A Bit More Detail

• Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net notes that lidar scanning has revealed that the pre-Columbian city of Angamuco, in western Mexico, is much bigger than previously thought.


• James Bow makes an excellent case for the revitalization of VIA Rail as a passenger service for longer-haul trips around Ontario.


• D-Brief notes neurological evidence suggesting why people react so badly to perceived injustices.


• The Dragon's Tales takes a look at the list of countries embracing thorough roboticization.


• Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina takes a look at the most powerful launch vehicles, both Soviet and American, to date.


• Far Outliers considers Safavid Iran as an imperfect gunpowder empire.


• Despite the explanation, I fail to see how LGBTQ people could benefit from a cryptocurrency all our own. What would be the point, especially in homophobic environments where spending it would involve outing ourselves? Hornet Stories shares the idea.


• Imageo notes that sea ice off Alaska has actually begun contracting this winter, not started growing.


• JSTOR Daily notes how the production and consumption of lace, and lace products, was highly politicized for the Victorians.


• Language Hat makes a case for the importance of translation as a political act, bridging boundaries.


• Language Log takes a look at the pronunciation and mispronunciation of city names, starting with PyeongChang.


• This critical Erik Loomis obituary of Billy Graham, noting the preacher's many faults, is what Graham deserves. From Lawyers, Guns and Money, here.


• Bernard Porter at the LRB Blog is critical of the easy claims that Corbyn was a knowing agent of Communist Czechoslovakia.


• The Map Room Blog shares this map from r/mapporn, imagining a United States organized into states as proportionally imbalanced in population as the provinces of Canada?


• Marginal Revolution rightly fears a possible restart to the civil war in Congo.


• Neuroskeptic reports on a controversial psychological study in Ghana that saw the investigation of "prayer camps", where mentally ill are kept chain, as a form of treatment.


• The NYR Daily makes the case that the Congolese should be allowed to enjoy some measure of peace from foreign interference, whether from the West or from African neighbous (Rwanda, particularly).


• At the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla looks at the many things that can go wrong with sample return missions.


• Rocky Planet notes that the eruption of Indonesian volcano Sinabung can be easily seen from space.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how the New Horizons Pluto photos show a world marked by its subsurface oceans.


• Window on Eurasia notes that, although fertility rates among non-Russians have generally fallen to the level of Russians, demographic momentum and Russian emigration drive continue demographic shifts.


• Livio Di Matteo at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative charts the balance of federal versus provincial government expenditure in Canada, finding a notable shift towards the provinces in recent decades.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell makes the case, through the example of the fire standards that led to Grenfell Tower, that John Major was more radical than Margaret Thatcher in allowing core functions of the state to be privatized.


• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at some alcoholic drinks with outré names.

• Anthropology.net reports on new evidence that Homo naledi may have used tools, buried their dead, and lived alongside Homo sapiens.
  
• Centauri Dreams remembers an abortive solar sail mission to Halley's Comet.


• Dangerous Minds shares photos of the "Apache" dancers of France.


• Cody Delistraty writes about Swedish futurist Anders Sandberg and his efforts to plan for humanity's future.
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• At the Everyday Sociology Blog, Karen Sternheimer talks about her day as a sociologist.


• Joe. My. God. notes the good news that normal young HIV patients can now expect near-normal life expectancies.


• Language Hat looks at a recent surge of interest in Italian dialects.


• Language Log looks at the phenomenon of East Asians taking English-language names.


• The LRB Blog considers the dynamics of the United Kingdom's own UDI.


• Marginal Revolution looks at the existential issues of a growing Kinshasa still disconnected from the wider world.


• Steve Munro notes that Metrolinx will now buy vehicles from France's Alstom.


• The New APPS Blog uses Foucault to look at the "thanatopolitics" of the Republicans.


• The NYRB Daily looks at Trump's constitutional crisis.


• Out There considers the issues surrounding the detection of an alien civilization less advanced than ours.


• The Planetary Society Blog looks at the United States' planetary science exploration budget.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer looks at Argentina's underrated reputation as a destination for foreign investment.


• Progressive Download shares some thinking about sexual orientation in the context of evolution.


• Peter Rukavina looks at the success of wind energy generation on the Island.


• Understanding Society takes a look at the dynamics of Rome.


• Window on Eurasia shares a lunatic Russian scheme for a partition of eastern Europe between Russia and Germany.

• Bloomberg notes that Azerbaijan's oil wealth lets it outspend Armenia on military good, looks at a hydropower project in Congo intended to eventually protect mountain gorillas, and notes that spending on solar and wind energy is outpacing fossil fuel spending.


• CBC notes the alarming possibility that smart devices could be bricked by their manufacturers.


• The Dragon's Tales linked to a Eurekalert press release examining how population levels in the pre-Columbian Southwest were intimately tied to climate.


• Fortune reports about the many failures of the F-35 project.


• The National Post notes that a gay atheist Malaysian student in Winnipeg has received asylum and looks at the discontent of Jewish groups with an inclusion committee at York University.


• Vox suggests
  

• blogTO notes an organic tea shop and cafe opening in Regent Park.


• Centauri Dreams looks at the mysteries behind Titan's polar weather.


• Crooked Timber discusses the uses of the military in an epidemic like Ebola.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper concerned with suggesting how worlds can become super-Earths not gas giants.


• The Dragon's Tales links to an archeological study describing methods for distinguishing between human artifacts and simple rocks.


• The Everyday Sociology Blog examines ways people shame others who use too much water in drought-affected areas like California.


• Joe. My. God. notes the recent study suggesting HIV's origins as a pandemic can be traced to Kinshasa in the 1920s.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money discusses Kissinger's 1976 proposal to invade Cuba in retaliation for Cuban intervention in Angola against South Africa.


• Peter Rukavina describes how he beat a rental car charge for a toll bridge by using his personal geolocation archive to show he was never there.


• Spacing Toronto discusses the lost canopy of the St. Lawrence Market.


• Towleroad notes controversy around the screening of a documentary on gay teen life in Russia in St. Petersburg.


• Window on Eurasia notes refugee inflows into Crimea and refers to an article by a Russian historian describing how Crimea is not historically exclusively Russian.

• Laura Agustín takes note of Chinese prostitutes in Kinshasa who, after being taken from their brothel by police, demanded to be allowed to return.


• After too long an absence, Will Baird of The Dragon's Tales comes back with an analysis of the new Chinese stealth fighter, the J-20/JXX. It looks good.


• At Far Outliers, Joel points to the substantial number of Japanese soldiers in post-war Indonesia who tried to settle down, as rebels against the Dutch or simply as farmers.


• The Global Sociology Blog takes a look at Durkheim's theory of suicide, specifically "fatalistic suicide" driven by an individual's despair with his or her society, classifed by him as a marginal type. The author takes a look at the example of Afghan women who burn themselves to death, and wonders how marginal that is.


• Mark Liberman of Language Log examines the origins of the word "overspoke," used by Tucker Carlson to explaibn his call for Michael Vick's death. It turns out it dates back to the early 20th century.


• The Long Game's Matt Warren describes a rather ghastly/amusing Christmas special, which starts with Pac-Man's starring role.


• Behind the Numbers' Eric Zuehlke notices the significant correlation between obesity and the lack of ready access to supermarkets.


• Slap Upside the Head comments on how, after missing the fact for years, the Albertan health ministry has finally delisted homosexuality as an illness.


• Window on Eurasia presents an analysis of Turkmenistan that focuses on the country's clans as the dominant unit of social life, suggesting a certain amount of turnover and the likelihood that opposition to the current regime can be found in these recently excluded clans.

• Did you know that astronomers have determined that the planet HD 209458b, a gas giant orbiting very close to its sun, has winds in excess of ten thousand kilometres an hour? Centauri Dreams tells us.


• Crooked Timber reports on the astonishing news of the amazing defense of Leopold II's genocide rule in the Congo by Belgian politician Louis Michel.


• The Global Sociology Blog is unimpressed by analyses of the French World Cup team which involve the ethnicity and countries of origin of the player.


• Slap Upside the Head reports on the case of a Yellowknife landlord who violated a contract that he had signed with a young gay couple, justifying the violation on the grounds of his religious freedom. Um.


• Via Towleroad, more news that the Iraqi government in involved in vicious persecutions of that country's queer population, sending agents to raid safehouses and disappear people.


• Understanding Society's Daniel Little examines the phenomenon of the truth and reconciliation commission. Where does it come from? Why? How is it run?


• Window on Eurasia quotes someone who suggests that the Commonwealth of Independent States was a success, not as a regional integration project but rather as a mechanism to help pacify the area.

• Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell suggests that e-book publishing, by virture of the lower costs involved, will encourage the popularity of relatively short texts over novels of standard length.


• Daniel Drezner suggests that the success of Yanukovich the Ukrainian election is a good thing, inasmuch as it indicates that Ukraine's a politically and culturally pluralistic society (unlike, say, Russia).


• The Global Sociology blog notes that in the United States, downwards pressure on wages by immigrants isn't felt by native-born citizens but rather by recent immigrants and their families, who occupy much the same position in the labour market as the newer arrivals.


• Douglas Muir at Halfway Down the Danube wonders about the remarkable speed at which the legacies of short-lived colonial empires like the German and the Japanese can fade away.


• At the Invisible College, Jessica Dorsey examines where the emergent international law doctrine of the right to protect is in the world. It's controversial, needless to say.


• Language Log examines the growing role of English in China, to the point that its actually a language of instruction in education.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money's Robert Farley considers Polish history, the consensus being that the death of the Jegallonian dynasty kept Poland-Lithuania from developing the centralized state it needed to survive. Charli Carpenter also points out that estimates of Congolese war dead have accidentally been inflated due to statistical errors, and that the figure is "only" three million.


• Savage Minds' Joanna and Pal examine the use of the word "culture" in international discourse, relating to everything from concerns over cultural appropriate to international relations and state structure.


• Slap Upside the Head notes that a newly-installed Conservative Senator in Canada has a history of being quite vocally and strongly homophobic.


• The Volokh Conspiracy compares the fiscal and economic positions of California in the United States and Greece in the eurozone, suggesting that California's meeting a better reception from financial markets simply because it plays a much bigger role in the American economy than Greece does in the eurozone.


• Window in Eurasia suggests that despite the recent resignation of Tatarstan's Prime Minister Mintimir Shaimiyev, Tatarstan is still going to retain its cultural and political distinctiveness.

• At Acts of Minor Treason, Andrew's very skeptical about the good sense of ideas to save money on the TTC by cutting service: positive feedback loops in negative directions are always nasty. (Thanks to mindstalk for correcting my terminology.)


• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait shows pictures of the footsteps of the Apollo 12 astronauts taken by a recent Moon probe.


• Centauri Dreams reports that, in the recent tradition of astronomers finding smaller and more distant objects, a small chunk of ice a bit less than one kilometre across was found seven billion kilometres away from Earth by the Hubble.


• The Global Sociology blog tackles the nurture-versus-nature debate on gender differences and argues strongly on nurture's side.


• Joe. My. God lets us know that a North Carolina politician mocked the sexual orientation of another politician's dead gay son, and that Rwanda is also considering strongly homophobic legislation on the Ugandan model.


• Language Log's Geoff Nunberg discusses the question of how linguists should respond to conflicts of interest, with the discussions expanding upon what a conflict of interest for linguists actually is.


• Murdering Mouth wonders how, or if, you can break through to someone operating under a completely different paradigm.


• Inspired by Douglas Muir's posts from the Congo at Halfway Down the Danube, Noel Maurer uses Mexican history to demonstrate that banks and breweries can survive extreme levels of violence.


• Slap Upside the Head reports on anti-gay freakouts, among gamers unhappy with a same-sex encounter in a video game, and with homophobes who don't like a Nova Scotia MPs inclusion of a picture of him with his husband on his Christmas mailing.


• the F OR V M discusses the question of whether or not the failing of US companies to bid on Iraqi oil means that they expect significantly greater instability in that country in a year's time.

A biopsy taken from an African woman nearly 50 years ago contains traces of the HIV genome, researchers have found. Analysis of sequences from the newly discovered sample suggests that the virus has been plaguing humans for almost a century.

Although AIDS was not recognized until the 1980s, HIV was infecting humans well before then. Researchers hope that by studying the origin and evolution of HIV, they can learn more about how the virus made the leap from chimpanzees to humans, and work out how best to design a vaccine to fight it.

In 1998, researchers reported the isolation of HIV-1 sequences from a blood sample taken in 1959 from a Bantu male living in Léopoldville — now Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Analysis of that sample and others suggested that HIV-1 originates from sometime between 1915 and 1941.

Now, researchers report in Nature that they have uncovered another historic sample, collected in 1960 from a woman who also lived in Léopoldville.

It took evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his colleagues eight years of searching for suitable tissue collections originating in Africa before they tracked down the 1960 lymph node biopsy at the University of Kinshasa.

The samples had all been treated with harsh chemicals, embedded in paraffin wax and left at room temperature for decades. The acidic chemicals had broken the genome up into small fragments. Formalin, a chemical used to prepare samples for microscopy, had crosslinked nucleic acids with protein. "It's as if you had a nice pearl necklace of DNA and RNA and protein and you clumped it together, drenched it in glue and then dried it out," says Worobey.

The team worked out a combination of methods that would allow them to sequence DNA and RNA from the samples; another lab at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, confirmed the results, also finding traces of the HIV-1 genome in the lymph node biopsy.

Using a database of HIV-1 sequences and an estimate of the rate at which these sequences change over time, the researchers modelled when HIV-1 first surfaced. Their results showed that the most likely date for HIV's emergence was about 1908, when Léopoldville was emerging as a centre for trade.

Although that date will not surprise most HIV researchers, the new data should help persuade those who were unconvinced by the 1959 sample, says Beatrice Hahn, an HIV researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.