[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} compares different sorts of public bathing around the world, from Native America to Norden to Japan.
• Charlie Stross at Antipope is unimpressed by the person writing the script for our timeline.
• Architectuul reports on an architectural conference in Lisbon.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning photos of the eruption of the Raikoke volcano in Kamchatka.
• Centauri Dreams looks at what the Voyager spacecraft have returned about the edge of the solar system.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with the idea of bipartisanship if it means compromising on reality, allegorically.
• The Crux counts the number of people who have died in outer space.
• D-Brief notes that the Andromeda Galaxy has swallowed up multiple dwarf galaxies over the eons.
• Dead Things notes the identification of the first raptor species from Southeast Asia, Siamraptor suwati.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes a paper tracing the origins of interstellar comet 2/Borisov from the general area of Kruger 60.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the privilege allowing people access to affordable dental care.
• Gizmodo tells how Alexei Leonov survived the first spacewalk.
• io9 looks at the remarkable new status quo for the X-Men created by Jonathan Hickman.
• Selma Franssen at the Island Review writes about the threats facing the seabirds of the Shetlands.
• JSTOR Daily looks at what led Richard Nixon to make so many breaks from the American consensus on China in the Cold War.
• Language Log notes an undergraduate course at Yale using the Voynich Manuscript as an aid in the study of language.
• Abigail Nussbaum at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains her recent experience of the socialized health care system of Israel for Americans.
• The LRB Blog looks at how badly the Fukuyama prediction of an end to history has aged.
• The Map Room Blog shares a few maps of the new Ottawa LRT route.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper establishing a link between Chinese industries undermining their counterparts in Mexico and Mexican social ills including crime.
• Sean Marshall reports from Ottawa about what the Confederation Line looks like.
• Adam Shatz at the NYR Daily looks at the power of improvisation in music.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at South Williamsburg Jewish deli Gottlieb’s.
• Drew Rowsome reviews</a the new Patti Smith book, Year of the Monkey.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking as the factors leading into transnational movements.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the question of the direction(s) in which order in the universe was generated.
• Window on Eurasia shares a report noting the very minor flows of migration from China to Russia.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at the politics in the British riding of Keighley.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at some penguin socks.

[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.

[DM] Ten links on migration (#demographics, #demographymatters)

• CBC Kitchener-Waterloo notes how farmers in southwestern Ontario are trying to plan the transfer of their lands to new migrants.
• HuffPost Québec notes how the labour market of Gaspésie is starting to attract workers.
• The Guardian looks at how many New Zealanders are moving away from cities to less expensive and stressed rural areas.
• The murder of an maid from Indonesia in Malaysia is straining relations between the two neighbouring countries. The National Post reports
• Ozy looks how entrepreneurs from China, moving to Africa, are transforming that continent.
• Open Democracy examines the background behind an outbreak of anti-immigrant sentiment in Yakutsk.
• Doug Bock Clark writes at GQ about the underground networks smuggling North Koreans out of their country.
• Eater reports on the early 20th century migration of Punjabis to California that ended up creating a hybrid Punjabi-Mexican cuisine.
• Open Democracy tells the story of a woman who migrated from Thailand to Denmark for a marriage partner. Why is her migration less legitimate than others’?
• The Inter Press Service warns against treating migrants as human commodities.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the possible roles and threats posed by artificial intelligence for interstellar missions.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber makes the point that blaming Facebook for the propagation of fake news misses entirely the motives of the people who spread these rumours, online or otherwise.
• The Crux looks at the factors which led to the human species’ diversity of skin colours.
• Dangerous Minds reports on a new collection of early North American electronica.
• Far Outliers reports on the salt extraction industry of Sichuan.
• JSTOR Daily notes how inbreeding can be a threat to endangered populations, like gorillas.
• Language Log examines the connection of the Thai word for soul with Old Sinitic.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at divisions on the American left, including pro-Trump left radicals.
• Caitlin Chandler at the NYR Daily reports on the plight of undocumented immigrants in Rome, forced from their squats under the pressure of the new populist government of Italy.
• Spacing takes a look at the work of Acton Ostry Architects.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at the ten largest non-planetary bodies in the solar system.
• Strange Company looks at the very strange 1997 disappearance of Judy Smith from Philadelphia and her latest discovery in the North Carolina wilderness. What happened to her?
• Strange Maps looks at the worrisome polarization globally between supporters and opponents of the current government in Venezuela. Is this a 1914 moment?
• Window on Eurasia suggests that Russia and Venezuela share a common oil-fueled authoritarian fragility.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the camelids of Peru, stuffed toys and llamas and more.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber praises Candice Delmas’ new book on the duty of resistance to injustice.
• D-Brief looks at how the designers of robots took lessons from wasps in designing a new robotic swarm that can pull relatively massive objects in flight.
• Dead Things notes new evidence that the now-extinct elephant birds of Madagascar were nocturnal.
• Far Outliers notes how the reeducation of Japanese prisoners of war by Chinese Communists helped influence American policy towards Japan, imagining a Japan that could be reformed away from imperialism.
• At the Island Review, Alex Ingram profiles–with photos–some of the many different people who are the lone guardians of different small isolated islands removed from the British mainland.
• JSTOR Daily notes how asteroids can preserve records of the distant past of the solar system.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money has contempt for Pence’s use of Messianic Jews to stand in for the wider, non-Christian, Jewish community.
• At Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen considers the consequence that a decline of art galleries might have on the wider field of modern art.
• The NYR Daily considers the lessons that Thucydides, writing about Athens, might have for the United States now.
• Anjali Kumar at Roads and Kingdoms writes about a meal of technically illegal craft beer served with raw shrimp in Bangkok.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel illustrates the six different ways a start can end up in a supernova.
• Window on Eurasia notes that official Russian efforts to reach out to the Russian diaspora do not extend to non-Russian minorities’ own diasporas, like that of the Circassians of the North Caucasus.
• Arnold Zwicky, starting by noting the passing of Dorcas, she who invented green bean casserole, looks at different pre-prepared foodstuffs.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Bad Astronomy shares an image of Hyperion, a proto-supercluster of galaxies literally jawdropping in scope.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly asks an interesting question: Who is your rock, your support? Who is your gravel?
• Centauri Dreams notes a new paper suggesting a way to determine the size of undetected planets from the sorts of dust that they create.
• Crooked Timber notes the obvious, that neither China nor the United States would win in a war in the South China Sea.
• D-Brief ,a href=”http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/10/16/ganymede-moon-jupiter-world-tectonic-faults/”&gt;notes that Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter and in the solar system, has tectonic faults in its icy crust.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Russia is interested in cooperating with India in space travel.
• David Finger at The Finger Post reports on his search for a Philly cheese steak sandwich in Philadelphia.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing considers the way in which modern social networking creates a totalitarianism, enlisting people through games into supporting its edifice.
• Joe. My. God. notes that Thailand is preparing to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples.
• JSTOR Daily notes the 19th century heyday of “mummy brown”, a paint pigment used by artists made of ground-up Egyptian mummies.
• Language Log notes that the expression “add oil”, originally from Chinese slang, is now in the OED.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how the lies of Facebook about the popularity on online video dealt a terrible blow to journalism.
• Lingua Franca examines how the word “smarmy” came about and spread.
• Marginal Revolution notes the exceptional generosity of actor Chow Yun Fat, who is giving away his vast estate.
• Hugh Eakin at the NYR Daily takes a look at the role of the United States in mounting repression in Saudi Arabia, symbolized by the Khashoggi killing.
• Marc Rayman at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the achievements of the Dawn probe, at Ceres and Vesta and the points in between, on this its 11th anniversary.
• Roads and Kingdoms shares a photo essay looking at the difficult treks of the Rohingya as they are forced to scavenge firewood from a local forest.
• Drew Rowsome takes a look at the homoerotic photography of James Critchley.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at what it was likely, in the early universe, when starlight became visible for the first time.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps debunks a map purporting to show post-Fukushima contamination of the entire Pacific, and has it with false and discouraging apocalyptic maps generally.
• Window on Eurasia takes a look at the deep divide between the Russian and Ukrainian nations.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Chicago, London, Trieste, Bangkok

• La Presse notes that Montréal mayor Valérie Laplante faces significant challenges in dealing with the new Québec government.
• JSTOR Daily reports on a recent study tracing back large-scale police violence in Chicago back to the late 19th century.
• Feargus O’Sullivan at CityLab notes how, among other things, exceptionally high rents lead to much commercial space in London being vacant. Are there ways to deal with this?
• This Asia Times article takes a look at Chinese investments in the port of Trieste that might make this port a leading portal for Chinese trade, surpassing Greece’s Piraeus.
• Jamie Fullerton at Guardian Cities considers if increasing the amount of green space in low-lying Bangkok might help protect that city against sea level rise.

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how the recently-charted orbit of S2 around Sagittarius A* in the heart of our galaxy proves Einstein’s theory of relativity right.
• D-Brief notes a recent NASA study of Mars concluding that, because of the planet’s shortfalls in conceivably extractable carbon dioxide, terraforming Mars is impossible with current technology.
• Dead Things suggests that one key to the rise of Homo sapiens may be the fact that we are such good generalists, capable of adapting to different environments and challenges with speed even if we are not optimized for them. (Poor Neanderthals.)
• At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer examines how individuals’ identities shift as they engage, encountering new problems.
• Hornet Stories notes that Thailand may well beat Taiwan in creating civil unions for same-sex couples.
• JSTOR Daily examines the famed, nay iconic, baobab tree of Africa.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money wonders about how, as the centennial of the introduction of women’s suffrage approaches, the white racism of many suffragettes will be dealt with.
• The Map Room Blog reports on Michael Plichta’s very impressed hand-crafted globe of the Moon.
• Russell Darnley at Maximos’ Blog reports on the massive forest fires in Indonesia’s Jambi Province.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• D-Brief notes a new study examining the evolution of giant planets.
• Cody Delistraty has a nice essay about the power of coincidence in the human mind.
• Dead Things reports on the possible discovery of hominin remains in China dating from 2.2 million years ago.
• Language Hat notes the discovery of an ancient tablet in Greece dating from the 3rd century CE containing the earliest extract of The Odyssey so far found.
• Language Log notes the importance of the language skills of a multilingual teen in leading to the rescue of the boys trapped in a Thai cave.
• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution imagines what friendship would be like in a world of telepathy.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Jason Davis shares images taken by the Hayabusa2 probe of the asteroid Ryugu.
• At Spacing, John Lorinc notes how the Ford government’s opposition to the clean energy policies of Wynne may well lead to the return of noticeable air pollution.
• Window on Eurasia reports on Russian government actions intended to suppress what seems to be the spectre of separatism in Kaliningrad.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Centauri Dreams celebrates the science behind Cassini.
• Crooked Timber’s Henry Farrell is breaking from Harvard’s Kennedy Centre over its revocation of an invitation to Chelsea Manning.
• The Crux points to the ways in which the legacy of Cassini will still be active.
• D-Brief notes that some tool-using macaques of Thailand are overfishing their environment.
• Hornet Stories notes the eulogy given by Hillary Clinton at the funeral of Edie Windsor.
• Inkfish notes one way to define separate bird species: ask the birds what they think. (Literally.)
• The LRB Blog notes the recent passing of Margot Hielscher, veteran German star and one-time crush of Goebbels.
• The NYR Daily notes the chilling effects on discourse in India of a string of murders of Indian journalists and writers.
• At the Planetary Science Blog, Emily Lakdawalla bids farewell to the noble Cassini probe.
• Roads and Kingdoms notes a breakfast in Bangladesh complicated by child marriage.
• Towleroad notes an Australian church cancelled an opposite-sex couple’s wedding because the bride supports equality.
• Arnold Zwicky notes the marmots of, among other places, cosmopolitan and multilingual Swiss canton of Graubünden.