[PHOTO] Two pigeons, on a parking lot near Wellesley station

My eye yesterday evening was caught by the brown pigeon at the centre of this photo, consorting with other birds of its kind on the parking lot just south of Wellesley station. Its plumage was particularly gorgeous.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Centauri Dreams considers the possibility of carbon dioxide being a biosignature in the atmospheres of exoplanets.


• D-Brief notes the discoveries of Hayabusa2 at asteroid Ryugu, including the possibility it was part of a larger body.


• Gizmodo links to a new analysis suggesting the behaviour of 'Oumuamua was not so unprecedented after all, that it was a simple exocomet.


• JSTOR Daily looks at Agnes Chase, an early 20th century biologist who did remarkable things, both with science and with getting women into her field.


• Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to a new article of his analyzing the new aircraft carriers of Japan, noting not just their power but the effective lack of limits on Japanese military strength.


• Marginal Revolution notes the substantial demographic shifts occurring in Kazakhstan since independence, with Kazakh majorities appearing throughout the country.


• Neuroskeptic considers if independent discussion sections for online papers would make sense.


• The NYR Daily shares a photo essay by Louis Witter reporting on Moroccan boys seeking to migrate to Europe through Ceuta.


• Roads and Kingdoms has an interview with photographer Brett Gundlock about his images of Latin American migrants in Mexico seeking the US.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explores the mass extinction and extended ice age following the development of photosynthesis and appearance of atmospheric oxygen on Earth two billion years ago.


• Window on Eurasia notes that, in Karabakh, Jehovah's Witnesses now constitute the biggest religious minority.

[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: TTC bull's eyes, oversized homes, real estate, Unboxed Market

• Sean Marshall explores the origins of the "bull's eyes" lights on TTC streetcars and buses.


• This Toronto Star article looks at how the construction of oversized homes is changing established Toronto neighbourhoods.


• Urban Toronto reports on a new high-end townhouse development set for construction in Long Branch, Longhaven Towns.


• Toronto Life shares the story of a young woman from Cambridge whose first Toronto apartment was a nightmare.


• Toronto Life profiles Unboxed Market, a zero-waste grocery store in Little Portugal at Dundas and Dovercourt.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Hamilton, Montréal, Atlantic City, Dieppe, Bangalore

• Rick Zamperin at Global News makes the case for Hamilton to at least investigate the idea of bidding for the 2030 Commonwealth Games.


• HuffPostQuébec hosts the argument for bringing back to the surface, in Montréal on the McGill campus, a stream running down Mount Royal that has been canalized for nearly two centuries.


• Wired highlights the photos of Atlantic City taken by photographer Brian Rose, a city that stands as testimony to the failed promises of Trump.


• DW notes how the French port of Dieppe stands unprepared and vulnerable in the face of Brexit.


• Guardian Cities notes how activists and historians in the Indian city of Bangalore, or Bengaluru, are trying to preserve the ancient stone markets from development.

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: Pojang, LIGO, Mars, extraterrestrial life, DM Tauri

• The 2017 Pojang earthquake in South Korea was caused by an experimental geothermal power plant, water injected into the ground creating new instabilities. VICE reports.


• Universe Today notes that, newly upgraded, LIGO will begin searching for gravitational waves anew on 1 April.


• Universe Today examines the factors which making landing large masses on Mars so technically challenging.


• Universe Today considers which sorts of circumstellar habitable zone are the best to search for seekers of extraterrestrial life.


• Motherboard notes astronomers' study of the relatively Sun-like pre-main sequence star of DM Tauri, which may now be forming a solar system like our own.

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: brains and marrow, dinosaurs, PSR J0002+6216, Teacup Galaxy, Anatolia

• D-Brief notes a theory that human brains grew so large fueled by a diet of bone marrow.


• Alligators provide scientists with invaluable models of how dinosaurs heard sound. D-Brief reports.


• D-Brief examines pulsar PSR J0002+6216, a body ejected from its prior orbit so violently by its formative supernova that it is now escaping the Milky Way Galaxy.


• D-Brief notes the remarkable glow emanating from the quasar in the Teacup Galaxy 1.1 billion light-years away.


• D-Brief notes genetic evidence suggesting that Anatolian hunter-gatherers, far from being replaced by migrants, adopted agriculture on their own.

[MUSIC] Five music links: Mingering Mike, post-punk Madonna, Alex Chilton, Iskwe, Myspace

• Dangerous Minds notes "Mingering Mike", a fictional soul music star created by an outsider artist.


• Noisey takes a look at the roots of Madonna in the post-punk music scene of New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


• Dangerous Minds looks at the Alex Chilton anti-AIDS song of 1986, "No Sex."


• NOW Toronto interviewed iskwe in February about her music commemorating dead Indigenous people in Canada.


• Damon Krukowski writes at Pitchfork about the implications of the accidental deletion by Myspace of a decade and a half worth of music there. How can libraries and archives be preserved against the vagaries of technology?