya Pereltsvaig looks at the ongoing disappearance of the Belarusian language.
• Marginal Revolution notes the exceptional vulnerability of Scotland’s economy to its banking sector.
• Personal Reflection’s Jim Belshaw reflects on the movement for statehood in the Australian region of New England in the light of the imminent Scottish referendum.
• Torontoist notes a survey examining the issues of LGBT people in the Ontario police services.
• Towleroad notes the lesbian couple married in Iowa after seventy years together.
• The Volokh Conspiracy notes that the Northern Marianas are the only jurisdiction with a total handgun ban.
• Window on Eurasia notes the progress of fascism in Russia, considers the consequences of the war for both Ukraine and Russia, and looks at growing concern elsewhere in the former Soviet space about Russia.