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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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  • Architectuul looks at the Portuguese architectural cooperative Ateliermob, here.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at how white dwarf WD J091405.30+191412.25 is literally vapourizing a planet in close orbit.

  • Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog explains
  • Centauri Dreams looks at the slowing of the solar wind far from the Sun.

  • John Holbo at Crooked Timber considers the gap between ideals and actuals in the context of conspiracies and politics.

  • The Dragon's Tales reports on how the ESA is trying to solve a problem with the parachutes of the ExoMars probe.

  • Far Outliers reports on what Harry Truman thought about politicians.

  • Gizmodo reports on a new method for identifying potential Earth-like worlds.

  • io9 pays tribute to legendary writer, of Star Trek and much else, D.C. Fontana.

  • The Island Review reports on the football team of the Chagos Islands.

  • Joe. My. God. reports that gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy will compete for the United Kingdom in 2020.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how early English imperialists saw America and empire through the lens of Ireland.

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not like Pete Buttigieg.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the London Bridge terrorist attack.

  • The Map Room Blog shares a map of Prince William Sound, in Alaska, that is already out of date because of global warming.

  • Marginal Revolution questions if Cuba, in the Philippines, is the most typical city in the world.

  • The NYR Daily looks at gun violence among Arab Israelis.

  • The Planetary Society Blog considers what needs to be researched next on Mars.

  • Roads and Kingdoms tells the story of Sister Gracy, a Salesian nun at work in South Sudan.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper noting continued population growth expected in much of Europe, and the impact of this growth on the environment.

  • Strange Maps shares a map of fried chicken restaurants in London.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why a 70 solar mass black hole is not unexpected.

  • John Scalzi at Whatever gives his further thoughts on the Pixel 4.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that, last year, 37 thousand Russians died of HIV/AIDS.

  • Arnold Zwicky starts from a consideration of the 1948 film Kind Hearts and Coronets.

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  • 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.

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  • Carl Newport at WIRED argues that past generations have never been as suspicious of technology as we now think, here.

  • Anthropologist Darren Byler at The Conversation argues, based on his fieldwork in Xinjiang, how Uighurs became accustomed to the opportunities of new technologies until they were suddenly caught in a trap.

  • James Verini at WIRED notes how the fighting around Mosul in the fall of ISIS could be called the first smartphone war.

  • National Observer looks at how Québec is so far leading Canada in the development of clean technologies, including vehicles.

  • VICE reports on how a Christian rock LP from the 1980s also hosted a Commodore 64 computer program.

  • Megan Molteni at WIRED looks at a new, more precise, CRISPR technique that could be used to fix perhaps most genetic diseases.

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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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  • Bad Astronomer notes the latest news on interstellar comet 2/Borisov.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly emphasizes how every writer does need an editor.

  • Centauri Dreams notes how the gas giant GJ 3512 b, half the mass of Jupiter orbiting a red dwarf star closely, is an oddly massive exoplanet.

  • Gina Schouten at Crooked Timber looks at inter-generational clashes on parenting styles.

  • D-Brief looks at the methods of agriculture that could conceivably sustain a populous human colony on Mars.

  • Bruce Dorminey argues that we on Earth need something like Starfleet Academy, to help us advance into space.

  • Colby King at the Everyday Sociology Blog looks at how the socio-spatial perspective helps us understand the development of cities.

  • Russell Arben Fox at In Media Res listens to the Paul McCartney album Flaming Pie.
  • io9 looks at Proxima, a contemporary spaceflight film starring Eva Green.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how the intense relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia began in, and reflected, the era of Jim Crow.

  • Language Hat notes a report suggesting that multilingualism helps ward off dementia.

  • Language Log takes issue with the names of the mascots of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the emergence of a ninth woman complaining about being harassed by Al Franken.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a new paper arguing that the Washington Consensus worked.

  • The NYR Daily shares an Aubrey Nolan cartoon illustrating the evacuation of war children in the United Kingdom during the Second World War.

  • At Out of Ambit, Diane Duane shares a nice collection of links for digital mapmakers.

  • The Planetary Society Blog looks at how the European Space Agency supports the cause of planetary defense.

  • Roads and Kingdoms interviews Kenyan writer Kevin Mwachiro at length.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel reports on how a mysterious fast radio burst helped illuminate an equally mysterious galactic halo.

  • Strange Company reports on the mysterious and unsolved death in 1936 of Canadian student Thomas Moss in an Oxfordshire hayrick.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps notes how Mount Etna is a surpassingly rare decipoint.

  • Understanding Society considers the thought of Kojève, after Hegel, on freedom.

  • Window on Eurasia looks at the falling numbers of Russians, and of state support for Russian language and culture, in independent Central Asia.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell looks at how individual consumer responses are much less effective than concerted collective action in triggering change.

  • Arnold Zwicky reports on some transgender fashion models.

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  • Oh, why not a fashion show organized around the theme of Cheetos? VICE reports.

  • A farmer in the Gaspé peninsula is trying to retrieve all of his missing yaks. CBC Montreal has it.

  • A Newfoundland researcher and artist is examining the relationship of the island with Atlantic slavery. Global News reports.

  • Atlas Obscura takes a look at the alternative comics scene in the Middle East, centered on Lebanon.

  • Vanity Fair shares an account of how Netflix tried to sell itself, and its model, to Blockbuster and failed.

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  • 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.

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  • MacLean's reports from the GTA suburban city of Milton, a key battleground in the federal election.

  • Hamilton police continues to be caught up in controversy over its handling of Pride. Global News reports.

  • CityLab profiles new murals being created in New York City's Harlem, on 125th street, here.

  • Guardian Cities considers some ambitious plans for remodeling Mexico City, with vast new neighbourhoods and airports, which never came off.

  • Atlas Obscura looks at a notable library of books and other documents in the Yiddish language, housed out of a decrepit bus terminal in Tel Aviv.

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  • 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.

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Crux looks at the phenomenon of microsleep.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Language Log looks at the complexities of katakana.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • 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.

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  • r/imaginarymaps imagines a Germany united along religious lines, Protestant areas falling under Prussia and Catholic ones under Austria.

  • Reddit's imaginarymaps imagines a republican Great Britain. When could republicanism have taken off in the British Isles as a whole?

  • Reddit's imaginarymaps shares a map of a former Portuguese colony of Zambezia, a Lusophone nation stretching from the Atlantic at Namibia east through to Mozambique.

  • This r/imaginarymaps map, imagining a Japan (and northeast Asia generally) split into sheres of influence by rival European powers, treaty ports and all, surely describes a worst-case scenario for 19th century Japan. How likely was this?

  • This r/imaginarymaps map imagines an Iran that, following a 9/11-style attack by Lebanese terrorists in Moscow, ends up partitioned between Soviet and US-Arab spheres of influence.

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  • JSTOR Daily notes a study examining how we can be nostalgic for the music of our parents.

  • Hornet Stories notes the new album and tour of Carly Rae Jepsen.

  • This Crack Magazine interview with Grimes has been getting a lot of attention, not necessarily positively mind.

  • Hornet Stories highlights the innovative and queer-fronted Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila.

  • Adam Wallis at Global News has an extended feature interviewing the surviving members of the Cranberries about their career and their final album, In The End.

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  • Charlie Stross hosts at Antipope another discussion thread examining Brexit.

  • Architectuul takes a look at five overlooked mid-20th century architects.

  • Bad Astronomy shares a satellite photo of auroras at night over the city lights of the Great Lakes basin and something else, too.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly writes about the directions love has taken her, and wonders where it might have taken her readers.

  • Centauri Dreams reports on the Hayabusa 2 impactor on asteroid Ryugu.

  • John Quiggin at Crooked Timber takes issue with the claims of Steven Pinker about nuclear power.

  • D-Brief notes the detection, in remarkable detail, of a brilliant exocomet at Beta Pictoris.

  • The Dragon's Tales considers the possibility that China might be building a military base in Cambodia.

  • Karen Sternheimer writes at the Everyday Sociology Blog about the importance of small social cues, easily overlookable tough they are.

  • Far Outliers notes the role of Japan's imperial couple, Akihito and Michiko, in post-war Japan.

  • L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing writes about the potential inadequacy of talking about values.

  • Gizmodo notes a new study suggesting the surprising and potentially dangerous diversity of bacteria present on the International Space Station.

  • Mark Graham shares a link to a paper, and its abstract, examining what might come of the creation of a planetary labour market through the gig economy.

  • Hornet Stories takes a look at Red Ribbon Blues, a 1995 AIDS-themed film starring RuPaul.

  • io9 notes that Guillermo del Toro and Cornelia Funke are co-writing a Pan's Labyrinth novel scheduled for release later this year.

  • Joe. My. God. notes a new study suggesting 20% of LGBTQ Americans live in rural areas.

  • JSTOR Daily takes a look at the Bluestockings, the grouping of 18th century women in England who were noteworthy scholars and writers.

  • Language Hat notes an ambitious new historical dictionary of the Arabic language being created by the emirate of Sharjah.

  • Language Log examines, in the aftermath of a discussion of trolls, different cultures' terms for different sorts of arguments.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how early forestry in the United States was inspired by socialist ideals.

  • The Map Room Blog links to a map showing the different national parks of the United Kingdom.

  • Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution, noting the new findings from the Chixculub impact, notes how monitoring asteroids to prevent like catastrophes in the future has to be a high priority.

  • The New APPS Blog explains how data, by its very nature, is so easily made into a commodity.

  • The NYR Daily considers the future of the humanities in a world where higher education is becoming preoccupied by STEM.

  • Corey S. Powell at Out There interviews Bear Grylls about the making of his new documentary series Hostile Planet.

  • Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw considers the pleasures of birds and of birdwatching.

  • Jason C. Davis at the Planetary Society Blog noted the arrival of the Beresheet probe in lunar orbit.

  • Drew Rowsome reviews the new amazing-sounding play Angelique at the Factory Theatre.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog notes a paper that makes the point of there being no automatic relationship between greater gender equality and increases in fertility.

  • The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress has made use of the BagIt programming language in its archiving of data.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel comes up with questions to ask plausible visitors from other universes.

  • Strange Company notes the mysterious deaths visited on three members of a British family in the early 20th century. Who was the murderer? Was there even a crime?

  • Towleroad notes the activists, including Canadian-born playwright Jordan Tannahill, who disrupted a high tea at the Dorchester Hotel in London over the homophobic law passed by its owner, the Sultan of Brunei.

  • Window on Eurasia notes rising instability in Ingushetia.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell notes that the British surveillance of Huawei is revealing the sorts of problems that must be present in scrutiny-less Facebook, too.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait argues that the new American plan to put people on the Moon in 2024 is unlikely to succeed in that timeframe.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly considers whether or not women should travel alone, for safety reasons. (That choice is one I've not had to make myself, thanks to my male privilege; I'm very sorry others have to consider this.)

  • Centauri Dreams shares the thinking of Gregory Benford on Lurkers, self-replicating probes produced by another civilization not signaling their existence to Earth.

  • Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber argues that policy-making these days is often fundamentally ill-conceived, closing off possibilities for the future.

  • The Crux notes the remarkable powers of beet juice, as a tonic for athletes for instance.

  • D-Brief looks at the slot canyons of Titan, bearing similarities in structure and perhaps origin to like structures in Utah.

  • Andrew LePage at Drew Ex Machina, celebrating five years of blogging, links to his ten most popular posts.

  • Gizmodo notes the creation for a list of nearly two thousand nearby stars that the TESS planet-hunter might target for a search for Earth-like worlds.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that the Austrian president has confirmed the New Zealand shooter has made a financial donation to a far-right group in Austria.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at Inge Lehmann, the scientist who determined the nature of the inner core of the Earth.

  • Language Hat reports on a new scholarly publication, hundreds of pages long, gathering together the curses and profanities of the Middle East and North Africa.

  • Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not seem impressed by the argument of Mike Lee that pronatalism is a good response to global warming.

  • The Map Room Blog notes the impressive maps of Priscilla Spencer, created for fantasy books.

  • Marginal Revolution links to a paper that examines the positions of Jews in the economies of eastern Europe, as a "rural service minority".

  • The Russian Demographics Blog links to a paper noting the ways in which increased human development has, and has not, led to convergence in family structures around the world.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains how, despite the expanding universe, we can still see very distant points.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps reports on the recent mistakes made by Google Maps in Japan.

  • Yorkshire Ranter Alexander Harrowell explains why the United Kingdom, after Brexit, does not automatically become a member of the European Economic Area.

  • Arnold Zwicky takes a look at the different factors, often unrecognized, going onto the formation of nonsense names, like those of the characters from Lilo and Stitch.

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  • New York Magazine is quite right to note that a 2020 reelection of Donald Trump would be a catastrophe for, among others, Democrats.

  • Iran and Turkey are the obvious winners from the disarray in Iraq, among other Middle Eastern countries. Open Democracy reports.

  • The Spanish situation is deteriorating, between the growth of separatism in Catalonia and far-right populism elsewhere. Open Democracy reports.

  • Is Latin America a region adrift in the world? Open Democracy reports.

  • Ozy notes the rapid growth of the influence of Turkey, culturally and politically, in Latin America.

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  • D-Brief notes a theory that human brains grew so large fueled by a diet of bone marrow.

  • Alligators provide scientists with invaluable models of how dinosaurs heard sound. D-Brief reports.

  • D-Brief examines pulsar PSR J0002+6216, a body ejected from its prior orbit so violently by its formative supernova that it is now escaping the Milky Way Galaxy.

  • D-Brief notes the remarkable glow emanating from the quasar in the Teacup Galaxy 1.1 billion light-years away.

  • D-Brief notes genetic evidence suggesting that Anatolian hunter-gatherers, far from being replaced by migrants, adopted agriculture on their own.

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  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait shares Johannes Kroeger's image of the median Earth.

  • The Crux considers when human societies began to accumulate large numbers of aged people. Would there have been octogenarians in any Stone Age cultures, for instance?

  • The Dragon's Tales considers Russia's strategy in Southeast Asia.

  • Alexandra Samuel at JSTOR Daily notes that one way to fight against fake news is for people to broaden their friends networks beyond their ideological sympathizers.

  • Language Log, noting a television clip from Algeria in which a person defend their native dialect versus standard Arabic, compares the language situation in the Arab world to that of China.

  • Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen explains how the Tervuren Central African museum in Brussels has not been decolonized.

  • The Planetary Society Blog explores the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why, in current physics, the multiverse must exist.

  • Strange Company explores the strange disappearance, in the Arizona desert in 1952, of a young couple. Their plane was found and in perfect condition, but what happened to them?

  • Strange Maps reports on the tragic migration of six Californian raptors, only one of which managed to make it to its destination.

  • Towleroad reports on the appearance of actor and singer Ben Platt on The Ellen Show, talking about his career and coming out.

  • Window on Eurasia notes the apparently widespread mutual dislike of Chechens and Muscovites.

  • Arnold Zwicky considers the French Impressionist artists Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Suzanne Valadon, with images of their art.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at the newly-named Neptune moon of Hippocamp, and how it came about as product of a massive collision with the larger moon of Proteus.

  • Centauri Dreams also reports on the discovery of the Neptune moon of Hippocamp.

  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes how the attempt to revoke the citizenship of Shamima Begum sets a terribly dangerous precedent for the United Kingdom.

  • D-Brief notes new evidence suggesting the role of the Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions in triggering the Cretaceous extinction event, alongside the Chixculub asteroid impact.

  • Far Outliers notes the problems of Lawrence of Arabia with Indian soldiers and with Turks.

  • L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing takes issue with the state of philosophical contemplation about technology, at least in part a structural consequence of society.

  • Hornet Stories shares this feature examining the future of gay porn, in an environment where amateur porn undermines the existing studios.

  • JSTOR Daily considers the spotty history of casting African-American dancers in ballet.

  • Language Hat suggests that the Académie française will soon accept for French feminized nouns of nouns links to professionals ("écrivaine" for a female writer, for instance).

  • The LRB Blog considers the implications of the stripping of citizenship from Shamima Begum. Who is next? How badly is citizenship weakened in the United Kingdom?

  • Marginal Revolution notes the upset of Haiti over its banning by Expedia.

  • The NYR Daily notes the tension in Turkey between the country's liberal laws on divorce and marriage and rising Islamization.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at the moment, in the history of the universe, when dark energy became the dominant factors in the universe's evolution.

  • Towleroad remembers Roy Cohn, the lawyer who was the collaborator of Trump up to the moment of Cohn's death from AIDS.

  • Understanding Society's Daniel Little takes a look at Marx's theories of how governments worked.

  • Window on Eurasia looks at the existential pressures facing many minority languages in Russia.

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