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  • Apparently upwards of 95% of dolphins are right-handed. Global News reports.

  • A dead sperm whale has been found in Scotland, choked on a hundred kilograms of plastic waste. CBC reports.

  • Tracking the heart rate of a blue whale is something that we can do. CBC reports.

  • Nearly a hundred cetaceans held in a Russian facility seem to be doing well after being released to their ocean home. CBC reports.

  • The policies of Elizabeth Warren could, if she was elected, impact the seafood industry of Atlantic Canada. (As, I think, they should.) CBC reports.

  • Whale populations can, if we treat them well, help save the climate from catastrophe. VICE makes the case.

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  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes new research on where the sun is located within the Milky Way Galaxy.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly considers the value of slow fashion.

  • Centauri Dreams notes the different gas giants that our early methods have yet to pick up.

  • Crooked Timber shares a lovely photo looking back at Venice from across its lagoon.

  • D-Brief notes that upcoming space telescopes might find hundreds of rogue planets thanks to microlensing.

  • io9 notes that Marvel will soon be producing Warhammer40K comics.

  • The Island Review shares some poetry and photography by Ken Cockburn inspired by the Isle of Jura.

  • JSTOR Daily notes that different humpback whale groups have different songs, different cultures.

  • Language Hat tries to find the meaning of the odd Soviet Yiddish word "kolvirt".

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the history of Elizabeth Warren as a law teacher.

  • Map Room Blog shares information from Google Maps about its use of data.

  • Marginal Revolution notes that in 2016, not a single child born in the United Kingdom was given the name Nigel.

  • Peter Watts talks about AI and what else he is doing.

  • The NYR Daily marked the centennial of a horrible massacre of African-Americans centered on the Arkansas community of Elaine.

  • Emily Margolis at the Planetary Society Blog looks at how the Apollo moon missions helped galvanize tourism in Florida.

  • Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money looks at the constitutional crisis in Peru.

  • Drew Rowsome takes a look at A Streetcar Named Desire.

  • Peter Rukavina looks at a spreadsheet revealing the distribution of PEI public servants.

  • Spacing reviews a book imagining how small communities can rebuild themselves in neoliberalism.

  • Towleroad shares the criticism of Christine and the Queens of the allegedly opportunistic use of queer culture by Taylor Swift.

  • Understanding Society considers, sociologically, the way artifacts work.

  • The Volokh Conspiracy argues that the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the People's Republic of China should be a day of mourning, on account of the high human toll of the PRC.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests the Russian generation of the 1970s was too small to create lasting change.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at how underwear ads can be quite sexualized.

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  • Anthro{dendum} features an essay examining trauma and resiliency as encountered in ethnographic fieldwork.

  • Architectuul highlights a new project seeking to promote historic churches built in the United Kingdom in the 20th century.

  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait examines Ahuna Mons, a muddy and icy volcano on Ceres, and looks at the nebula Westerhout 40.

  • Centauri Dreams notes the recent mass release of data from a SETI project, and notes the discovery of two vaguely Earth-like worlds orbiting the very dim Teegarden's Star, just 12 light-years away.

  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes that having universities as a safe space for trans people does not infringe upon academic freedom.

  • The Crux looks at the phenomenon of microsleep.

  • D-Brief notes evidence that the Milky Way Galaxy was warped a billion years ago by a collision with dark matter-heavy dwarf galaxy Antlia 2, and notes a robotic fish powered by a blood analogue.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that India plans on building its own space station.

  • Earther notes the recording of the song of the endangered North Pacific right whale.

  • The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the role of emotional labour in leisure activities.

  • Far Outliers looks at how Japan prepared for the Battle of the Leyte Gulf in 1944.

  • Gizmodo looks at astronomers' analysis of B14-65666, an ancient galactic collision thirteen billion light-years away, and notes that the European Space Agency has a planned comet interception mission.

  • io9 notes how the plan for Star Trek in the near future is to not only have more Star Trek, but to have many different kinds of Star Trek for different audiences.

  • Joe. My. God. notes the observation of Pete Buttigieg that the US has probably already had a gay president.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the many ways in which the rhetoric of Celtic identity has been used, and notes that the archerfish uses water ejected from its eyes to hunt.

  • Language Hat looks at why Chinese is such a hard language to learn for second-language learners, and looks at the Suso monastery in Spain, which played a key role in the coalescence of the Spanish language.

  • Language Log looks at the complexities of katakana.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the death of deposed Egypt president Mohammed Morsi looks like a slow-motion assassination, and notes collapse of industrial jobs in the Ohio town of Lordstown, as indicative of broader trends.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the death of Mohamed Morsi.

  • The Map Rom Blog shares a new British Antarctic Survey map of Greenland and the European Arctic.

  • Marginal Revolution notes how non-religious people are becoming much more common in the Middle East, and makes the point that the laying of cable for the transatlantic telegraph is noteworthy technologically.

  • Noah Smith at Noahpionion takes the idea of the Middle East going through its own version of the Thirty Years War seriously. What does this imply?

  • The NYR Daily takes a look at a Lebanon balanced somehow on the edge, and looks at the concentration camp system of the United States.

  • The Planetary Society Blog explains what people should expect from LightSail 2, noting that the LightSail 2 has launched.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw points readers to his stories on Australian spy Harry Freame.

  • Rocky Planet explains, in the year of the Apollo 50th anniversary, why the Moon matters.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews, and praises, South African film Kanarie, a gay romp in the apartheid era.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper examining the relationship between childcare and fertility in Belgium, and looks at the nature of statistical data from Turkmenistan.

  • The Strange Maps Blog shares a map highlighting different famous people in the United States.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why different galaxies have different amounts of dark matter, and shares proof that the Apollo moon landings actually did happen.

  • Towleroad notes the new evidence that poppers, in fact, are not addictive.

  • Window on Eurasia warns about the parlous state of the Volga River.

  • Arnold Zwicky takes an extended look at the mid-20th century gay poet Frank O'Hara.

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  • The Conversation notes how urban beekeepers can play a key role in saving bees from extinction.

  • Motherboard looks at the comparative intelligence, and generosity, of wolves versus their domesticated dog counterparts.

  • National Geographic looks at how marine mammals, particularly cetaceans, have been used in different militaries.

  • Smithsonian Magazine looks at how recent studies have demonstrated the diversity among Denisovan populations.

  • Smithsonian Magazine looks at the new consensus about the remarkable capabilities of Neanderthals.

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  • D-Brief notes the discovery of a fossil of a four-limbed whale in Peru, dating 42.5 million years.

  • D-Brief looks at how the bacterium Enterococcus faecalis morphed from normal gut bacteria to potentially fatal hospital-borne infection.

  • D-Brief notes a proposal to build offshore platforms as habitat for fish and for birds.

  • D-Brief notes how the Falcon Heavy is proving itself a vanguard of progress in spaceflight.

  • D-Brief notes new evidence of there having been multiple regional populations of Denisovans, drawing from work in Indonesia.

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  • A young beluga whale is hanging out in the waters of the Northumberland Strait off of Summerside. Global News reports.

  • A pilot project in the western PEI town of Alberton is trying to meet the needs of patients for medical advice by connecting them with doctors in teleconferences. Global News reports.

  • A new census of the Island's farm population reveals that the population of farmers is both shrinking and aging with great speed. CBC PEI reports.

  • Peter Rukavina took a look at the priorities of Green Party leader--and future premier?--Peter Bevan-Baker.

  • The National Observer noted that a new PEI law aiming to protect the water supply could be a model for Canada at large.

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  • Centauri Dreams reports on the work of the MASCOT rover on asteroid Ryugu.

  • The Crux considers the critical role of the dolphin in the thinking of early SETI enthusiasts.

  • D-Brief goes into more detail about the import of the Soyuz malfunction for the International Space Station.

  • Dangerous Minds notes an artist who has made classic pop song lyrics, like Blue Monday, into pulp paperback covers.

  • Earther is entirely correct about how humans will need to engage in geoengineering to keep the Earth habitable.

  • David Finger at The Finger Post describes his visit to Accra, capital of Ghana.

  • Gizmodo notes a new paper suggesting that, in some cases where massive moons orbit far from their parent planet, these moons can have their own moons.

  • Hornet Stories shares the first look at Ruby Rose at Batwoman.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how the image of southern California and Los Angeles changed from a Mediterranean paradise with orange trees to a dystopic urban sprawl.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money imagines what might have happened to the navy of China had it not bought the Ukrainian aircraft carrier Varyag.

  • Lingua Franca at the Chronicle reports on how the actual length of "minute", as euphemism for a short period of time, can vary between cultures.

  • The LRB Blog reports on the disaster in Sulawesi, noting particularly the vulnerability of colonial-era port settlements in Indonesia to earthquakes and tsunamis.

  • The Map Room Blog shares Itchy Feet's funny map of every European city.

  • The New APPS Blog wonders if the tensions of capitalism are responsible for the high rate of neurological health issues.

  • The NYR Daily considers what, exactly, it would take to abolish ICE.

  • At the Planetary Society Weblog, Ian Regan talks about how he assembled a photoanimated flyover of Titan using probe data.

  • Roads and Kingdoms explores some excellent pancakes in the Malaysian state of Sabah with unusual ingredients.

  • Drew Rowsome raves over a new documentary looking at the life of opera star Maria Callas.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the continued high rate of natural increase in Tajikistan.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the growing evidence for the detection of a Neptune-size exomoon, provisionally named Kepler-1625b I, as does Centauri Dreams, as does D-Brief.

  • D-Brief notes evidence that the songs of humpback whales last over generations.

  • JSTOR Daily considers the fascination of Mary Shelley with cemeteries.

  • Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle of Higher Education, considers an important question: "different from", or "different than"?

  • The Map Room Blog shares maps of the earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi, and the relief effort.

  • Drew Rowsome takes a look at a new documentary examining the famed Studio 54.

  • Daniel Little, at Understanding Society, considers (after others) the idea of emotions as neurophysical phenomena.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests that Turkey's recent efforts to become a power in Central Asia are being aided by the way its efforts mesh with China's.

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  • JSTOR Daily reported on the legacy of Koko the gorilla, on the insights she opened up into non-human minds.

  • The mourning demonstrated by this orca mother with her calf, and the grief that is implied, remains moving. CBC reports.

  • Julian Benoit at The Conversation writes about the import of DNA analyses on our understanding of the evolution of elephants.

  • French theme park Puy de Dome has recruited six crows to collect garbage from its grounds. Smithsonian Magazine reports.

  • D-Brief reports on findings that Native Americans in New Mexico may have been breeding parrots.

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Many things accumulated after a pause of a couple of months. Here are some of the best links to come about in this time.


  • Anthrodendum considers the issue of the security, or not, of cloud data storage used by anthropologists.

  • Architectuul takes a look at the very complex history of urban planning and architecture in the city of Skopje, linked to issues of disaster and identity.

  • Centauri Dreams features an essay by Ioannis Kokkidinis, examining the nature of the lunar settlement of Artemis in Andy Weir's novel of the same. What is it?

  • Crux notes the possibility that human organs for transplant might one day soon be grown to order.

  • D-Brief notes evidence that extrasolar visitor 'Oumuamua is actually more like a comet than an asteroid.

  • Bruce Dorminey makes the sensible argument that plans for colonizing Mars have to wait until we save Earth. (I myself have always thought the sort of environmental engineering necessary for Mars would be developed from techniques used on Earth.)

  • The Everyday Sociology Blog took an interesting look at the relationship between hobbies and work.

  • Far Outliers looks at how, in the belle Ă©poque, different European empires took different attitudes towards the emigration of their subjects depending on their ethnicity. (Russia was happy to be rid of Jews, while Hungary encouraged non-Magyars to leave.)

  • The Finger Post shares some photos taken by the author on a trip to the city of Granada, in Nicaragua.

  • The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas makes an interesting argument as to the extent to which modern technology creates a new sense of self-consciousness in individuals.

  • Inkfish suggests that the bowhead whale has a more impressive repertoire of music--of song, at least--than the fabled humpback.

  • Information is Beautiful has a wonderful illustration of the Drake Equation.

  • JSTOR Daily takes a look at the American women who tried to prevent the Trail of Tears.

  • Language Hat takes a look at the diversity of Slovene dialects, this diversity perhaps reflecting the stability of the Slovene-inhabited territories over centuries.

  • Language Log considers the future of the Cantonese language in Hong Kong, faced with pressure from China.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how negatively disruptive a withdrawal of American forces from Germany would be for the United States and its position in the world.

  • Lingua Franca, at the Chronicle, notes the usefulness of the term "Latinx".

  • The LRB Blog reports on the restoration of a late 19th century Japanese-style garden in Britain.

  • The New APPS Blog considers the ways in which Facebook, through the power of big data, can help commodify personal likes.

  • Neuroskeptic reports on the use of ayahusasca as an anti-depressant. Can it work?

  • Justin Petrone, attending a Nordic scientific conference in Iceland to which Estonia was invited, talks about the frontiers of Nordic identity.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw writes about what it is to be a literary historian.

  • Drew Rowsome praises Dylan Jones' new biographical collection of interviews with the intimates of David Bowie.

  • Peter Rukavina shares an old Guardian article from 1993, describing and showing the first webserver on Prince Edward Island.

  • Seriously Science notes the potential contagiousness of parrot laughter.

  • Understanding Society's Daniel Little t.com/2018/06/shakespeare-on-tyranny.htmltakes a look at the new Stephen Greenblatt book, Shakespeare on Power, about Shakespeare's perspectives on tyranny.

  • Window on Eurasia shares speculation as to what might happen if relations between Russia and Kazakhstan broke down.

  • Worthwhile Canadian Initiative noticed, before the election, the serious fiscal challenges facing Ontario.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell points out that creating a national ID database in the UK without issuing actual cards would be a nightmare.

  • Arnold Zwicky reports on a strand of his Swiss family's history found in a Paris building.

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  • Craig Welch at National Geographic notes how scientists, by carefully decoding the songs of blue whales, are figuring out how they are leading their lives.

  • Sarah Gibbens at National Geographic notes a new study suggesting that, since 1999, hunting and environmental devastation has reduced the orangutan population of Borneo by almost half, by 150 thousand individuals. This sounds almost like genocide.

  • Universe Today notes evidence that 'Oumuamua had a very violent past.

  • Nadia Drake at National Geographic explores the recent study suggesting that, unless there were signs of menace, most people actually would react well to news of extraterrestrial life.

  • Vikram Zutshi at Open Democracy recently suggested that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence could be good for the Earth, might even help us save it. Certainly this civilization would have survived the Great Filter; certainly it's a corrective to lazy assumptions of automatic menace.

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  • Edward Keenan points out that the reluctance of Tim Horton's franchises to accommodate the new Ontario minimum wage is really hurting their all-Canadian branding, writing at the Toronto Star.

  • Matthew Keegan at The Guardian examines the imminent demise of Patua, the Portuguese-based creole now spoken by only a very few people in Macau.

  • Of course multiple species of birds in Australia have developed the cultural trait of active helping wildfires expand in their own interest. It is Australia, right? The National Post reports.

  • Live Science suggests that the humpback whale that saved a diver from a shark attack may not have been planning to do just that. I wonder ...

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  • I have to say that I like the new retail landscape for cannabis being imagined, as much of a break with the old highly personalized network of buyers though it may be. (Non-smoker, here.) CBC reports.

  • This account of the complex paperwork required of people trying to save right whales entangled in fishing nets is almost humourous in its tragedy. CBC reports.
  • Many forests destroyed in recent wildfires are not recovering, on account of ongoing climate shifts making the regrowth of old ecologies impossible. CBC reports.

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  • The DNA of the beluga whale has been sequenced for the first time, using the DNA of belugas recently dead at the Vancouver Aquarium. Global News reports.

  • Japanese fishers responsible for the brutal slaughter of dolphins in a cove in Taiji, so red that it makes the water red, claim they do not feel guilty. (Why try to hide the slaughter, then?) The Guardian reports.

  • Vanessa Hrvatin, at the National Post, notes an effort by researchers at the University of Washington Bothnell to try to decipher the language of crows. What are they saying?

  • MacLean's wonders if there is cause to be concerned for the welfare of Canada's pandas, now in residence in the Toronto Zoo and scheduled for a move next year to the Calgary Zoo. Is that place safe?

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  • DW reports on the profound and apparently irreversible depopulation of rural areas of the former East Germany.

  • Stephen Leahy at VICE's Motherboard notes that pronounced global cooling may be responsible for the emigration of Donald Trump's grandfather to the United States, that he was a climate refugee.

  • Christian Odendahl at politico.eu suggests that Brexit, by encouraging skilled immigrants (and others) to leave the United Kingdom, might work to the benefit of a Germany experiencing labour shortages.

  • David Roberts at Vox talks about the many reasons why, as an environmental journalist, he does not talk about overpopulation as a problem.

  • National Geographic reports on another massacre of indigenous peoples in the Brazilian Amazon by goldminers.

  • Phys.org warns that, at the current rate of deaths, the right whales of the North Atlantic might face extinction. Gack. (Sometimes I think we deserve a visit from the whale probe.)

  • This heartbreaking story co-authored by Ted Chiang takes the Arecibo radio telescope and the Puerto Rican parrot, the iguaca, and does something terribly beautiful and sad with the confluence of the two. Go, read.

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  • Apparently 80% of blue whales are left-handed. National Geographic reports.

  • The FCC has just stopped support for a program that subsidizes vital telecommunications for, among other groups, Native Americans. VICE reports.

  • Between political challenges and problems with construction, major infrastructure projects are failing to meet their goals at a noteworthy rate. National Geographic reports.

  • VICE recounts the story of Hedy Lamarr, noteworthy actor and brilliant scientist, from the perspective of a documentary noting how misogyny kept her from employing her talents to the fullest.

  • This Claire Dederer article in The Paris Review, talking about the works of monstrous men can (or should?) be salvaged from the legacies of their creators, is tremendously important.

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  • Three elephants in Connecticut are the latest animals subject to a bid by activists to grant them status as "legal persons". The Washington Post reports.

  • Gary Chabonneau has won a court battle versus the Vancouver Aquarium to secure rights to footage he took of their captive cetaceans. CBC reports.

  • Bonobos have been proven in a recent experiment to have the capacity to be empathetic towards strangers. National Geographic reports.

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  • Centauri Dreams takes a look at the exciting early news on potentially habitable nearby exoplanet Ross 128 b.

  • The Crux notes that evidence has been found of Alzheimer-like illness in dolphins. Is this, as the scientists argue, a symptom of a syndrome shared between us, big-brained social species with long post-fertility lifespans?

  • D-Brief takes a look at the idea of contemporary life on Mars hiding away in the icy regolith near the surface.

  • Far Outliers notes one argument that Germany lost the Second World War because of the poor quality of its leaders.

  • Gizmodo notes the incredibly bright event PS1-10adi, two and a half billion light-years away. What is it? No one knows ...

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money celebrates the end of the Mugabe dictatorship in Zimbabwe.

  • The Map Room Blog links to some fascinating detailed maps of the outcome of the Australian mail-in vote on marriage equality.

  • Roads and Kingdoms visits rural Mexico after the recent quake.

  • Cheri Lucas Rowlands shares some beautiful photos of fantastical Barcelona.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes the insights provided by Pluto's mysterious cool atmosphere, with its cooling haze, has implications for Earth at a time of global warming.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that Russia is not going to allow even Tatarstan to include the Tatar language as a mandatory school subject.

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  • Cetacean intelligence evolved under the same pressures as primate intelligence, and in the same ways. We are peers. The Globe and Mail reports.

  • Raccoons recently tested highly on a controlled test of their ingenuity and intelligence. A York study, of course. National Geographic reports.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at enormous, explosive Wolf-Rayet stars, and at WR 124 in particular.
  • The Big Picture shares heart-rending photos of Rohingya refugees fleeing Burma.

  • Centauri Dreams considers the potential of near-future robotic asteroid mining.

  • D-Brief notes the discovery of vast cave systems on the Moon, potential homes for settlers.

  • Hornet Stories exposes young children to Madonna's hit songs and videos of the 1980s. She still has it.

  • Inkfish notes that a beluga raised in captivity among dolphins has picked up elements of their speech.

  • Language Hat notes a dubious claim that a stelae containing Luwian hieroglyphic script, from ancient Anatolia, has been translated.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the question of preserving brutalist buildings.

  • The LRB Blog considers how Brexit, intended to enhance British sovereignty and power, will weaken both.

  • The Map Room Blog notes that the moons and planets of the solar system have been added to Google Maps.

  • The NYR Daily considers how the Burmese government is carefully creating a case for Rohingya genocide.

  • The Power and Money's Noel Maurer concludes, regretfully, that the market for suborbital travel is just not there.

  • Visiting a shrimp festival in Louisiana, Roads and Kingdoms considers how the fisheries work with the oil industry (or not).

  • Towleroad reports on the apparent abduction in Chechnya of singer Zelimkhan Bakayev, part of the anti-gay pogrom there.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that rebuilding Kaliningrad as a Russian military outpost will be expensive.

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