[BLOG] Some Sunday links

[rfmcdonald]

• D-Brief suggests that, in an era of climate change, waves of simultaneous wildfires may be the new normal in California.


• The Dragon's Tales shares some news items looking at the history of the Precambrian Earth and of ancient life.


• The Island Review shares some Greenland-themed poems by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese.


• JSTOR Daily looks at how the introduced Callery pear tree has become invasive in North America.


• Language Log considers language as a self-regulating system.


• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw notes his new magpie friend. What name should he have?


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that the democracy of Mexico is in such poor shape that, even now, the democracies of Poland and Hungary despite far-right subversion are better off.


• Drew Rowsome reviews the 1993 novel The Night of the Moonbow by Thomas Tryon.


• The Russian Demographics Blog notes the falling fertility rates in Syria, and takes issue with one statistical claim.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that gravitational waves are affected by gravity, and looks at what this implies for physics.


• Towleroad reports that Sarah Silverman has rethought her use of the word "gay" in her comedy routines.


• Vintage Space notes the evidence confirming that many--most, even--Apollo astronauts had tattoos.


• Window on Eurasia notes how the boundaries of the "Russian world" continue to contract, with the status of the Russian language receding in the education and the media and the public life of neighbouring countries.


• Arnold Zwicky considers which part of Europe Switzerland lies in. Is it central European, or western European?