Numlock News: April 9, 2025 • Abraham Lincoln, Asparagus, Urchin

Apr 09, 2025

By Walt Hickey

Cutting Edge

A cosmetic procedure developed in Spain and France in the 2010s has made its way into the United States in 2019: keratopigmentation or eye color-changing surgery. While only a few ophthalmologists in the country offer it, and only off-label without FDA approval, public demand for a procedure that uses lasers to dye one’s cornea is nevertheless proven steady despite concern from some colleagues who consider it risky. For about $6,000 per eye, it’s about twice the cost of LASIK, but some recently popular social media buzz has nevertheless drummed up demand, with some practitioners doing hundreds of the procedures per year.

Saima S. Iqbal, Scientific American

Diamond

Details about the sale of Diamond Comic Distributors at a bankruptcy auction have begun to emerge, as one of the more critical links in the domestic distribution of comic books undergoes what looks to be a sale to Alliance Entertainment for $72.25 million. This price, according to AENT, was later raised to $85.37 million. Details now reveal that there were 7 bidders at the auction, including toymaker Basic Fun!, as well as Canadian comics distributor Universal Distribution and manufacturer and licensor Ad Populum. What looked to be a straightforward sale has been thrown into disarray, though, as the owners of Diamond now favor the Universal/Ad Populum bid — which came in at $69.1 million — and are asking the court to name them the winner, which prompted a lawsuit from Alliance that claims its offer was raised to $85.37 million.

Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly and Milton Griepp, ICV2

White Asparagus

It’s springtime, which for Germans means one thing and one thing only: white asparagus. Your typical German citizen eats about 3 pounds of white asparagus per year, spurning the green version but consuming a uniquely voluminous amount of the white stuff. Germany produced a harvest volume of 105,000 metric tons last year, but they don’t export any of it, importing a good amount from Spain and Italy instead, which mostly just grow white asparagus for Germany anyway. The season begins in April, at which point there’s such a run on the vegetable that it goes for up to 20 euros per kilogram, falling to half that price by the end of the season in June.

Kirsten Grieshaber, The Associated Press

Hot Seat

When the Denver Nuggets fired their championship-winning coach, Michael Malone, Tuesday, they brought the number of NBA coaches who have been employed by their current team for more than 5 years down to a mere 3: Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors since 2014, Erik Spoelstra, coach of the Miami Heat since 2008 and Gregg Popovich, coach of the San Antonio Spurs since 1996, a trio who has won a combined 11 titles. That said, the coach’s seat runs hot in the NBA: there have been 3 teams since 2016 that canned their coach within 2 years of that coach winning a championship.

Kurt Badenhausen, Sportico

Urchin

Urchins are believed to be spreading barrens across the Great Southern Reef, devouring seaweed in the absence of predators. Those predators tend to be large fish like blue groper and pink snapper, and a new study sought to find out why the long-spined urchin populations were running rampant, given that they should have been eaten by these fish. The study analyzed the stomach contents of 39 blue groper and 111 pink snappers donated to science by recreational fishers. They found that long-spined urchins were present in just 5.1 percent of groper, other urchin species were found in 20 percent and long-spined urchins were present in just 2.7 percent of snappers compared to 13 percent with other urchins. The reason long-spined urchins were doing great is that fish don’t like eating long, pointy spikes, regardless of how nutritious the urchin’s gonads are.

The University of Newcastle

Teotihuacan

An altar has been discovered in present-day Guatemala from the Teotihuacan culture, which is interesting for a bunch of reasons, mainly because Guatemala is most known for its connection to Mayan culture. The Teotihuacan civilization was way up in northern Mexico, peaking from around 100 BC to AD 750, ahead of the Aztecs. This altar is proof of cultural exchange, travel or some kind of trade or coexistence between 300 and 500 AD, and took archaeologists one and a half years to uncover in a dwelling. The nature of that cultural exchange is, however, almost certainly blood sacrifice, given some pretty disturbing remains found in the immediate vicinity.

Sonia Pérez D., The Associated Press

Lincoln

A collection of 144 items related to the life of Abraham Lincoln will go up for auction in Chicago in May. It is consigned by the Lincoln Presidential Foundation and is estimated to be worth $4 million. Highlights include some of his childhood homework, campaign items, signed letters and the morbid centerpiece of the auction, a pair of bloodstained white kid gloves that the president had in his breast pocket on the night of the assassination, estimated to sell for $800,000. Other antiques from the night of his killing include a cuff button, a ticket from a theatergoer and a subsequent reward poster for John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators. The origin of the 144 items is interesting in and of itself — they’re from a collection of 1,540 items donated by a historian and collector, then sold to the museum Foundation for $23 million in 2007. However, that appraisal might not be entirely right, given that the authenticity of a stovepipe hat believed to be worth $6.5 million has subsequently been called into question.

Julie Brener Davich, Puck

Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today.

Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news.

Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement.

Previous Sunday subscriber editions: MCU · Fanfiction · User Magazine · Reentry · Panda Dunks · Net Zero · Spiraled · On The Edge · Luggage · The Editors · Can’t Get Much Higher · Solitaire ·