• blogTO lists ten quirky facts about the Annex.
• Centauri Dreams notes that exoplanet 55 Cancri e has been detected from the ground.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes that the proportion of metals in an emergent solar system can have significant consequences for gas giant formation.
• The Dragon's Tales reports Nigerian interest in buying the new Sino-Pakistani JF- ( Read more... )

• blogTO suggests five things the world can learn about Toronto.
• The Dragon's Tales notes that the moa of New Zealand became extinct when the country was home to only a couple thousand people.
• A Fistful of Euros links to satirist musician Wolf Biermann's performance in the Bundestag.
• Geocurrents maps oddly-shaped American electoral regions.
• Language Hat ( 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 recommends things to do in Bloorale and the Junction Triangle.
• The Cranky Sociologists look at the portrayal of gender in The Wire.
• The Dragon's Gaze examines the phenomenon of the tidal disruption of extremely eccentric asteroids in orbit of white dwarfs.
• A Fistful of Euros recommends Orlando Figes' Just Send Me Word, a history of a couple ( Read more... )

Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel writes about how the escalating costs and ephemeral benefits associated with hosting the Olympics, along with the high-handed nature of the International Olympic Committee, has left only two cities in the running. Norway's Oslo and Poland's Krakow are among the world cities that aborted their bids owing to popular ( Read more... )

• BCer in Toronto's Jeff Jedras comments on Justin Trudeau's boycotting of Sun News after that organization's Ezra Levant insulted his parents.
• blogTO comments on last night's wild mayoral debate. I will note that on Twitter the whole thing seemed like a mess.
• Crooked Timber considers the endurance of myths like that surrounding the murder of Kitty ( Read more... )

• blogTO notes an interesting play being put on at Buddies in Bad Times about a same-sex couple's divorce.
• Centauri Dreams features a guest post from Andrew Lepage examining habitable exomoons.
• Crooked Timber notes the exceptionally high voter turn-out in Scotland.
• The Dragon's Tales notes China's attempts to construct a new security architecture in ( Read more... )

• Anthropology.net reacts to the discovery of Neanderthal abstract carvings and what they say about the Neanderthal mind.
• blogTO shares Toronto postcards from the 1980s and lists the five least used TTC subway stations.
• Centauri Dreams reports that potentially habitable exoplanets Gliese 667Cc has been confirmed to exist.
• Crooked Timber's Corey Robin ( Read more... )

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes that claims Arctic ice cover is recovering are ill-founded.
• blogTO shares some of the most notable catastrophes from Rob Ford's days coaching high school football.
• Centauri Dreams shares a new map of Triton, Neptune's moon.
• The Cranky Sociologists map the distribution of different religions and the unaffiliated around ( Read more... )

This interesting item from Kazakhstan's Tengrinews popped up somewhere on one of my feeds.

Anna Sazonova, a student of the People's Friendship University of Russia expressed concern over escalating nationalism in Ukraine and asked whether a similar scenario could unfold in Kazakhstan if Mr. Nazarbayev left his presidential post. "There are ( Read more... )