[BLOG] Some Saturday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares photos of a dust storm over Greenland.


• The Crux looks at the hypervelocity stars of the MIlky Way Galaxy, stars flung out towards intergalactic space by close encounters with the galactic core.


• D-Brief notes a study suggesting that the gut bacteria of immigrants to the United States tends to Americanize over time, becoming less diverse.


• Joe. My. God. notes yet another homophobe--this time, an ex-gay "therapist"--who has been outed as actively seeking gay sex.


• JSTOR Daily notes that bears preparing to build up their fat stores for hibernation really have to work hard at this task.


• Language Hat notes, after Elias Canetti, a benefit of being multilingual: You can find out if people near you are planning to kill you.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money recounts an anecdote from the 1980s revealing the great racism on the part of Donald Trump.


• Sadakat Kadri at the LRB Blog notes a gloomy celebration in Prague of the centenary of the 1918 foundation of Czechoslovakia, gloomy not just because of the weather but because of the rhetoric of Czechia's president.


• The Map Room Blog notes a new book examining the political and military import of mapmaking in Scotland.


• Cheryl Thompson at Spacing writes about the long history of blackface in Canadian popular culture, looking at the representations it made and the tensions that it hid.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at how new technologies are allowing astronomers to overcome the distorting effects of the atmosphere.


• Frances Woolley at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, looking at female employment in Canada, finds the greatest potential for further growth in older women. (Issues, including the question of how to include these women and how to fight discrimination, need to be dealt with first.)