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  • Marginal Revolution features a critical if friendly review of the new Emmanuel Todd book, Lineages of Modernity.

  • Marginal Revolution considers the problems of excessive consumer activism, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes a new book looking at natural gas economics in Europe, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes new evidence that YouTube algorithms do not tend to radicalize users, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes the few countries where the average person was richer in 2009 than in 2019, notably Greece and Venezuela.

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  • NOW Toronto looks at the Pickering nuclear plant and its role in providing fuel for space travel.

  • In some places like California, traffic is so bad that airlines actually play a role for high-end commuters. CBC reports.

  • Goldfish released into the wild are a major issue for the environment in Québec, too. CTV News reports.

  • China's investments in Jamaica have good sides and bad sides. CBC reports.

  • A potato museum in Peru might help solve world hunger. The Guardian reports.

  • Is the Alberta-Saskatchewan alliance going to be a lasting one? Maclean's considers.

  • Is the fossil fuel industry collapsing? The Tyee makes the case.

  • Should Japan and Europe co-finance a EUrasia trade initiative to rival China's? Bloomberg argues.

  • Should websites receive protection as historically significant? VICE reports.

  • Food tourism in the Maritimes is a very good idea. Global News reports.

  • Atlantic Canada lobster exports to China thrive as New England gets hit by the trade war. CBC reports.

  • The Bloc Québécois experienced its revival by drawing on the same demographics as the provincial CAQ. Maclean's reports.

  • Population density is a factor that, in Canada, determines political issues, splitting urban and rural voters. The National Observer observes.

  • US border policies aimed against migration from Mexico have been harming businesses on the border with Canada. The National Post reports.

  • The warming of the ocean is changing the relationship of coastal communities with their seas. The Conversation looks.

  • Archival research in the digital age differs from what occurred in previous eras. The Conversation explains.

  • The Persian-language Wikipedia is an actively contested space. Open Democracy reports.

  • Vox notes how the US labour shortage has been driven partly by workers quitting the labour force, here.

  • Laurie Penny at WIRED has a stirring essay about hope, about the belief in some sort of future.

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  • Anthropology.net notes a remarkably thorough genetic analysis of a piece of chewing gum 5700 years old that reveals volumes of data about the girl who chew it.

  • 'Nathan Burgoine at Apostrophen writes an amazing review of Cats that actually does make me want to see it.

  • Bad Astronomy reports on galaxy NGC 6240, a galaxy produced by a collision with three supermassive black holes.

  • Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog writes about the mechanics of journalism.

  • Centauri Dreams argues that the question of whether humans will walk on exoplanets is ultimately distracting to the study of these worlds.

  • Crooked Timber shares a Sunday morning photo of Bristol.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that India has a launch date of December 2021 for its first mission in its Gaganyaan crewed space program.

  • Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina looks at the Saturn C-1 rocket.

  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog considers if the vogue for minimalism meets the criteria to be considered a social movement.

  • Far Outliers ?notes how, in the War of 1812, some in New England considered the possibility of seceding from the Union.

  • Gizmodo looks at evidence of the last populations known of Homo erectus, on Java just over a hundred thousand years ago.

  • Mark Graham links to a new paper co-authored by him looking at how African workers deal with the gig economy.

  • io9 announces that the Michael Chabon novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, is set to become a television series.

  • Joe. My. God. shares a report that Putin gave Trump anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories.

  • JSTOR Daily considers what a world with an economy no longer structured around oil could look like.

  • Language Hat takes issue with the latest talk of the Icelandic language facing extinction.

  • Language Log shares a multilingual sign photographed in Philadelphia's Chinatown.

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the document release revealing the futility of the war in Afghanistan.

  • The LRB Blog looks at class identity and mass movements and social democracy.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution suggests that, even if the economy of China is larger than the United States, Chinese per capita poverty means China does not have the leading economy.

  • Diane Duane at Out of Ambit writes about how she is writing a gay sex scene.

  • Jim Belshaw at Personal Reflections reflects on "OK Boomer".

  • Roads and Kingdoms interviews Mexican chef Ruffo Ibarra.

  • Peter Rukavina shares his list of levees for New Year's Day 2020 on PEI.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a map indicating fertility rates in the different regions of the European Union.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how quantum physics are responsible for vast cosmic structures.

  • Charles Soule at Whatever explains his reasoning behind his new body-swap novel.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Paris show the lack of meaningful pro-Russian sentiment there.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell talks about his lessons from working in the recent British election.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at a syncretic, Jewish-Jedi, holiday poster.

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  • Marginal Revolution considers if the CFA franc system is dying out, here.

  • Marginal Revolution shares a link to a paper quantifying the effects of the old boys club, here.

  • Marginal Revolution contrasts and compares the old NAFTA and the new USMCA, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes how Germany has access to nuclear weapons, here.

  • Marginal Revolution looks at the high rate of consainguineous marriage in Saudi Arabia, here.

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  • MTL Blog shares this map of the Greater Montréal mass transit network, with a uniform design for all its networks, here.

  • Exo commuters in Montréal are decidedly unhappy with the Exo chairperson for the unhelpful tips they gave. CTV News reports.

  • Montréal has bought 140 acres of land in the West Island for its planned great park there. CTV News reports.

  • Notre Dame East is set to be revamped as an urban boulevard. CTV News reports.

  • Controversy over the Royalmount shopping complex grows. CBC reports.

  • Montréal is reckoned by a Google team to be a major centre for game development. CTV News reports.

  • A new fund seeks to increase the diversity of artists whose works are displayed in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. CTV News reports.

  • Montréal mayor Valérie Plante promises to help out record stores fined for being opened past 5 on a weekend. CTV News reports.

  • Royal LePage suggests that home values in Montréal will grow sharply in 2020, more than in any other major Canadian city. CTV News reports.

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  • The town of Innisfil is looking forward to some very futuristic developments. Global News reports.

  • Jeremy Deaton at CityLab reports on how, buffered by the Great Lakes, Buffalo NY may end gaining from climate change.

  • The Ottawa chain Bridgehead Coffee has been sold to national chain Second Cup. Global News reports.

  • Many of the more eye-raising installations in the Gay Village of Montréal have since been removed. CTV News reports.

  • Warming huts for homeless people in Winnipeg were torn down because the builders did not follow procedures. Global News reports.

  • Open Democracy looks at innovative new public governance of the city budget in Amsterdam, here.

  • Singapore, located in a well-positioned Southeast Asia and with working government, may take over from Hong Kong. Bloomberg View makes the case.

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  • Anthrodendum features a guest post from editors introducing a series on fieldwork and trauma.

  • Crooked Timber's John Quiggin takes a stab at trying to define neoliberalism as an ideology, not just a catch-all phrase.

  • The Crux looks at desalination, a difficult process that we may need to use regardless of its difficulty.

  • D-Brief notes that narcissism is linked to lower levels of stress and depression.

  • Jezebel notes the return and legacy of Bratz dolls.

  • Joe. My. God. shares the Sam Smith cover of the Donna Summer classic "I Feel Love", along with other versions of that song.

  • JSTOR Daily considers if graphene will ever become commercially usable.

  • Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money links to an analysis warning about commercial debt. Another 2008?

  • Marginal Revolution points to some papers suggesting that cannabis usage does not harm cognition, that the relationship is if anything reversed.

  • Daphne Merkin at the NYR Daily looks back at her literary life, noting people now gone.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews the new Daniel MacIvor play Let's Run Away.

  • The Volokh Conspiracy looks at how the Trump Administration lost two cases against sanctuary cities.

  • Window on Eurasia considers, briefly, the idea of Gorbachev giving to Germany Kaliningrad, last remnant of East Prussia.

  • Worthwhile Canadian Initiative looks at the rises in health spending directed towards young people. Is this a warning sign of poor health?

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at Gaysper, and then at other queer ghosts.

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  • Jamie Bradburn took a look at now-effaced Toronto cemetery Potter's Field, here.

  • Kingston, Ontario's Skeleton Park is a remarkable legacy. Global News reports.

  • CBC Saskatoon reports on the origins of Halloween in harvest events.

  • The Hong Kong protests took on a new tinge this Halloween. CBC reports.

  • The Vancouver tradition of Halloween fireworks may be dying out. The National Post reports.

  • Guardian Cities looks around the world, from Derry to West Hollywood, at local celebrations of Halloween.

  • Gizmodo shares an image of a ghostly collision of galaxies in deep space.

  • Dangerous Minds shared some album covers inspired by Halloween.

  • CBC looks at the very low rate of candy tampering in Canada over the past decade.

  • JSTOR Daily considers how the Great Pumpkin of Peanuts came to be so great.

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  • Bad Astronomy notes a new detailed study suggesting that asteroid Hygeia is round. Does this mean it is a dwarf planet?

  • The Buzz notes that the Toronto Public Library has a free booklet on the birds of Toronto available at its branches.

  • Crooked Timber looks forward to a future, thanks to Trump, without the World Trade Organization.

  • D-Brief notes how the kelp forests off California were hurt by unseasonal heat and disease.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes an impending collision of supergalactic clusters.

  • Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how judgement can complicate collective action.

  • Language Hat looks at the different definitions of the word "mobile".

  • Language Log looks at the deep influence of the Persian language upon Marathi.
    https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=44807
  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how, if anything, climate scientists make conservative claims about their predictions.

  • Marginal Revolution wonders if planned power outages are a good way to deal with the threat of wildfires in California.

  • The NYR Daily looks at the ethnic cleansing being enabled by Turkey in Kurdish Syria.

  • Corey S. Powell at Out There interviews archeologist Arthur Lin about his use of space-based technologies to discovery traces of the past.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer looks at the staggering inequality in Chile, driver of the recent protests.

  • At Roads and Kingdoms, Anthony Elghossain reports from the scene of the mass protests in Lebanon.

  • Drew Rowsome tells how his balcony garden fared this year.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at stellar generations in the universe. (Our sun is a third-generation star.)

  • Strange Company looks at the murder of a girl five years old in Indiana in 1898. Was the neighbor boy twelve years old accused of the crime the culprit?

  • Denis Colombi at Une heure de peine takes a look at social mobility in France.

  • Understanding Society's Daniel Little considers economic historians and their study of capitalism.

  • Window on Eurasia looks at the pro-Russian policies of the Moldova enclave of Gagauzia, and draws recommendations for Ukraine re: the Donbas.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes a study suggesting the Milky Way Galaxy took many of its current satellite galaxies from another, smaller one.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks of the importance of having dreams.

  • Centauri Dreams shares a study explaining how the debris polluting the atmospheres of white dwarfs reveals much about exoplanet chemistry.

  • D-Brief notes that the intense radiation of Jupiter would not destroy potential traces of subsurface life on the surface of Europa.

  • Dangerous Minds looks at the strange musical career of Vader Abraham, fan of the Smurfs and of the Weepuls.

  • Aneesa Bodiat at JSTOR Daily writes about how the early Muslim woman of Haajar inspires her as a Muslim.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how an influx of American guns destabilizes Mexico.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the American abandonment of the Kurds of Syria.

  • Marginal Revolution notes how many mass protests are driven by consumer complaints.

  • The NYR Daily has an interview with EU chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, on the future of sovereignty.

  • Strange Company looks at the Dead Pig War between the US and the UK on San Juan Island in 1859.

  • Towleroad features the defense of Frank Ocean of his PrEP+ club night and the release of his new music.

  • Understanding Society looks at the sociology of norms.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests Russia and Ukraine each have an interest in the Donbass being a frozen conflict.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at the weird masculinity of the pink jock.

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  • 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.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes that mysterious Boyajian's Star has nearly two dozen identified analogues, like HD 139139.

  • James Bow reports from his con trip to Portland.

  • Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog notes the particular pleasure of having old friends, people with long baselines on us.

  • Centauri Dreams describes a proposed mission to interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 (Borisov).

  • The Crux notes how feeding cows seaweed could sharply reduce their methane production.

  • D-Brief notes that comet C/2019 Q4 is decidedly red.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes a claim that water-rich exoplanet K2-18b might well have more water than Earth.

  • Gizmodo reports on a claim that Loki, biggest volcano on Io, is set to explode in a massive eruption.

  • io9 notes that Warner Brothers is planning a Funko Pop movie.

  • Joe. My. God. notes the claim of Donald Trump that he is ready for war with Iran.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how people in early modern Europe thought they could treat wounds with magic.

  • Language Hat considers how "I tip my hat" might, translated, sound funny to a speaker of Canadian French.

  • Language Log considers how speakers of Korean, and other languages, can find word spacing a challenge.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at the partisan politics of the US Supreme Court.

  • At the NYR Daily, Naomi Klein makes a case for the political and environmental necessity of a Green New Deal.

  • Peter Watts takes apart a recent argument proclaiming the existence of free will.

  • Peter Rukavina tells how travelling by rail or air from Prince Edward Island to points of the mainland can not only be terribly inconvenient, but environmentally worse than car travel. PEI does need better rail connections.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog examines how different countries in Europe will conduct their census in 2020.

  • Window on Eurasia shares the arguments of a geographer who makes the point that China has a larger effective territory than Russia (or Canada).

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at a 1971 prediction by J.G. Ballard about demagoguery and guilt, something that now looks reasonably accurate.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers models of segregation of cartoon characters from normal ones in comics.

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  • The Crux looks at the australopiths, not-so-distant ancestors of modern humans.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes the interest of NASA in exploring the lunar subsurface, including lava tubes.

  • Far Outliers looks at the politicking of mid-19th century European explorers in the Sahel.

  • io9 notes that the new Joker film is getting stellar reviews, aided by the performance of Joaquin Phoenix.

  • JSTOR Daily explores how, to meet censors' demands, Betty Boop was remade in the 1930s from sex symbol into housewife.

  • Language Log reports on an utter failure in bilingual Irish/English signage.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money shows that a history of slavery in the US (Canada too, I would add) must not neglect the enslavement of indigenous peoples.

  • Marginal Revolution notes a paper studying San Francisco looking at how rent control did not work.

  • The NYR Daily considers growing protest against air travel for its impact on global climate.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews the queer romance film Bathroom Stalls & Parking Lots.

  • Window on Eurasia notes how the influence of Russia in the former Soviet Union is undone by Russian imperialism.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers the striking imagery--originally religious--of "carnal weapons".

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  • That, as a new study suggests, there is no single gay gene, but rather multiple different originals for non-heterosexual sexual orientations and behaviours, makes intuitive sense to me. The Washington Post has one take.

  • Atlas Obscura looks at the history behind the stone walls of New England.
  • Justin Fox at Bloomberg examines how the once-commanding lead in incomes of the middle class of the United States over the middle classes of other countries is starting to fade.

  • CityLab looks at how, too often by design, beaches in the United States are inaccessible to mass transit. (Toronto is lucky.)

  • La Presse shares a proposal by Radio-Canada to move away from a media model of competing with other outlets towards one based on collaboration.

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  • Joshua Clipperton writes, here at CTV News, about how tennis like the Rogers Cup is much more popular in Montréal than in Toronto for a variety of reasons.

  • The CFL's Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts are set to play another exhibition game in Moncton, as Touchdown Atlantic tries to gather support for an Atlantic Canadian franchise.

  • Guardian Cities considers, with interviews, how Brexit might impact the town twinning that united British communities with those of wider Europe.

  • Guardian Cities notes how churches and other houses of worship are starting to market themselves as spaces for coworking.

  • I think it entirely possible that space settlements may end up evoking the company towns of Earth. Slate has it.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait notes the Elon Musk proposal to terraform Mars by dropping nuclear weapons on the planet's ice caps is a bad idea.

  • James Bow writes about how the introduction of faeries saved his novel The Night Girl.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at the storms of Jupiter.

  • The Crux explains the mystery of a village in Poland that has not seen the birth of a baby boy for nearly a decade.

  • D-Brief looks at the exoplanets of nearby red dwarf Gliese 1061.

  • Cody Delisraty talks of Renaissance painter Fra Angelico.

  • Drew Ex Machina commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune.

  • The Dragon's Tales shares links to some papers about the Paleolithic.


  • JSTOR Daily hosts an essay by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger suggesting that Internet rot might be good since it could let people start to forget the past and so move on.

  • Language Hat questions whether the phrase "free to all" has really fallen out of use.

  • Language Log takes a look about immigration to the United States and Emma Lazarus' famous poem.

  • Dan Nexon at Lawyers, Guns and Money takes issue with the suggestion of, among other, Henry Farrell, that we are headed away from globalization towards fortress economies. Redundancy, he suggests, will be more important.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a disturbing paper suggesting users of opioids use them in part for social reasons.

  • The NYR Daily features an exchange on a new law in Singapore seeking to govern fake news.

  • The Power and the Money features a guest post from Leticia Arroyo Abad looking at Argentina before the elections.

  • Drew Rowsome takes a look at a new play by Raymond Helkio examining the life of out boxer Mark Leduc.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel considers if we can test gravitational waves for wave-particle duality.

  • Arnold Zwicky shares photos of the many flowers of Gamble Garden, in Palo Alto.

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  • Real estate in Hamilton, Ontario, is quite affordable by GTA standards. Global News reports.

  • Québec City has a new farmer's market to replace an old. CBC reports.

  • San Jose, California, is set to embark on a grand experiment in cohousing, CityLab reports.

  • These vast abandoned apartment blocks in the desert outside of Tehran speak of economic underperformance, to say the least. Messynessychic has it.

  • Now that Hong Kong has not just competition from other cities in China but is finding itself outmatched by the likes of Shenzhen and Shanghai, the city-state's bargaining power is accordingly limited. The SCMP reports.

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  • 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.

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  • Centauri Dreams considers the recent study of near-Earth asteroid 1999 KW4, looking at it from the perspective of defending the Earth and building a civilization in space.

  • Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber continues a debate on universal basic income.

  • The Dragon's Tales considers if India does need its own military space force.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how foster care in the United States (Canada, too, I'd add) was also synonymous with sending children off as unpaid farm labourers.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money shares a proposal, linking immigration to high-income countries to the idea of immigration as reparation for colonialism.

  • The LRB Blog considers the ever-growing presence of the dead on networks like Facebook.

  • Muhammad Idrees Ahmad at the NYR Daily looks at how Bellingcat and other online agencies have transformed investigative journalism.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a speech by the head of the Bank of Japan talking about the interactions of demographic change and economic growth.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes the mystery behind the great mass of early black hole J1342+0928.

  • Strange Company looks at the unsolved Christmas 1928 disappearance of young Melvin Horst from Orrville, Ohio. What happened?

  • Window on Eurasia notes that Uzbekistan is moving the Latin script for Uzbek into closer conformity with its Turkish model.

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  • Architectuul looks at some architecturally innovative pools.

  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait looks at Wolf 359, a star made famous in Star Trek for the Starfleet battle there against the Borg but also a noteworthy red dwarf star in its own right.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at how the NASA Deep Space Atomic Clock will play a vital role in interplanetary navigation.

  • The Crux considers the "drunken monkey" thesis, the idea that drinking alcohol might have been an evolutionary asset for early hominids.

  • D-Brief reports on what may be the next step for genetic engineering beyond CRISPR.

  • Bruce Dorminey looks at how artificial intelligence may play a key role in searching for threat asteroids.

  • The Island Review shares some poetry from Roseanne Watt, inspired by the Shetlands and using its dialect.

  • Livia Gershon writes at JSTOR Daily about how YouTube, by promising to make work fun, actually also makes fun work in psychologically problematic ways.

  • Marginal Revolution notes how the relatively small Taiwan has become a financial superpower.

  • Janine di Giovanni at the NYR Daily looks back at the 2000 intervention in Sierra Leone. Why did it work?

  • Jamais Cascio at Open the Future looks back at a 2004 futurological exercise, the rather accurate Participatory Panopticon. What did he anticipate correctly? How? What does it suggest for us now to our world?

  • The Planetary Society Blog notes that LightSail 2 will launch before the end of June.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at how the discovery of gas between galaxies helps solve a dark matter question.

  • Strange Company shares a broad collection of links.

  • Window on Eurasia makes the obvious observation that the West prefers a North Caucasus controlled by Russia to one controlled by Islamists.

  • Arnold Zwicky takes a look at American diner culture, including American Chinese food.

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