Numlock News: March 26, 2026 • Griffinflies, Labubu, Dogs

Mar 26, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Indies

In the K-pop industry there’s been a recent trend where artists depart their major labels to start il-in gihoeksa, or one-person entertainment companies. There are some perks, including retention of intellectual property and the chance to negotiate contracts directly, but the Korean government is increasingly concerned that artists use it mostly as a tax dodge. Registered entertainment agencies increased 73 percent from 2021 to 2025 reaching 6,140 entities, as solo representation rose from 2.5 percent to 4.3 percent of artist affiliations and major agency affiliation fell 14.8 percent to 9.1 percent. South Korea’s top marginal tax rate is 45 percent of anything abovet US$730,000, but the corporate tax rate tops out at 25 percent, fueling the fears that artists are going indie mostly to cut their tax bills.

Billboard Korea

Dogs

A pair of new studies reveals new information about the earliest links between dogs and humans. One study published in Nature dated the remains of three puppies found at a hunter-gatherer site in central Turkey to 15,800 yers ago, which is almost five millennia older than any other confirmed dog, pushing back the timeline of domestication. Another analysis also published in Nature analyzed DNA from 216 canid skeletal remains, attempting to separate dog from wolf and did so very successfully. They identified the species of 141 skeletons out of 216. Among those were a number of very early dogs, including a 14,200-year-old dog, as well as a surprising result of a 13,700 canid from Belgium — thought to be a dog based on its stature was indeed a wolf.

The Francis Crick Institute and David Grimm, Science

Far Away

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered what is believed to be the most distant high-redshift galaxy ever detected, with the galaxy designated EGS-z11-R0 coming in at a redshift of 11.45. A galaxy is considered high redshift when it clocks above 10.0 and were around in the first few hundred million years of the the universe. EGS-z11-R0 has a stellar mass of around 1.6 billion to four billion solar masses with a star formation rate of 10 to 40 solar masses per year. Its discovery indicates that dust-enriched galaxies were present within 400 million years of the Big Bang.

Tomasz Nowakowski, Phys.org

Griffinflies

About 300 million years ago, the Earth had a single continent of Pangaea and the level of atmospheric oxygen was about 45 percent higher than it is today. There were also giant insects called griffinflies — mayfly-like species with 17 inch wingspans and dragonfly-like species with 27 inch wingspans — roaming the skies. In a 1995 study, these two facts were linked, with the researchers arguing that the giant insects could get so big because of the high oxygen content. The big bugs needed that kind of environment to thrive and thus when the oxygen declined, the bugs shrunk down to the size they are today. A new study argues that this charming theory is wrong. Using high-power electron microscopy to look at tracheoloes (fine respiratory tubes) in the flight muscles of insects today, researchers found that one percent or less space was occupied by tracheoles — about a tenth as much as seen in the heart capillaries of mammals and birds. This would suggest that size is not constrained by oxygen levels since tracheoles, taking up so little space, can easily be added. Oxygen is probably not a limiting factor to the maximum body size of insects. It is more likely that insects shrunk because it was easier to evade predation.

Joseph Caspermeyer, Arizona State University

Pop Mart

Pop Mart, which makes Labubus, reported earning 37.1 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) last year, up 185 percent year over year but coming up shy of estimates. About 38 percent of Pop Mart revenue comes from the “The Monsters” line of characters, among which are the Labubu toys. While Pop Mart has other characters — who of course could forget icons such as Molly or Skullpanda — they have not yet shaped up to be Labubu-tier hits. While Pop Mart was quick to cut a deal with Sony for a Labubu movie, it remains to be seen whether this iteration of the Freaky Little Guy trend lasts, or whether it will follow in the same footsteps as its peers: the Furby, the Tamogatchi, the Monchhichi, the Beanie Baby, the Squishmallow, Funko Pops and so on. That is, until someone stuffs a freakier little guy.

Chan Ho-Him, The Associated Press

Q-Day

It’s not the kind of thing that individuals need to worry about quite yet, but large tech companies and state intelligence operations all have a day called Q-Day coming up sometime on their calendars. At some point, those tech institutions contend, quantum computers will get good enough to break public-key cryptography algorithms. These algorithms are in widespread use and are not breakable at scale with existing levels of computational power. Quantum computing will render those encryption methods obsolete, and banks and big tech and governments and militaries are preparing for that hypothetical event. Google announced Wednesday that it’s marking a deadline of 2029 to prepare for Q-Day, and encourages other stakeholders to follow suit. In 2022, the NSA set its deadline for readiness implementing post-quantum cryptography by 2033 and even 2030 in some applications; since then, they’ve shifted the deadline up to 2031.

Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

Eaters of the Dead (1976)

Neanderthals had most of the continent of Eurasia to themselves from 400,000 to 45,000 years ago, a reign that came to an end as Homo sapiens replaced them. New studies analyzing DNA found that after a certain point, the population of Neanderthals shrank enough to see high levels of inbreeding and subsequently high levels of harmful mutations. One study found that Neanderthal sites and remains were widely distributed across Europe until roughly 75,000 years ago when an Ice Age emerged. When the ice melted 65,000 years ago, the Neanderthals had mostly died out except for a small population in southern France. After that point the vast genetic diversity previously seen goes away. Only a single genetic line survived for thousands of years until about 42,000 years ago when Neanderthals disappeared entirely, indicating that smaller populations limped along in dispersed groups until plummeting upon the arrival of humans 45,000 years ago.

Andrew Curry, Science

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