[PHOTO] 11 Wellesley rising

The curves of Wellesley on the Park, at 11 Wellesley Street West, stand out on the downtown Toronto skyline.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• At Anthro{dendum}, Travis Cooper shares thoughts o what should be kept in mind in studying new media.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a new plan to catalogue a hundred thousand stellar nurseries in nearby galaxies.


• Centauri Dreams notes the very unusual lightcurve of the star VVV-WIT-07.


• D-Brief considers the possible role of climate change in undermining Byzantium.


• Gizmodo reports on how astronomers managed to directly image exoplanet HR8799e, a young hot Jupiter some 130 light-years away.


• JSTOR Daily examines the lynchings inflicted on people of Mexican background in the conquered American West after the Mexican-American War.


• Marginal Revolution considers the possibility that homo sapiens might trace its ancestry to hominid populations in southern Africa.


• Noahpinion features a guest post from Roy Bahat arguing that Uber and Lyft need to change their treatment of their workers for their own good.


• The NYR Daily features an article by Zia Haider Rahman talking about the many ways in which British identity has mutated after Brexit.


• The Planetary Society Blog features some photos taken by the Beresheet probe on its way to the Moon.


• Drew Rowsome reviews the Greg Scarnici book Dungeons & Drag Queens, a funny take on Fire Island.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes the early Solar System, when a still energetic Mars existed alongside Earth as a life-supporting planet. (Venus, not so much. Perhaps?)


• Daniel Little writes at Understanding Society about his new book project, a social ontology of government.


• Window on Eurasia notes how Russia is dropping off sharply in importance as a trading partner for most post-Soviet states.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: transit, Union Centre, real estate, police

• Sean Marshall reports on the long history of Toronto in coming up with new transit plans and failing to follow through.


• The failings of the one-stop Scarborough subway extension go back to the concept's very conception. The Toronto Star reports.


• The new plans of the province of Ontario for taking over the TTC are, rightfully, causing alarm at Toronto City Hall. CBC reports.


• blogTO notes the proposal for Union Centre, a new skyscraper in downtown Toronto designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group that will feature a treed roof.


• blogTO notes a new report making it clear that housing affordability has become a major issue for Torontonians, with costs of ownership and rental having reached new highs relative to income.


• Alok Mukherjee makes the point at NOW Toronto that any inquiry into Toronto Police conduct in the McArthur killings has to be part of a general inquiry into how the police conducts itself internally.

[URBAN NOTE] Five city links: Montréal, Thunder Bay, London, Hong Kong, Edmonton

• CTV News reports the exceptional popularity of a Toronto Blue Jays away game in Montréal.


• A library n Thunder Bay is playing a critical role in helping treat the ills of that city. Tanya Talaga writes at the Toronto Star.


• Guardian Cities reports on how poor children in mixed-use housing in London are being kept from using public playgrounds.


• The Financial Times reports on the rapid growth of the French immigrant community in Hong Kong, now numbering tens of thousands of people.


• Céline von Engelhardt writes at MacLean's about how Sobey's has secured for itself, in the new north-central Edmonton neighbourhood of Griesbach, restrictive covenants that exclude any possible retail competition elsewhere in the neighbourhood.

[NEWS] Five sci-tech links: Chixculub archive, male pill, Garfield phones, Nova Scotia, ETI wars

• Journalist Douglas Preston U>writes in The New Yorker about a potentially amazing site in North Dakota, a rich fossil bed that may well have been formed in the first hour after the Chixculub asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous.


• Arielle Pardes writes at WIRED about how a potential lack of demand among men might hinder the sale of male contraceptives.


• Vulture reports the identification of the source, at last, of the components of Garfield phones that have been washing up on the French coast in a lost shipping crate from the 1980s.


• CBC reports on the meticulous reports of environmental changes by Nova Scotia students more than a century ago, collected over years under the order of their teacher Alexander Mackay, that provide invaluable information about climate change.


• Matt Williams writes at Universe Today about the possibility that the lack of self-replicating probes visible to us might be explainable by conflict between some of these probes and others.

[ISL] Five #PEI links: PEI Greens, orchids, Sandstone Comics, PrEP, David Currie

• The Guardian reports on the confidence of PEI Green Party leader Peter Bevan-Baker that the April election on PEI is for his party to win.


• This guide to the wild orchids of PEI sounds very useful. CBC reports.


• I wish the team at PEI comics group Sandstone Comics the best as they prepare their issues of original material. CBC reports.


• The costs of anti-HIV drug regimen PrEP are now being covered on PEI for members of at-risk groups. CBC reports.


• The Guardian features an interview with 80-year-old Charlottetown cobbler David Currie about his life and his career six decades long.