Numlock News: February 3, 2026 • Solar Flare, Zootopia, Baltimore

Feb 03, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Zootopia Too

The record for the highest-grossing Hollywood film in China now goes to Zootopia 2. Depending on where you are based, it may also be known as Zootropolis 2 and or Zoomania 2 in Germany, because the Disney Company ain’t in the business of undermining copyrights. The sequel made $630 million in China, according to Disney’s first quarter results. Globally, the movie made $1.8 billion, good for the highest-grossing movie of 2025. This also puts Zootopia 2 among the ten highest-grossing movies of all time. Disney boasted that it released 37 of the 60 films that have reached a billion dollars globally. The top-grossing film in China ever was Ne Zha 2, which made $2.12 billion last year.

Dade Hayes, Deadline

Power

Lithium-ion batteries have been the standard chemistry for electric vehicles and other devices, but sodium-ion batteries have long been held as a possibly superior composition. The issue for sodium-ion batteries is that lithium-ion batteries have enough of a head start to consistently beat the sodium-ion batteries on price. A lithium-ion battery was going for $568 per kilowatt-hour in 2013, falling to $74 per kilowatt-hour as of 2025. However, it’s hard to keep that breakneck pace. Sodium-ion batteries now cost about $59 per kilowatt-hour on average, but even so, they’re being outrun by the lower-end lithium-ion phosphate cells that average $52 per kilowatt-hour. With lithium prices rising slowly, it may soon be sodium’s moment.

Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review

Guinea Worm

Preliminary data from the Carter Center found that 2025 saw an all-time low of 10 human cases of the parasitic Guinea worm in 2025, a massive accomplishment in public health that may soon make the Guinea worm the first human disease to be eradicated since smallpox. In 1986, when the eradication program began, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases of Guinea worm in 21 countries. In 2025, based on the provisional data, there were only 10 human cases in just three countries: four in Chad, four in Ethiopia and two in South Sudan. Eradication will be certified once animal cases are wiped out. In 2025, there were animal cases in Chad (147 cases), Mali (17), Cameroon (445), Angola (70), Ethiopia (one) and South Sudan (three). Over the time of the eradication program, an estimated 100 million cases have been prevented.

Beth Mole, Ars Technica

Sunburn

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Laboratory observed a solar flare at 7:33 AM EST on Sunday that was classified under the most intense X-class ranking. Three more X-class flares followed. And at 6:37 PM EST, an X8.1-class solar flare was observed, the brightest flare since 2024 and one of the top 20 brightest observed since 1996. The ejected plasma will pass Earth on Thursday.

Joseph Howlett, Scientific American

Jupiter

Data from NASA’s Juno Mission, analyzed by the Weizmann Institute of Science, led the researchers to revise the size of the planet, a new study published in Nature Astronomy reveals. The study finds that Jupiter is eight kilometers narrower at the equator and 24 kilometers flatter at the poles. The researchers said that earlier measurements of Jupiter’s size did not include the planet’s extreme winds in their calculations.

Weizmann Institute of Science

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Port of Baltimore

The Port of Baltimore has since recovered following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March 2024. In 2025, the port handled 2,223 cargo vessel calls, more than the previous high-water mark of 2,137 vessels in 2023 and a 21 percent increase over the level in 2024, which stymied the port for months. Baltimore is ranked 10th among U.S. ports by cargo value. Replacement of the Key Bridge is expected to cost $4.3 billion to $5.2 billion and is slated for completion in 2030.

Mike Schuler, gCaptain

Jack

In 2021, Jack Daniels did something new by releasing a premium whiskey that actually indicated the number of years it had been aged, launching first a 10-year liquor and since then expanding to 12-year and 14-year versions. It’s a big deal because a brand with Jack’s footprint launching a special version inherently moves a lot of bottles. The question now becomes how much longer this can go on; the longer a whiskey is aged, the more complicated the economics get. A 20-year or more whiskey will see evaporation loss of more than 80 percent of what went into the barrel two decades ago, and in order to keep the spirit balanced, they have to rotate the barrels to lowerr to slow the aging process. It’s an art and a science: the 10-year version had a cask proof of 97 percent, the 12-year at 107 percent and the first batch of 14-year in 2025 came in at cask strength of 126.3 proof. The prospect of whether a 20-year is even viable depends on how the floor rotation strategy pans out.

David Thomas Tao, VinePair

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