[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait goes into more detail about the Milky Way Galaxy's ancient collision with and absorption of dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus.


• Centauri Dreams considers SETI in the infrared, looking at the proposal to use a laser to signal our existence to observers of our sun.


• D-Brief notes a study of Neanderthal children's teeth that documents their hazardous environment, faced with cold winters and lead contamination.


• The Island Review shares three lovely islands-related poems by writer Naila Moreira.


• JSTOR Daily asks an important question: Can the United States and China avoid the Thucydides trap, a war of the rising power with the falling one? Things seems uncertain at this point.


• Mark Liberman at Language Log looks at the continuing lack of progress of machine translation.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at a recent discussion on the Roman Republic, noting how imperialism and inequality led to that polity's transformation into an empire. Lessons for us now?


• The Map Room Blog shares a Canadian Geographic map describing the different, declining, populations of caribou in the north of Canada.


• Marginal Revolution notes a paper suggesting that global pandemics will not necessarily kill us all off, that high-virulence infections might be outcompeted and, even, controllable.


• The NYR Daily takes a look at historical reasons for the prominence of Rembrandt in the British artistic imagination.


• Towleroad notes that Massachusetts voted to keep transgender rights protected.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that the quality of Russian taught in schools in Uzbekistan is declining. I wonder: Is this a matter of a Central Asian variety emerging, perhaps?


• Livio di Matteo at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes a look at the long-run economic growth of Australia, contrasting it with the past and with other countries. In some ways, Canada (among others) is a stronger performer.