[BLOG] Some Thursday links

[rfmcdonald]

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait looks at Abell 30, a star that has been reborn in the long process of dying.


• Centauri Dreams uses the impending launch of LightSail 2 to discuss solar sails in science fiction.


• John Quiggin at Crooked Timber, as part of a series of the fragility of globalization, considers if migration flows can be reversed. (He concludes it unlikely.)


• The Crux considers if the record rain in the Midwest (Ontario, too, I would add) is a consequence of climate change.


• D-Brief notes that the failure of people around the world to eat enough fruits and vegetables may be responsible for millions of premature dead.


• Dangerous Minds introduces readers to gender-bending Italian music superstar Renato Zero.


• Dead Things notes how genetic examinations have revealed the antiquity of many grapevines still used for wine.


• Gizmodo notes that the ocean beneath the icy crust of Europa may contain simple salt.


• io9 tries to determine the nature of the many twisted timelines of the X-Men movie universe of Fox.


• JSTOR Daily observes that the Stonewall Riots were hardly the beginning of the gay rights movement in the US.


• Language Log looks at the mixed scripts on a bookstore sign in Beijing.


• Dave Brockington at Lawyers, Guns, and Money argues that Jeremy Corbyn has a very strong hold on his loyal followers, perhaps even to the point of irrationality.


• Marginal Revolution observes that people who create public genetic profiles for themselves also undo privacy for their entire biological family.


• Sean Marshall at Marshall's Musings shares a photo of a very high-numbered street address, 986039 Oxford-Perth Road in Punkeydoodle's Corners.


• The NYR Daily examines the origins of the wealth of Lehman Brothers in the exploitation of slavery.


• The Planetary Society Blog shares a panorama-style photo of the Apollo 11 Little West Crater on the Moon.


• Drew Rowsome notes that classic documentary Paris Is Burning has gotten a makeover and is now playing at TIFF.


• Peter Rukavina, writing from a trip to Halifax, notes the convenience of the Eduroam procedures allowing users of one Maritime university computer network to log onto another member university's network.


• Dylan Reid at Spacing considers how municipal self-government might be best embedded in the constitution of Canada.


• The Speed River Journal's Van Waffle pays tribute to the wildflower Speedwell, a name he remembers from Watership Down.


• Strange Maps shares a crowdsourced map depicting which areas of Europe are best (and worst) for hitchhikers.


• Window on Eurasia notes the distribution of native speakers of Russian, with Israel emerging as more Russophone than some post-Soviet states.