• 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... )

Open Democracy's Yörük Bahçeli writes about how the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba is moving towards marriage equality at a relative snail's pace.

Author's update: the parliamentary debate and ultimate vote has been postponed to September 8th as the Aruban government considers including regulations addressing same-sex relationships in the country ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes the rail boom in Bangladesh, looks at the fall in the value of the pound, notes a German proposal to give young Britons German citizenship and observes Spanish concern over giving Scotland a voice, looks at competition between Paris and Frankfurt to get jobs from the City of London, looks at how a Chinese takeover of an American ham ( Read more... )

• Beyond the Beyond's Bruce Sterling mourns the death of Alvin Toffler.
• The Big Picture shares images of the Istanbul airport attack.
• blogTO notes Toronto's recent Trans March was the largest in world history.
• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly interviews memoirist Plum Johnson.
• Centauri Dreams considers the determination of distances to dim stars and ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg reports on Dutch losses from Brexit, looks at the scene in Fallujah, observes the fragmentation of Venezuela's opposition, and notes the positive impact of a solar energy boom on Japan's fuel consumption.
• Bloomberg View notes the lack of regional pressure on Venezuela, reports that Brexit would hit Britain's poor and British-based banks ( Read more... )

• Bloomberg notes two former British intelligence chiefs saying that the United Kingdom is safer within the European Union than without, wonders if Saudi Arabia will be able to accept the economic shocks involved in transitioning away from oil, suggests South Australia could profit hugely from storing nuclear waste, and shares one journalist's ( Read more... )

Wired's Liz Stinson notes the actual deployment in the Netherlands of what fans of science fiction would call an atmosphere processor.

There’s a massive vacuum cleaner in the middle of a Rotterdam park and it’s sucking all the smog out of the air. A decent portion of it, anyway. And it isn’t a vacuum, exactly. It looks nothing like a Dyson or a ( Read more... )

I have a post up at Demography matters inspired by a posting on Reddit. Through that site's Unresolved Mysteries forum, I came across an English-language article in Norway's Dagbladet, "The Wetsuitman". Written by Anders Fjellberg and featuring photos by Tomm W. Christiansen and Hampus Lundgren, it's a superb if very sad piece of investigative ( Read more... )

• The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly talks about breaking habits.
• Centauri Dreams notes the detection of geological features on Pluto, shares the flyby schedule, and examines Charon.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on a brown dwarf found to have a Venus-sized world in orbit.
• The Dragon's Tales notes the atmospheric polymers of Titan, argues that worlds like ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams reports on a theory suggesting the distant dwarf planet Sedna and its kin were captured from another star in the sun's birth cluster.
• Crooked Timber reports on a Dutch court ruling arguing that the Netherlands is legally obliged to reduce carbon dioxide output.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes that hot Neptune Gliese 436b has a comet-like tail ( Read more... )