Numlock News: April 17, 2026 • LCD, SVU, LA28

Apr 17, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Have a great weekend!

Helium-3

In the early 1950s, it was first suggested that an isotope of helium known as helium-3 might be able to improve the cryogenic performance of the molecule, which boils at four degrees Kelvin, or four degrees Celsius above absolute zero. With helium-3, that boiing point got down to 0.22K. The issue was that helium-3 makes up just 0.0001 percent of all helium, so good luck finding the stuff. However, following the development of the hydrogen bomb, a source emerged: the tritium used in thermonuclear weapons gradually decays into helium-3, and the U.S. government was willing to part with that waste product for a fee whenever it topped off its nukes with fresh tritium. Today, helium-3 is used in many applications that require operation at near-absolute zero, including quantum computing. A liter of helium-3 — less than a teaspoon of liquid — can cost $1,000 to $20,000, and if you want one of those state-of-the-art dilution fridges that run $600,000 or more, up to a quarter of the price will probably be from the helium-3 within. If quantum computing really does take off, helium-3 will be in incredibly high demand.

Zach Savitsky, Science

On Location

A new report released this week indicates that while many states have seen declines in television and movie filming, the biggest growth was in New Jersey, which saw production spending increase 37 percent year over year to $211 million across 16 productions in the first quarter of 2026. While that’s still a smaller figure than many other states; most of the other heavy hitters saw production spending either stagnate (California and New York were up two percent and one percent, respectively) or decline (Georgia was down five percent).

Erik Hayden, The Hollywood Reporter

Nuclear

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has finally resumed commercial operations at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, which is about 220 kilometers northwest of Tokyo and was shut down following the anti-nuclear power backlash from the Fukushima power plant disaster. The resumption of generation ran seven weeks late, but Unit 6 is back online and has an output of 1.356 million kilowatts. The plant — the largest in the world — boasts a total output of 8.212 million kilowatts if all reactors are on, and Japan may very well need that, given the energy crunch following the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.

Shotaro Tani, Nikkei Asia

Olympics

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committee had its first board meeting of the year, and topics of interest included that eye-watering 24 percent “service fee” that the LA28 Olympics are pushing for tickets, as well as the effects of the changing college sports landscape on recruitment and training. The group took three actions when it came to sports governing bodies, with two of them related to a five-year battle over what to do about surfing. USA Surfing was decertified in 2021 as the governing body for the sport, and for a moment, U.S. Ski & Snowboard was a serious contender to take oversight of the sport, which would give the winter sport powerhouse a toehold in the sandy summer sport. U.S. Ski & Snowboard has also been gunning to take over skateboarding. Instead, while Team USA gave oversight of the Para Nordic Ski team to U.S. Ski & Snowboard, it instead certified USA Surfing to once again oversee its own sport.

Sara Germano, Sportico

LCD

LCD panels are produced by panel makers and then sold in bulk to the companies that manufacture televisions, and the bulk price for large LCDs has risen three percent in the past three months, fueled by television manufacturers readying inventories for the upcoming World Cup. The benchmark TFT 55-inch open cell, unfinished and without backlight, went for $120 apiece in March, up a dollar month over month, while the TFT 32-inch open cell climbed from $1 to reach $35. However, bulk prices for OLED panels were actually down, with the 55-inch benchmark dropping from $3 to $384 per unit.

Hitomi Izawa, Nikkei Asia

SVU

The dedicated detectives of New York City’s Special Victims Unit will continue to investigate vicious felonies, as Law & Order: SVU has been greenlit for its 28th season, which will extend the program’s record as the longest-running primetime drama. The current season will end at 594 episodes, meaning that the next one will push the program over the 600 episode mark and would likely finish with the show in striking distance of the big record — primetime drama with the most episodes — currently held by Gunsmoke with 635 episodes.

Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter

Vinyl

The massive sales of new vinyl records has been an ongoing story in the music business, with 48 million new vinyl records sold in 2025, a $1 billion business for a music industry that has all but switched over to streaming. That said, used vinyl is a force to be reckoned with in its own right. The statistics around the secondhand vinyl business aren’t nearly touted as much as the new vinyl business — after all, the artists and the labels don’t actually make any money from it — but it’s a much larger slice of the music industry than one might expect. While not quite as big as the 269 percent increase in sales for new vinyl since 2016, sales of used records grew 171 percent over the period. Indeed, with an estimated 42 million used vinyl records sold in the U.S. in 2025, that’s bigger than the 34 million CD sales logged last year.

Russ Crupnick, Billboard

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