[PHOTO] 29 Dufferin passing under the bridge

[BLOG] Some Tuesday links

• Centauri Dreams looks at the latest images of asteroid Bennu provided by the OSIRIS-REx probe.


• The Crux notes the impact of genetic research on theories of language among the Neanderthals. If they were, as seems very likely, users of language, did their language use differ from that of homo sapiens sapiens?


• D-Brief notes that climate change leads to changes in the microbiology of soils. (What effect would this have on the environment? Unknown, as of yet.)


• The Dragon's Tales notes that the Indian aircraft Vikramaditya has just had its second refit completed.


• Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the social construction of geography. How are categories created, for instance?


• Far Outliers looks at efforts to educate prisoners of war in the Second World War-era United States, to use them even as test-beds for a wider reeducation of their societies.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing, considering the idea of the society of the spectacle of Debord after the thoughts of Foucault, notes the early prediction of a fusion between surveillance and spectacle, of a fusion between the two.


• Hornet Stories notes the anti-gay policies of the government of Tanzania government, arguing that country cannot be allowed to be a second Chechnya.


• JSTOR Daily notes how the rhetoric of Richard Nixon helped pave the way for Donald Trump.


• Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money argues that even if the Democratic Party loses today's elections in the United States, Americans should still have hope, should still work for a better future. I wish you all luck, myself.


• The Map Room Blog looks at Stanford University's archive of the Maps of the Office of Strategic Studies.


• Marginal Revolution links to a paper examining immigrant success in Sweden, noting the complicating picture of general success: Children of more deprived refugees do better than more favoured ones.


• The NYR Daily looks at early feminist Ernestine Rose.


• Roads and Kingdoms looks at the work of Cambodian architect Dy Preoung, who during the Khmer Rouge era managed to preserve his work on Angkor Wat.


• Drew Rowsome looks at the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, focusing on its queer elements.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel examines how black holes actually do evaporate.


• Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy notes the signal flaws with the argument that migrants should stay at home and fix their country. (What if they have no chance to, for instance?)


• Window on Eurasia notes that the West has a vested interest in the survival of Lukashenka in Belarus, if only because a sudden liberalization could well lead to a Russian invasion.


• Nick Rowe at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes a look at "bicycle disequilibrium theory".

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Superlinx, Dean Lisowick, environment, Danforth, #infinityago

• Steve Munro takes a critical look at the idea of an uploading of southern Ontario mass transit to a broader regional board, a Superlinx.


• The Toronto Star reports on the funeral ceremony given to Dean Lisowick, victim of the Church and Wellesley serial killer.


• Toronto's ravine system and its inner harbor are on the verge of ecological collapse, with invading species of plant and animal life taking over. The Toronto Star reports that the ravines and inner harbour of Toronto are about to collapse environmentally under invasions.


• blogTO shares photos of what Danforth Avenue looked like in Toronto, starting before its big 20th century boom.


• The Art Gallery of Ontario already has a page up of its crowdfunding effort to buy one of the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror rooms, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, New York City, Amazon HQ2, Churchill, Edinburgh

• MTL Blog shares photos of the interior of one apartment in Montréal's Habitat 67 on sale for a mere $C 1.4 million.


• Justin Petrone writes lyrically about his return visit to New York City.


• CityLab considers the tax, and other, advantages that would apply to Amazon if it split its HQ2 between two cities.


• Global News notes that the Manitoba Arctic port of Churchill, newly reconnected by rail, could thrive given global warming.


• Guardian Cities notes controversy in Edinburgh over notes controversy in Edinburgh over possible gentrification of Leith Walk, an art deco block built of sandstone.

[NEWS] Five space links: extraterrestrial life, CK Vulpeculae, extraterrestrial intelligence

• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a paper suggesting that, to have adequate amounts of biomass for a complex biosphere, Earth-like exoplanets would need a good balance between continents and oceans.


• Matt Williams at Universe Today notes a proposal that, when searching for living worlds, astronomers should search for purple worlds, marked by the pigments of the retinal-based photosynthesis that may have predominated on the early Earth.


• This Universe Today report on the mysterious collision producing the strange stellar object CK Vulpeculae does a great job of outlining a galactic mystery.


• This report about a proposal by scientists at MIT to create a laser beacon that would signal our existence to extraterrestrial civilizations looking at our sun intrigues, and alarms, me.


• James Nicoll at Tor notes speculation that strange extrasolar object 'Oumuamua might be an errant alien artifact. What would that indicate about the galaxy?

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links about space: LandSpace in China, Mars, 'Oumuamua. Sagittarius A*, SN 1987A

• D-Brief notes that China's first privately-funded rocket launch, organized by company LandSpace, failed to reach orbit.


• As Mars dried out, D-Brief notes, ephemeral lakes formed on the relatively deep and warm surface of the Hellas basin when circumstances permitted.


• 'Oumuamua, D-Brief observes, is much more likely a natural object, exhibiting some sort of cometary behaviour, than it is to be an alien spacecraft.


• D-Brief goes into detail about the detection of infrared radiation flares around Sagittarius A*, at the heart of our galaxy, that reveal that ultra-compact object to be a black hole.


• This time-lapse image of the expanding debris from Supernova 1987A, provided by D-Brief, is beautiful.