Posts Tagged ‘supernovas’
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
December 30, 2019 at 1:30 pm
Posted in Assorted, Canada, Demographics, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with akira, alaska, architecture, astronomy, bangladesh, bengal, blogs, books, british empire, canada, clash of ideologies, computers, cyberpunk, Demographics, disasters, exoplanets, france, history, horror, internet, inuit, islam, language, links, neutrinos, north america, pacific islands, photos, politics, polynesia, popular culture, popular literature, reindeer, russia, scotland, scots language, sociology, south asia, space science, supernovas, the simpsons, tuvalu, united states, war, war of 1812, wikipedia
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
November 25, 2019 at 6:15 pm
Posted in Assorted, Canada, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with albania, apollo 12, astronomy, blogs, canada, central europe, economics, english language, environment, european union, extraterrestrial life, former yugoslavia, geopolitics, glbt issues, global warming, health, history, hiv/aids, imperialism, in memoriam, italy, japanese language, libya, links, manned apollo missions, maps, mars, medicine, moon, neutron stars, photography, physics, poland, politics, popular literature, sexuality, space science, space travel, supernova 1987a, supernovas, technology, ukraine, united states
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
November 24, 2019 at 7:00 pm
Posted in Assorted, Demographics, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences, Toronto
Tagged with alcatraz, alpha centauri, alpha centauri b, architecture, asteroids, astronomy, australia, blogs, california, china, christianity, clash of ideologies, democracy, disasters, egypt, exoplanets, extraterrestrial life, glbt issues, islands, language, links, military, milky way galaxy, museums, national identity, neptune, orthodox christianity, pinocchio, popular literature, portugal, Science, solar system, space science, space travel, supernovas, technology, theatre, toronto, translation, ukraine, united states
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
August 18, 2019 at 3:30 pm
Posted in Assorted, Demographics, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with african-americans, anthropology, astronomy, black holes, blogs, china, computers, dark matter, democracy, Demographics, economics, extraterrestrial life, links, migration, new orleans, physics, politics, popular culture, pyschology, racism, red dwarf stars, Science, social sciences, sociology, space science, supernova 2016iet, supernovas, technology, united states, vanlife, xinjiang
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
February 13, 2019 at 9:30 pm
Posted in Assorted, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with animal intelligence, artificial intelligence, biology, china, east asia, environment, generation starships, genetics, homo sapiens, human beings, india, large magellanic cloud, links, news, physics, Science, sn 1987a, south asia, space colonies, space travel, supernovas
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
January 11, 2019 at 11:30 pm
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
December 18, 2018 at 11:45 pm
Posted in Assorted, History, Politics, Science
Tagged with alpha centauri, argentina, asteroids, astronomy, china, earth, enviroment, geopolitics, interstellar travel, latin america, links, moon, news, oceans, photos, r aquarii, south america, space science, space travel, supernovas
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
December 6, 2018 at 2:30 pm
Posted in Assorted, Canada, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with andamans, astronomy, black holes, blogs, buddhism, central america, central europe, cetaceans, christianity, clash of ideologies, democracy, drag queens, education, egon schiele, eurasia, evolution, futurology, honduras, hungary, icythosaur, indiua, japan, ladakh, links, north sentinel island, physics, politics, public art, religion, reptiles, rupaul, second world war, south asia, space science, space travel, supernova 20180h, supernovas, technology, tibet, ugc 4780, united states
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
December 2, 2018 at 1:00 pm
Posted in Assorted, Demographics, Economics, History, Politics, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences, Toronto, Urban Note
Tagged with asassn-18bt, asteroids, astronomy, blogs, buddies in bad times, canada, cannabis, clash of ideologies, crime, Demographics, economics, english language, former soviet union, glbt issues, imperialism, japan, japanese empire, korea, links, marijuana, military, netherlands, obaaberime, pennsylvania, philadelphia, philosophy, plato, poltiics, russia, second world war, solar system, space science, supernovas, taiwan, technology, theatre, toronto, united states
[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.
Written by Randy McDonald
November 20, 2018 at 3:30 pm
Posted in Assorted, History, Popular Culture, Science, Social Sciences
Tagged with apep, asteroids, astronomy, blogs, china, disasters, environment, food, gateway, gender, geology, germany, google, health, ireland, links, maps, medicine, moon, ohio, panopticon, physics, refsdal supernova, restaurants, russia, sexuality, space science, space travel, supernovas, united states, wine, wolf-rayet star