[PHOTO] Six photos from Rainbow Variations, Taisuke Koyama (@agotoronto)

Rainbow Variations, an art installation by Japanese photographer Taisuke Koyama on display at the AGO, features his macro-photographing of rainbow-coloured publicity posters, bringing out the rainbow as an artifact.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a stunning photo of two galaxies colliding in the eternal night and considers the implications of the Milky Way's future encounter with Andromeda.


• Centauri Dreams looks at the latest discoveries regarding FRB 121102 and fast radio bursts generally.


• Hornet Stories suggests that a recent ruling by the Inter American Court of Human Rights sets the stage for marriage equality across Latin America.


• Inkfish notes that the biomass of dead squid mothers plays a major role in the environments and ecologies of seafloors.


• JSTOR Daily suggests retirees can actually learn a lot from the lifestyles of members of the RV--recreational vehicle--community.


• Language Hat reports on wordplay, and its translations, in the works of Homer.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the turn to anti-intellectualism among American conservatives.


• At Lingua Franca, William Germano talks about telling numbers.


• The LRB Blog notes the story of the English village of Imber, intentionally depopulated by the British military during the Second World War and never allowed to be restored.


• The NYR Daily talks about a London exhibition on the art of our era of terrorism and terror.


• The Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest Juno discoveries from Jupiter.


• Progressive Download's John Farrell reports on a debate as to whether the origin of life is a more difficult question than the origin of consciousness.


• Roads and Kingdoms reports on the simple pleasures of an iced coffee enjoyed in the Australian Outback.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel U>considers an interesting question: is ours the only advanced civilization in the universe?


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little tackles the concept of organizational cultures.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that post-1991 immigrants from the former Soviet Union form a tenth of the Russian labour force.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: Sidewalk Labs, Bentway, density, real estate, photos, PsiPhon

• David Rider reports on the promise of the head of Google's Sidewalk Labs to make Toronto the "first truly 21st century city", and what that means, over at the Toronto Star.


• Richard Longley at NOW Toronto praises the Bentway for its subtly transformative nature.


• MacLean's reports at length on the Fraser Institute report suggesting Toronto and Vancouver do have plenty of room in which to become more dense.


• The extent to which foreign capital plays a role in real estate markets in Toronto and Vancouver may well not be fully covered by current statistics, one argues at The Globe and Mail.


• Toronto Life shares some Instagram photos from prominent Torontonians who have been off vacationing in warmer climes.


• The Jewish Defense League is now becoming active in Toronto, apparently, and organizing against Muslims. Grand. NOW Toronto warns.


• The app PsiPhon, designed in Toronto, is being used by Iranians seeking to avoid censorship at home. The Toronto Star reports.

[NEWS] Four Canadian politics links: Kathleen Wynne, Ontario minimum wage, NAFTA, Canada at the WTO

• Bob Hepburn at the Toronto Star wonders if the unpopularity of Kathleen Wynne, Ontario premier, has anything to do with her being a woman. It does follow a Canadian pattern, sadly.


• Bob Pittis notes at CBC that the Ontario minimum wage increase constitutes a fantastic economic experiment, potentially transformative for the entire country.


• Would the withdrawal threatened by Trump from NAFTA constitute a bargaining tactic? Global News suggests this is a real possibility.


• Canada is bringing a wide-ranging challenge to US trade policies before the WTO, taking issue with more than two hundred examples of violations. This could be big. Jesse Snyder reports for the Financial Post.

[NEWS] Seven science links: Bitcoin, China in space, Saturn rings, Atacama, Southern Cone energy

• The Chinese decision to forbid further bitcoin mining within its frontiers makes sense, actually. VICE reports.


• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes that China is planning more than forty space launches in 2018.


• The upcoming Chang'e 4 lunar lander will carry live plants and animals to the surface of the far side of the Moon. Universe Today's Matt Williams reports.


• Nadia Drake at National Geographic points to research suggesting that the rings of Saturn, far from being primordial, may well have formed as recently as less than a hundred million years ago. Catastrophes can still happen, it seems, in the mature solar system.


• Paul M. Sutter at Universe Today talks about the preternaturally clear night sky above the Atacama Desert in Chile. I would love to see this.


• The Inter Press Service notes that clean energy, including renewable sources like solar and wind, have contributed to a sharp fall in electricity prices in Chile.


• Argentina, the Inter Press Service notes, is set to become a major exporter of lithium from its northwestern Jujuy province, perhaps the leading exporter in the world.

[MUSIC] Ryan Adams, "New York, New York"

The Ryan Adams classic song "New York, New York" is a perfect song to start off a soundtrack for a New York City trip.

Watch on YouTube