[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Architectuul looks back at some highlights from 2019.
• Bad Astronomy looks at the gas cloud, red and green, of RCW 120.
• Crooked Timber looks at the dynamics of identity politics, here.
• Bruce Dorminey notes a NASA statement about the importance of understanding dust dynamics in other solar systems to find Earth analogues.
• Far Outliers looks at the problems pacifying the Chesapeake Bay area in 1813, here.
• Gizmodo looks at the most popular Wikipedia articles for the year 2019.
• io9 shares a video of images from a 1995 Akira cyberpunk computer game that never got finished.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how the United States tried to “civilize” the Inupiat of Alaska by giving them reindeer herds.
• Language Hat links to an online atlas of Scots dialects.
• Language Log reports on a 12th century Sanskrit inscription that testifies to the presence of Muslims in Bengal at that point.
• Marginal Revolution notes how much Tuvalu depends on revenue from its .tv Internet domain.
• Drew Rowsome looks at the Duncan Ralston horror novel Salvage, set in small-town Canada.
• The Russian Demographics Blog looks at the strong relationship between wealth and life expectancy in France.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, in a hypothetical supernova, all life on an Earth-like planet would be boiled alive by neutrinos.
• Strange Maps links to a graphic interface that translates a word into all the languages of Europe.
• Understanding Society looks at the structures of high-reliability organizations.
• Window on Eurasia shares a suggestion that Homer Simpson is actually the US’ version of Russia’s Ivan the Fool.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait observes that a team may have discovered the elusive neutron star produced by Supernova 1987A, hidden behind a cloud of dust.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber shares a photo he made via the time-consuming 19th century wet-plate collodion method.
• Drew Ex Machina’s Andrew LePage looks at the Apollo 12 visit to the Surveyor 3 site to, among other things, see what it might suggest about future space archeology.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the story of rural poverty facing a family in Waverly, Ohio, observing how it is a systemic issue.
• George Dvorsky at Gizmodo looks at how Mars’ Jezero crater seems to have had a past relatively friendly to life, good for the next NASA rover.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the latest ignorance displayed by Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter, this time regarding HIV.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how Climategate was used to undermine popular opinion on climate change.
• Language Hat links to an article explaining why so many works of classical literature were lost, among other things not making it onto school curricula.
• Language Log shares a photo of a Muji eraser with an odd English label.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money suggests Pete Buttigieg faces a campaign-limiting ceiling to his support among Democrats.
• The LRB Blog argues that Macron’s blocking of EU membership possibilities for the western Balkans is a terrible mistake.
• The Map Room Blog shares a map depicting regional variations in Canada towards anthropogenic climate change. Despite data issues, the overall trend of oil-producing regions being skeptical is clear.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining the slowing pace of labour mobility in the US, suggesting that home attachment is a key factor.
• Frederic Wehrey at the NYR Daily tells the story of Knud Holmboe, a Danish journalist who came to learn about the Arab world working against Italy in Libya.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains why thermodynamics does not explain our perception of time.
• Understanding Society’s Dan Little looks at Electronic Health Records and how they can lead to medical mistakes.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi shares a remarkable photo of the night sky he took using the astrophotography mode on his Pixel 4 phone.
• Window on Eurasia shares an opinion that the Intermarium countries, between Germany and Russia, can no longer count on the US and need to organize in their self-defense.
• Arnold Zwicky shares a photo of his handsome late partner Jacques Transue, taken as a college student.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Architectuul visits the studio of Barbas Lopes Arquitectos in Lisbon, here.
• Bad Astronomer takes a look at a new paper examining the effectiveness of different asteroid detection technologies, including nuclear weapons.
• Centauri Dreams reports on a new study suggesting potentially habitable planets orbiting Alpha Centauri B, smaller of the two stars, could suffer from rapid shifts of their axes.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber argues some polls suggest some American conservatives really would prefer Russia as a model to California.
• Bruce Dorminey notes the discovery, by the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia, of 27 supernova remnants in our galaxy.
• The Dragon’s Tales shares a collection of links about stealth aircraft, here.
• Gizmodo notes a new study suggesting that DNA is but one of very very many potential genetic molecules.
• Language Hat shares a reevaluation of the Richard Stanyhurst translation of the Aeneid, with its manufactured words. Why mightn’t this have been not mockable but rather creative?
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money celebrated the 50th anniversary of the takeover of Alcatraz Island by Native American activists.
• Chris Bertram writes at the LRB Blog, after the catastrophe of the Essex van filled with dozens of dead migrants, about the architecture of exclusion that keeps out migrants.
• Marginal Revolution shares a comment looking at the fentanyl crisis from a new angle.
• Jenny Uglow writes at the NYR Daily about a Science Museum exhibit highlighting the dynamic joys of science and its progress over the centuries.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw takes a look at the question of how to prevent the wildfires currently raging in Australia. What could have been done, what should be done?
• The Planetary Society Blog reports on proposals from China for two long-range probe missions to interstellar space, including a Neptune flyby.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the wonderfully innocent Pinocchio currently playing at the Young People’s Theatre.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the evidence for the universe, maybe, being closed.
• Window on Eurasia notes that the Alexandria Patriarchate is the next Orthodox body to recognize the Ukrainian church.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at irregular versus regular, as a queer word too.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Saira Mehmood blogs at {anthro}dendum about her experiences as an ethnographer in her New Orleans community.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait blogs about Supernova 2016iet, a rare example of a pair-instability supernova.
• At the Broadside Blog, Caitlin Kelly writes about the need of people to avoid isolation.
• Centauri Dreams notes that future astronomers might be able to detect the fluorescence of life on exoplanets during flares.
• Why, Crooked Timber asks, shouldn’t children be given the vote?
• D-Brief notes scientists have manufactured a ring of carbon atoms.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the complexities of #VanLife in the United States, at once a lifestyle choice in the US and a response to poverty.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money is decidedly unimpressed by the recent rewriting of the Statue of Liberty.
• Neuroskeptic looks at how neuroimaging studies study surprisingly few left-handers, and how this is a problem.
• The NYR Daily looks at how Big Data in China is enhancing state power, concentrating on the situation in Xinjiang.
• Drew Rowsome looks at a new documentary on the genesis of Fiddler on the Roof, Fiddler: Miracle of Miracles.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at how dark matter and black holes can interact.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at coded anti-black racism in the 1937 United States.

[NEWS] Five science links: ancient humans, animal minds, green Asia, generation starships, SN1987A

• Quanta Magazine notes that the deep learning offered by new artificial intelligences can help pick out traces of non-homo sapiens ancestry in our current gene pool.
• This sensitive article in The Atlantic examines the extent to which consciousness and emotion are ubiquitous in the world of animals.
• NASA notes evidence of the great greening of China and India, associated not only with agriculture in both countries but with the commitment of China to reforestation projects.
• Mashable examines the fundamental brittleness of closed systems that will likely limit the classical generation starship.
• SciTechDaily notes new observations of SN 1987A revealing a much greater prediction of dust than previously believed.

[NEWS] Five space science links: red dwarfs, zombie stars, LMC, M94, dark matter

• Evan Gough at Universe Today, looking at a study of nearby young red dwarf AU Microscopii, points to findings suggesting that red dwarfs quickly lose volatiles like water in their protoplanetary disks, leaving their worlds sterile.
• Paul Sutter at Universe Today looks at zombie stars, white dwarfs which underwent Type 1a supernovas which did not totally destroy them.
• The SCMP notes a new study suggesting that the Large Magellanic Cloud, the largest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, will collide with our galaxy in a mere 2.5 billion years.
• IFLScience notes that nearby spiral galaxy M94 is unusually lacking in satellites, leaving interesting hints about the nature of dark matter and its distribution.
• New models of dwarf galaxy formation suggest dark matter can be heated, driven away from a galaxy’s core by–for instance–active star formation. Scitech Daily reports.

[NEWS] Five space links: China in Argentina, Moon impacts, Alpha Centauri trip, supernova, R Aquarii

• A Chinese space tracking base in Argentina is proving controversial, among its neighbours and in the wider region. VICE reports.
• Universe Today notes a new project aimed at monitoring the Moon to catch the flash of asteroid impacts, to better gauge (among other things) the risk to Earth.
• Universe Today notes one proposal to send an unmanned probe to Alpha Centauri.
• Universe Today looks at the possibility that a supernova near Earth some 2.6 million years ago might have triggered mass extinctions of ocean life.
• Universe Today looks at R Aquarii, a close binary of a Mira-type red giant feeding a white dwarf a mere 650 light years away.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports on Supernova 2018oh in nearby galaxy UGC 4780, a star that demonstrated a most unusual bump in its light curve. Did the explosion engulf a neighbouring star?
• Centauri Dreams reports on New Horizons as it approaches its next target, the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule.
• D-Brief notes new observations of a black hole suggesting that gas around them forms not a rigid donut shape but rather a looser fountain.
• Dead Things notes a new discovery that the icythosaur had blubber like modern cetaceans, demonstrating convergent evolution.
• Cody Delistraty writes about changing perceptions of painter Egon Schiele.
• Far Outliers notes how Japanese prisoners of war were often so surprised by good treatment that they reciprocated, by freely sharing information with interrogators.
• Hornet Stories notes that, at least on Reddit, RuPaul’s Drag Race is the most discussed show currently playing on television.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Indian police was seeking two American evangelical Christian missionaries for aiding another to breach North Sentinel Island, both having fled the country.
• JSTOR Daily looks back to a 1963 paper on the effects of automation on society by Leon Megginson, finding that many of his predictions were correct.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that it is a sad day for Hungary that its government was able to drive the Central European University out of Budapest into exile.
• At Lingua Franca, Roger Shuy takes a look at the dreaded PhD oral exam. (I know that seeing other students taking it was one thing putting me off from academia.)
• The LRB Blog takes a look at the disastrous state of politics in Honduras, with a corrupt leader deeply compromised by (among other things) a dependency upon the United States.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at the beautiful Tibetan Buddhist religious art on display in the Ladakh settlement of Alchi.
• Window on Eurasia notes a conference in Moscow taking a look at a Eurasianism based on a Slavic-Turkic synthesis.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at Santa Barbara in some of her many dimensions.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Crooked Timber takes a look at “abusive legalism”.
• D-Brief looks at unusual Type 1A supernova ASASSN-18bt, which exhibited an odd early burst of light.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on a Dutch government report that Russia has developed a new cruise missile in violation of the INF treaty.
• Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the latest thought on habitable moons.
• Far Outliers notes how Korean, Taiwanese, and Okinawan prisoners in American prisoner of war camps for Imperial Japanese soldiers distinguished themselves (or not) from their ethnic Japanese counterparts.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the metaphor of the cave in the digital era. Do data scientists truly understand the online world?
• JSTOR Daily looks at the different estimates as to the size of the legal cannabis market in Canada.
• Language Log links to a podcast that takes a look at the Philadelphia dialect of English.
• Out There makes the argument that Cubesats are perfectly suited to conducting surveys of asteroids.
• Drew Rowsome reviews the one-man show Obaaberima, performed by Tawiah Ben M’Carthy, currently playing at Buddies in Bad Times.
• Window on Eurasia notes a demographer’s argument that any future population growth in Russia will need to be driven by immigration.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer notes Apep, a brilliant trinary eight thousand light-years away with at least one Wolf-Rayet star that might explode in a gamma-ray burst.
• Centauri Dreams notes that AAVSO, the American Association of Variable Star Observers, has created a public exoplanet archive.
• The Crux considers/u> different strategies for intercepting asteroids bound to impact with Earth.
• D-Brief notes the discovery of a solar twin, a star that might have been born in the same nursery as our sun, HD 186302 184 light-years away.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that although NASA’s Gateway station to support lunar traffic is facing criticism, Russia and China are planning to build similar outposts.
• JSTOR Daily notes the research of Katie Sutton into the pioneering gender-rights movement of Weimar Germany.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money celebrates the successful clean-up of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, once famously depicted on fire.
• The Map Room Blog links to maps showing Apple Maps and Google Maps will be recording images next for their online databases.
• Jamieson Webster at the NYR Daily takes a critical, even defensible, look at the widespread use of psychopharmacological drugs in contemporary society.
• Roads and Kingdoms carries a transcript of an interview with chefs in Ireland, considering the culinary possibilities overlooked and otherwise of the island’s natural bounty.
• Rocky Planet considers the real, overlooked, possibility of earthquakes in the relatively geologically stable east of the United States.
• The Russian Demographics Blog notes how, in the transatlantic wine trade, American interest in European wines is surely not reciprocated.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how Einsteinian relativity, specifically relating to gravitational lensing, was used to predict the reappearance of the distant Refsdal Supernova one year after its 2014 appearance.