[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy looks at ALMA’s observations of the birth of binary star system, here.
• The Buzz, at the Toronto Public Library, announces the Governor-General’s Literary Awards from 2019, here.
• Centauri Dreams notes how we might be able to find a wormhole at the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy.
• The Crux commemorates the enormously successful and long-lasting Voyager missions.
• D-Brief notes a self-tending swarm search and rescue drones.
• Bruce Dorminey notes how the first discoveries of exoplanets were a consequence of innovative technology and thinking.
• Steve Attewell at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes that he is talking about the new idea in X-Men of a mutant nation-state over at Graphic Policy Radio.
• The LRB Blog notes Manif pour Tous mobilizing against new human reproduction laws in France.
• Marginal Revolution looks at how the drug war in Mexico has been getting worse.
• Neuroskeptic considers: What traits would a human population adapted to contemporary environmental pressures exhibit?
• The NYR Daily looks at a new exhibition of critical Internet-related art by Meriam Bennani.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel looks at a remarkable double gravitational lens, and what it reveals about the universe.
• Window on Eurasia notes that although half of working-age people in Uzbekistan have been educated in the Latin script, many remain fluent in Cyrillic.
• Arnold Zwicky considers the many implications of fried pickles with ranch dressing.

[NEWS] Ten Window on Eurasia links

• What will become of the Azerbaijani language in education in Iran? More here.
• Is a Russia-Belarus state union feasible? More here.
• Is Estonia, as some would have it, a viable model for the Finnic Mordvin peoples of the Russian interior? More here.
• Will Russia be happy with its alliance with China if this makes it a secondary partner, a relatively weaker exporter of resources? More here.
• How many Muslims are there in Moscow, and what import does the controversy over their numbers carry? More here.
• Is the Russian fertility rate set to stagnate, leading to long-term sharp decline? More here.
• If 10% of the Russian working-age population has emigrated, this has serious consequences for the future of Russia. More here.
• Irredentism in Kazakhstan, inspired by the example of Crimea, is just starting to be a thing. More here.
• The decline of Russian populations in the north of Kazakhstan, and the growth of Uzbeks, is noteworthy. More here.
• The different Russian proposals for the future of the Donbas, an analyst notes, are built to keep Ukraine a neutral country. More here.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the recent study of near-Earth asteroid 1999 KW4, looking at it from the perspective of defending the Earth and building a civilization in space.
• Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber continues a debate on universal basic income.
• The Dragon’s Tales considers if India does need its own military space force.
• JSTOR Daily looks at how foster care in the United States (Canada, too, I’d add) was also synonymous with sending children off as unpaid farm labourers.
• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money shares a proposal, linking immigration to high-income countries to the idea of immigration as reparation for colonialism.
• The LRB Blog considers the ever-growing presence of the dead on networks like Facebook.
• Muhammad Idrees Ahmad at the NYR Daily looks at how Bellingcat and other online agencies have transformed investigative journalism.
• The Russian Demographics Blog shares a speech by the head of the Bank of Japan talking about the interactions of demographic change and economic growth.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes the mystery behind the great mass of early black hole J1342+0928.
• Strange Company looks at the unsolved Christmas 1928 disappearance of young Melvin Horst from Orrville, Ohio. What happened?
• Window on Eurasia notes that Uzbekistan is moving the Latin script for Uzbek into closer conformity with its Turkish model.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, London, Amsterdam, Odesa, Tashkent

• MTL Blog shares photos from the interior of a Habitat 67 apartment on the market at $C 1.3 million dollars.
• Guardian Cities reports on more London housing estates where the ability of children to play in common spaces is determined by their parents’ income.
• CityLab notes how Amsterdam is making it clear that it is cutting down on car traffic in its downtown, by removing car-related infrastructure.
• Open Democracy reports on how community activists in Odesa are responding to unrestrained property development.
• Guardian Cities reports on the background to mass evictions and demolitions of people in Tashkent.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• The Crux notes the discovery of a second impact crater in Greenland, hidden under the ice.
• D-Brief notes new evidence that ancient Celts did, in fact, decapitate their enemies and preserve their heads.
• Far Outliers notes how Pakhtun soldier Ayub Khan, in 1914-1915, engaged in some cunning espionage for the British Empire on the Western Front.
• Kashmir Hill at Gizmodo notes how cutting out the big five tech giants for one week–Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft–made it almost impossible for her to carry on her life.
• Hornet Stories notes that, unsurprisingly, LGBTQ couples are much more likely to have met online that their heterosexual counterparts.
• At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox imagines Elizabeth Warren giving a speech that touches sensitively and intelligently on her former beliefs in her Cherokee ancestry.
• Mónica Belevan at the Island Review writes, directly and allegorically, about the Galapagos Islands and her family and Darwin.
• JSTOR Daily looks at the economics of the romance novel.
• Language Hat notes the Mandombe script creating by the Kimbanguist movement in Congo.
• Harry Stopes at the LRB Blog notes the problem with Greater Manchester Police making homeless people a subject of concern.
• Ferguson activists, the NYR Daily notes, are being worn down by their protests.
• Roads and Kingdoms lists some things visitors to the Uzbekistan capital of Tashkent should keep in mind.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel makes a case for supersymmetry being a failed prediction.
• Towleroad notes the near-complete exclusion of LGBTQ subjects and themes from schools ordered by Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro.
• Window on Eurasia notes a somewhat alarmist take on Central Asian immigrant neighbourhoods in Moscow.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the Kurds, their history, and his complicated sympathy for their concerns.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Kingston, Montréal, Québec City, Tripoli, Tashkent

• Kingston is expanding and modernizing its docks to accommodate cruise ships, Global News reports.
• Le Devoir reports on how gentrification in Montréal is pushing artists out of the once-inexpensive Mile-Ex neighbourhood.
• In an era where Québec City is pushing for more mass transit, the idea of building a third bridge across the St. Lawrence to relieve car congestion is controversial. CTV reports.
• Guardian Cities reports on how a fairground built in Tripoli by Oscar Neimeyer is falling into, perhaps irreparable, disrepair.
• Open Democracy reports on how new urban development is pushing out many people from old Tashkent.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomy’s Phil Plait reports on the black hole collisions recently identified in a retrospective analysis of data from gravitational-wave detector LIGO, while Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel also writes about the LIGO black hole collision discoveries.
• Centauri Dreams suggests that a slowing rate of star formation might be necessary for a galaxy to support life like ours.
• Crooked Timber reports on the outcome of a sort of live-action philosophy experiment, recruiting people to decide on what would be a utopia.
• The Crux reports on the challenges facing developers of a HIV vaccine.
• D-Brief notes the circumstances in which men can pass on mitochondrial DNA to their children.
• Far Outliers notes the fates of some well-placed Korean-Japanese POWs in India.
• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing wonders if the existential questions about human life raised by genetic engineering can even be addressed by the liberal-democratic order.
• Joe. My. God. reports on the worrying possibility of a Bernie Sanders presidential run in 2020.
• JSTOR Daily reports on the art and the politics of Chinese provocateur Ai Weiwei.
• Language Hat looks at the smart ways in which the film adaptation of My Brilliant Friend has made use of Neapolitan dialect, as a marker of identity and more.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at what a new Chinese blockbuster film, Operation Red Sea, does and does not say about how Chinese think they could manage the international order.
• Geoffrey Pullum at Lingua Franca considers the logical paradox behind the idea of a webpage that has links to all other webpages which do not link to themselves.
• Anna Badhken at the NYR Daily uses Olga Tokarczuk’s new novel Flights and her own experience as an airline passenger to consider the perspectives offered and lost by lofty flight.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Jason Davis notes the successful launch of a Soyuz spacecraft two months after October’s abort, carrying with it (among others) Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques.
• Strange Company notes the 1736 Porteous riot in Edinburgh, an event that began with a hanging of a smuggler and ended with a lynching.
• Towleroad notes that André Aciman is working on a sequel to his novel Call Me By Your Name.
• Daniel Little at Understanding Society takes a look at the organizational issues involved with governments exercising their will.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy makes a good case as to why a second referendum on Brexit would be perfectly legitimate.
• Window on Eurasia suggests expanding Russian-language instruction in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan has more to deal with the needs of labour migrants.
• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell responds to Feng Jicai’s book on the Cultural Revolution, Ten Years of Madness.
• Arnold Zwicky reports on Swiss food, starting with the McRaclette.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait goes into more detail about the Milky Way Galaxy’s ancient collision with and absorption of dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus.
• Centauri Dreams considers SETI in the infrared, looking at the proposal to use a laser to signal our existence to observers of our sun.
• D-Brief notes a study of Neanderthal children’s teeth that documents their hazardous environment, faced with cold winters and lead contamination.
• The Island Review shares three lovely islands-related poems by writer Naila Moreira.
• JSTOR Daily asks an important question: Can the United States and China avoid the Thucydides trap, a war of the rising power with the falling one? Things seems uncertain at this point.
• Mark Liberman at Language Log looks at the continuing lack of progress of machine translation.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a recent discussion on the Roman Republic, noting how imperialism and inequality led to that polity’s transformation into an empire. Lessons for us now?
• The Map Room Blog shares a Canadian Geographic map describing the different, declining, populations of caribou in the north of Canada.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting that global pandemics will not necessarily kill us all off, that high-virulence infections might be outcompeted and, even, controllable.
• The NYR Daily takes a look at historical reasons for the prominence of Rembrandt in the British artistic imagination.
• Towleroad notes that Massachusetts voted to keep transgender rights protected.
• Window on Eurasia suggests that the quality of Russian taught in schools in Uzbekistan is declining. I wonder: Is this a matter of a Central Asian variety emerging, perhaps?
• Livio di Matteo at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes a look at the long-run economic growth of Australia, contrasting it with the past and with other countries. In some ways, Canada (among others) is a stronger performer.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Port Hope, Buffalo, Omaha, Singapore, Tashkent

• Port Hope, it turns out, is where the sequel to Stephen King’s It will be filmed. Global News reports.

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• CityLab suggests that plans to enlist developers to refurbish the subway stations of Buffalo will harm the integrity of its subway stations. (I must get there, I think.)
• CityLab notes how a television station in Omaha preserved an old train station it adopted as its home base, here.
• CityLab notes how the Singapore portrayed in hit film Crazy Rich Asians does not represent Singapore and its issues wholly accurately.
• Guardian Cities shares stunning photos of the architecture and design of the stations of the Tashkent metro, newly opened to photographers.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

The Buzz at the Toronto Public Library bids farewell to V.S. Naipaul.
• Centauri Dreams takes a look at ultra-hot Jupiters, gas giants orbiting close enough to their star that water in their atmosphere breaks down and rubies rain down from their skies.
• The Crux explores the pathways among neurons that transform experiences into memories.
• D-Brief notes that, according to a study of mice, the more fit a person is the better they will shiver.
• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog notes how the shift to a cashless economy leaves people who don’t have access to good-quality financial services marginalized. How can they function if they lack access to a bank account?
• The Finger Post praises Tokyo’s Narita airport, among other things for offering excellent Japanese food.
• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res considers the evolution of the Mormons of the American West as a distinctive voting bloc.
• Lucy Ferris at Lingua Franca talks about language learning, in the light of an American state governor’s campaign against French language instruction, as something that can open up new possibilities and perspectives.
• Bill McKibben at the NYR Daily argues that the best political response of Americans to Trumpism and its environmental outrages is to vote Democratic in the upcoming midterms.
• The Planetary Society Blog’s Emily Lakdawalla notes the postponement of the launch of the Indian Chandrayaan-2 Moon probe to the start of January 2019, for technical reasons with the probe and its launcher.
• Drew Rowsome notes the homophobic censorship by Facebook of non-explicit LGBTQ content like his.
• Peter Rukavina flowcharts the evolution of different Charlottetown coffeeshops, by location and by owners, over the past few years.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes evidence that the first stars in the early universe formed around 250 million years after the Big Bang.
• Window on Eurasia notes that Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have just engaged in a swap of territories, the better to create a coherent frontier between the two neighbours.