[PHOTO] 880 Ossington Avenue, from the east

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• Bad Astronomer notes a new study explaining how climate change makes hurricanes more destructive.


• Centauri Dreams shares a mosaic photo of the sky with Alpha Centauri highlighted.


• The Crux shares a paper explaining why the bubonic plague rarely becomes mass epidemics like the Black Death of the 14th century.


• D-Brief notes the new ESA satellite ARIEL, which will be capable of determining of exoplanet skies are clear or not.


• Gizmodo consults different experts on the subject of smart drugs. Do they work?


• JSTOR Daily explains why Native Americans are so prominent in firefighting in the US Southwest.


• Language Log looks at evidence for the diffusion of "horse master" between speakers of ancient Indo-European and Sinitic languages.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the election of Chesa Boudin as San Francisco District Attorney.


• The LRB Blog considers the apparent pact between Farage and Johnson on Brexit.


• Marginal Revolution looks at a paper examining longer-run effects of the integration of the US military on racial lines in the Korean War.


• The NYR Daily looks at how Big Pharma in the US is trying to deal with the opioid epidemic.


• The Signal explains how the Library of Congress is expanding its collections of digital material.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how future generations of telescopes will be able to directly measure the expansion of the universe.


• The Volokh Conspiracy explains why DACA, giving succor to Dreamers, is legal.


• Window on Eurasia notes that, after a century of tumult, the economy of Russia is back at the same relative ranking that it enjoyed a century ago.


• Arnold Zwicky reports on an old butch cookbook.

[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links

• The Pilot, in Yorkville, celebrates its 75th anniversary as a venue. Global News reports.


• Some immigrant businesspeople recently bought an old Toronto Hydro building in the north of the city as a shelter for immigrants. Global News reports.


• The backlash against the proposed condo tower at Yonge and Eglinton branded by Pharrell Williams has been swift. blogTO reports.


• Urban Toronto notes that a 13-story mixed-use building has been proposed for 888 Dupont Street, at the corner of Dupont and Ossington.


• A TV crew in North York last week cancelled its shoot in North York, near the site of last year's ramming attack on Yonge Street. CTV News reports.


• A poster on r/Toronto noted last week the six-year anniversary of the admission of then-mayor Rob Ford that he smoked crack.