[PHOTO] Window display, Flowers by Shyu

[NEWS] Ten #cdnpoli and #lexn43 links

• Terry Glavin at the National Post suggests that #elxn43 saw Canada unusually and unhelpfully uncaring about the wider world, here.


• Paul Wells at MacLean's suggests that the collapse of Conservative votes in many Liberal-held areas, along other things, might mean the second Liberal government will pay less attention to Alberta.


• An independent senator says that Trudeau appointing a senator from Alberta to his cabinet, for representation, would be a poor idea. CBC reports.


• Matt Gurney at the National Post urges Albertan Conservatives to realize they are not alone in Canada.


• Andrew Scheer seems safe as leader of the Conservatives for now. CBC has it.


• The People's Party and Maxime Bernier underperformed, but populism may yet have a future. Global News reports.


• Maxime Héroux-Legault at The Conversation suggests Liberal electoral strategies inspired the revival of the Bloc Québécois, here.


• Trudeau has promised to build the pipeline that Alberta wants. CBC has it.


• David Frum at The Atlantic shares his own critical take on #elxn43, here.

[BLOG] Some Thursday links

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait tells readers how the orbit of a newly-discovered object, like one of the newly found moons of Saturn, is calculated.


• D-Brief looks at the import of observations of the young HD 163296 system, where gas has been detected flowing onto young planets. Is this where atmospheres come from?


• Gizmodo notes the recent claim by Google to have achieved a quantum computing milestone.


• JSTOR Daily looks at how, in the early 20th century, old unpaved country roads gave way to modern ones.


• The LRB Blog looks at the latest on Brexit and British politics.


• Marginal Revolution notes an article arguing Airbnb has helped undermine trust even in Himalayan villages.


• The NYR Daily looks at a landmark exhibition of the works of William Blake at the Tate Britain.


• Rocky Planet shows how the hyper-precise records of ice cores can be used to identify not just the existence but the locations of volcanic eruptions.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at a newly-founded mysterious dark ancient massive galaxy that may have insights on the processes of the wider universe.


• Window on Eurasia looks at a UN report examining how Russia, occupying Crimea, has promoted demographic transformations.


• Arnold Zwicky tells of his experiences with OUTiL, an organization he helped form in 1991 that brought together out linguists.

[URBAN NOTE] Eight Toronto links

• Samantha Edwards writes</> at NOW Toronto about the controversy surrounding the visit of transphobe author Meghan Murphy to give a speech at the Palmerston library, with authors even threatening a boycott of the network.


• Natasha Tusikov writes at The Conversation about how Sidewalk Labs' proposals for the Port Lands would give it great and unaccountable political power.


• blogTO looks at the 1945 proposal for a subway in Toronto, one with a west-east axis not on Bloor but further south on Queen.


• blogTO looks at Sparkles, the nightclub at the top of the CN Tower that reigned over the Toronto scene in the 1980s.


• Will the Scarborough neighbourhood of Brichcliffe-Cliffside by changed for the worse by new dense construction? The Toronto Star reports.


• People who, in illegally climbing the Scarborough Bluffs, get trapped on said feature might soon be charged with the costs of their own rescue. blogTO reports.


• The growth of popularity of specifically Toronto slang is fascinating. Global News reports.


• Jamie Bradburn shares an old article on St. John's Norway cemetery, here.

[NEWS] Ten Window on Eurasia links

• What will become of the Azerbaijani language in education in Iran? More here.


• Is a Russia-Belarus state union feasible? More here.


• Is Estonia, as some would have it, a viable model for the Finnic Mordvin peoples of the Russian interior? More here.


• Will Russia be happy with its alliance with China if this makes it a secondary partner, a relatively weaker exporter of resources? More here.


• How many Muslims are there in Moscow, and what import does the controversy over their numbers carry? More here.


• Is the Russian fertility rate set to stagnate, leading to long-term sharp decline? More here.


• If 10% of the Russian working-age population has emigrated, this has serious consequences for the future of Russia. More here.


• Irredentism in Kazakhstan, inspired by the example of Crimea, is just starting to be a thing. More here.


• The decline of Russian populations in the north of Kazakhstan, and the growth of Uzbeks, is noteworthy. More here.


• The different Russian proposals for the future of the Donbas, an analyst notes, are built to keep Ukraine a neutral country. More here.

[NEWS] Six technology links

• Carl Newport at WIRED argues that past generations have never been as suspicious of technology as we now think, here.


• Anthropologist Darren Byler at The Conversation argues, based on his fieldwork in Xinjiang, how Uighurs became accustomed to the opportunities of new technologies until they were suddenly caught in a trap.


• James Verini at WIRED notes how the fighting around Mosul in the fall of ISIS could be called the first smartphone war.


• National Observer looks at how Québec is so far leading Canada in the development of clean technologies, including vehicles.


• VICE reports on how a Christian rock LP from the 1980s also hosted a Commodore 64 computer program.


• Megan Molteni at WIRED looks at a new, more precise, CRISPR technique that could be used to fix perhaps most genetic diseases.

[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: rats and cars, gravitational lensing, black holes, geodes, dark matter

• D-Brief notes the glorious science produced by scientists who trained rats to drive miniature cars and found that, in so doing, the rats' stress was relieved.


• D-Brief reports on how scientists used gravitational lensing to study a galaxy nine billion light-years away.


• D-Brief explains how, in dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes can stop star formation.


• D-Brief looks at how scientists have found the giant Geode of Pulpi was created.


• D-Brief notes how dark matter is making some spiral galaxies rotate at well over 500 kilometres a second.

[NEWS] Five Universe Today (@universetoday) links: colours, panspermia, Venus, superhabitable worlds

• Brian Koberlein at Universe Today considers the question of what was the first colour in the universe. (Is it orange?)


• Matt Williams at Universe Today considers how comets and other bodies could be exporting life from Earth to the wider galaxy.


• Matt Williams at Universe Today explores one study suggesting Venus could have remained broadly Earth-like for billions of years.


• Matt Williams at Universe Today also notes another story suggesting, based on the nature of the lava of the volcanic highlands of Venus, that world was never warm and wet.


• Fraser Cain at Universe Today took a look at the idea of superhabitable worlds, of worlds better suited to supporting life than Earth.