[PHOTO] Looking west at the Galleria, 3:24 am

[BLOG] Some Monday links

• The Crux compares the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the stories that they hold, to the sorts of oral histories that historians have traditionally been skeptical of. What, after all, is the difference?


• D-Brief notes a proposal by scientists to reengineer the world's food system to support a larger population in a time of environmental stresses.


• Earther notes that Gallifrey, the homeworld of Doctor Who, would be a pretty uninviting Earth-like world.


• Peter Kaufman at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes a powerful sociological treatment of his impending death.


• Far Outliers considers the relative firepower of the Hatfields and the McCoys.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper considering how, and why, different epidemics can be suitable (or not) for entertainment purposes.


• Language Hat looks at a remarkable new book, Robert Macfarlane's Lost Words, drawing from the nature-related words dropped by the Oxford Junior Dictionary.


• Lingua Franca at the Chronicle notes how "du coup" has ascended to become a newly prominent expression in French.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining mechanisms explaining how Communism had a lasting negative effect towards immigration.


• Window on Eurasia notes that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, poor and insecure, need Russian military bases in their countries more than Russia does.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: first Toronto, Keesmaat, Vaughan, parks, Dupont, Jarvis

• Katie Daubs at the Toronto Star writes about a noteworthy discovery by geography Rick Laprairie, of the first recorded use of the word "Toronto" on a French map from 1678, referring to the body of water now known as Lake Simcoe.


• Edward Keenan considers the potential of the vision of Jennifer Keesmaat for Toronto, over at the Toronto Star.


• There are significant increases in transit use in Vaughan near the new subway stations, but traffic at many remains low. CBC reports.


• Urban Toronto notes that the City of Toronto has settled on designs for two parks on the waterfront.


• Urban Toronto notes that excavation has begun for the first big new condo developments on Dupont Street.


• blogTO shares a history of Jarvis Street, a beautiful street lost to construction and widening in the 1940s.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Smiths Falls, Montréal, Paris, Detroit, Mosul

• The small eastern Ontario town of Smiths Falls has been saved by a marijuana production boom that has brought hundreds of jobs to the community. The National Post reports.


• This Montreal Gazette article takes a look at the background behind the strong economic growth recently displayed in Montréal.


• CityLab looks at how Paris, under Mayor Anne Hidalgo, is preparing for global warming.


• Tom Perkins at The Guardian reports on how hopes for a redevelopment of downtown Detroit have been hindered, a supposed new core being transformed into a sea of parking lots.


• Stewart Bell at Global News reports on the sorry state of the city of Mosul after the end of ISIS.

[ISL] Five islands links: Shetlands, Isle-aux-Grues, Puerto Rico, Caribbean, Hong Kong

• The BBC notes new legislation in Scotland that would prevent mapmakers from displaying the distant Shetland Islands in a box on maps, despite their great distance from the Scottish mainland.


• Ecologically sensitive Isle-aux-Grues, in the lower Saint Lawrence east of Québec City, has received protected status. CBC reports.


• Bloomberg View notes the obvious fact that Puerto Rico needs a better debt deal if it is to begin to recover.


• Chinese immigrants are coming to the islands in the Caribbean in large numbers, providing vital resources for island economies, Ozy reports.


• Vice's Motherboard reports that Hong Kong wants to deal with its housing crisis by building new homes for more than a million people on yet-to-be-built artificial islands off of the city-state's south coast.

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: Superstorms, solar power, superhumans, space colonies, panspermia

• Vice's Motherboard reports on how we do not understand the storms of the Anthropocene era, fueled by climate change.


• Vice suggests that the very sharp and continuing fall in the price of solar power might well allow the Earth to escape ecological ruin, by providing energy alternatives.


• The Guardian reports on the prediction of Stephen Hawking that technological advances will lead to the emergence of a race of superhumans that might well destroy--at least, outcompete--traditional humanity.


• Over at Tor, James Nicoll recently contributed an essay arguing that technological challenges and the lack of incentive mean that the human colonization of space is not going to happen for a good while yet.


• Universe Today highlights a new paper suggesting that panspermia unaided by intelligence can work on a galactic scale, even across potentially intergalactic distances.