• Anthropology.net reports on the recent discovery in China of two skulls a hundred thousand years old, possible remnants of a hitherto-unknown hominid species.
• blogTO reports on the boom in the Toronto tech community.
• Language Log breaks down the linguistics, specifically word lengths, of audiobooks.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on the difficult ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes that the redevelopment of Toronto's Port Lands is continuing.
• Crooked Timber argues that climate denialism exposes the socially constructed nature of property rights.
• D-Brief notes the reburial of Kennewick Man.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes there is no sign of a second planet around Proxima Centauri.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money looks at life in ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes an Instagram user from Toronto, @brxson, who takes stunning photos of the city from on high.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper examining the limits of exoplanet J1407b's massive ring system.
• The Dragon's Tales notes evidence that the primordial Martian atmosphere apparently did not have carbon dioxide.
• Imageo notes that the California ( Read more... )

This news comes from the end of 2016, but it's still quite good. May China continue to progress in space travel, for the benefit of us all.

China vowed Tuesday to speed up the development of its space industry as it set out its plans to become the first country to soft land a probe on the far side of the moon, around 2018, and launch its first ( Read more... )

• Bad Astronomy shares a photo of the Earth and Moon taken by a Mars probe.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money responds to a baffling claim by a New York City policeman that stranger rape is more of a concern than acquaintance rape.
• Personal Reflections' Jim Belshaw, returned from Denmark, wondersabout the extent to which social happiness is maximized by ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams looks at the advanced microelectronics that might last a space probe the two decades it would take to get to Proxima Centauri.
• Dangerous Minds links to a 1980 filmed concert performance by Queen.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on the discovery of potassium in the atmosphere of WASP-17b.
• Language Hat looks at the Carmina of Optatianus, an ( Read more... )

• Apostrophen's 'Nathan Smith writes about Christmas cards and memory.
• blogTO notes the impending expansion of the Drake Hotel.
• The Broadside Blog describes a documentary, The Eagle Huntress, about a Mongolian teenage girl who becomes a hunter using eagles, that sounds spectacular.
• Crooked Timber asks readers to help a teenager who has been arrested by ( Read more... )

MacLean's' Mike Doherty has an interview with two authors, Amanda R. Hendrix and Charles Wohlforth, who argue that if humankind is ever to embark in on an expensive program of colonization in space (something much more expensive than fixing our world, they argue), Titan not Mars should be the target.

Q: Why is humanity so fixated on travelling to ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes that retail space on Bloor Street in Yorkville is not only the priciest in Canada, but among the priciest in the world.
• Centauri Dreams notes how fast radio bursts, a natural phenomenon, can be used to understand the universe.
• Dangerous Minds looks at a Kate Bush music performance on Dutch television in 1978.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to an ( Read more... )

• Beyond the Beyond shares an early 17th century Catholic Church communication doubting the Earth went around the sun.
• blogTO notes the sympathy cards placed outside the American consulate in Toronto.
• Crooked Timber argues that liberal progressivism hasn't been tried in recent years and so can't have failed.
• The Dragon's Tales shares one model ( Read more... )