[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Adam Fish at Anthro{dendum} takes a look at the roles of drones in capitalism, here.


• Bad Astronomy talks about the discovery of a nascent planet in orbit of young star PDS 70.


• Centauri Dreams notes what the discovery of a Charon eclipsing its partner Pluto meant, for those worlds and for astronomy generally.


• D-Brief notes a demographic study of Italian centenarians suggesting that, after reaching the age of 105, human mortality rates seem to plateau. Does this indicate the potential for further life expectancy increases?


• Dead Things shares the result of a genetics study of silkworms. Where did these anchors of the Silk Road come from?


• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the role of the side hustle in creative professions.


• Far Outliers reports on the time, in the 1930s, when some people in Second Republic Poland thought that the country should acquire overseas colonies.


• Hornet Stories reports on how, in earlier centuries, the English word "pinke" meant a shade of yellow.


• JSTOR Daily reports on how, nearly two decades later, Sex and the City is still an influential and important piece of pop culture.


• Language Hat links to Keith Gessen's account, in The New Yorker, about how he came to teach his young son Russian.


• Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, reports on the decent and strongly Cuban Spanish spoken by Ernest Hemingway.


• The NYR Daily looks at the mystique surrounding testosterone, the powerful masculinizing hormone.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer shares his thoughts on the election, in Mexico, of left-leaning populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Worst-case scenarios aren't likely to materialize in the short and medium terms, at least.


• Vintage Space notes how, at the height of the Cold War, some hoped to demonstrate American strength by nuking the Moon. (Really.)


• Window on Eurasia links to an essayist who suggests that Russia should look to America as much as to Europe for models of society.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Little Jamaica, The Coffee Lab, Tour Tram, Massey Hall, design

• blogTO takes a look at Little Jamaica along Eglinton Avenue West, a neighbourhood that persists despite gentrification and Eglinton Crosstown construction.


• Christopher Hume takes a look at The Coffee Lab, a tiny coffee shop on Spadina south of Richmond, and what this suggests about Toronto's urban future, over at the Toronto Star.


• Steve Munro takes a look at the 1973 introduction of Toronto's Tour Tram.


• As Massey Hall is set for a years-long shutdown for renovations, NOW Toronto's Richard Trapunski shares musicians' memory of this venue.


• blogTO takes a look at Claude Cormier + Associés, the Montréal-based architecture firm that has introduced quirky highlights to Toronto like the redesigned Berczy Park.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Detroit, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome

Ford Motors is redeveloping the abandoned Detroit Central Station to house workers' offices. Global News reports.

• JSTOR Daily takes a look at how Washington D.C. evolved over generations into a major tourist destination.


• Wired suggests that Los Angeles is doing quite a good job of managing its limited water resources.


• Restaurants in San Francisco are adapting to the high costs of labour in that city, with its expensive housing, by starting a shift to self-service models. The New York Times reports.


• The city of Rome makes compelling backgrounds for the films of Italian Michelangelo Antonioni. Spacing has it.

[NEWS] Five First Nations links: Anishaabemowin, Mexico, Australia, Vanuatu, Tsimshian

• Journalist Duncan McCue writes about his efforts to learn the Anishaabemowin language of his ancestors, over at CBC.


• The Inter Press Service looks at indigenous language revival movements among in Mexico.


• The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports on the perhaps surprisingly intimate relationship over time between Indigenous Australians and Chinese migrants in Australia.


• Some Aborigines were deported to Vanuatu in the 19th century, part of the "repatriation" of the blackbirded. Some of their descendants have recently returned to Queensland to try to connect to their local kin. SBS reports.


• A Tsimshian woman from Alaska, active in the language revival movement among the Tsimshian of British Columbia, is fighting efforts to deport her from Canada--or, rather, from the Canadian portion of the Tsimshian homeland. The National Post reports.