[NEWS] Twenty news links

Dec. 23rd, 2019 09:43 pm
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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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[NEWS] Fourteen links

Dec. 22nd, 2019 09:42 pm
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  • By at least one metric, New Brunswick now lags economically behind a more dynamic Prince Edward Island. CBC reports.

  • NOW Toronto looks at toxic fandoms. ("Stanning" sounds really creepy to me.)

  • This CityLab article looks at how the particular characteristics of Japan, including its high population density, helps keep alive there retail chains that have failed in the US.

  • MacLean's looks at Kent Monkman, enjoying a new level of success with his diptych Mistikôsiwak at the Met in NYC.

  • Can there be something that can be said for the idea of an Internet more strongly pillarized? Wired argues.

  • I reject utterly the idea of meaningful similarities between Drake and Leonard Cohen. CBC did it.

  • Toronto Life looks at the life of a Hamilton woman hurt badly by the cancellation of the basic income pilot, here.

  • Inspired by the death of Gord Downie, Ontario now has the office of poet-laureate. CBC reports.

  • Is Canada at risk, like Ireland, of experiencing two-tier health care? CBC considers.

  • A French immigrant couple has brought the art of artisanal vinegar to ile d'Orléans. CBC reports.

  • Shore erosion is complicating the lives of people along Lake Erie. CBC reports.

  • MacLean's notes how Via Rail making it difficult for people without credit cards to buy anything on their trains, hurting many.

  • Michelle Legro notes at Gen that the 2010s is the decade where conspiracy culture became mainstream.

  • This essay by Robert Greene at his blog talking about what history, and historians, can do in our era is thought-provoking.

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[URBAN NOTE] Ten JSTOR Daily links (@jstor_daily)

Dec. 19th, 2019 01:46 pm
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  • JSTOR Daily considers whether koalas are actually going extinct, here.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the life and accomplishments of Alexander Von Humboldt, here.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how a move to California doomed the Oneida Community, here.

  • JSTOR Daily considers how the genetically diverse wild relatives of current crops could help our agriculture, here.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the devastating flood of Florence in 1966, here.

  • JSTOR Daily points out there is no template for emotional intelligence, here.

  • JSTOR Daily explores some remarkable lumpy pearls, here.

  • JSTOR Daily notes an 1870 scare over the future of men, here.

  • JSTOR Daily reports on the staging of war scenes for the 1945 documentary The Battle of San Pietro, here.

  • JSTOR Daily considers the bioethics of growing human brains in a petri dish, here.

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[CAT] Seven #caturday links: Lil Bub, Pallas cats, Smudge, adoptions, expressions

Dec. 7th, 2019 01:19 pm
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  • This Wired obituary for Lil Bub, arguing that the time for the Internet to be a place fo whimsy is over, does make me sad.

  • Norwegian forest cats look amazing! The Dockyards has photos.

  • The Pallas cats newly in the Calgary Zoo are, rightfully, becoming big hits. Cottage Life has more.

  • Ottawa cat Smudge, already a meme hit, has become a celebrity. CBC Ottawa has more.

  • Unsurprisingly, cats bond with their owners in the same sort of way as dogs and even human infants. More here.

  • Happily, record numbers of cats are being adopted from shelters, given new homes. Global News reports.

  • Some few people are apparently good are deciphering the expressions of cats, 15% of the total in one study sample. VICE reports.

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[NEWS] Six cetacean links

Dec. 4th, 2019 11:38 pm
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  • Apparently upwards of 95% of dolphins are right-handed. Global News reports.

  • A dead sperm whale has been found in Scotland, choked on a hundred kilograms of plastic waste. CBC reports.

  • Tracking the heart rate of a blue whale is something that we can do. CBC reports.

  • Nearly a hundred cetaceans held in a Russian facility seem to be doing well after being released to their ocean home. CBC reports.

  • The policies of Elizabeth Warren could, if she was elected, impact the seafood industry of Atlantic Canada. (As, I think, they should.) CBC reports.

  • Whale populations can, if we treat them well, help save the climate from catastrophe. VICE makes the case.

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[NEWS] Seven science links

Nov. 27th, 2019 10:08 pm
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  • 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.

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[NEWS] Four Language Log links: Chinese, mare, Ukrainian, Yorkshire

Nov. 23rd, 2019 07:33 pm
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  • Victor Mair at Language Log takes a look at the many and varied colloquialisms in the different varieties of Chinese.

  • Robert Hymes writes a guest post at Language Log examining the word "mare" and its relatives across language families.

  • Mark Liberman at Language Log considers how the name of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, is to be pronounced.

  • Victor Mair at Language Log takes a look at the English dialect of Yorkshire.

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[NEWS] Five JSTOR Daily links: ch'arki, pisco, X-rays, lavender scare, language (@jstor_daily)

Nov. 23rd, 2019 05:50 pm
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  • JSTOR Daily examines ch'arki, an Andean food like jerky.

  • JSTOR Daily reports on how Peru and Chile contest claims to being the origins of pisco.

  • JSTOR Daily explores the X-ray craze of 1896, here.

  • JSTOR Daily explores the "lavender scare" of the 1950s that saw dozens of queer men purged from the American government.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how linguists are using Urban Dictionary to study the evolution of language.

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[NEWS] Five Centauri Dreams links: ARIEL Ryugu, Titan, electric sail, exoplanets (@centauri_dreams)

Nov. 23rd, 2019 05:43 pm
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  • Centauri Dreams reports on the emergent ARIEL telescope, here.

  • Centauri Dreams reports on the return of Hayabusa2 from Ryugu, here.

  • Centauri Dreams shares a new map showing all of the landforms of Titan.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at the propulsion technology of the electric sail.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at the once-surprising number of planets found in multiple star systems.

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[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: Nile, apartment fungi, house plants, methane, HR 5183

Nov. 11th, 2019 07:31 pm
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  • 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.

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[CAT] Five #caturday links: horror, returns, communications

Nov. 2nd, 2019 10:13 am
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  • At JSTOR Daily, Stephanie Larson looks at how and why cats have been used in horror films.

  • BBC reports on a black cat that was returned to its owners on Halloween six years after it disappeared.

  • Sarah Basford as Lifehacker AU explains what different cat vocalizations man.

  • Cats show love in many different ways. Non Pareil Online reports.

  • Stephen Dowling at BBC Future looks at the different mistakes we make that keep us from understanding the friendliness of cats.

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[NEWS] Ten Halloween links (#halloween)

Nov. 1st, 2019 06:03 pm
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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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[AH] Six #alternatehistory maps from Reddit: Irish, Canada, Alaska, Russia, Prairies, South Africa

Oct. 29th, 2019 07:42 pm
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  • This r/mapporn map shows the scale of the collapse of Irish as a spoken language across most of Ireland. Was this avoidable?

  • This r/imaginarymaps map shows a Canada where the 1837 rebellions were successful, with an autonomous Upper Canada and a Lower Canada with a Patriote state. Doable?

  • This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a common alternate history trope, that of an independent but culturally Russian Alaska. What would it take for this to happen?

  • This r/imaginarymaps map depicts a world where Eurasia, from Germany to Korea, was dominated by a successfully industrializing Russian Empire. Was this common fear of the belle époque actually achievable?

  • This r/mapporn map shows the different proposals for different territorial configurations of the Canadian Prairies. (I like the ones with north-south divisions.)

  • Was a single South Africa covering most of British Southern Africa with relatively liberal racial policies, as Jan Smuts wanted, actually achievable? r/imaginarymaps hosts the map.

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[CAT] Five #caturday links: Taylor Swift, Matsumoto, art, disease, Newfoundland

Oct. 26th, 2019 09:53 am
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  • io9 notes that Taylor Swift is co-writing a song for the new Cats movie.

  • Japan Times looks at a newly translated work by Taiyu Matusomoto, Cats of the Louvre.

  • CTV News reports that Vancouver cat cafe Catfe offers life drawing classes featuring its cats as models.

  • D-Brief shares a list of diseases that cats can pass on to humans, and of prevention measures.

  • Global News looks at the feral cats of Little Bay Islands, a Newfoundland outport community about to be abandoned. What will happen to them?

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[NEWS] Five Universe Today (@universetoday) links: colours, panspermia, Venus, superhabitable worlds

Oct. 24th, 2019 04:02 pm
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  • 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.

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[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: rats and cars, gravitational lensing, black holes, geodes, dark matter

Oct. 24th, 2019 03:43 pm
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  • 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.

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[NEWS] Six technology links

Oct. 24th, 2019 03:38 pm
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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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[NEWS] Ten Window on Eurasia links

Oct. 24th, 2019 01:49 pm
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  • What will become of the Azerbaijani language in education in Iran? More here.

  • Is a Russia-Belarus state union feasible? More here.

  • Is Estonia, as some would have it, a viable model for the Finnic Mordvin peoples of the Russian interior? More here.

  • Will Russia be happy with its alliance with China if this makes it a secondary partner, a relatively weaker exporter of resources? More here.

  • How many Muslims are there in Moscow, and what import does the controversy over their numbers carry? More here.

  • Is the Russian fertility rate set to stagnate, leading to long-term sharp decline? More here.

  • If 10% of the Russian working-age population has emigrated, this has serious consequences for the future of Russia. More here.

  • Irredentism in Kazakhstan, inspired by the example of Crimea, is just starting to be a thing. More here.

  • The decline of Russian populations in the north of Kazakhstan, and the growth of Uzbeks, is noteworthy. More here.

  • The different Russian proposals for the future of the Donbas, an analyst notes, are built to keep Ukraine a neutral country. More here.

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NEWS] Eighteen #cdnpoli and #exln43 links

Oct. 23rd, 2019 03:03 pm
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  • MacLean's looks at how Justin Trudeau and the Liberals survived #elxn43, here.

  • Ajay Parasram at The Conversation looks at the new complications faced by Justin Trudeau.

  • Daily Xtra looks at the record of the Liberals on LGBTQ2 issues, here.

  • Daily Xtra looks at the four out LGBTQ2 MPs elected to Parliament, here.

  • Philippe Fournier at MacLean's argues that 338Canada stands vindicated in its predictions, with some 90% of the people it predicted would be elected being elected.

  • What will become of Conservative leader Andrew Scheer? The National Post considers.

  • Strategic voting and Doug Ford, Mark Gollom notes, kept the Conservatives from making a breakthrough in Ontario.

  • Robyn Urback at CBC notes that the narrow conservatism of Scheer kept the Conservatives from victory in a wary Canada.

  • Stephen Maher at MacLean's questions if the Bloc Québécois victory has much to do with separatism, per se.

  • Voters in Québec seem to be fine with election results, with a strong Bloc presence to keep the Liberals on notice. CBC has it.

  • Talk of separatism has taken off in Alberta following the #elxn43 results. Global News has it.

  • The premier of Saskatchewan has also talked of his province's alienation after #elxn43, here in the National Post.

  • CBC's As It Happens carries an interview with former Conservative MP Jay Hill, now an advocate for western Canadian separatism.

  • Atlantic Canada may provide new members for the cabinet of Justin Trudeau. The Toronto Star reports.

  • Jaime Battiste, Liberal, has been elected as the first Mi'kmaq MP from Nova Scotia. Global News has it.

  • The Green Party did not make its hoped-for breakthrough on Vancouver Island, but it will struggle on. Global News has it.

  • Did, as Politico suggested, Canada sleepwalk into the future with #elxn43?

  • We should be glad, Scott Gilmore argues in MacLean's, that given the global challenges to democracy #elxn43 in Canada was relatively boring.

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[NEWS] News from around the world: Cheetos fashion, Gaspé yaks, NL slavery, Lebanon comics, Netflix

Sep. 21st, 2019 07:57 pm
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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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