Numlock News: May 17, 2024 • Heifers, Cave Bears, Salt Lake

May 17, 2024

By Walt Hickey

Have a great weekend! Over the next two weeks, I’ll be on my honeymoon, so we’ve lined up some brilliant guest writers to fill in while I’m gone. For now, this is the end of the Numlock Sixth anniversary sale:

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Man or Bear?

A new report published in Quaternary Science Reviews compiled the results of two decades of research on the bones of cave bears, finding that going back to 300,000 years ago evidence that humans hunted and killed these things could be still found. The bears, Ursus spelaeus, which weighed north of 750 kilograms, were first known to be prey of early humans when in 2001 a researcher found a spear tip embedded in a 29,000-year-old cave bear vertebra, which in archaeology is pretty much nailing the suspect dead to rights. The new data found that starting 40,000 years ago, almost all the cave bear bones found had been in some way modified by early man, indicating that hunting the bears became more systematic and common rather than opportunistic and dicey. Anyway, they completely disappear 10,000 years ago, and let’s just say we’re all trying to find who’s responsible for that.

Andrew Curry, Science

Debut

Caitlin Clark, the college basketball phenomenon who was just drafted into the WNBA, opened up the season for the Indiana Fever against the Connecticut Sun. The game averaged 2.12 million viewers on ESPN2, the most-watched game since 2001, which was a Memorial Day game between Los Angeles and Houston. The all-time viewership record for the WNBA remains the 5.04 million viewers who tuned in to the first-ever WNBA game when the New York Liberty faced the Los Angeles Sparks in June of 1997. Still, it was more watched than the 1.99 million who tuned in to the Bruins-Panthers NHL playoff game on the main channel ESPN.

Jason Clinkscales, Sportico

Salt Lake

In 2022, the Great Salt Lake fell to 4,188.5 feet, the lowest level ever recorded following two decades of consistent drought. The winters of 2023 and 2024 were very wet, though, and the snowmelt has rejuvenated the lake, raising the overall water level by 6 feet and increasing the amount of land covered by the lake by 150 square miles. At 4,195 feet, it’s still below the minimum healthy level, but it’s an outstanding comeback from a highly concerning low. That said, the Great Salt Lake is still well below the record highs of the mid-‘80s, when the lake’s level stood at 4,212 feet above sea level.

Jim Carlton, The Wall Street Journal

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Cows

The U.S. has less cattle than it ordinarily does, and it sure doesn’t look like ranchers are trying to build back their herds given rising input costs and higher rates. Over the past several years, ranchers have been steadily selling off cattle rather than attempting to build up bigger herds. The number of calves is down 2 percent compared to last year and is the lowest on record going back to 1948. Rather than breeding heifers to make calves, producers are sending them off to slaughter; normally when ranchers are expanding herds, only about 35 percent to 37 percent of the animals they’re selling off are heifers. As it stands, now that’s around 40 percent.

Nathan Owens, Food Dive

Mannered

A new survey looked at how well Americans stick to their table manners when dining at a restaurant in a group, finding that most, but not all, try to stick to the basic etiquette. According to the survey, 73 percent said they always or usually ask to be passed food rather than reach for it, 69 percent wait to eat until everyone has their food, 60 percent silence their phone, and 58 percent keep their elbows off the table. Just 55 percent put their napkin in their lap while eating, and only 38 percent use the cutlery from the outside toward their plate over several courses, proving that we’re still a coarse and uncultured people ready to pop the monocle out of any visiting aristocrat.

Taylor Orth, YouGov

Cinemas

A single company from Belgium makes most of the projectors used in the world’s movie theaters, with Barco responsible for a 55 percent market share of cinema screens the world over. The company goes all the way back to 1934 and was originally named the Belgian American Radio Corporation (get it, “Barco”) and only moved into the video side of the business in the ‘70s, focusing on in-flight movie systems. It wasn’t until 1999, when George Lucas released The Phantom Menace, that the company saw there was a future in digital projection eventually replacing film projection. The big inflection point for them came with Avatar, and since 2008 they’ve sold 100,000 digital projectors.

Ben Croll, Variety

iQiyi

One of the largest streaming sites in China, iQiyi, reported bringing in 7.9 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) in revenue in the first quarter, down 5 percent year over year. Subscriber revenue took a 13 percent dive, which was not offset by an increase in advertising sales, and the company has severely pared back transparency on key metrics including where its viewers are, making it somewhat difficult to gauge what the issue is. We do know that paid memberships are down: This time last year, iQiyi claimed 128.1 million average daily subscribing members, a figure that fell to 99.5 million by the final quarter of last year at which point it stopped disclosing the information.

Patrick Frater, Variety

This week, I spoke to Sophie Alexander, who wrote “A Billionaire Wanted to Save 1 Trillion Trees by 2030. It’s Not Going Great.” for Bloomberg. We spoke about the logistics behind the movement, the market for carbon offsets, and what role corporations should play in the climate crisis. Alexander can be found at Bloomberg and on Twitter.

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