Numlock News: June 20, 2025 • Venus, Bike Lanes, Sour

Jun 20, 2025

Two-Factor

A new report based on information provided by an industry whistleblower claims that intermediaries in the telecom industry that facilitate text messages between different networks are potential security risks. The whistleblower provided a batch of one million messages carrying two-factor authentication codes that passed through one such intermediary, Fink Telecom Services. The service has been linked with espionage and the surveillance industry in the past. Those login codes were sent from the likes of Google, Meta, Amazon, Tinder, Snapchat and a number of banks to recipients in over 100 countries. The fact that this data can be seen by anyone is of significant concern. The cache of messages was cross-checked against publicly available data and appears to be the real deal. The company says that it does not analyze or interfere with the messaging traffic and no longer works in surveillance. It’s not the only such firm in the game, either: the industry of intermediaries delivering texts between large numbers of telecom providers was a $30 billion market in 2024.

Ryan Gallagher, Crofton Black and Gabriel Geiger, Bloomberg

Figures

A 12-centimeter beige limestone figurine depicting a woman found by a Polish farmer has been confirmed to be 6,000 years old, which underscores the magnitude of the find. Researchers have determined that the object was handmade and is most likely a symbol of a goddess of fertility from the Neolithic period. There are similar figurines that have been found around Europe, including the famous 30,000-year-old “Venus of Willendorf” found in Lower Austria in 1908. This is in addition to “Venus of Hohle Fels,” which is 40,000 years old and found in southern Germany in 2008.

James Jackson, The Art Newspaper

Hotels

A hot new trend in the hotel business is to build a hotel and then operate different parts of the structure as two different hotels. This trend is a confusing, if lucrative, strategy to cut down on costs while offering the same amenities to entirely different groups of hotel seekers. Pools, gyms and elevators are some of the more expensive things to build out in hotels. So instead of building two hotels and installing two pools, two gyms and two banks of elevators, developers are just building one. They sell half the building as a Home2 Suites to people looking for extended stays and the other half of the building as a Tru By Hilton to people looking for small, efficient rooms. Guests are hopefully none the wiser about sleeping in a lodging chimera. There are 1,167 such hotels in the U.S., with another 183 under construction.

Luke Martin, Skift

Bike Lanes

While public infrastructure can always be a bit controversial, broadly speaking, bike lanes are more popular than not across the U.S. population. A whopping 76 percent of respondents supported bike lanes in their local area, and just 15 percent opposed. Altogether, 33 percent of respondents wanted more bike lanes in their local area, and 37 percent are satisfied with the current number of bike lanes. Only nine percent desired fewer bike lanes. That said, studying this set of statistics for a bit longer illuminates the reason why opposition to bike lanes is often the default state in many communities. Those nine percent go to all the community board meetings, and they can woo the 37 percent crowd that thinks there’s enough already. Well, that’s a potent opposition for a thing 76 percent of people like.

Jamie Ballard, YouGov

Nuclear

Nuclear-powered cargo ships have become an appealing angle of nautical development, in no small part because they’d be well-suited for a shipping industry that is trying to increase efficiency. The shipping industry wants to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030 and is responsible for 3 percent of global emissions. The first oceangoing reactor was on a submarine in 1955, and today, about 160 vessels power their propulsion systems by persuading blocks of metal to cough up the occasional neutron. This number mostly includes military vessels and icebreakers. Fission-powered commercial shipping vessels are under development, with a target of introducing one to the water by 2035. One appeal beyond the carbon of it all? Ships currently tend to sail at 30-40 percent of their engines’ rating because it’s cheaper and more fuel efficient to do so. For a nuclear ship, that would not matter, and there’d even be about 10 percent more space for cargo.

Will Wade, Bloomberg

Birds

Fruits that mammals consider to be far too sour are downright ideal for birds, and the reason why — a mutation in the sour taste receptor present in vertebrates called OTOP1 — has now been more fully understood. A study published in “Science” found four amino acids in the OTOP1 receptor that may determine sour tolerance, and one called G378 was found in songbirds. It is believed to be responsible for the birds’ greatly enhanced sour tolerance. The amino acid is theorized to have emerged between 34 million and 23 million years ago, in an ancestor to honeyeaters, and may have even co-evolved with fruit-bearing plants.

Nazeefa Ahmed, Science

Minidrama Hollywood

Minidramas are a massive industry in China, where the market for short, serialized dramas is estimated to grow to US$14 billion (100 billion yuan) by 2027. Their popularity has led the city of Shenyang to embark on the construction of a massive studio space specifically for the production of minidramas. The studio is being developed in a former machine tool factory, a facility that by this summer will have 30 different sets for various kinds of scenes, ranging from modern locations to period drama to science fiction. Hopefully, it will be supporting the production of 150 minidramas within five years.

Kohei Fujimura, Nikkei Asia

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