A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
Historic England Aerial Photo Explorer
Historic aerial photography shows the growth and changes in England’s urban and rural landscapes. Aerial photos can reveal hidden archaeology and sites that are difficult or even impossible to see from the ground.
You can explore over 400,000 digitised photos from our aerial photo collections of over 6 million photographs preserved in the Historic England Archive.
Use our nationally important collections of aerial photographs to explore your area. Find where you live, or why not look for your favourite football ground, railway station, or places you visit?
A Symphony of Woofs: This Is What Happens When 2,397 Golden Retrievers Gather
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers.
Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur.
Patagonia’s Transparency
Things that have gone well include:
Eliminating PFAS (forever chemicals) from new product lines
Significantly increasing the use of “preferred materials” (i.e. lower-impact or recycled materials) and as a result Patagonia has nearly eliminated virgin synthetic fibre (from petroleum) in many of its products — a stated goal to reach by end of 2025
98% of global, company-owned/operated offices and facilities are powered by renewable electricity
In the report, Patagonia was clear about which goals they did not meet:
Despite aiming for a 10% annual emissions reduction (to reach net-zero by 2040), Patagonia’s greenhouse-gas emissions increased by 2% in FY2025 due to products (backpacks, duffel bags) that are made from more carbon-intensive materials
To source 50% of synthetic materials from “secondary waste” (e.g. post-consumer textile waste, recycled fishing nets) by 2025 ended up at only ~6%
The company failed to hit its 2025 goal of sourcing 100% of materials from “preferred” sources; it reached around 84% instead
Young Daters Confront a Relationship Killer: The ‘Swag Gap’
Dillon Escourse had meticulously curated his statement look for a recent date at a bar in Houston. He arrived wearing a thrifted orange zip-up hoodie, a camouflage cropped tee and boot-cut jeans—an aesthetic designed to complement the venue’s Latin and jazz scene.
His date, whom he had been seeing for a couple of months, showed up in black Lululemon leggings, an oversize gray sweatshirt and dirty Nike Air Forces.
The “casual chic” look didn’t go over well with Escourse, who said the outfit didn’t match the vibe of the bar and took her choice of clothing as a personal slight.
“You want to look good for the person you’re with, not throw on pajama pants and Crocs,” said Escourse, a 20-year-old student at the University of Houston. “It felt like a smack in the face.”
Heavy Rains Hamper Recovery as Death Toll From Floods in Asia Exceeds 1,750
In Sri Lanka, the government has confirmed 607 deaths, with another 214 people missing and feared dead, in what President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has called the country’s most challenging natural disaster.
The floods also caused at least 276 deaths in Thailand, while two people were killed in Malaysia and two people died in Vietnam after heavy rains triggered more than a dozen landslides, according to state media.
On Indonesia’s Sumatra, many survivors were still struggling to recover from the flash floods and landslides that hit last week as Indonesia’s meteorological agency warned Aceh could see “very heavy rain” through Saturday, with North and West Sumatra also at risk.
Aceh Governor Muzakir Manaf said response teams were still searching for bodies in “waist-deep” mud.
Silicon Valley Is Racing to Make Critical Minerals—and Blunt China’s Dominance
Gabbro is an unremarkable rock, so cheap and abundant it is used for gravel and building roads. It may also be part of how America breaks its dependence on China’s critical minerals.
On an industrial stretch on the west side of Oakland, Calif., a startup called Brimstone is processing gabbro with proprietary chemistry and off-the-shelf equipment to produce aluminum, magnesium and other minerals frequently imported from China.
Its lab, with a row of bikes parked inside the front door, hums quietly with workers in protective gear moving between beakers, kilns and mineral samples being tested for durability and composition. Bags of gabbro and similar calcium-bearing silicate rocks fill a shed out back and dot the office.