[CAT] Shakespeare, curled

[CAT] Five cat links: Egypt, genetics, menace, CitiKitty, PEI

• JSTOR Daily explains how, gradually, the ancient Egyptians came to venerate cats.


• American Veterinarian reports on the 99 Lives Cat Genome Sequencing Initiative.


• I'm not sure quite what I think about this Jonathan Jones argument at The Guardian, about the removal of menace from the popular image of the cat. You?


• CNBC reports on the CitiKitty potty training kit for cats.


• Tony Davis at the Charlottetown Guardian reports on how, during the power outage, neighbours of the PEI Humane Society provided generators to keep (among others) adult cats and kittens there warm.

[PHOTO] Sixteen photo of Exhibition Place in early winter

Thursday afternoon, I went south on the 29 Dufferin down to Exhibition Place. Things did not work out quite as I planned, but I did get a chance to disembark at Dufferin Gate and walk east down Princes Boulevard. The bareness of the weather, without leaves and without snow, does a good job of showing the complex's bare-bones handsomeness.

[BLOG] Some Saturday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the magnetic fields of super-Earths, and the impact of these on potential life.


• D-Brief reports on the corporate partners selected to accompany NASA on its return to the Moon.


• Bruce Dorminey reports on the claim of astronomers to have identified four extrasolar objects already in the solar system.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog pays tribute to long-time contributor Peter Kaufman, now departed.


• JSTOR Daily asks why Americans, and others, eat three meals a day.


• The LRB Blog reports on the underlying factors behind the gilets jaunes protests in France against higher fuel taxes.


• Language Hat links to a fascinating essay about the persistence of individuals' first languages.


• Neuroskeptic takes a look at possible hacks to the human mind, in the light of a recent announcement of human genetic engineering. What will become possible? What will be done?


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that Triton, not Pluto or Eris, is the largest world of the Kuiper Belt.

Strange Maps shares a remarkable map of Lake Michigan made solely with a typewriter.

• Daniel Little at Understanding Society ruminates on the thought of Scott Page regarding social modeling.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the history of the letter "Ё" in the Russian language.


• Arnold Zwicky starts from the idea of green flowers to take a look at unusual greenery generally.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: streetcars, the Well, TTC, noise, Quayside

• Steve Munro contrasts and compares time on the King and Queen streetcar routes, here.


• Urban Toronto shares a photo of the massive Well, a giant construction pit downtown.


• John Tory certainly should, as mayor, be informed by the province of Ontario as to what it intends to do with the TTC. The Toronto Star reports.


• Is a neighbourhood in southwest Scarborough the noisiest neighbourhood in Toronto? The Toronto Star investigates.


• Sidewalk Labs' plans for Quayside have gotten the attention of CityLab, here.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Scarborough and Vaughan, Hamilton, Montréal, Edmonton, Vancouver

• The auditor of Ontario is investigating two proposed Metrolinx stations, one in Scarborough and one in Vaughan, that may have been placed for the benefit of political incumbents. CBC reports.


• CBC Hamilton reports that some Hamilton neighbourhoods continued to see strong interest and continued price rises despite a general slowdown.


• La Presse reports on the disruption to traffic and the environment that will be caused by the repair of a tunnel linking the island of Montréal to the South Shore.


• The annual ice castle in Edmonton seems to be doing well, what with cold weather locally. Global News reports.


• "Renovictions"--buyouts of tenants--are a growing trend in Vancouver that some local activists are warning against. The Toronto Star reports.