[PHOTO] Construction crane amid traffic, Yonge and Eglinton

[URBAN NOTE] On the Toronto Maple Leafs, social media, and performance anxiety

The Globe and Mail's James Mirtle writes about the latest social media controversy in Toronto, this one involving the Toronto Maple Leafs. Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf are positioned by Mirtle as people undeserving of this criticism. This sort of thing, driven by frustration and anger, is probably inevitable given the way the team has been performing so badly this season.

Kessel and Phaneuf do not appear to have many allies in the media, after more than five years as Leafs. They are rarely defended and often take the blame when the team loses.

They’re lightning rods, more than most, and it helps that people want to read and hear about them.

Make no mistake, they’re fair game. In this mess of a season, everyone deserves criticism, and that obviously includes the highest paid and highest profile players.

But the reality here is that – as a frustrated Kessel blurted out on Tuesday in his rant defending his friend and captain – Dion Phaneuf didn’t build this team. He didn’t put himself – a good but flawed defenceman who had slid down Calgary’s depth chart when he was moved – into the No. 1 role, where he’s averaged an almost-NHL-leading 25 minutes a game in his time with the Leafs.

He has played as much as Zdeno Chara, and he’s not Zdeno Chara.

But in the context of how bad this team has been, Phaneuf has performed reasonably well. With Phaneuf on the ice, the Leafs have been outscored by only 13 goals at 5-on-5 in his entire tenure with the team (354 games).

[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[.]

[LINK] "Bright Spots on Ceres Likely Ice, Not Cryovolcanoes"

Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson reports that speculation the bright spots on Ceres are ice volcanoes, erupting water from its interior, is likely false.

“These spots are extremely surprising and have been puzzling to the team and everyone that has seen them,” said Deputy Principal Investigator Carol Raymond. “The team is really, really excited about this feature because it is unique in the solar system.”

[. . .]

First, Raymond said the spots are consistent with highly reflective materials that may contain ice or salts. As an example of this, this morning, Cassini imaging lead Carolyn Porco tweeted an image of exposures of bright ice on Saturn’s moon Phoebe.

[. . .]

Secondly, Raymond said if the bright spots were a cryovolcano, they would expect to see some type of surface evidence of a mound, peak or crack. “We don’t see that with the bright spots so a cryovolcano is unlikely,” she said.

[. . .]

Third, — and this is also for anyone who may be thinking there is a beam or light-creating mechanism on the surface — team member Chris Russell said there is quite conclusive evidence that the spots are reflecting light, not creating light.

“We have followed the light curve into the terminator,” he said. “The spots do get darker and then go out when the terminator is reached.”

[LINK] "Astro-boom offers big bang for the buck in Chile"

Al Jazeera's Frederick Bernas reports on how observational astronomy in Chile may, if handled correctly, spark a technological and economic boom in that country.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), scheduled to begin construction this year, is a 3.2-billion-pixel camera that shoots "a colour movie of the universe".

It will create the largest public data set in the world - a complete map of the sky that enables astronomers to conduct detailed investigations without telescope access.

"This will start a new era - some people call it the democratisation of astronomy," said Chris Smith of Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a hallowed institution that includes the world's largest camera.

"Astronomers will use the digital maps for digging information, with less observing time, and then develop follow-up projects with real telescopes," he told Al Jazeera.

At the University of Chile in Santiago, the National Laboratory for High Performance Computing was opened in 2010 to develop methods for managing these huge volumes, as well as to educate a new generation of experts that will meet surging demand.

"This is the astronomic equivalent of genome research," said Eduardo Vera, the laboratory's director. "The data will be too big to handle - that's why you need algorithms, just like what Google is doing with the internet."

Every night, 20-30 terabytes of data, cataloguing hundreds of transient events - such as supernovae, asteroids, comets and new stars - will arrive from the LSST on a blazing connection of one gigabyte per second, before being stored and analysed by giant supercomputers.

"Chile can become a world leader in informatics and leapfrog the competition, because this stuff is so new that we're not following anyone," Vera told Al Jazeera.

More at the site.

[LINK] "The girl who gets gifts from birds"

BBC's Katy Sewall reports on a young girl in Seattle who has managed to set up a viable trade relationship with her neighbourhood's crows.

[Eight-year-old Gabi Mann]'s relationship with the neighbourhood crows began accidentally in 2011. She was four years old, and prone to dropping food. She'd get out of the car, and a chicken nugget would tumble off her lap. A crow would rush in to recover it. Soon, the crows were watching for her, hoping for another bite.

As she got older, she rewarded their attention, by sharing her packed lunch on the way to the bus stop. Her brother joined in. Soon, crows were lining up in the afternoon to greet Gabi's bus, hoping for another feeding session.

Gabi's mother Lisa didn't mind that crows consumed most of the school lunches she packed. "I like that they love the animals and are willing to share," she says, while admitting she never noticed crows until her daughter took an interest in them. "It was a kind of transformation. I never thought about birds."

In 2013, Gabi and Lisa started offering food as a daily ritual, rather than dropping scraps from time to time.

Each morning, they fill the backyard birdbath with fresh water and cover bird-feeder platforms with peanuts. Gabi throws handfuls of dog food into the grass. As they work, crows assemble on the telephone lines, calling loudly to them.

The crows would clear the feeder of peanuts, and leave shiny trinkets on the empty tray; an earring, a hinge, a polished rock. There wasn't a pattern. Gifts showed up sporadically - anything shiny and small enough to fit in a crow's mouth.

[URBAN NOTE] Torontoist on Eastern Commerce College and its basketball team

Torontoist's Megan Marrelli describes how Eastern Commerce Collegiate, an east-end Toronto school with less than a hundred students set to close at the end of the year, has a strong living tradition of basketball.

In a brightly lit sixth-floor gymnasium, coach Kevin Jeffers watches his Eastern Commerce Saints battle their arch rival, the Oakwood Barons. He’s anticipating a heated match—Oakwood is one of the top teams in the city, and the Saints are arguably the most storied high-school program in Toronto’s history. Over the years, more than 50 NCAA Division I and CIS players have emerged from the program, including former Toronto Raptor and NBA all-star Jamaal Magloire. Basketball is a source of pride for the school, and the team’s pedigree is impressive. They’re the defending city champion, although they lost to Oakwood in the provincial playoffs last year.

But as Eastern Commerce squares off against Oakwood in this year’s regional championship, the Saints’ minds are not as focused as their legacy might suggest. Because today isn’t just another game, it’s also a day of reckoning that Jeffers and the team knew would come. Hours before game time, students and faculty of the 89-year-old Eastern Commerce learned that their school will close in June.

Despite sparse enrolment—Eastern Commerce only has 62 students, and for the past two years has not had a grade-nine class—the Saints are one of the best high-school basketball teams in Toronto, ranking fifth in the city. There are two weeks left in the season, and in the historic life of Eastern Commerce basketball. In that time, they intend to show Toronto what being an Eastern Commerce Saint means.

[. . .]

The Eastern Commerce Saints are close to the hearts of many people, and that’s particularly true of Sialtsis; he’s one of the guys who got the program off the ground in the 1970s. He was around when the team won its first city title in 1976 under the coaching of Simeon Mars, and the Saints quickly became known for their talent and tenacity, and things grew from there.

The team went undefeated during the 1994-1995 school year and won OFSAA gold. In 1996, they won it again, and then won four consecutive OFSAA titles between 2002 and 2005, with Jeffers new to the coaching squad. By then, the Saints had become the team to beat, and the school became known for its basketball far beyond Toronto.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO and Torontoist both report on the remarkable Honest Ed's plan. (More than a thousand residential units, all rental? That's rare.)


• The Dragon's Gaze notes the confirmation of a hard-to-find hot Jupiter orbiting BD-20 1790.


• The Dragon's Tales reports on the mysterious explosion of an American military satellite.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog observes that raw talent is not nearly enough to ensure, that capital of all kinds is needed.


• Joe. My. God. celebrates Slovenia's legalization of same-sex marriage and notes Russia's effort to block benefits for the same-sex partners of United Nations employees.


• Language Hat is apparently not fond of National Grammar Day.


• Language Log is critical of the BBC claim that a southern African group cannot see blue.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money starts a discussion about India's new aircraft carrier.


• Marginal Revolution suggests that the Greeks are badly overstretched as individuals.


• The Planetary Society Blog's Emily Lakdawalla considers Ceres.


• Towleroad notes the Russian government's revenge on an lesbian couple who embarrassed an anti-gay politician.


• Transit Toronto notes that the TTC now has a fourth super-long streetcar.


• The Understanding Society Blog looks at how knowledge is reproduced globally.


• Window on Eurasia criticizes the geopolitics of Eurasianism and warns of Russian involvement in Latvia.


• The Financial Times' World blog notes the many issues with the Greek job market.