"When wildfires approach, moving cattle to safety means managing their fear and instincts. Here’s how it’s done in B.C.’s Nicola Valley."
Longreads
• Carolyn Wells
Longreads
• Carolyn Wells
"When wildfires approach, moving cattle to safety means managing their fear and instincts. Here’s how it’s done in B.C.’s Nicola Valley."
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
• SiriusXM Podcasts & Atlas Obscura
Cal Flyn is the author of Islands of Abandonment: Nature Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape. She also has a new book, called The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness. On today’s show, she and host Kelly McEvers explore the allure of places that humans have abandoned.
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Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
9to5mac.com/2026/08/17/apple-dojs-latest-challenge-in-antitrust-case-fails-at-every-level/
This is a wild story: The Scientist Who Lived with Dozens of Children from the Pacific Islands. “I realized I’m in the middle of a pedophile operation that has been run out of the N.I.H. by a Nobel laureate for thirty years.”
“Scientists have found that people are being exposed to more toxins than previously known, and beyond damaging lungs, wildfire smoke may affect hearts, brains and other organs.” (Research is preliminary & ongoing but sheesh…)
Colossal
• Jackie Andres
"It’s more about not discarding what might be considered unwanted, but instead finding some use for it," says the artist.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Dark Emotions Evoke Growth in Alejandro Aguliar Canela’s Graphite Drawings appeared first on Colossal.
Portuguese photographer Rui Santos captured this shot of the recent solar eclipse.

Stunning. Here’s what makes this shot look a little different from other eclipse photos; from APOD:
Usually the solar corona appears white, and to some observers the corona of last week’s total solar eclipse did appear this pearly color. But this time, totality observers in Spain saw a corona that appeared unusually golden. For one reason, from Spain, the totality occurred when the setting Sun was near the horizon. That low, sunlight travels through a large amount of air which scatters out blue light. An unusual amount of smoke in the air from nearby forest fires acted as a second filter, further scattering the remaining blue tones and deepening the already gold-dominated light.
Tags: 2026 solar eclipse · astronomy · eclipses · photography · Rui Santos · Sun
How to make a good Star Wars movie for once. “Stop making stuff that’s so self referential and start focusing on projects that once again are bringing things from the outside and putting them in a Star Wars container.” Fan service is bad storytelling.
Daring Fireball
• John Gruber
wired.com/story/the-worst-ive-ever-seen-cargo-thieves-are-turning-violent-in-pursuit-of-ai-hardware/
And also a trailer for season 2 of Star Wars: Ahsoka. Huh. Lots of Anakin, but where are the space whales?
Trailer for VisionQuest, the third leg of the Wanda/Vision/Agatha trilogy. Huh. “Ultron! Human avatars only!”
Colossal
• Kate Mothes
"For me, paintings represent an attempt to grasp a 'something' that for some reason deeply moves me, agitates me."
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Glowing Paintings by Francesco Pirazzi Meditate on the Enigmas of Absence appeared first on Colossal.
Longreads
• Brendan Fitzgerald
"Ever since that monologue—you know the one—everyone knows who the legendary scene-stealer is. Still, his appetite for taking risks means he’ll never stop surprising us."
In Bourgogne, they’ve been recording grape date harvests since 1354. This year’s harvest set a record for earliest start: Aug 8. “From 1354 to 1987 the average start was 28 September. Since 1988 it runs 13 days earlier.”