[PHOTO] Twenty-four more photos of Ripley's Aquarium

This is the third and final photo post from Ripley's Aquarium, following Monday and Tuesday.

The last portion of the tour through Ripley's was, for me, perhaps the most memorable. The clownfish, the lionfish, the cute cuttlefish (look hard!), the scarlet cleaner shrimp manicure and the bamboo shark petting, the complex life support technology, the glowing jellyfish—all stood out. Even the goldfish in their neat clean tanks inside the entry were worthy of attention, and memory.

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning images, from Jupiter, of the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, and analysis.


• Hornet Stories notes that a reboot of 1980s animation classic She-Ra is coming to Netflix.


• io9 carries reports suggesting that the new X-Men Dark Phoenix movie is going to have plenty of good female representation. Here's to hoping. It also notes that the seminal George Lucas short film "Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" is viewable for free online, but only for a short while.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting that IQ score, more than education, is the single biggest factor explaining why a person might become an inventor.


• The NYR Daily looks at the alliance rightfully called "unholy" between religious militants and the military in Pakistan.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer explains how the strong social networks of Italian migrants in Argentina a century ago helped them eventually do better than native-born Argentines (and Spanish immigrants, too).


• Roads and Kingdoms notes the simple joys of pupusas, Salvadoran tortillas, on a rainy day in Vancouver.


• Towleroad reports on interesting research suggesting that gay men are more likely to have older brothers, even suggesting a possible biological mechanism for this.

Window on Eurasia notes reports of fights between Russian and Muslim students at Russian centres of higher education.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: CLRV streetcars, TTC, King Street, Church and Wellesley, Trump

• Edward Keenan bids farewell to the CLRV streetcars of the TTC, over at the Toronto Star.


• Ainslie Cruickshank notes data suggesting just under 58% of TTC users are women, over at the Toronto Star.


• John Rieti notes that the King Street pilot project, prioritizing mass transit downtown, does seem to have led to improvements in timing, over at CBC.


• Muriel Draaisma notes the tentative acknowledgement, by Toronto police, of missteps in relating to Church and Wellesley and LGBTQ people following a series of disappearances and deaths, over at CBC.


• Toronto Life tells the story of Sarah Phillips, a Canadian expatriate who moved to Toronto's Seaton Village with her family following the election of Trump.

[NEWS] Four sci-tech links: new non-Western star names, anti-pollution bacteria, Fitbit, 'Oumuamua

• Universe Today notes that the IAU has just assigned new names to 86 stars, drawing from Chinese, Indian, Arabic, Mayan and Aborigine traditions. Delta Velorum is Alsephina, for instance.


• Genetically engineered superbacteria from China may be set to consuming the waste from that country's fashion industry. Bloomberg reports.


• Erin Griffith at Wired notes how Fitbit is slowly edging from a fitness device to something like a medical monitor.


• This article in The Atlantic looking at the upcoming efforts to see if extrasolar visitor 'Oumuamua is a technological artifact is fascinating.

[ISL] Five notes on Islands: Madeira, imaginary places, thylacine, Ōkunoshima rabbit, volcanic Tonga

• JSTOR Daily links to a paper examining how a speculative sugar boom in early modern Madeira was the first of its kind.


• Simon Worrall interviews author Malachy Tallack about the latter's book of imaginary places, notably islands.


• News that the DNA of a preserved thylacine has been salvaged is fantastic. Besides the scientific interest of this, could this lead to the resurrection of this Tasmanian species?


• Elaina Zachos notes the many problems facing the many cute rabbits product of a recent introduction to the Japanese island of Ōkunoshima.


• A volcanic island that recently emerged from the sea off of Tonga turns out to be much more durable than scientists had expected.

[NEWS] Five LGBTQ links: molly houses, trans in Germany, being femme, changing sexuality

• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the history and culture of the "molly houses", gay bars of 18th century England.


• Atlas Obscura notes how pioneering German sexologist Marcus Hirschfeld managed to acquire limited recognition of the chosen identities of trans people in pre-Nazi Germany.


• These interviews at VICE with five queer people, talking about what "femme" means to them, are interesting.


• VICE's unpacking of the concept of guys who identify as "mostly straight", through an interview with researcher Ritch C. Savin-Williams, is fascinating. This future for traditional concepts of heterosexuality, one of many, seems both new and noteworthy.


• The argument of Jeff Leavell at VICE, that stereotypes of gender should not be used to justify restrictive labels for humans' sexuality, makes perfect sense to me.