[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes new evidence that the Pathfinder probe landed, on Mars, on the shores of an ancient sea.
• The Crux reports on tholins, the organic chemicals that are possible predecessors to life, now found in abundance throughout the outer Solar System.
• D-Brief reports on the hard work that has demonstrated some meteorites which recently fell in Turkey trace their origins to Vesta.
• Colby King at the Everyday Sociology Blog explores sociologist Eric Klinenberg’s concept of social infrastructure, the public spaces we use.
• Far Outliers reports on a Honolulu bus announcement in Yapese, a Micronesian language spoken by immigrants in Hawai’i.
• JSTOR Daily considers the import of the autobiography of Catherine the Great.
• Language Hat reports, with skepticism, on the idea of “f” and “v” as sounds being products of the post-Neolithic technological revolution.
• Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen is critical of the idea of limiting the number of children one has in a time of climate change.
• Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reflects on death, close at hand and in New Zealand.
• Strange Company reports on the mysterious disappearance, somewhere in Anatolia, of American cyclist Frank Lenz in 1892, and its wider consequences.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel identifies five types of cosmic events capable of triggering mass extinctions on Earth.
• Towleroad reports on the frustration of many J.K. Rowling fans with the author’s continuing identification of queer histories for characters that are never made explicit in books or movies.
• Window on Eurasia has a skeptical report about a Russian government plan to recruit Russophones in neighbouring countries as immigrants.
• Arnold Zwicky explores themes of shipwrecks and of being shipwrecked.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Anthrodendum reviews the book Fistula Politics, the latest from the field of medical anthropology.
• Architectuul takes a look at post-war architecture in Germany, a country where the devastation of the war left clean slates for ambitious new designers and architects.
• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at newly discovered Kuiper Belt object 2008 VG 18.
• Laura Agustín at Border Thinking takes a look at the figure of the migrant sex worker.
• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Al Jackson celebrating the Apollo 8 moon mission.
• D-Brief notes how physicists manufactured a quark soup in a collider to study the early universe.
• Dangerous Minds shares some photos of a young David Bowie.
• Angelique Harris at the Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at what the social sciences have to say about sexuality and dating among millennial Americans.
• Gizmodo notes the odd apparent smoothness of Ultima Thule, target of a very close flyby by New Horizons on New Year’s Day.
• Hornet Stories notes the censorship-challenging art by Slava Mogutin available from the Tom of Finland store.
• Imageo shares orbital imagery of the eruption of Anak Krakatau in Indonesia, trigger of a devastating volcanic tsunami.
• Nick Stewart at The Island Review writes beautifully about his experience crossing the Irish Sea on a ferry, from Liverpool to Belfast.
• Lyman Stone at In A State of Migration shares the story, with photos, of his recent whirlwind trip to Vietnam.
• JSTOR Daily considers whether or not fan fiction might be a useful tool to promote student literacy.
• Language Hat notes a contentious reconstruction of the sound system of obscure but fascinating Tocharian, an extinct Indo-European language from modern XInjiang.
• Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the irreversible damage being caused by the Trump Administration to the United States’ foreign policy.
• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting users of Facebook would need a payment of at least one thousand dollars to abandon Facebook.
• Lisa Nandy at the NYR Daily argues that the citizens of the United Kingdom need desperately to engage with Brexit, to take back control, in order to escape catastrophic consequences from ill-thought policies.
• Marc Rayman at the Planetary Society Blog celebrates the life and achievements of the Dawn probe.
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer notes that so many Venezuelans are fleeing their country because food is literally unavailable, what with a collapsing agricultural sector.
• The Russian Demographics Blog breaks down polling of nostalgia for the Soviet Union among Russians.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that simply finding oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet is not by itself proof of life.
• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy reports on how the United States is making progress towards ending exclusionary zoning.
• Whatever’s John Scalzi shares an interview with the lawyer of Santa Claus.
• Window on Eurasia reports on a fascinating paper, examining how some Russian immigrants in Germany use Udmurt as a family language.
• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the lives of two notable members of the Swiss diaspora in Paris’ Montmartre.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• D-Brief notes that, with the Dawn probe unresponsive, its mission to Vesta and Ceres is now over.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports that NASA is seeking commercial partners to deliver cargo to the proposed Gateway station.
• JSTOR Daily looks back to a time where chestnuts were a staple food in Appalachia.
• Language Log takes a look at prehistoric words in Eurasia for honey, in Indo-European and Old Sinitic.
• Joy Katz at the LRB Blog writes about her lived experience of the conventional Pittsburgh neighbourhood of Squirrel Hill, a perhaps unlikely scene of tragedy.
• The Map Room Blog links to an interactive map showing the Québec election results.
• Marginal Revolution links to that New York Magazine article about young people who do not vote to start a discussion.
• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the real dangers faced by Venezuelan refugees in the northern Brazilian state of Roraima, at the start of the era of Bolsonaro.
• Window on Eurasia argues that changes to the Russian census allowing people to identify with multiple ethnicities could lead to a sharp shrinking in the numbers of minority nationalities.

[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/”>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.

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• At Anthro{dendum}, Daniel Miller writes about how some of the food he cooks evokes his history in Cuba-influenced Tampa.
• Bad Astronomer notes an astonishingly high-resolution image of protoplanet Vesta taken from the Earth.
• The Big Picture shares photos of the Kakuma refugee camp, in Kenya.
• Centauri Dreams notes one proposal to help extend the life of a Type III civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy by importing stars from outside of the local group.
• Crooked Timber’s Corey Robin talks about changing minds in politics, inspired by the success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• Dangerous Minds shares the 1978 BBC documentary on surrealism, Europe After the Rain.
• Far Outliers shares the third part of a summary of an article on African and Japanese mercenaries in Asia.
• Hornet Stories reports on the regret of Buffy showrunner Martin Noxon that her show killed off Tara. (I agree: I liked her.)
• At In Medias Res, Russell Arben Fox wonders what American farmers–by extension, perhaps, other farmers in other high-income societies–want. With their entire culture being undermine, what can they hope for?
• Joe. My. God. notes how far-right groups in Europe are increasingly welcoming lesbian, gay, and bisexual members. (Not so much trans people, it seems.)
• JSTOR Daily reports on the obvious utility of the humble beaver (in its North American homelands, at least).
• Language Log considers the politics of the national language policy of China.
• This Language Hat articlereporting on a conference on xenolinguistics, and the discussion in the comments, is fascinating. What can we hope to learn about non-human language? What will it have, and have not, in common?
• The Power and the Money’s Noel Maurer considers the slow corruption of independent institutions in Mexico that may occur under the presidency of AMLO.
• Starts With A Bang’s Ethan Siegel notes that, while we have not found life on Enceladus, we have found indicators of a world that could support life.
• Window on Eurasia wonders if Russia is increasingly at risk of being displaced in Central Asia by a dynamic Kazakhstan.

[NEWS] Four science links: Neanderthals, oceans and computers, Brazil rainforest, water on Vesta

• Neanderthals, like contemporary humans, had the sort of prolonged childhoods which lend themselves to intelligence. National Geographic reports.
• The cool chill water of oceans is starting to be used to cool data centres. VICE reports.
• Brazil is set to embark on a substantial process to restore Amazonian rainforest. VICE reports.
• The Dawn probe found evidence of subsurface ice on rocky asteroid-belt protoplanet Vesta. Universe Today reports.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Centauri Dreams notes evidence that pitted terrain, as found on Ceres and Vesta, indicates subsurface ice.
• Dead Things links to evidence suggesting insomnia and poor sleep are not disorders, but rather evolutionary inheritances that were useful in the past.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the critical human role in the ongoing sixth extinction.
• Language Hat links to speculation that the Afroasiatic language family has its origins in the Natufian Levant.
• The LRB Blog reports on a fascinating French show about espionage, Le Bureau des légendes.
• Personal Reflections’ Jim Belshaw reports on an important speech by Malcolm Turnbull on politics and Australia’s Liberal Party.
• The Planetary Society Blog shares Marc Rayman’s report on the latest discoveries of Dawn at Ceres.
• Spacing’ Sean Ruthven has a review of a beautiful book on the Sea Ranch, a northern California estate.
• Back in May, Septembre Anderson argued at Torontoist that rather than embracing diversity, Canadian media was more willing to wither.
• Window on Eurasia shares an argument suggesting Baltic Russians would not follow the Donbas into revolt because the Baltics are much better off economically.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO notes a house on downtown Toronto’s Jersey Avenue, a near-laneway, that is on the market at nearly eight hundred thousand dollars.
• Centauri Dreams warns that with the passage of Dawn and New Horizons and Cassini, an era of unmanned space exploration will come to an end.
• Crooked Timber’s Belle Waring considers Western/Asian cultural differences on gender.
• The Dragon’s Gaze links to one paper seeking to detect exoplanet rotation rates and other data via eclipses, and links to another noting the discovery of N2H in a ring around TW Hydrae.
• The Dragon’s Tales reports on the results of a genetic analysis of the dwarf mammoths of Wrangel Island.
• A Fistful of Euros looks at how the Second World War started Ireland’s break from the Sterling zone.
• The Frailest Thing considers the good of tech criticism.
• Joe. My. God. celebrates a decade of same-sex marriage in Spain.
• Language Hat looks at how promoters of a literature or a work can get things they champion translate.
• The Planetary Society Blog has two posts celebrating its role in the New Horizons probe.
• Towleroad notes that YouTube star Shane Dawson has just come out as bisexual.
• Window on Eurasia looks at an incipient Cossack separatism.

[LINK] “Seeing Ceres: Then and Now”

As Dawn approaches Ceres, Centauri Dreams’ Paul Gilster shares some classic imaginings of Ceres and various other asteroids. They may have gotten some gross details right, actually.

I’m interested in how we depict astronomical objects, a fascination dating back to a set of Mount Palomar photographs I bought at Adler Planetarium in Chicago when I was a boy. The prints were large and handsome, several of them finding a place on the walls of my room. I recall an image of Saturn that seemed glorious in those days before we actually had an orbiter around the place. The contrast between what we could see then and what we would soon see up close was exciting. I was convinced we were about to go to these worlds and learn their secrets. Then came Pioneer, and Voyager, and Cassini.

And, of course, Dawn. As we discover more and more about Ceres, the process repeats itself, as it will again when New Horizons reaches Pluto/Charon. Below is a page from a book called Picture Atlas of Our Universe, published in 1980 by the National Geographic. Larry Klaes forwarded several early images last week as a reminder of previous depictions of the main belt’s largest asteroid, or dwarf planet, or whatever we want to call it. Here the artwork isn’t all that far off the mark for Ceres, though Vesta would turn out to be a good deal less spherical than predicted. No mention of a possible Ceres ocean in the depictions of this time; all that would come later.

The recent Dawn imagery has us buzzing about the two bright spots on Ceres that, of course, were unknown to our artist in 1980. From 46,000 kilometers, all we can do is admit how little we know[.]

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• blogTO shares a list of the five most cliched music video locations in Toronto.
• The Dragon’s Tales notes that Germany has abandoned its support for upgrading the Ariane 5, instead opting for a new Ariane 6.
• Eastern Approaches notes the surprise election of Transylvanian Saxon Klaus Iohannis as president of Romania.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the sociology of aging.
• Geocurrents’ Martin Lewis compares the diverging political patterns of northern California and Minnesota.
• Joe. My. God. links to the new Giorgio Moroder single and notes the AHF’s anti-PReP ad.
• Language Hat notes that the Mayan glyphs on the walls of Chipotle restaurants actually mean something.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money mocks Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition to same-sex marriage.
• The Map Room’s Jonathan Crowe shares geological maps of Vesta, produced by the Dawn probe.
• pollotenchegg lists the ten largest Ukrainian cities of the long 19th century.
• Window on Eurasia notes the firebombing of some Crimean Tatar mosques.