• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait does explain the question of whether or not the Moon is a planet.
• blogTO notes that the old Kodak lands on Eglinton will be repurposed for mass transit and observes that Stollery's at Yonge and Bloor is already being demolished.
• Crooked Timber notes, looking back in American history, that people who have accused others of ( Read more... )

• The Boston Globe's The Big Picture shares photos of the Paris anti-terrorist rallies.
• blogTO shares five books put out by Toronto-area artists.
• Crooked Timber's Corey Robin notes the international ideological tumult around the American civil war.
• D-Brief talks about some neat facts about Eta Carinae.
• The Dragon's Gaze reports on a recent study of the ( Read more... )

Mansur Mirovalev and Denis Sinyakov's Al Jazeera article takes a look at illegal amber mining in Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad. Faced with economic collapse locally, the mass export of Kaliningrad's amber--legal or otherwise--is a tempting alternative even for professionals. The Russian state is involved in this.

Amber has become post- ( Read more... )

• Anthropology.net notes the importance of anthropological knowledge in understanding the West African Ebola crisis.
• Centauri Dreams looks at the strange protoplanetary belt of GG Tauri-A.
• Discover's Crux considers requirements for a starfaring civilization.
• The Dragon's Gaze points to an apparently young and planet-forming binary star, OGLE-LMC-ECL- ( Read more... )

• blogTO selects the top twenty music videos filmed in Toronto.
• The Dragon's Tales notes that Catalonian separatists have not been put off by the failure of Scotland to separate.
• The Everyday Sociology Blog looks at the false stereotypes behind the child migrant crisis.
• Geocurrents notes the advance of the Islamic State against Kurds in Syria.
• Joe. My. ( Read more... )

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes that it has been fifteen years since Space 1999 took place.
• blogTO notes that Sunrise Records is closing its downtown Toronto stores.
• The Dragon's Gaze links to a study of nearby star BD-21 1074 suggesting that its close-in planets are forming not as a result of core accretion but rather gravitational collapse.
• Far ( Read more... )

• From Google Plus, Brian Koberlein notes that an examination of IRAS infrared astronomical data suggests that our solar system has no very large companions.
• The Globe and Mail notes that Russian may close down inter-country adoptions with Canada because of our recognition of same-sex marriages and adoption.
• Business Week observes that China is going ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams' Paul Gilster writes about Titan, first noting an apparent river valley flowing into the north-polar Ligeia Mare, the second reflecting on the possible subsurface oceans of that Saturnian moon.
• At Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell reflects on the ignoble record of the Economist in relation to the Irish potato famine of the 1840s.
• The ( Read more... )

• 80 Beats' Andrew Moseman lets us know that not only can some fish see in the ultraviolet, but that they can use markings visible only in the ultraviolet to distinguish between individuals.
• Cartophilia blogs about the possible fusion of Cincinnati and Dayton in Ohio through suburbanization.
• Centauri Dreams wonders whether, based on the evidence from ( Read more... )

Some days ago, Window on Eurasia featured a very interesting article on Kaliningrad's future as seen by the mayor of the city of Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is not a trophy won by Moscow as the result of the Soviet victory in World War II but rather “a Russian city” that became part of the Russian Empire two centuries earlier, according to that city’ ( Read more... )