Numlock News: February 18, 2026 • REM, Orthodox, Scarisoara Ice Cave

Feb 18, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Royalties

The United Kingdom introduced the Artist Resale Right (ARR) 20 years ago, a law giving artists royalties when their work is sold on secondary markets. Despite initial fears from the industry — that auctions would move offshore, that it would stymie the market as a whole — the market has since accepted the program, and it has spawned imitators the world over. In total, 90 countries now have some sort of ARR: the EU implemented it in 2006, and Canada and South Korea are both working to approve similar programs by 2027. Royalties are calculated on a sliding scale: four percent on works selling for 50,000 pounds, 0.25 percent on works over 500,000 pounds and a maximum ARR payment capped at 12,500 pounds. Since its introduction in 2006, the ARR has distributed 144 million pounds to 6,997 artists and heirs.

Anny Shaw, The Art Newspaper

Frozen

Researchers have tested strains of the Psychrobacter SC65A.3 bacteria that were hiding in a 5,000-year-old layer of ice in the Scarisoara Ice Cave. The SC65A strain was tested against 28 antibiotics from 10 classes, finding resistance to 10 of the antibiotics, including trimethoprim, clindamycin and metronidazole. Bad luck for any species that, say, is on a rapidly warming planet that at some point will release pathogens frozen for eons back into the mix. Know any of those?

Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers in Microbiology

Orthodox

Russia has been working to shore up geopolitical relationships with countries in Africa and has made moves to increase its soft power there. There are over 32,000 students from Africa currently studying in Russian universities, and the number of scholarships directed to the continent has tripled since 2020. One interesting element of the push has been a religious angle; the Russian Orthodox Church has expanded from presences in four African countries (South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt) to 34 countries in just three years. The church has also ramped up the number of clergy to 270 across 350 parishes and communities.

Antony Sguazzin, Bloomberg

Washed

A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that 99 percent of adults over 40 are absolutely washed, even if they don’t know it or don’t care to admit it. The study looked at shoulder MRIs of 602 participants aged 41 to 76, and found that even though only 110 of them reported shoulder pain, 595 of them (99 percent) had at least one rotator cuff abnormality. Fully 62 percent have a partial-thickness tear, 25 percent tendinopathy and 11 percent have a full-thickness tear. Of the 1,204 shoulders looked at in the study, 1,076 were asymptomatic. However, of those 1,076 shoulders, fully 96 percent contained an abnormality, as did virtually all of the ones that were in pain.

Beth Mole, Ars Technica

Inception

Researchers at Northwestern University recruited 20 self-identified lucid dreamers for a study to see if their in-control dream time could be put to good use. The subjects attempted a number of puzzles while awake in a sleep lab, with each puzzle paired with its own sound effect. Then, once the subjects went to sleep and entered the REM stage, researchers played sounds from puzzles the subjects had not been able to solve that day, seeing if they could work on the puzzles overnight. The following day, when given another crack at it, those who reported dreaming about the puzzles saw a solve rate of 40 percent compared to 17 percent among those who did not have the puzzle in their dream. This is great news for me, personally. It means that the next time that I enroll in a class but forget to attend it for an entire semester, only to learn (to my shock and dismay) that I have to take a final in it in order to pass, I will be really prepared!

Julia Peck, New Scientist

Condiments

A new study found that the most popular condiments among Americans were peanut butter (79 percent love or like), jam or jelly (76 percent), honey (76 percent), followed by ketchup, maple syrup, barbecue sauce and salsa (each 75 percent). A banner performance for tomatoes, great job. Among the more popular condiments, hot sauce appears to be the most polarizing: 56 percent like or love it, while 27 percent dislike or hate it, one of the highest levels in the data set.

Taylor Orth, YouGov

Enhanced Rock Weathering

A proposed way to pull large quantities of carbon out of the atmosphere is enhanced rock weathering. A new study published in Communications Sustainability puts an estimated number on just how big a deal this could be. The chemistry is simple: silicate rocks naturally react with carbon dioxide and bind it to a stable mineral form. If you crush those rocks up, the rock dust does eons of work in just a few years. Depending on the eventual extent of the approach, this process can remove 0.35 to 0.76 gigatons of carbon by 2050, and 0.7 to 1.1 gigatons by 2100.

Becka Bowyer, Cornell University

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