Numlock News: March 2, 2026 • Astrova, Holy, Mackerel

Mar 02, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Scream

The question on all of our minds — what could possibly be left to say in Scream 7 that was not already said within Screams one through six — has been decisively answered, and the reply is $64.1 million. That is a franchise record, and grossed 97.2 million with the overseas haul. With a budget of $45 million, this one managed to make a killing. It snaps a dry spell for Paramount, which has not had a single week atop the box office since last March, when Novocaine managed to make the top of the charts.

Rebecca Rubin, Variety

In-Flight

Panasonic has built a solid business hawking screens for in-flight entertainment options through its inordinately successful Astrova line of entertainment systems. Overall, Panasonic Avionics made 291.3 billion yen (US$1.9 billion) in sales in the fiscal year beginning April 2024, which was the highest number since 2016. Panasonic supplies modular in-flight entertainment systems to carriers such as Japan Airlines, United Airlines, Air India and Emirates. Astrova was a big hit; the monitors have had their weight reduced by 30 percent, which has a substantial impact on fuel use.

Kanoko Sakamoto, Nikkei Asia

Conservation

When USAID was dismantled early last year, there were enormous consequences for human beings, including the cutting of HIV/AIDS treatment. This funding cut has claimed an estimated 834,000 lives (two-thirds of them children) as well as $290 million lost for schools and clinics in Liberia alone. Beyond the human tragedy, USAID was the largest backer of biodiversity protection in the world and was a thrifty, inexpensive way to secure substantial conservation gains the world over. It directed $94,693,461 to East Africa alone, money which is now gone. This is having immediate consequences; for instance, the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia paid guards to protect the forests. These guards are often directly recruited from communities that had previously economically sustained themselves through illegal hunting of forest animals. With the SCNL now completely without USAID funding, the fate of many threatened species is in doubt.

Michelle Nijhuis, bioGraphic

Sistine

The Last Judgement, the Michelangelo fresco in the Sistine Chapel, has been closed for restoration. The painting is being methodically cleaned to remove salt that has accumulated on the surface of the painting. The salt comes from the sweat of the 25,000 people who cycle through the chapel every day, with the higher-than-typical temperatures extracting more of the sweat. The Chapel underwent a full restoration from 1979 to 1999 to remove hundreds of years of smoke and wax buildup.

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press

Whoops

A new study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at the results of six experiments conducted among 3,204 participants to try to unlock the ways that people might recover from an embarrassing moment. The key finding was simple. For a faux pas that causes no harm to others, laughing it off was best. People who messed up but innocently displayed amusement at their own cock-up were seen as more competent and authentic than those who appeared embarrassed. On a personal note, this was an incredible relief, given a recent incident where I happened to slip on a patch of ice on the sidewalk. While windmilling my arms in a desperate attempt to allay my slide, it nonetheless resolved in a banana cream pie factory. To my dismay, the floors had just been waxed, and thus my desire to stymie my advance came to naught, leading to a rather unfortunate incident with the pastry at hand. Needless to say you can only imagine my frustration as, exiting the manufacture, I immediately happened upon an oil slick that, regrettably, only progressed my ill-fortune entrance into, I regret to say, the local upholsterer, whichat that very time was the recipient of a shipment of goose down feathers, which when applied to the generous coating of cream affixed themselves most fastidiously. All this would of course be neither here nor there if not for the fact that this course of events took place at, I learned, the Greater Queens Marble Run, which meant that despite my exhortation of “a homina homina homina” and swift action to cartwheel down the escarpment, I was unable to right the course and nevertheless ended up plunging headlong into a high society event precisely as the orchestra struck up Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Now, only my level bearing granted me the grace to jest, “it’s a living!” which mollified the situation as best could be managed.

American Psychological Association

Donkey

In several regions of China, donkey meat was a regional specialty. As the price of donkey meat soars, restaurants across the country are making do and replacing the key ingredient. Prices are up as much as 50 percent year over year, and donkey is now twice the price of beef. Realistically, the supply has been shrinking for years, and only a recent crackdown that exposed the true state of the donkey meat supply chain sent prices reeling. The size of China’s donkey herd has declined 85 percent since the mid 1990s, when there were 10 million donkeys in the country. Thanks to the mechanization of farms — the mechanization rate rose from 32 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2024 — the main source of donkeys has declined, as the beasts are infamously exhausting to breed. Pakistan (with six million donkeys) and Peru have both been approved to import donkeys.

Joshua Dummer, Foreign Policy

Mackerel

Over the past 15 years, the fishing industry has caught 40 percent more mackerel in the North East Atlantic than is advised by scientists. Based on the recommendation of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, reducing catches by 77 percent this year is the way to go if the stock is to recover. This has sent tinned fish companies scampering south for their wares. The trendy comestible is turning away from fisheries off the coast of Spain and France and towards the waters off Chile, Peru, New Zealand and Australia.

Emma Court, Bloomberg

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