A Bit More Detail

• Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber considers democracy as an information system.


• The Crux shares what we have learned from our studies of the tusks of the mammoths.


• D-Brief notes another landmark of the InSight mission: It brought two CubeSats with it to Mars.


• JSTOR Daily takes a look at the odaliques of Matisse, paintings of North African women in intimate positions, in the contexts of colonialism and #metoo. What untold stories are there with these images?


• Anakana Schofield writes at the LRB Blog about her problems finding CBD oil post-marijuana legalization in greater Vancouver.


• The Map Room Blog notes the support of Popular Mechanics for paper maps, even in the digital age.


• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution praises Toby Green's new history of West Africa, A Fistful of Shells, a book that emphasizes the influence of West Africa in the Americas and the wider Atlantic world.


• The NYR Daily carries a Tim Parks essay questioning whether it is worthwhile for an author to consciously seek out literary glory.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel reports on the possibility that rocky planets might get large moons only if they suffer large impacts.


• Window on Eurasia reports on the insulting remarks of Russian liberal Oleg Kashin towards Ukrainians, and Tatars too, suggesting even liberal Russians might well be inclined to be anti-Ukrainian.


• Arnold Zwicky notes a remarkable word error in noting the 40th anniversary of the deaths of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, changing "assassination" into "assignation".

• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the frequency with which young red dwarf stars flare, massively, with negative implications for potential life on these stars' planets.


• Centauri Dreams shares a proposal for probe expeditions to Pluto and Charon, and to the wider Kuiper belt beyond.


• D-Brief explains just how elephants manage to eat with their trunks.


• JSTOR Daily answers the question of just why so many American states--other subnational polities too, I bet--have straight-line borders.


• Language Hat links to a recent blog post examining the very specific forms of language used by the Roman emperor Justinian.


• At Lawyers, Guns and Money, Paul Campos looks at where the whole concept of "political correctness" came from, and why. (Hint: It was not anti-racists who did this.)


• Geoffrey K. Pullum at Lingua Franca describes the circumstances behind his new book, _Linguistics: Why It Matters.


• At the LRB Blog, Caroline Eden writes about the shipwrecks of the Black Sea, preserved for centuries or even millennia by the sea's oxygen-poor waters.


• Gabrielle Bellot writes at the NYR Daily about how she refuses to be made into an invisible trans woman.


• At the Speed River Journal, Van Waffle describes--with photos!--how he was lucky enough to find a wild growth of chicken of the woods, an edible bracket mushroom of the Ontario forests.


• Window on Eurasia suggests that the loss of Ukraine by the Russian Orthodox Church will contribute to that church being increasingly seen as a national one, limited by borders.

• At Anthrodendum, Elizabeth Marino takes issue with what she identifies as the naively and fiercely neoliberal elements of Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now.


• Anthropology.net's Kambiz Kamrani takes a look at an innovative study of the Surinamese creole of Sranan Tongo that uncovers that language's linguistic origins in remarkably fine detail.


• Architectuul examines the architecture of Communist-era Hungarian architect István Szábo.


• Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the nearly naked black hole at the heart of galaxy ZwCl 8193, 2.2 billion light-years away.


• The Big Picture shares photos from the 2018 Paralympics in South Korea.


• Gerry Canavan has an interesting critical take on Star Trek: Discovery. Is it really doing new things, or is its newness just superficial?


• Centauri Dreams considers the impact the spectra of red dwarfs would have on biosignatures from their worlds.


• Russell Darnley takes a look at Australia's Darling River, a critical watercourse threatened by extensive water withdrawals.


• Inkfish notes that patterns of wear on the tusks of elephants indicate most are right-handed.


• Joe. My. God. links to a study suggesting a relationship between Trump rallies and violent assaults.


• JSTOR Daily links to a paper examining why people drink Guinness on St. Patrick's Day.


• Language Hat takes a look at the use of Xhosa as the language of Wakanda.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money mourns Alfred Crosby, the historian whose work examined the epidemiological and ecological changes wrought by contact with the Americas.


• The Map Room Blog links to a map showing indigenous placenames in Canada.


• Marginal Revolution suggests AI will never be able to centrally plan an economy because the complexity of the economy will always escape it.


• In the aftermath of the death of Stephen Hawking, Out There had a lovely idea: what nearby major stars emitted life than arrive at the moment of his birth? Hawking's star is Regulus, and mine was (nearly) Arcturus.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel examines Stephen Hawking's contribution to the study of black holes.


• Supernova Condensate shares a list of moons, fictional and otherwise, from Endor on down.

For Toka and Thika, retirement is turning out just fine. There's warm sunshine, new friends to spend time with and the chance to do whatever they want.

Three years after they were sent halfway across the continent, the aging elephants from the Toronto Zoo have found a new lease on life roaming the hills of a northern California sanctuary.

"Toka has fit right in and she is a part of the group now and I think that's really good for her," Ed Stewart, executive director of the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuary, told CBC's the fifth estate.

"Thika is a much bigger challenge but it's been good for her, too."

After much debate and controversy surrounding the fate of the zoo's last elephants, Toka, Thika and Iringa were trucked 4,000 kilometres to the PAWS sanctuary in San Andreas.

China will shut down its domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017, according to an announcement made today by the Chinese government.

The announcement comes more than a year after China's President Xi Jinping and United States President Barack Obama pledged to enact “nearly complete bans” on the import and export of ivory, an agreement Wildlife Watch reporter Rachael Bale described as “the most significant step yet in efforts to shut down an industry that has fueled the illegal hunting of elephants.”

It also follows a commitment made in October by the international community to close domestic ivory markets.

“This is the best New Year’s present I’ve ever had,” says Sue Lieberman, vice president of international policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society, a nonprofit based in New York City that works to help save elephants and other wildlife. “China is the world’s largest market, both of small ivory items and high-end, expensive ones.”

The global ivory trade has been banned since 1989, but during recent years large-scale poaching has resumed, and elephant numbers have fallen as low as 415,000. Advocates believe that legal domestic ivory markets perpetuate an illegal trade because older, pre-ban ivory can’t easily be distinguished from poached ivory.

• Bloomberg talks about Poland's problems with economic growth, notes that McMansions are poor investments, considers what to do about the Olympics post-Rio, looks at new Japanese tax incentives for working women, looks at a French war museum that put its stock up for sale, examines the power of the New Zealand dairy, looks at the Yasukuni controversies, and notes Huawei's progress in China.


• Bloomberg View is hopeful for Brazil, argues demographics are dooming Abenomics, suggests ways for the US to pit Russia versus Iran, looks at Chinese fisheries and the survival of the ocean, notes that high American population growth makes the post-2008 economic recovery relatively less notable, looks at Emperor Akihito's opposition to Japanese remilitarization, and argues that Europe's soft response to terrorism is not a weakness.


• CBC notes that Russian doping whistleblowers fear for their lives, looks at how New Brunswick farmers are adapting to climate change, and looks at how Neanderthals' lack of facility with tools may have doomed them.


• The Globe and Mail argues Ontario should imitate Michigan instead of Québec, notes the new Anne of Green Gables series on Netflix, and predicts good things for Tim Horton's in the Philippines.


• The Guardian notes that Canada's impending deal with the European Union is not any model for the United Kingdom.


• The Inter Press Service looks at child executions in Iran.


• MacLean's notes that Great Lakes mayors have joined to challenge a diversion of water from their shared basin.


• National Geographic looks at the elephant ivory trade, considers the abstract intelligence of birds, considers the Mayan calendar's complexities, and looks at how the young generation treats Pluto's dwarf planet status.


• The National Post notes that VIA Rail is interested in offering a low-cost bus route along the Highway of Tears in northern British Columbia.


• Open Democracy notes that the last Russian prisoner in Guantanamo does not want to go home, and wonders why the West ignores the Rwandan dictatorship.


• TVO considers how rural communities can attract immigrants.


• Universe Today suggests sending our digital selves to the stars, looks at how cirrus clouds kept early Mars warm and wet, and notes the discovery of an early-forming direct-collapse black hole.


• Variance Explained looks at how Donald Trump's tweets clearly show two authors at work.


• The Washignton Post considers what happens when a gay bar becomes a bar with more general appeal.


• Wired notes that the World Wide Web still is far from achieving its founders' dreams, looks at how news apps are dying off, and reports on the Univision purchase of Gawker.

• Bloomberg looks at the European cities hoping to poach talent from London post-Brexit, notes central Europe's support for the European Union, looks at how Venezuelans are dealing with broken cars with the car industry gone, and looks at the United Kingdom's already substantial hit.


• Bloomberg View considers peace in Columbia, notes American infant mortality, looks at China's fears over Brexit and examines China's anti-corruption crackdown.


• CBC notes the substantial refugee population of Ukraine.


• The Inter Press Service wonders about the consequences of Brexit for the United Nations.


• MacLean's notes the beginning of the North American leaders' summit.


• National Geographic observes the impending end of the ivory trade of Hong Kong.


• The National Post looks at the Leave voters' regrets.


• Open Democracy looks at Scotland and also at the post-Brexit environment more generally.

During the past several years, I've watched country after country destroy their stockpiles of confiscated elephant ivory, preventing that ivory from somehow slipping back into the black market and symbolically demonstrating commitment to stopping the illegal trade.

But to my mind, something that’s always been missing is an apology: No country has ever formally said sorry for its complicity in the trade. Tomorrow Sri Lanka will hold a religious ceremony to do just that.

“We have to apologize,” said the Venerable Omalpe Sobitha Thero, the Buddhist priest who will lead the service. “Those elephants were victimized by the cruelty of certain people. But all of human society is responsible. We destroyed those innocent lives to take those tusks. We have to ask for pardon from them.”

Sri Lanka’s destruction of its ivory—the first by a country in South Asia—brings to 16 the total so far. (For the other countries, see the chart below.) The ivory will be crushed at an iconic oceanside park in the heart of Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital, then burned in a city incinerator.

The ivory—the country’s entire stockpile—came from a single shipment of 359 tusks, weighing 1.5 tons, seized by customs authorities at the Port of Colombo in May 2012. The shipment was in transit from Kenya to Dubai. DNA testing later showed that the tusks came from Tanzania.

Tusks are displayed at an authorized auction in South Africa in 2008. China bought 73 tons of ivory at several sales over two weeks to supply its legal, domestic market.

After years of defending and supporting a legal domestic trade in ivory, China made a big announcement in September: It’s shutting down the trade.

The United States is, too. Together, the presidents of both countries have made an unprecedented public pledge to put a stop to all ivory trading—legal and illegal.

The U.S. is on track to approve new regulations within a year that essentially would fulfill its promise under the September pledge to take “significant and timely steps” to end the ivory trade. But the joint pledge doesn’t have any deadlines, and the Chinese government hasn’t said what time frame it’s aiming for.

The Chinese government may, however, consider an ivory buyback program, says Li Zhang, a professor at Beijing Normal University who is studying the feasibility of such a plan. The idea is that the government would use an eco-compensation fund, similar to those Beijing has used to improve watersheds, to buy back legal raw and unfinished ivory owned by licensed carving factories.

China’s state-sponsored industry has resulted in legal ivory from government stockpiles eventually mingling with illegal ivory, fueling the black market and driving the relentless poaching of African elephants.