Numlock News: December 10, 2025 • Denarii, Betty Boop, Rao's

Dec 10, 2025

By Walt Hickey

Concrete

In 2023, MIT researchers proposed that in order to achieve “Roman concrete,” ancient builders used a process of hot mixing, in which dry heated limestone was mixed with volcanic ash and water to achieve a particularly effective form of concrete. Well, a new study from those researchers looked at the ruins of Pompeii and all but confirms this idea. Upon analyzing a house that was under construction in 79 CE, they found large piles of dry, unmixed mortar ingredients. While the archeological chemistry is rather unambiguous, some mysteries remain. It’s not yet clear if the exploded human-shaped carbon burns on the wall indicate a contractor arguing that the tiles are not included in the scope of the project, or whether he has a guy who can handle the plumbum in the domus, or whether he can finish the atrium in Ianuarius only if he can get his viri. Either way, this is gonna cost some denarii.

Humberto Basilio, Scientific American

Interdiction

The U.S. Coast Guard announced that it seized 150,000 pounds of cocaine, which the agency claims denied criminal organizations $1.1 billion in illicit revenue. The interdiction happened in the eastern Pacific Ocean as part of an operation to cut down on the revenues of drug traffickers. This is a remarkable amount of cocaine that was bound for the West Coast; removing it from the equation may very well shorten the movie studio fight over who gets to own Warner Bros. by months.

Mike Schuler, gCaptain

College Football

This year, Louisiana State University managed to poach Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin away from his playoff-bound team. They accomplished this feat of persuasion through the classic method: putting millions of dollars into a catapult and launching it in the direction of Oxford, Mississippi. Kiffin not only gets a minimum salary of $13 million per year, but an analysis of his term sheet finds that Kiffin scored a plum arrangement with regard to his home. Given that he would no longer live in Mississippi, nor presumably even be welcomed in the state, LSU agreed to cover any shortfall up to $500,000 as a result of Kiffin selling his home in Oxford, which he purchased for $2.89 million. That number, though, has attracted some questions, given that Redfin listed the property as having sold for $1.65 million in 2021, a figure confirmed by Hollis Wayne Butler Jr., the guy who sold him the house. Even throwing all the furniture in there only brought the price up $100,000. The current market value of the home, per Zillow, is only about $2.4 million. That said, it’s gotta feel rough to give up a mortgage that appears to have been locked in at 2.6 percent, my god.

Daniel Libit, Sportico

Public

January 1, 2026, will see hundreds of works created 95 years ago enter the public domain, with anything created in 1930 now copyright-free. New entrants to the public domain include Nancy Drew, The Maltese Falcon, The Little Engine That Could and Betty Boop, as well as the Best Picture of the year, All Quiet on the Western Front. Looking at Disney, two shorts featuring an unnamed bloodhound belonging to Minnie Mouse that bears a remarkable resemblance to Pluto (but nevertheless is not Pluto) came out that year. Pluto’s debut in 1931 means that he will be wrenched into the public domain next year. Betty Boop’s earliest incarnation was in Dizzy Dishes in 1930, though at the time she had dog ears. While she is clearly recognizable as the same character, the inevitable horror movie cash-in (shopped at last month’s American Film Market) featuring Betty Boop will need to be particular about the flapper’s canine elements.

Aaron Moss, Copyright Lately

Sodium

A new analysis of sub-Saharan Africa generated maps of sodium concentrations in plant matter based on 4,258 distributed field measurements of foliar sodium concentrations across 289 locations. What they found was that plant-based sodium availability varied significantly across the continent, with some areas seeing 1000 times as much available sodium in the flora as others. What’s particularly cool is that this is connected to the abundance of large herbivores; areas with sodium are able to sustain more megafauna. The iconic megaherbivore species of Africa simply cannot survive in large numbers in regions with less than 100 milligrams of sodium per kilogram in the plant life. Previous research had indicated that larger-bodied mammals are especially susceptible to sodium deficits; wild animals are known to go to great lengths to get salt, with elephants in Kenya entering caves to eat rocks rich in sodium, and salt pans across the continent hosting rhinos, zebra and wildebeest. It may also explain why West Africa has so few megaherbivores despite being very productive; it also has a lack of sodium.

Northern Arizona University, Nature

Campbell’s

In 2024, The Campbell’s Company bought Rao’s, the pasta sauce company. This week, Campbell’s announced that it will be buying 49 percent of La Regina, which makes Rao’s pasta sauce. Allow me to take a moment to explain, as this perhaps might sound strange. See, most food brands that you know do not, as a matter of fact, actually make food. They are better described as marketing companies that have a somewhat substantial intellectual property element. This can be an incredibly lucrative business! Reputation is not something that comes lightly in this world. But in the matter of peeling tomatoes, crushing them and putting them into glass bottles, is oftentimes delegated to a packager, such as La Regina. This particular packager has facilities in Georgia and Italy to accomplish the task. Campbell’s wants to bring the entire Rao’s operation in-house and so will buy the stake for $286 million, with an option to buy up the rest.

Christopher Doering, Food Dive

Students

When the U.S. birth rate began to decline in 2008, the problems for colleges began. In 2021, 2.6 million fewer college students attended school than in 2010, a 15 percent drop that was felt not at the top nor at the popular state schools but was definitely felt in the smaller, private schools. In the 2023-24 academic year, two percent of all two-year and four-year institutions merged or closed. The problem is especially acute in areas where the birth rate has dipped the deepest. California, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania are alone responsible for 75 percent of the decline in high school grads. Additionally, given that the median distance of a college student is 17 miles from home, things are hitting harder in those areas.

Megan Greenwell, Bloomberg

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