• Centauri Dreams features an essay by Andreas Hein arguing that interstellar travel will be quite easy after the singularity hits, when our minds can be copied onto physical substrates.
• The Dragon's Tales notes that the dispute between Vietnam and China over their maritime boundaries runs the risk of intensifying.
• Far Outliers chronicles the ( Read more... )

Margarita Antidze and Alexander Tanas' Reuters article suggests that Georgia and Moldova, two post-Soviet states with problematic relationships with Russia, are heading towards the European Union. This will certainly worsen relations with Russia, and are themselves controversial within Georgia and Moldova. Still, the European Union's attractive ( Read more... )

• The Dragon's Gaze notes that while red dwarfs host giant planets less frequently than more massive stars, they don't do so that much more frequently.
• Eastern Approaches notes concerns with the Czech Republic's legislation on banning extremist ads, which may have targeted a Euroskeptic party.
• The Financial Times's World blog notes North Korea's self- ( Read more... )

• blogTO shares photos of Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s, a time when the downtown was dominated by ... parking lots.
• Centauri Dreams hopes that the 2030s will be the decade when Europa (and its sibling moons like Ganymede) get explored.
• Eastern Approaches guides readers through the competing Russian and Ukrainian iconographies of eastern Ukraine.
• ( Read more... )

• Eastern Approaches follows the story of Crimean Tatars who are now refugees in western Ukraine.
• At the Financial Times' The World blog, John Reed examines the unlikely media star who is Crimean attorney-general Natalia Poklonskaya.
• A Fistful of Euros' David Weman notes the United Nations vote against the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
• Geocurrents has ( Read more... )

• blogTO provides a history of Queen Street West's fabled Horseshore Tavern.
• Centauri Dreams features an essay by J. N. Nielsen arguing that the Kardashev scale of development of extrasterrestrial civilizations is misused. (Kardashev was talking about energy usage, we tend to talk about the size of a civilization.)
• The Everyday Sociology Blog features ( Read more... )

As if following up on Alex Harrowell's post at A Fistful of Euros about the origins of Crimean prime minister Sergey Aksyonov in the criminal and nationalist nexuses of the post-Soviet world, Taraz Kuzio has an Open Democracy article going into great detail.

Links between business, politics and crime in the former USSR began to surface in the ( Read more... )

• The Big Picture shares pictures of the ongoing confusion and human tragedy surrounding the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes preliminary results for the hunt of exoplanets around very cool stars.
• The Dragon's Tales, meanwhile, observes that the red-coloured formation on Europa's icy surface seem to be produced by ( Read more... )

• Beyond the Numbers suggests that talk of an African demographic dividend may be overstated, in that the young cohorts need--among other things--education.
• Crooked Timber's Chris Bertram talks about the ethics of open versus closed borders, suggesting that the latter is only acceptable if there actually are other ways to help.
• The Dragon's Gaze notes ( Read more... )

• Centauri Dreams has more on the electric sail.
• Daniel Drezner is unimpressed with Niall Ferguson's claims that he's being unfairly criticized when the blogosphere, when the strongest online critiques have come from news services like The Atlantic and professors of various disciplines.
• The Dragon's Tales notes that astronomers looking at white dwarfs ( Read more... )