[PHOTO] Looking west, Yonge south of St. Clair

[PHOTO] Looking west, Yonge and St. Clair, 6 pm

[PHOTO] Looking west in the emptying main concourse, Galleria Mall

[BLOG] Some Friday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the newly-named Neptune moon of Hippocamp, and how it came about as product of a massive collision with the larger moon of Proteus.


• Centauri Dreams also reports on the discovery of the Neptune moon of Hippocamp.


• Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes how the attempt to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum sets a terribly dangerous precedent for the United Kingdom.


• D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting the role of the Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions in triggering the Cretaceous extinction event, alongside the Chixculub asteroid impact.


• Far Outliers notes the problems of Lawrence of Arabia with Indian soldiers and with Turks.


• L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing takes issue with the state of philosophical contemplation about technology, at least in part a structural consequence of society.


• Hornet Stories shares this feature examining the future of gay porn, in an environment where amateur porn undermines the existing studios.


• JSTOR Daily considers the spotty history of casting African-American dancers in ballet.


• Language Hat suggests that the Académie française will soon accept for French feminized nouns of nouns links to professionals ("écrivaine" for a female writer, for instance).


• The LRB Blog considers the implications of the stripping of citizenship from Shamima Begum. Who is next? How badly is citizenship weakened in the United Kingdom?


• Marginal Revolution notes the upset of Haiti over its banning by Expedia.


• The NYR Daily notes the tension in Turkey between the country's liberal laws on divorce and marriage and rising Islamization.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at the moment, in the history of the universe, when dark energy became the dominant factors in the universe's evolution.


• Towleroad remembers Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was the collaborator of Trump up to the moment of Cohn's death from AIDS.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little takes a look at Marx's theories of how governments worked.


• Window on Eurasia looks at the existential pressures facing many minority languages in Russia.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Toronto links: Umbrella Academy, TTC, trails, crime, Port Lands

• Toronto Life includes photos of some of the most notable locations in the new Toronto-filmed TV series, The Umbrella Academy.


• This report revealing the scale of fare evasion and losses due to Metrolinx malfunction on the TTC, in the area of $C 64 million, is unsurprising. Global News reports.


• Sean Marshall reports on the new Canongate Trial in Scarborough, erected to help allow for safe pedestrian access to a street where a child was recently killed in a collision.


• Urban Toronto looks at the state of the renovation of the Park Hyatt at Bloor and Avenue Road.


• CBC reports that Bruce McArthur was linked, in 2013, to three of the men he was convicted six years later of murdering.


• Bianca Wylie at Spacing considers the lessons Toronto should take from the unfolding Sidewalk Labs drama in the Port Lands.


• This Metro Morning interview with Dan Doctoroff on the Sidewalk Labs' plan for the Port Lands is revealing.

[URBAN NOTE] Seven Montréal links: ice shove, Little Burgundy, development, population, architecture

• CBC Montreal reports on the "Ice shove" that featured every winter in the port of Montréal in the 19th century.


• This opinion piece in the Montreal Gazette remembers the expropriations which fatally undermined the substantially African-Canadian neighbourhood of Little Burgundy.


• CityLab notes the controversy, aggravated by municipal politics, of the Royalmount megamall, in the Montréal enclave of the Town of Mount Royal.


• A Québec Solidaire MNA's criticism of Chinese investors in real estate has been criticized by Chinese-Canadians in Montréal as racist. CTV News reports.


• La Presse notes that suburbanization proceeds in Montréal, as migration from the island of Montréal to off-island suburbs grows.


• The glorious Insectarium of Montréal will be closed for two years, for a makeover. CBC reports.


• Le Devoir considers the future of the Buckminister Fuller Biosphère on ile Sainte-Hélène, caught between falling funding and the lack of a clear mission for this structure.

[NEWS] Five science links: Vikings vs Anglo Saxons, Spanish flu, medicine, flowers & farms, psych

• Science Nordic notes that, in terms of their genetic imprint on indigenous populations, the Vikings had much less of an impact on Anglo-Saxon England than the Anglo-Saxons did on Celtic Britain.


• Slate considers why the Spanish flu of 1918 has generally fallen out of popular memory, despite its massive impact at the time.


• This David Dobbs article at WIRED looks at how the medical miracle of hand transplantation surgery turned out to be more fraught than many had imagined.


• Can strips of wildflowers planted across fields, by restoring natural environments and pest control methods, help modern agriculture? The Guardian reports.


• Daniel Hruschka at The Conversation notes that psychological studies which recruit overwhelmingly from subjects in the high-income world do not reflect human nature very well.

[NEWS] Five language links: Cantonese, Arabic, Gaelic, French, Sumerian

• The Cantonese language, the SCMP reports, is falling out of use among young people in Guangzhou.


• The Muslim Hui, living outside of Xinjiang, are being pressured to shut down Arabic-medium schools. The SCMP reports.


• The Scottish government has received only two complaints about Gaelic on bilingual road signs in the past seventeen years. The National reports.


• HuffPost Québec notes that the French language has been displaced as the chief language of wine by English.


• Advanced artificial intelligence has the potential to aid in the translation of ancient languages like Sumerian, with stockpiles of untranslated material just waiting for an eye's attention. The BBC explains.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: Bathygnathus borealis, real estate, CFL, bridge fees, politics

• On Prince Edward Island, footprints of the ancient pre-dinosaur predator Bathygnathus borealis have been found. Global News reports.


• VICE notes how the extreme shortage of rental housing on PEI is placing heavy pressure on the vulnerable.


• Out of Maritime solidarity, Charlottetown supports the bid of Halifax to finally host a CFL football team. Global News reports.


• CBC Prince Edward Island reports on a recent poll suggesting Islanders would overwhelmingly like the fees associated with crossing the fixed link to be radically reduced to abolished altogether.


• Prince Edward Island is again preparing to hold a referendum on electoral reform, shifting from first-past-the-post to proportional representation. Global News reports.