[PHOTO] Colour in St. James Town

[PHOTO] Garden of Fanningbank, Charlottetown

The formal garden of Fanningbank seemed to be somewhat past its peak at the end of July, but it was still carefully manicured, and still enjoyed the benefits of its location between the cool blue of Charlottetown Harbour and the dense green trees of Victoria Park.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a stunning amateur astronomer's photograph of a gravitationally-lensed galaxy billions of light-years away.


• Centauri Dreams reports on the successful imaging from Argentina of Kuiper belt object MU69, a possible binary.


• Dangerous Minds traces the origin of the garden gnome to a time when the rich had people in their gardens.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper suggesting TRAPPIST-1's inner planets have had their atmospheres burned off.


• Language Hat notes the struggle to rid Appalachian dialects of English of their stigma.


• Language Log compares Chinese, Greek, and Latin, as classical languages of philologists.


• Marginal Revolution reports that a new job is that of intimacy director, guiding actors and others in intimate scenes.


• Neuroskeptic reports on an apparently solid paper suggesting female brains are more active than male ones.


• Noel Maurer notes that, although Venezuela's system of government was alert to fraud, its leaders responded by not caring and moving ahead.


• Roads and Kingdoms reports on a visit to post-Jammeh Gambia.


• Strange Maps reports on a bizarre 1920 proposal to unite Europe and divide it into regions shape like pie slices.


• Towleroad notes that Karl Stefanovic thinks Australian politicians' treatment of same-sex marriage is disrespectful.


• Window on Eurasia notes a study saying Tajik immigrants in Moscow adapt better than migrants from provincial Russia.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: the Toronto Public Library, Hanlan's, parks, and Montréal laneways

• blogTO notes that the Toronto Reference Library will be holding a huge sale again next week.


• Inside Toronto profiles Sephora Hussein, new collection head of the Merril Collection.


• Michael Lyons writes about the importance of the newly-reopened Hanlan's beach on the Toronto Islands.


• Jake Tobin Garrett argues at Torontoist for the importance of the proposed Rail Deck Park.


• Emily Macrae argues at Torontoist there is much Toronto can learn from the green--literally--laneways of Montréal.

[ISL] Four links from islands, from dividing Ireland, to the Chamorro and Haida, to the Caribbean

• Peter Geoghegan writes at Open Democracy about the mess that Brexit has made of Ireland, two decades after the Troubles' end.


• Anthrodendum's Alex Golub notes that a North Korean attack on Guam, among other things, would threaten the Chamorro natives of the island.


• The Toronto Star carries an excerpt from a book by Mark Dowie looking at how the Haida, of Haida Gwaii, managed to win government recognition of their existence.


• CBC's Sameer Chhabra explores how Canadian students at Caribbean medical schools find it very difficult to get jobs back home.

[NEWS] Four science links, from water on the frontier to climate change to Tau Ceti exoplanets

• At Wired, Matt Simon explores the remarkably wrong-headed theory of the 19th century US that "rain follows the plough."


• These National Geographic photos of the unexplored lakes in Angola that feed the Okavango are remarkable.


• Rachel Brown examines billy burr, the Colorado hermit whose collection of decades of climate data is invaluable.


• Universe Today notes a new study confirming the existence of Tau Ceti e and f, potentially habitable rocky exoplanets just 12 light years away.

[PHOTO] East on Geary at Dufferin, Toronto

Standing on Geary Avenue just east of Dufferin Street, this one of Toronto's newest hip streets looks perfectly ordinary and quietly miraculous under the line of street lights.