A selection of mathematical "threads" can be found below. Each consists of links to videos, activities, or writing from others that I've found while procrastinating along with a bit of exposition of my own. These are listed in no particular order unless otherwise noted.
Matt Parker, via his YouTube Chanel "Stand-Up Maths," has a video on identifying whales based on images of their tales using machine learning - specifically, convolutional neural networks. While deferring to 3Blue1Brown's video for an explanation of neural networks, Matt focuses his explanation on the "convolutional" part of this phrase. He demonstrates this using excel, which made me feel some combination of glee and pity. In the video, he travels to Antarctica, which is something I've always wanted to do, and photographs the tail of a whale. The image is uploaded to the website linked below, which is fed to their neural network. With this, Matt (along with researchers, whale-watching enthusiasts, and other curious folks) can identify the individual whale whose tale was photographed with high accuracy. The organization Happywhale has successfully made use of thousands of tourist photos, unlocking the hidden information contained in this data. They do this all while encouraging citizen science and introducing many eco-tourists to the power of machine-learning.
The video is embedded below. You'll also find a link to the organization that sponsored the development of the algorithm.