[BLOG] Some Saturday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Anthropology.net notes that the discovery of an ancient Homo sapiens jawbone in Israel pushes back the history of our species by quite a bit.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares stunning photos of spiral galaxy NGC 1398.


• Centauri Dreams considers the ways in which the highly reflective surface of Europa might be misleading to probes seeking to land on its surface.


• The Dragon's Tales rounds up more information about extrasolar visitor 'Oumuamua.


• Far Outliers considers the staggering losses, human and territorial and strategic, of Finland in the Winter War.


• Hornet Stories notes preliminary plans to set up an original sequel to Call Me Be Your Name later in the 1980s, in the era of AIDS.


• Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res considers if Wichita will be able to elect a Wichitan as governor of Kansas, for the first time in a while.


• io9 takes a look at the interesting ways in which Star Wars and Star Trek have been subverting traditional audience assumptions about these franchises.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper examining what decision-makers in North Vietnam were thinking on the eve of the Tet offensive, fifty years ago.


• The LRB Blog takes a look at a new book examining the 1984 IRA assassination attempt against Margaret Thatcher.


• The Map Room Blog links to an article examining how school districts, not just electoral districts, can be products of gerrymandering.


• Marginal Revolution seeks suggestions for good books to explain Canada to non-Canadians, and comes up with a shortlist of its own.


• Kenan Malik at the NYR Daily takes a look at contemporary efforts to justify the British Empire as good for its subjects. Who is doing this, and why?