[PHOTO] Underpress, Dovercourt Road north of Dupont

[URBAN NOTE] "A crisis in Vancouver: The lifeblood of the city is leaving"

In The Globe and Mail, Gary Mason worries, not unreasonably, about the future of Vancouver. What happens if young people can no longer afford to live in a metropolis?

There is a growing societal divide in Vancouver that is threatening its future.

The city is increasingly becoming an investor haven for the rich. Sure, there are some lucky souls, relatively middle-class people who got into the housing market before prices took off and who are now sitting on a gold mine. Most realize how fortunate they are, the lottery ticket they won.

And they have consciences when it comes to the plight of those who have no hope of buying a house of any description in the city.

By now, everyone has a fairly clear picture of what is taking place; the confluence of factors that have led to the moment at which we have arrived; the global influx of capital, largely from China; low interest rates, a low Canadian dollar – all of which has created a price ascension that is beyond most people’s comprehension.

For many young adults, however, the city increasingly represents a place of which they no longer can afford to be a part. Consequently, Vancouver faces an almost existential threat; what happens when the lifeblood of any community, those in their 20s and 30s, decide to leave?

[ISL] On a supposed scandal involving Philippe Couillard, Anticosti island, oil, and Arthur Porter

Postmedia News' Philip Authier wrote ("Québec opposition claim premier killed Anticosti oil exploration because of personal feelings for island" about an odd attempt by the Québec opposition to raise a scandal.

The debate over the future of oil exploration on Anticosti Island took a turn for the personal Wednesday when the opposition alleged Premier Philippe Couillard’s passion for fishing and the outdoors is clouding his judgment.

And the Coalition Avenir Québec is using comments made by disgraced hospital executive Arthur Porter, who died last summer, to back up its theory.

In a bizarre twist in the controversy over possible oil and gas exploration on the largely unspoiled Gulf of St. Lawrence island, CAQ house leader François Bonnardel summoned the media to speculate on what he thinks might be motivating Couillard’s zeal to keep development at bay.

Brandishing Porter’s two-year old autobiography, The Man Behind the Bow Tie, Bonnardel read the passage on Page 214 in which Porter says he and Couillard shared a log cabin on the island while on a fishing trip there.

[. . .]

The former head of the McGill University Health Centre, Porter was charged with multiple counts of fraud and corruption in connection with the construction of the $1.3-billion superhospital that opened last spring. He died June 30, 2015 while he was detained in Panama.

Couillard, a former health minister, and Porter were briefly associated in business during Couillard’s years outside of politics. Couillard’s political opponents routinely dredge up the past connection including a now famous photo of him and Porter together on a fishing trip.

On Wednesday, the CAQ baited the fishing theory again – this time to attack Couillard’s staunch opposition to developing the island, first expressed at December’s Paris climate change conference.

[MUSIC] "Canadian gets Grammy nom for historical album, a category not at the Junos"

CTV carried Victoria Ahearn's Canadian Press article noting a decidedly noteworthy achievement in the history of Canadian popular music, and of Canada's First Nations. Would that more Canadians were aware of this.

Music journalist/historian Kevin Howes has been driving across Canada for the past 15 years or so in search of obscure vinyl records of the 1950s to 1980s.

Equipped with a flashlight, face mask and old compact car, the 41-year-old DJ from Richmond Hill, Ont., has scoured everything from flea markets to dusty barns in Hutterite communities and an abandoned hair salon -- all in the name of highlighting important fringe artists and learning about Canada's history.

His tireless work has resulted in his first Grammy Award nomination for best historical album for "Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966-1985." He's nominated as the compilation producer alongside Greg Mindorff, the mastering engineer.

[. . .]

The nominated album has 34 newly remastered recordings -- from Arctic garage rock of the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, to Yup'ik folk from Alaska and country blues from the Wagmatcook First Nation reserve in Nova Scotia.

The 23 different artists and groups represent a variety of First Nations, Metis and Inuit. They include Willie Dunn, Willie Thrasher, John Angaiak and Lloyd Cheechoo.

"These artists were fairly marginalized outside of their native communities where they were celebrated," said Howes.

"So I started reaching out to the artists, first and foremost to thank them for their music, which had affected me deeply, and then to ask for context: 'How were these records made? Tell me more about your life."'

[LINK] On a massive rogue planet in the Beta Pictoris moving group

Universe Today's Evan Gough reports.

A massive rogue planet has been discovered in the Beta Pictoris moving group. The planet, called PSO J318.5338-22.8603 (Sorry, I didn’t name it), is over eight times as massive as Jupiter. Because it’s one of the few directly-imaged exoplanets we know of, and is accessible for study by spectroscopy, this massive planet will be extremely important when piecing together the details of planetary formation and evolution.

Most planets outside our solar system are not directly observable. They are discovered when they transit in front of their host star. That’s how the Kepler mission finds exoplanets. After that, their properties are inferred by their gravitational interactions with their star and with any other planets in their system. We can infer a lot, and get quite detailed, but studying planets with spectroscopy is a whole other ball game.

The team of researchers, led by K. Allers of Bucknell University, used the Gemini North telescope, and its Near-Infrared Spectrograph, to find PSO’s radial and rotational velocities. As reported in a draft study on January 20th, PSO J318.5338-22.8603 (PSO from now on…) was confirmed as a member of the Beta Pictoris moving group, a group of young stars with a known age.

The Beta Pictoris moving group is a group of stars moving through space together. Since they are together, they are understood to be formed at the same time, and to have the same age. Confirming that PSO is a member of this group also confirmed PSO’s age.

[LINK] "The Link Between Neanderthal DNA and Depression Risk"

The Atlantic's Ed Yong describes how big data is being used to tease out the complicated genetic legacy of the Neanderthals in the contemporary human population.

Since 2007, Vanderbilt researchers have been coordinating an 12-institute initiative called eMERGE (short for Electronic Medical Records and Genomics), analyzing the DNA of 55,000 volunteers and comparing those sequences to the patients’ medical records. Those records are goldmines of untapped data about the participants’ phenotypes—the full collection of their traits, including things like height, weight, cholesterol levels, heart function, cancer risk, and depression symptoms. Rather than looking for genes that are related to specific traits or diseases, as many large genetics studies do, eMERGE allows researchers to look for genes related to, well, pretty much anything in those records.

“We realized that it would be relatively straightforward to identify Neanderthal DNA in all these patients and analyze their [records] for a large range of phenotypes, which could speak to all kinds of traits and effects,” says Tony Capra from Vanderbilt University, who led the new study.

And so they did. They started with 13,700 people from the eMERGE Network, and looked for associations between 135,000 Neanderthal genetic variants and 1,689 different traits. They then checked any links they found against a second group of 14,700 eMERGE volunteers. “It is an exciting study—the first systematic assessment of the phenotypic impact of Neanderthal ancestry,” says Sriram Sankararaman from Harvard Medical School, who led an earlier study on Neanderthal DNA.

Capra and his colleagues found significant associations between Neanderthal variants and a dozen phenotypes, including actinic kerastoses (patches of dry, scaly skin caused by sun exposure) and a hypercoagulable state (where blood clots form too readily in the body).

Neither of these connections were particularly surprising: “Neanderthals had been living in central Asia and Europe for several hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans, so they were better adapted to the local climate, pathogens, and diets,” Capra says. “Perhaps interbreeding gave them a heads-up on adaptations to these challenges.” For example, Neanderthal variants could have shaped the skin cells of our ancestors, allowing them to cope with varying levels of ultraviolet radiation in new parts of the world; perhaps that is why such variants affect the risk of actinic kerastoses today. Similarly, blood clots close wounds and physically trap invading microbes; by influencing clotting, Neanderthal variants could have helped early humans to cope with new diseases.

[LINK] "Humans could have driven Neanderthals extinct, even if they were as smart as us"

Drawing on recent papers simulating ancient demographics and Neanderthal cognition, Adam Benton at EvoAnth describes how easily Neanderthals could have been driven into extinction by human beings, even if they were as capable as us.

A series of computer models have shown how even if humans and Neanderthals were equally smart, we still could have beaten them.

It all boils down to our technological advantage. Humans rolled up to the Neanderthal club with some very fancy tools. We would both have hunted the same prey; so whoever had the best tools for the job would outcompete the others. Crucially, this new study shows that this would happen even if the Neanderthals outnumbered the first humans (which they likely did, given it was their home turf). And if humans only had a small technological advantage. Even a slight edge would allow us to reproduce a little bit better, soon allowing us to outnumber the Neanderthals. We could really give them a good kick whilst they were down.

Now to be fair, the Neanderthals had those fancy tools too. However, they seemed to produce them a lot less frequently. In some cases they only seem to have adopted them a few thousand years after humans arrived in the joint (which has led some to speculate they stole them from humans). Thus, even if Neanderthals were as smart as us and making the same tools as us; we brought the better tools to more parties. This would have given us the advantage in hunting resources, allowing us to outcompete the Neanderthals.

Of course, this points rest on the idea that our tools were actually better for hunting than theirs’. Sure they were fancier, but how much does that translate into better hunting ability? Can we really quantify the technological level of the two groups? We can measure a lot of variables about these tools. Some were a more efficient use of raw materials. Others could be repaired quicker. Which of these variables, if any, is the one that gave us the edge? These simulations don’t really tell the answer.

[. . .]

These simulations also identified some other ways that a small group of humans could have gained an advantage over the Neanderthal.

The most significant of these was learning ability. If it turns out we were a bit smarter than Neanderthals (or at least, a bit better at learning) then we could drive them extinct in almost any scenario. No matter how many Neanderthals were living in the region initially, or how few humans turned up, if we could learn better they would all go extinct.

This ultimately works for the same reason that having better culture works. If we can learn we can adapt, innovate, and gain that same cultural edge that would have allowed us to outcompete the Neanderthals.

[LINK] The Dragon's Tales on mass extinctions in the history of the Earth

The Dragon's Tales has a nice links post pointing to that blog's past postings on mass extinctions in Earth's history, from hundreds of millions of years ago to nearly the present day.

[BLOG] Some Sunday links

• Centauri Dreams considers gravitational waves.


• Discover's D-Brief notes our Neanderthal genetic legacy.


• The Dragon's Gaze looks at an inflated hot Neptune.


• The Dragon's Tales considers how much sulfur dioxide Mars had.


• Joe. My. God. notes Dan Savage's criticism of Log Cabin Republicans.


• Marginal Revolution considers ways to be happy.


• The Planetary Society Blog looks at Ok Go's new zero-gravity music video.


• pollotenchegg notes trends in urban population growth in Ukraine, the Donbas faring particularly badly.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer wonders, after Ross Douthat, about the durability of stereotypes of American militarism and European pacifism.


• Strange Maps notes a map of xenophobia, tracking rumours.


• Torontoist notes that Drake got the keys to the city of Toronto.

[URBAN NOTE] "A Night at the Continental Baths"

_New York_ magazine recently republished on its website this article, by Richard Goldstein, recounting an evening spent at the Continental Baths in 1973, watching Bette Midler. It's an interesting period piece, not least because Goldstein apparently came out himself latter this decade. The last paragraph in this quoted section--"Even worse: what if I’m ignored?"--is diagnostic of the whole piece.

What to wear?

Nothing too inviting—I don’t want to be mistaken for David Bowie—and nothing too sedate—I don’t want to be mistaken for a salesman at the Harvard Coop. I settle for my lumberjack look: Bean Boots and a tight-fitting Western shirt over jeans which are baggy in the rear (I know, but they only cost me $3.98). At the Wrangler Wranch on Greenwich Avenue, they will not let you out of the dressing room if your seat is not snug in the saddle, and once I asked a clerk there why cowboys never have short arms, and he looked at my overhanging sleeves as though they were sanitary napkins.

Two friends have invited me along for an evening at the Continental Baths. The Baths is one of New York’s more ingenious hustles: a gay club during the week, and a discothèque on Saturday nights, when you can rent a cabana for $15, or roam the grounds for $5, to mingle or just to watch. I can think of less exploitative entertainments, and many gay people have come to spurn the Baths for its ambience as well as its cost. But the floor is crowded nightly, and at show time you are likely to find some of the most unusual entertainment anywhere—Lillian Roth singing “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” while Mick Jagger looks on. Scenes like that began to attract the curiosity of many straights. In response (and sensing, perhaps, that its gay clientele might provide just the draw a New York pop audience requires these days), the Baths began admitting straights on Saturday nights. It was a sure-fire formula for notoriety: and in the past year, the Baths has emerged as New York’s most Weimarian nightspot, a sort of City of Night à gogo, where straights may move among gay people without necessarily feeling gay.

We meet for dinner in the Village. My friends are wearing overalls and dirty leather jackets, which leaves me feeling overdressed and somewhat effete. We make our way uptown to the old Ansonia, part of that argyle axis which stretches from Cleopatra’s Needle to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, where the Ham & Eggs on Broadway and 72ndused to serve as a sort of leather Sardi’s. Not far from that landmark (now an asexual Blimpie Base, and onion-y at that), they have a blue door with a simple plaque announcing The Continental; shades of post-war Paris and Juliette Greco smoking under the gargoyles. You walk downstairs into a shapeless gymnasium. There is a swimming pool in the center of the room, and the entire place feels heated to the approximate temperature of a sauna at the Y. Except there are no tiles on the walls, and there’s a refreshment stand and potted plants and wicker swings and deck chairs and softly agile lighting and loud music and an Exercycle and weights and pulleys set into the corner of the room like props.

I’m sucked in, absorbed by the crowd, which is perhaps 95 per cent male, although the Continental welcomes ladies on Saturday night. They do seem a bit peripheral, though. Many come clinging to their men, like folks from Indiana hoping to be mugged as an experience. Others crouch politely by the bandstand, and a few dance, with none of the panache of the males, who are dressed for the most part in bath towels, fitted ever so snugly around the hips, so different from the way I look in a towel, all crusty like a dirty dish.

How exciting to be here tonight, to see without touching, stealing glances but feeling insulated by my own identity. This is 1973, year of the transvestite-father-of-six. It is okay to visit a gay bar now and then, just to see how the other tenth lives. Those of us who have been intrigued by Sunday, Bloody Sunday may even consider a brief foray into gay life without feeling stigmatized. Nevertheless, for me it is sufficiently threatening to warrant a certain apprehension. I do not believe heterosexuality is a “natural” state. Most people win their status as heterosexuals after profound inner struggles. Once achieved, that status is anything but invulnerable, and anyone who threatens it must be punished or rendered ridiculous. I don’t think the intensity of the threat which gay people pose to straights has diminished behind the new etiquette of tolerance, and why should it? How can I ignore the yearning mixed with dread which comes of watching someone spurn the very status which I have had to struggle to attain?

I hand my coat to an old black man who gives me a tag and a look of utter boredom. He doesn’t look gay. Nobody does. Mostly they look like me. Men in bath towels or overalls, or those baggy forties trousers where your basket doesn’t show. No one is exactly flaming here tonight, or at least there is little dazzle in the room, except for the persistent traces of the stimulant amyl nitrite hanging like vinegar in the air. Some men are in the nude, especially those grouped around the pool, and some are wearing their towels with little patches of buttock exposes. But I feel no sense of enticement, no ambience of the cruise on Central Park West where guys peer out of the shrubbery like leopards in a Val Lewton movie. Something inexplicably blasé about this audience makes me feel like a proper tourist, 6 a.m. in the peasant markets of La Paz, they’re bringing in freshly slaughtered llamas and you stand there, breathless from the altitude, feeling exotically out of touch.

We all take seats on the floor. It’s crowded—so crowed it’s impossible not to touch or be touched. My friend finds a lap and asks permission to install himself, which, when granted, he does. I’m vaguely pissed, and hope he isn’t going to abandon me. I have my own phobias to contend with: what if I am corralled into a back room by 30 men who want to do a Lawrence of Arabia on me? What if I wind up like that guy in Deliverance, without even the consolation of a canoe trip? Even worse: what if I’m ignored?