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Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that Betelgeuse is very likely not on the verge of a supernova, here.

Centauri Dreams looks at the mapping of asteroid Bennu.

Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber reposted, after the election, a 2013 essay looking at the changes in British society from the 1970s on.

The Dragon's Tales shares a collection of links about the Precambrian Earth, here.

Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about fear in the context of natural disasters, here.

Far Outliers reports on the problems of privateers versus regular naval units.

Gizmodo looks at galaxy MAMBO-9, which formed a billion years after the Big Bang.

io9 writes about the alternate history space race show For All Mankind.

JSTOR Daily looks at the posters used in Ghana in the 1980s to help promote Hollywood movies.

Language Hat links to a new book that examines obscenity and gender in 1920s Britain.

Language Log looks at the terms used for the national language in Xinjiang.

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes issue with Jeff Jacoby's lack of sympathy towards people who suffer from growing inequality.

Marginal Revolution suggests that urbanists should have an appreciation for Robert Moses.

Sean Marshall writes, with photos, about his experiences riding a new Bolton bus.

Caryl Philips at the NYR Daily writes about Rachmanism, a term wrongly applied to the idea of avaricious landlords like Peter Rachman, an immigrant who was a victim of the Profumo scandal.

The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper looking at the experience of aging among people without families.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why the empty space in an atom can never be removed.

Strange Maps shares a festive map of London, a reindeer, biked by a cyclist.

Window on Eurasia notes how Mongolia twice tried to become a Soviet republic.

Arnold Zwicky considers different birds with names starting with x.

Charlie Stross at Antipope shares an essay he recently presented on artificial intelligence and its challenges for us.

P. Kerim Friedman writes at {anthro}dendum about the birth of the tea ceremony in the Taiwan of the 1970s.

Anthropology net reports on a cave painting nearly 44 thousand years old in Indonesia depicting a hunting story.

Architectuul looks at some temporary community gardens in London.

Bad Astronomy reports on the weird history of asteroid Ryugu.

The Buzz talks about the most popular titles borrowed from the Toronto Public Library in 2019.

Caitlin Kelly talks at the Broadside Blog about her particular love of radio.

Centauri Dreams talks about the role of amateur astronomers in searching for exoplanets, starting with LHS 1140 b.

John Quiggin at Crooked Timber looks at what is behind the rhetoric of "virtue signalling".

Dangerous Minds shares concert performance from Nirvana filmed the night before the release of Nevermind.

Bruce Dorminey notes new evidence that, even before the Chixculub impact, the late Cretaceous Earth was staggering under environmental pressures.

Myron Strong at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about how people of African descent in the US deal with the legacies of slavery in higher education.

Far Outliers reports on the plans in 1945 for an invasion of Japan by the US.

L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing gathers together a collection of the author's best writings there.

Gizmodo notes the immensity of the supermassive black hole, some 40 billion solar masses, at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A 700 million light-years away.

Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res writes about the issue of how Wichita is to organize its civic politics.

io9 argues that the 2010s were a decade where the culture of the spoiler became key.

The Island Review points readers to the podcast Mother's Blood, Sister's Songs, an exploration of the links between Ireland and Iceland.

Joe. My. God. reports on the claim of the lawyer of the killer of a mob boss that the QAnon conspiracy inspired his actions. This strikes me as terribly dangerous.

JSTOR Daily looks at a study examining scholarly retractions.

Language Hat shares an amusing cartoon illustrating the relationships of the dialects of Arabic.

Language Log lists ten top new words in the Japanese language.

Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the dissipation of American diplomacy by Trump.

The LRB Blog looks at the many problems in Sparta, Greece, with accommodating refugees, for everyone concerned.

Marginal Revolution links to a paper suggesting the decline of the one-child policy in China has diminished child trafficking, among other crimes.

Sean Marshall, looking at transit in Brampton, argues that transit users need more protection from road traffic.

Russell Darnley shares excerpts from essays he wrote about the involvement of Australia in the Vietnam War.

Peter Watts talks about his recent visit to a con in Sofia, Bulgaria, and about the apocalypse, here.

The NYR Daily looks at the corporatization of the funeral industry, here.

Diane Duane writes, from her own personal history with Star Trek, about how one can be a writer who ends up writing for a media franchise.

Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections considers the job of tasting, and rating, different cuts of lamb.

The Planetary Society Blog looks at a nondescript observatory in the Mojave desert of California that maps the asteroids of the solar system.

Roads and Kingdoms interviews Eduardo Chavarin about, among other things, Tijuana.

Drew Rowsome loves the SpongeBob musical.

Peter Rukavina announces that Charlottetown has its first public fast charger for electric vehicles.

The Russian Demographics Blog considers the impact of space medicine, here.

The Signal reports on how the Library of Congress is making its internet archives more readily available, here.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers how the incredibly isolated galaxy MCG+01-02-015 will decay almost to nothing over almost uncountable eons.

Strange Company reports on the trial and execution of Christopher Slaughterford for murder. Was there even a crime?

Strange Maps shares a Coudenhove-Kalergi map imagining the division of the world into five superstates.

Understanding Society considers entertainment as a valuable thing, here.

Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine announces his new book, Où va l'argent des pauvres?

John Scalzi at Whatever looks at how some mailed bread triggered a security alert, here.

Window on Eurasia reports on the massive amount of remittances sent to Tajikistan by migrant workers, here.

Arnold Zwicky notes a bizarre no-penguins sign for sale on Amazon.

Bad Astronomer considers how a stellar-mass black hole of 70 solar masses got so unaccountably huge.

Alex Tolley at Centauri Dreams considers the colours of photosynthesis, and how they might reveal the existence of life on exoplanets.

The Dragon's Tales shares some links on humans in the Paleolithic.

Jonathan Wynn at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers the scripts of jokes.

Gizmodo reports on the repurposed China-Netherlands radio telescope operating from an orbit above the far side of the Moon.

JSTOR Daily considers the political rhetoric of declinism.

Language Log considers the controversy over the future of the apostrophe.

James Butler at the LRB Blog notes a YouGov prediction of a Conservative majority in the UK and how this prediction is not value-neutral.

Marginal Revolution shares a paper from India noting how caste identities do affect the labour supply.

Ursula Lindsay at the NYR Daily considers if the political crisis in Lebanon, a product of economic pressures and sectarianism, might lead to a revolutionary transformation of the country away from sectarian politics.

Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections looks at some of the many complicated and intermingled issues of contemporary Australia.

The Planetary Society Blog reports on the latest projects funded by the ESA.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel shares ten beautiful photos taken in 2019 by the Hubble.

Strange Company reports on the strange unsolved disappearance of Lillian Richey from her Idaho home in 1964.

Window on Eurasia shares a Russian criticism of the Ukrainian autocephalous church as a sort of papal Protestantism.

Arnold Zwicky considers the positive potential of homoeros.

Climate change is playing a major role in the wildfires of California. Are we now in the Fire Age? Global News considers.

The new normal of the Arctic Ocean is to be ice-free. Global News reports.

Plants first reached land through unexpected horizontal gene transfers. CBC reports.

Zebra mussels have made it to the Lake of the Woods. Global News reports.

An artificial leaf that turns carbon dioxide into usable fuel is a remarkable technology. Universe Today reports.

Earth once hosted nine human species; now it has one. What happened? National Pot considers.

Thanks to better medical care and preventative measures, people have longer healthy lifespans than ever before. Global News reports.

D-Brief looks at how the Nile River has kept its current course for 30 million years, here.

D-Brief notes a study suggesting modern apartments are filled with fungi.

House plants do not purify the air, D-Brief reports.

D-Brief notes that 0.2% of the methane emitters in California release a third of the methane released in the entire state.

A rocky planet in the right orbit in the HR5183 system, with a gas giant in a very eccentric orbit, could have a spectacular sky, D-Brief notes.

Brian Koberlein at Universe Today considers the question of what was the first colour in the universe. (Is it orange?)

Matt Williams at Universe Today considers how comets and other bodies could be exporting life from Earth to the wider galaxy.

Matt Williams at Universe Today explores one study suggesting Venus could have remained broadly Earth-like for billions of years.

Matt Williams at Universe Today also notes another story suggesting, based on the nature of the lava of the volcanic highlands of Venus, that world was never warm and wet.

Fraser Cain at Universe Today took a look at the idea of superhabitable worlds, of worlds better suited to supporting life than Earth.

D-Brief notes the glorious science produced by scientists who trained rats to drive miniature cars and found that, in so doing, the rats' stress was relieved.

D-Brief reports on how scientists used gravitational lensing to study a galaxy nine billion light-years away.

D-Brief explains how, in dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes can stop star formation.

D-Brief looks at how scientists have found the giant Geode of Pulpi was created.

D-Brief notes how dark matter is making some spiral galaxies rotate at well over 500 kilometres a second.

Adam Fish at anthro{dendum} shares a new take on the atmosphere, as a common good.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait shares a photo of Earth taken from a hundred million kilometres away by the OSIRIS-REx probe.

The Crux tells the story of how the first exoplanets were found.

D-Brief notes that life could be possible on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, assuming it could deal with the blueshifting.

io9 looks at the latest bold move of Archie Comics.

JSTOR Daily explores cleaning stations, where small fish clean larger ones.

Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the role China seeks to play in a remade international order.

The Map Room Blog looks at the new upcoming national atlas of Estonia.

Marginal Revolution touches on the great ambition of Louis XIV for a global empire.

Steve Baker of The Numerati shares photos from his recent trip to Spain.

Anya Schiffrin at the NRY Daily explains how American journalist Varian Fry helped her family, and others, escape the Nazis.

Drew Rowsome reviews the classic movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps shares a map looking at the barriers put up by the high-income world to people moving from outside.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel answers the complex question of how, exactly, the density of a black hole can be measured.

John Scalzi at Whatever reviews Gemini Man. Was the high frame rate worth it?

Window on Eurasia notes the deep hostility of Tuvins towards a large Russian population in Tuva.

Arnold Zwicky considers the existential question of self-aware cartoon characters.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait reports suggestions the bizarre happenings at Boyajian's Star could be explained by an evaporating exomoon.

Centauri Dreams looks at how the crowdsourced evScope telescope is being used to support the Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojans.

The Crux explains the phenomenon of misophobia.

D-Brief shares suggestions that an asteroid collision a half-billion years ago released clouds of dust that, reaching Earth, triggered the mid-Ordovician ice age.

Dangerous Minds shares video of a perhaps underwhelming meeting of William Burroughs with Francis Bacon.

io9 makes the case for more near-future space exploration movies like Ad Astra.

Joe. My. God. notes a Trump retweeting of the lie that Ilham Omar celebrated on 9/11.

JSTOR Daily notes how fire could destroy the stressed rainforest of the Amazon.

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how few judges in the US have been impeached.

The LRB Blog looks at how the already tenuous position of Haitians in the Bahamas has been worsened by Dorian.

The Map Room Blog looks at the importance of the integrity of official maps in the era of Trump.

Marginal Revolution looks at the political importance of marriage ceremonies in Lebanon and Gaza.

Drew Rowsome interviews the Zakar Twins on the occasion of their new play Pray the Gay Away, playing in Toronto in October.

The Russian Demographic Blog shares statistics on birthrates in the different provinces of the Russian Empire circa 1906.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel reports on the first experiment done on the photoelectric effect, revealing quantum mechanics.

Window on Eurasia looks at growing anti-Chinese sentiments in Central Asia.

Arnold Zwicky looks at "The Hurtful Dog", a Cyanide and Happiness cartoon.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes how variable gravity is on irregular asteroid Bennu.

Bruce Dorminey reports on how the European Southern Observatory has charted the Magellanic Clouds in unprecedented detail.

The Dragon's Tales shares a collection of links looking at the Precambrian Earth.

Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina reports on the late 1950s race to send probes to the Moon.

Gizmodo shares some stunning astronomy photos.

JSTOR Daily reports on the saltwater roads, the routes that slaves in Florida used to escape to the free Bahamas.

Language Log looks at some examples of bad English from Japan. How did they come about?

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money rejects the idea of honouring people like Condoleezza Rice.

Marginal Revolution considers the idea of free will in light of neurology.

Corey S Powell at Out There interviews James Lovelock on his new book Novacene, in which Lovelock imagines the future world and Gaia taken over by AI.

Window on Eurasia notes the water shortages faced by downstream countries in Central Asia.

Ryan Anderson at anthro{dendum} looks at the unnatural history of the beach in California, here.

Architectuul looks at the architectural imaginings of Iraqi Shero Bahradar, here.

Bad Astronomy looks at gas-rich galaxy NGC 3242.

James Bow announces his new novel The Night Girl, an urban fantasy set in an alternate Toronto with an author panel discussion scheduled for the Lillian H. Smith Library on the 28th.

Centauri Dreams looks at the indirect evidence for an exomoon orbiting WASP-49b, a possible Io analogue detected through its ejected sodium.

Crooked Timber considers the plight of holders of foreign passports in the UK after Brexit.

The Crux notes that astronomers are still debating the nature of galaxy GC1052-DF2, oddly lacking in dark matter.

D-Brief notes how, in different scientific fields, the deaths of prominent scientists can help progress.

Bruce Dorminey notes how NASA and the ESA are considering sample-return missions to Ceres.

Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the first test flights of the NASA Mercury program.

The Dragon's Tales looks at how Japan is considering building ASAT weapons.

Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the first test flights of the NASA Mercury program.

Far Outliers looks how the anti-malarial drug quinine played a key role in allowing Europeans to survive Africa.

At In Media Res, Russell Arben Fox considers grace and climate change.

io9 reports on how Jonathan Frakes had anxiety attacks over his return as Riker on Star Trek: Picard.

JSTOR Daily reports on the threatened banana.

Language Log looks at the language of Hong Kong protesters.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how a new version of The Last of the Mohicans perpetuates Native American erasure.

Marginal Revolution notes how East Germany remains alienated.

Neuroskeptic looks at the participant-observer effect in fMRI subjects.

The NYR Daily reports on a documentary looking at the India of Modi.

Corey S. Powell writes at Out There about Neptune.

The Planetary Society Blog examines the atmosphere of Venus, something almost literally oceanic in its nature.

Noel Maurer at The Power and the Money considers how Greenland might be incorporated into the United States.

Rocky Planet notes how Earth is unique down to the level of its component minerals.

The Russian Demographics Blog considers biopolitical conservatism in Poland and Russia.

Starts With a Bang's Ethan Siegel considers if LIGO has made a detection that might reveal the nonexistence of the theorized mass gap between neutron stars and black holes.

Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps looks at Marchetti's constant: People in cities, it seems, simply do not want to commute for a time longer than half an hour.

Understanding Society's Daniel Little looks at how the US Chemical Safety Board works.

Window on Eurasia reports on how Muslims in the Russian Far North fare.

Arnold Zwicky looks at cannons and canons.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait reports on the fragility of asteroid Ryugu.

Centauri Dreams looks at the JUICE probe, planned to explore the three icy moons of Jupiter.

John Quiggin at Crooked Timber reports on the fact that Jimmy Carter was warned in the 1970s about the possibility of global warming.

D-Brief notes that the Earth might not be the best world for life, that watery worlds with dense atmospheres and long days might be better.

Jessica Poling at the Everyday Sociology Blog writes about the construction of gender.

Far Outliers looks at the Nigerian city of Agadez, at one point a sort of port city of the Sahel.

Gizmodo asks a variety of experts their opinion on which species is likely to be next in developing our sort of intelligence. (Primates come up frequently, though I like the suggestion of bacterial colonies.)

JSTOR Daily looks/a> at the genderless Quaker prophet Publick Universal Friend.

Lawyers, Guns and Money comments on the interview of Amy Wax with The New Yorker.

Marginal Revolution shares the enthusiasm of Tyler Cowen for Warsaw and Poland.

Peter Pomerantsev writes at the NYR Daily about how the alt-right has taken to culture-jamming.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes the exceptional power of cosmic rays.

Window on Eurasia shares the lament of a Chuvash writer about the decline of her people's language.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait looks at Westerlund-1, a massive star cluster with many bright stars in our galaxy.

Centauri Dreams notes a finding that giant planets like Jupiter are less likely to be found around Sun-like stars.

D-Brief notes how, in a time of climate change, birds migrated between Canada and the equator.

Bruce Dorminey lists five overlooked facts about the Apollo 11 mission.

The Dragon's Tales notes that the US House of Representatives has approved the creation of a US Space Corps analogous to the Marines.

JSTOR Daily considers tactics to cure groupthink.

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution, looking at the experience of Hong Kong, observes how closely economic freedoms depend on political freedom and legitimacy.

Casey Dreier at the Planetary Society Blog explains his rationale for calculating that the Apollo project, in 2019 dollars, cost more than $US 700 billion.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at the star R136a1, a star in the 30 Doradus cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud that is the most massive star known to exist.

Window on Eurasia notes how Circassians in Syria find it very difficult to seek refuge in their ancestral lands in the North Caucasus.

Arnold Zwicky looks, in occasionally NSFW detail, at the importance of June the 16th for him as a date.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes the first time that an exoplanet, HR 8799e, has been directly observed using optical interferometry.

Centauri Dreams notes the possibility, demonstrated by the glimpsing of a circumplanetary disc around exoplanet PDS 70b, that we might be seeing a moon system in formation.

The Citizen Science Salon looks what observers in Antarctica are contributing to our wealth of scientific knowledge.

The Dragon's Tales shares links to articles looking at the latest findings on the Precambrian Earth.

The Frailest Thing's L.M. Sacasas writes about his ambivalent response to a Twitter that, by its popularity, undermines the open web.

Gizmodo notes that NASA is going to open up the International Space Station to tourists.

JSTOR Daily looks at how croquet, upon its introduction in the 19th century United States, was seen as scandalous for the way it allowed men and women to mix freely.

Shakezula at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the unaccountable fondness of at least two Maine Republican legislators for the Confederacy.

Marginal Revolution suggests that the economic success of Israel in recent decades is a triumph of neoliberalism.

Stephen Ellis at the NYR Daily writes about the gymnastics of Willem de Kooning.

Drew Rowsome profiles out comic Brendan D'Souza.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at the still strange galaxy NGC 1052-DF2, apparently devoid of dark matter.

John Scalzi at Whatever shares his theory about a fixed quantity of flavor in strawberries of different sizes.

Window on Eurasia looks at a contentious plan for a territorial swap between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait takes a look at the German city of Nordlingen, formed in a crater created by the impact of a binary asteroid with Earth.

Centauri Dreams reports on the possibility that the farside of the Moon might bear the imprint of an ancient collision with a dwarf planet the size of Ceres.

D-Brief notes that dredging for the expansion of the port of Miami has caused terrible damage to corals there.

Dangerous Minds looks at the last appearances of David Bowie and Iggy Pop together on stage.

The Dragon's Tales notes that China is on track to launch an ambitious robotic mission to Mars in 2020.

Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog talks about what sociological research actually is.

Gizmodo reports on the discovery of a torus of cool gas circling Sagittarius A* at a distance of a hundredth of a light-year.

io9 reports about Angola Janga, an independent graphic novel by Marcelo D'Salete showing how slaves from Africa in Brazil fought for their freedom and independence.

The Island Review shares some poems of Matthew Landrum, inspired by the Faroe Islands.

Joe. My. God. looks at how creationists are mocking flat-earthers for their lack of scientific knowledge.

Language Hat looks at the observations of Mary Beard that full fluency in ancient Latin is rare even for experts, for reason I think understandable.

Melissa Byrnes wrote at Lawyers, Guns and Money about the meaning of 4 June 1989 in the political transitions of China and Poland.

Marginal Revolution notes how the New York Times has become much more aware of cutting-edge social justice in recent years.

The NYR Daily looks at how the memories and relics of the Sugar Land prison complex outside of Houston, Texas, are being preserved.

Jason C Davis at the Planetary Society Blog looks at the differences between LightSail 1 and the soon-to-be-launched LightSail 2.

The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer looks in detail at the high electricity prices in Argentina.

Peter Rukavina looks at the problems with electric vehicle promotion on PEI.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at when the universe will have its first black dwarf. (Not in a while.)

Window on Eurasia suggests that Belarusians are not as interested in becoming citizens of Russia as an Internet poll suggests.

Arnold Zwicky highlights a Pride Month cartoon set in Antarctica featuring the same-sex marriage of two penguins.

Matt Thompson at anthro{dendum} writes about the complex, often anthropological, satire in the comics of Charles Addams.

Architectuul looks at the photography of Roberto Conte.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes a new computer model suggesting a supernova can be triggered by throwing a white dwarf into close orbit of a black hole.

D-Brief notes how ammonia on the surface of Pluto hints at the existence of a subsurface ocean.

Bruce Dorminey notes how the bombardment of Earth by debris from a nearby supernova might have prompted early hominids to become bipedal.

The Dragon's Tales notes that NASA has awarded its first contract for its plans in lunar space.

Far Outliers notes the reactions, within and without the Soviet Union, to the 1991 Soviet coup attempt.

Matt Novak at Gizmodo's Paleofuture notes how, in 1995, Terry Pratchett predicted the rise of online Nazis.

io9 notes the impending physical release this summer of DVDs of the Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind.

JSTOR Daily suggests some ways to start gardening in your apartment.

Victor Mair at Language Log claims that learning Literary Chinese is a uniquely difficult experience. Thoughts?

The NYR Daily features a wide-ranging interview with EU official Michel Barnier focused particularly, but not exclusively, on Brexit.

The Planetary Society Blog notes that an Internet vote has produced a majority in favour of naming outer system body 2007 OR10 Gonggang.

The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers the possibility that foreign investors in Mexico might be at risk, at least feel themselves at risk, from the government of AMLO.

The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress archives spreadsheets.

Van Waffle at the Speed River Journal looks at magenta spreen, a colourful green that he grows in his garden.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how we on Earth are carelessly wasting irreplaceable helium.

Window on Eurasia refers to reports claiming that a third of the population of Turkmenistan has fled that Central Asian state. Could this be accurate?

MacLean's notes the controversy surrounding claims of a remarkable find of fossils dating from the very moment, nearly, of the Chixculub impact 66 million years ago.

Wired looks at how genetically manipulated phages can be used to treat infectious diseases untreatable by antibiotics.

Universe Today notes the usefulness of algae in life-support systems for long-duration crewed missions.

Evan Gough at Universe Today notes the need to come up with a system capable of ensuring the sustainable development of space.

Corey S Powell writes at Discover about new technologies that could conceivably be used for rapid interstellar flight, and about stepping-stone targets worth noting as we work up to the stars.

Centauri Dreams notes a strange corridor of ice beneath the surface of Titan, a possible legacy of an active cryovolcanic past.

D-Brief notes one study suggesting that, properly designed, air conditioners could convert carbon dioxide in the air into carbon fuels.

Dead Things reports on the discovery of an unusual human skull three hundred thousand years old in China, at Hualongdong in the southeast.

Gizmodo notes the identification of a jawbone 160 thousand years old, found in Tibet, with the Denisovans. That neatly explains why the Denisovans were adapted to Tibet-like environments.

JSTOR Daily examines Ruth Page, a ballerina who integrated dance with poetry.

Language Hat shares a critique of a John McWhorter comment about kidspeak.

Victor Mair at Language Log shares a well-researched video on the Mongolian language of Genghis Khan.

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how Donald Trump, in his defiance of investigative findings, is worse than Richard Nixon.

James Butler at the LRB Blog writes about the bombing of London gay bar Admiral Duncan two decades ago, relating it movingly to wider alt-right movements and to his own early coming out.

Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen notes a recent review article making the case for open borders, disproving many of the claims made by opponents.

Paul Mason at the NYR Daily explains why the critique by Hannah Arendt of totalitarianism and fascism can fall short, not least in explaining our times.

Corey S. Powell at Out There explains how, and why, the Moon is starting to get serious attention as a place for long-term settlement, even.

Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog explores the fund that she had in helping design a set of scientifically-accurate building blocks inspired by the worlds of our solar system.

Drew Rowsome reports on the new restaging of the classic queer drama Lilies at Buddies in Bad Times by Walter Borden, this one with a new racially sensitive casting.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers the massive boom of diversity at the time of the Cambrian Explosion.

Towleroad features the remarkable front cover of the new issue of Time, featuring Pete Buttigieg together with his husband Chasten.

Window on Eurasia considers if the new Russian policy of handing out passports to residents of the Donbas republics is related to a policy of trying to bolster the population of Russia, whether fictively or actually.

Arnold Zwicky considers the various flowers of May Day.

Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes how the warp in space-time made by the black hole in V404 Cygni has been detected.

The Crux reports on the discovery of the remains of a chicha brewery in pre-Columbian Peru.

D-Brief notes a new model for the creation of the Moon by impact with primordial Earth that would explain oddities with the Earth still being molten, having a magma ocean.

Bruce Dorminey shares the idea that extraterrestrial civilizations might share messages with posterity through DNA encoded in bacteria set adrift in space.

The Dragon's Tales reports on progress in drones and UAVs made worldwide.

Gizmodo notes some of the privacy issues involved with Alexa.

JSTOR Daily explains how some non-mammals, including birds and fish, nurse their young.

Language Hat reports on the latest studies in the ancient linguistic history of East Asia, with suggestions that Old Japanese has connections to the languages of the early Korean states of Silla and Paekche but not to that of Koguryo.

Language Log considers the issues involved with the digitization of specialized dictionaries.

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money remembers the start of the Spanish Civil War.

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution points towards his recent interview with Margaret Atwood.

The NYR Daily reports on a remarkable new play, Heidi Schreck's What The Constitution Means To Me.

Towleroad reports on what Hunter Kelly, one of the men who operatives tried to recruit to spread slander against Pete Buttigieg, has to say about the affair.

Window on Eurasia suggests that a Russian annexation of Belarus would not be an easy affair.

Arnold Zwicky reports on the latest signs of language change, this time in the New Yorker.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that methane hydrates on the ocean floor will only pose a catastrophic risk of climate change if we do nothing about climate change generally.

Centauri Dreams reports on the massive flare detected on L-dwarf ULAS J224940.13-011236.9.

Crooked Timber considers a philosophical conundrum: What should individuals do to combat climate change? What are they responsible for?

The Crux considers a few solar system locations that future generations of hikers might well want to explore on foot.

Joe. My. God. notes that Pete Buttigieg is becoming a big star in his father's homeland of Malta.

Language Log considers the idea of learning Cantonese as a second language.

Lawyers, Guns and Money considers the policy innovations of Elizabeth Warren.

The Map Room Blog looks at how the Russian government is apparently spoofing GPS signals.

Marginal Revolution reports a claim by Peter Thiel that the institutionalization of science since the Manhattan Project is slowing down technological advances. Is this plausible?

Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog notes that the Mars InSight probe has detected marsquakes.

Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes that, finally, astronomers have found the first cold gas giants among the exoplanets, worlds in wide orbits like Jupiter and Saturn.

Ilya Somin at the Volokh Conspiracy notes how some of the praise for Daenerys Targaryen by Elizabeth Warren reveals interesting and worrisome blind spots. (Myself, I fear a "Dark Dany" scenario.)

Window on Eurasia suggests that Russia is not over the fact that Ukraine is moving on.

Frances Woolley at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative takes issue with the argument of Andray Domise after an EKOS poll, that Canadians would not know much about the nature of migration flows.

For Easter, Arnold Zwicky considered red and white flowers, bearing the colours of the season.

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