Based on their relatively isolated environments, we argue that luminous blue variables (LBVs) must be primarily the product of binary evolution, challenging the traditional single-star view wherein LBVs mark a brief transition between massive O-type stars and Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars. If the latter were true, then LBVs should be concentrated in young massive clusters like early O-type stars. This is decidedly not the case. Examining locations of LBVs in our Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds reveals that, with only a few exceptions, LBVs systematically avoid clusters of O-type stars. In the Large Magellanic Cloud, LBVs are statistically much more isolated than Otype stars, and (perhaps most surprisingly) even more isolated than WR stars. This makes it impossible for LBVs to be single "massive stars in transition" to WR stars. Instead, we propose that massive stars and supernova (SN) subtypes are dominated by bifurcated evolutionary paths in interacting binaries, wherein most WR stars and SNe Ibc correspond to the mass donors, while LBVs (and their lower-mass analogs like B[e] supergiants, which are even more isolated) are the mass gainers. In this view, LBVs are evolved massive blue stragglers. Through binary mass transfer, rejuvinated mass gainers get enriched, spun up, and sometimes kicked far from their clustered birthsites by their companion's SN. This scenario agrees better with LBVs exploding as Type IIn SNe in isolation, and it predicts that many massive runaway stars may be rapid rotators. Mergers or blue Thorne-Zykow-like objects might also give rise to LBVs, but these scenarios may have a harder time explaining why LBVs avoid clusters.

Transits of exoplanets observed in the near-UV have been used to study the scattering properties of their atmospheres and possible star-planet interactions. We observed the primary transits of 15 exoplanets (CoRoT-1b, GJ436b, HAT-P-1b, HAT-P-13b, HAT-P-16b, HAT-P-22b, TrES2b, in the near-UV and several optical photometric bands to update their planetary parameters, ephemerides, search for a wavelength dependence in their transit depths to constrain their atmospheres, and determine if asymmetries are visible in their light curves. Here, we present the first ground-based near-UV light curves for 12 of the targets (CoRoT1b, GJ436b, HAT-P-1b, HAT-P-13b, HAT-P-22b, TrES-2b, TrES-4b, WASP-1b, WASP-33b, WASP-36b, WASP-48b, and WASP-77Ab). We find that none of the near-UV transits exhibit any non-spherical asymmetries, this result is consistent with recent theoretical predictions by Ben-Jaffel et al. and Turner et al. The multiwavelength photometry indicates a constant transit depth from near-UV to optical wavelengths in 10 targets (suggestive of clouds), and a varying transit depth with wavelength in 5 targets (hinting at Rayleigh or aerosol scattering in their atmospheres). We also present the first detection of a smaller near-UV transit depth than that measured in the optical in WASP-1b and a possible opacity source that can cause such radius variations is currently unknown. WASP-36b also exhibits a smaller near-UV transit depth at