[NEWS] Five Centauri Dreams links: ARIEL Ryugu, Titan, electric sail, exoplanets (@centauri_dreams)

• Centauri Dreams reports on the emergent ARIEL telescope, here.
• Centauri Dreams reports on the return of Hayabusa2 from Ryugu, here.
• Centauri Dreams shares a new map showing all of the landforms of Titan.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the propulsion technology of the electric sail.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the once-surprising number of planets found in multiple star systems.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how a photo of the Large Magellanic Cloud makes him recognize it as an irregular spiral, not a blob.
• Centauri Dreams celebrates the life of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.
• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with one particular claim about the benefits of war and empire.
• The Crux looks at fatal familial insomnia, a genetic disease that kills through inflicting sleeplessness on its victims.
• D-Brief looks at suggestions that magnetars are formed by the collisions of stars.
• Dangerous Minds introduces readers to the fantasy art of Arthur Rackham.
• Cody Delistraty considers some evidence suggesting that plants have a particular kind of intelligence.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes the expansion by Russia of its airbase in Hneymim, Syria.
• Karen Sternheimer writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about the critical and changing position of libraries as public spaces in our cities.
• Gizmodo looks at one marvelous way scientists have found to cheat quantum mechanics.
• Information is Beautiful outlines a sensible proposal to state to cultivate seaweed a as source of food and fuel.
• io9 notes that, in the exciting new X-Men relaunch, immortal Moira MacTaggart is getting her own solo book.
• JSTOR Daily notes how the now-defunct Thomas Cook travel agency played a role in supporting British imperialism, back in the day.
• Language Log notes that the Oxford English Dictionary is citing the blog on the use of “their” as a singular.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the grounds for impeaching Donald Trump.
• The LRB Blog looks at the politics of Mozambique at the country approaches dangerous times.
• Sean Marshall notes the southern Ontario roads that run to Paris and to London.
• Neuroskeptic notes a problematic scientific study that tried to use rabbits to study the female human orgasm.
• Steve Baker at The Numerati looks at a new book on journalism by veteran Peter Copeland.
• The NYR Daily makes the point that depending on biomass as a green energy solution is foolish.
• The Planetary Science Blog notes a 1983 letter by then-president Carl Sagan calling for a NASA mission to Saturn and Titan.
• Roads and Kingdoms interviews photojournalist Eduardo Leal on his home city of Porto, particularly as transformed by tourism.
• Drew Rowsome notes the book Dreamland, an examination of the early amusement park.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper considering, in broad detail, how the consequence of population aging could be mitigated in the labour market of the European Union.
• Strange Company reports on a bizarre poltergeist in a British garden shed.
• Window on Eurasia notes the new strength of a civic national identity in Kazakhstan, based on extensive polling.
• Arnold Zwicky, surely as qualified a linguist as any, examines current verb of the American moment, “depose”.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthropology.net reports on the discovery of footprints of a Neanderthal band in Le Rozel, Normandy, revealing much about that group’s social structure.
• Bad Astronomer’s Phil Plait explains why standing at the foot of a cliff on Mars during local spring can be dangerous.
• Centauri Dreams shares a suggestion that the lakes of Titan might be product of subterranean explosions.
• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber considers how, and when, anger should be considered and legitimated in discussions of politics.
• The Crux looks at the cement mixed successfully in microgravity on the ISS, as a construction material of the future.
• D-Brief looks at what steps space agencies are considering to avoid causing harm to extraterrestrial life.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes new evidence that the Anthropocene, properly understood, actually began four thousand years ago.
• Jonathan Wynn writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about how many American universities have become as much lifestyle centres as educational communities.
• Far Outliers reports on how, in the 13th century, the cultural differences of Wales from the English–including the Welsh tradition of partible inheritance–caused great instability.
• This io9 interview with the creators of the brilliant series The Wicked and the Divine is a must-read.
• JSTOR Daily looks at a paper considering how teachers of German should engage with the concept of Oktoberfest.
• Language Hat looks at a new study examining the idea of different languages being more efficient than others. (They are not, it turns out.)
• Language Log looks at the history of translating classics of Chinese literature into Manchu and Mongolian.
• Erik Loomis considers the problems the collapse of local journalism now will cause for later historians trying to do research in the foreseeable future.
• Marginal Revolution reports on research suggesting that markets do not corrupt human morality.
• Neuroskeptic looks in more detail at the interesting, and disturbing, organized patterns emitted by organoids built using human brain cells.
• Stephen Baker at The Numerati writes, with photos, about what he saw in China while doing book research. (Shenzhen looks cool.)
• The NYR Daily notes the import of the working trip of Susan Sontag to Sarajevo in 1993, while that city was under siege.
• Robert Picardo at the Planetary Society Blog shares a vintage letter from Roddenberry encouraging Star Trek fans to engage with the Society.
• Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money looks at the economy of Argentina in a pre-election panic.
• Strange Company looks at the life of Molly Morgan, a British convict who prospered in her exile to Australia.
• Window on Eurasia notes that, in 1939, many Soviet citizens recognized the import of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; they knew their empire would expand.
• Arnold Zwicky looks at the treatment of cavemen, as subjects and providers of education, in pop culture.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams notes a strange corridor of ice beneath the surface of Titan, a possible legacy of an active cryovolcanic past.
• D-Brief notes one study suggesting that, properly designed, air conditioners could convert carbon dioxide in the air into carbon fuels.
• Dead Things reports on the discovery of an unusual human skull three hundred thousand years old in China, at Hualongdong in the southeast.
• Gizmodo notes the identification of a jawbone 160 thousand years old, found in Tibet, with the Denisovans. That neatly explains why the Denisovans were adapted to Tibet-like environments.
• JSTOR Daily examines Ruth Page, a ballerina who integrated dance with poetry.
• Language Hat shares a critique of a John McWhorter comment about kidspeak.
• Victor Mair at Language Log shares a well-researched video on the Mongolian language of Genghis Khan.
• Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Donald Trump, in his defiance of investigative findings, is worse than Richard Nixon.
• James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the bombing of London gay bar Admiral Duncan two decades ago, relating it movingly to wider alt-right movements and to his own early coming out.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen notes a recent review article making the case for open borders, disproving many of the claims made by opponents.
• Paul Mason at the NYR Daily explains why the critique by Hannah Arendt of totalitarianism and fascism can fall short, not least in explaining our times.
• Corey S. Powell at Out There explains how, and why, the Moon is starting to get serious attention as a place for long-term settlement, even.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog explores the fund that she had in helping design a set of scientifically-accurate building blocks inspired by the worlds of our solar system.
• Drew Rowsome reports on the new restaging of the classic queer drama Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times by Walter Borden, this one with a new racially sensitive casting.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel considers the massive boom of diversity at the time of the Cambrian Explosion.
• Towleroad features the remarkable front cover of the new issue of Time, featuring Pete Buttigieg together with his husband Chasten.
• Window on Eurasia considers if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the various flowers of May Day.

[NEWS] Five space science links: Moon, Titan, Triton, Messier 83, dark matter

• Wired explains what would be the point of a crewed mission to the South Pole of the Moon, and what challenges remain.
• Evan Gough at Universe Today notes the evidence for the surprising depth and complex hydrological cycles of the methane lakes of Titan.
• Matt Williams at Universe Today reports on the interest of NASA in dispatching a low-cost mission to the Neptune moon Triton.
• Universe Today looks at the nearby barred spiral galaxy of Messier 83, just 15 million light-years away.
• Universe Today notes the recent disproof of the theory that dark matter is made up of primordial black holes.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait argues that the new American plan to put people on the Moon in 2024 is unlikely to succeed in that timeframe.
• The Broadside Blog’s Caitlin Kelly considers whether or not women should travel alone, for safety reasons. (That choice is one I’ve not had to make myself, thanks to my male privilege; I’m very sorry others have to consider this.)
• Centauri Dreams shares the thinking of Gregory Benford on Lurkers, self-replicating probes produced by another civilization not signaling their existence to Earth.
• Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber argues that policy-making these days is often fundamentally ill-conceived, closing off possibilities for the future.
• The Crux notes the remarkable powers of beet juice, as a tonic for athletes for instance.
• D-Brief looks at the slot canyons of Titan, bearing similarities in structure and perhaps origin to like structures in Utah.
• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina, celebrating five years of blogging, links to his ten most popular posts.
• Gizmodo notes the creation for a list of nearly two thousand nearby stars that the TESS planet-hunter might target for a search for Earth-like worlds.
• Joe. My. God. notes that the Austrian president has confirmed the New Zealand shooter has made a financial donation to a far-right group in Austria.
• JSTOR Daily looks at Inge Lehmann, the scientist who determined the nature of the inner core of the Earth.
• Language Hat reports on a new scholarly publication, hundreds of pages long, gathering together the curses and profanities of the Middle East and North Africa.
• Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not seem impressed by the argument of Mike Lee that pronatalism is a good response to global warming.
• The Map Room Blog notes the impressive maps of Priscilla Spencer, created for fantasy books.
• Marginal Revolution links to a paper that examines the positions of Jews in the economies of eastern Europe, as a “rural service minority”.
• The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper noting the ways in which increased human development has, and has not, led to convergence in family structures around the world.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel explains how, despite the expanding universe, we can still see very distant points.
• Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps reports on the recent mistakes made by Google Maps in Japan.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alexander Harrowell explains why the United Kingdom, after Brexit, does not automatically become a member of the European Economic Area.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the different factors, often unrecognized, going onto the formation of nonsense names, like those of the characters from Lilo and Stitch.

[NEWS] Five space links: Mars, Titan, Kepler-107, Eta Carinae, SDSS J1206+4332

• Smithsonian Magazine notes that the country of Georgia has embarked on research to try to find a grape vine capable of surviving and producing wine in the Martian environment.
• The dense nitrogen-methane atmosphere of Titan may be a process of the hot core’s impact on Titan’s organic compounds. Science News reports.
• Space notes how the odd densities of two of the planets in the Kepler-107 system may indicate some massive impact on the past.
• Universe Today notes that a dust cloud obscuring the brilliant Eta Carinae is moving away from our field of view, making Eta Carinae brighter and easier to study.
• Universe Today notes that double quasars like SDSS J1206+4332 can help reveal the speed of the expansion of the universe.

[NEWS] Five science links: He Jiankui clones, submoons, ayahuasca, planetary nebulas, black holes

• Chinese scientist He Jiankui, responsible for genetically engineering babies, is along with his team facing serious legal consequences from the Chinese government. SCMP reports.
• A new paper suggests that submoons, moons of a world that is itself a moon, is not only theoretically possible but imaginable in orbit of known worlds including the Moon, Callisto, and Titan. Where are these?
• Is ayahuasca becoming a drug of widespread and legitimate mainstream usage? VICE reports.
• Planetary nebulas, Universe Today reports, are visible for only ten thousand years before their beautiful gases dissipate.
• The interiors of black holes apparently continue to grow indefinitely. (The physics is complicated, as one might expect.) Nautilus has the article.

[URBAN NOTE] Five science links: coffee, CERN, Titan, HCN–0.009–0.044, panspermia

• Motherboard notes that climate change endangers a majority of the coffee species growing in the wild.
• Universe Today notes that CERN is planning to build a successor to the LHC, one a hundred kilometres in diameter.
• A review of data from Cassini, Universe Today reports, suggests the probe saw rain fall in the north polar region of Titan.
• A new analysis suggests that mysterious object in the heart of the galaxy, HCN–0.009–0.044, is actually a black hole massing 32 thousand suns. Universe Today has it.
• Universe Today shares an ambitious proposal for future humanity to use interstellar probes to seed life on potentially hospitable but lifeless worlds, a planned panspermia.

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber suggests that the planet Earth, judging by the progress of space travel to date, is going to be the only planet our species will ever inhabit.
• D-Brief notes surprising new evidence that maize was domesticated not in Mesoamerica, but rather in the southwest of the Amazon basin.
• Dangerous Minds notes the penalties proposed by Thomas Jefferson in Virginia for buggery, sodomy, and bestiality.
• Earther considers the extent to which Thanos’ homeworld of Titan, whether the Saturnian moon or lookalike world, could ever have been habitable, even with extensive terraforming.
• Hornet Stories notes the interesting light that a study of ideal penis sizes among heterosexual women sheds on studies of sexuality generally.
• JSTOR Daily takes an extended look at how the sharing economy, promoted by people like Lawrence Lessig and businesses like Airbnb, turned out to be dystopian not utopian, and why this was the case.
• Victor Mair at Language Log reports on controversy over bread made by a Taiwanese baker, and at the language used.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the latest proof of the decline of Harper’s as a meaningful magazine. (Myself, I lost respect for them when they published an extended AIDS denialist article in 2006.)
• Allan Metcalfe at Lingua Franca celebrates, using the example of lexicographer Kory Stamper’s new book, how the blog helped him connect with the stars of linguistics.
• Katherine Franke at the NYR Daily notes pressure from Israel directed against academic critics in the United States.
• Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog notes how the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has picked up InSight hardware on the surface of Mars below.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes how NASA is running short of Plutonium-238, the radioactive isotope that it needs to power spacecraft like the Voyagers sent on long-duration missions and/or missions far from the sun.
• Window on Eurasia notes how, based on an excess of deaths over births, the population of Crimea will decline for the foreseeable future.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at some examples of the anaphora, a particular kind of rhetorical structure.