[PHOTO] Towers of Mimico as seen from Humber Bay Park

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes J0045, once thought to be a star in Andromeda and but recognized as a binary black hole a thousand times further away.


• Centauri Dreams notes the longevity of the Voyager mission.


• D-Brief notes that some worms can thrive in a simulacrum of Mars soil.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes an ambitious effort to try to detect a transit of Proxima Centauri b. Did the researchers pick something up?


• Hornet Stories links to a report suggesting HIV denialism is worryingly common in parts of Russia.


• Language Log reports on an apparently oddly bilingual Chinese/Vietnamese poster. Where did it come from?


• The LRB Blog reports on how Tunisian Anouar Brahem fused jazz with Arabic music on his new album Blue Maqems.


• The Map Room Blog links to a lecture by John Cloud on indigenous contributions to mapmaking in Alaska.


• The NYR Daily looks at the grim position of Theresa May in Brexit negotiations.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers what would have happened if the Americas had not been populated in 1492. How would imperialism and settlement differ?


• Roads and Kingdoms notes some of the architectural legacies--houses, for instance--of Basque settlement in the American West.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes three conundrums that neutrinos might be able to solve.


• Window on Eurasia notes why Russia is hostile, despite its program of merging federal units, to the idea of uniting Tatarstan with Bashkortostan.


• Using an interwar map of Imperial Airways routes, Alex Harrowell illustrates how the construction of globalized networks can make relatively marginal areas quite central.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: condos, Church and Wellesley, biking, Eglinton LRT, Scarborough

• blogTO notes that a massive condo tower, 64 stories high, is slated for the northwest corner of Church and Wellesley.


• VICE reports on how a string of suspicious disappearances, dead people, and outright murders is worrying people in Church and Wellesley.


• Ben Spurr notes that the Ontario government has given Toronto more than $C 25 million to improve cycling infrastructure, over at the Toronto Star.


• David Rider notes a push to investigate the idea of burying the western end of the Eglinton LRT line, over at the Toronto Star.


• Oliver Moore notes the recommendation of outgoing TTC chief Andy Byford that the one-stop Scarborough subway extension be cancelled if the cost is projected to be more than $C 3 billion, over at The Globe and Mail.

[URBAN NOTE] Six city notes: design, Grenfell, London, Chennai, Damascus, Istanbul, Izmir, Beirut

• VICE describes the pressing need to design cities in ways such that city living is less stressful for inhabitants.


• This heartbreaking GQ article describes the Grenfell Tower catastrophe through interviews with rescuers and the rescued alike. What a horrific tragedy.


• Chennai, and wider Tamil Nadu, risks going through the experience of Detroit and its automotive industry migrates away. Bloomberg reports.


• Open Democracy takes a look at how Russian soldiers in Damascus interact with the Syrian locals.


• Inhabitants of Istanbul, it seems, are migrating to less expensive and more liberal Izmir down on the Aegean coast. Al-Monitor reports.


• Parties featuring West African music are thriving in Beirut, brought back to Lebanon by Lebanese migrants. Al-Monitor reports.

[NEWS] Four notes from distant corners: Corsica, Dominica, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Montenegro

• Nationalists, though not separatists, have done quite well in recent elections in Corsica. Bloomberg reports.


• Dominica, ravaged by recent hurricanes, is preparing for an environmentally tumultuous future. The Inter Press Service reports.


• Scotland, for one, is looking to Northern Ireland as a possible precedent for its relationship with the European Union. Bloomberg reports.


• Balkanist takes a look at the potential impact the breakdown of relations between Russia and Montenegro might have on the small state, dependent on Russian tourism.

[NEWS] Four links on the future: robot rights, passive houses, Facebook, green Bank of Canada

• Daily JSTOR considers, in the aftermath of Blade Runner: 2049, the question of extending rights to robots. What do we owe them?


• CBC notes that, using passive housing technology, some Canadian groups have built extraordinarily energy-efficient apartment houses with rather low ongoing costs for (among others) tenants.


• Nick Zarzycki makes the obvious point that, for the good of democracy, trusting Facebook to regulate itself is foolish. External review and control is needed. MacLean's has it.


• Hamish Stewart at the National Observer considers what it would take for the Bank of Canada to have authentically "green" policies.