Numlock News: November 20, 2024 • Bronze, Hazelnuts, Space Station
By Walt Hickey
Bronze
We live in an artistic golden age, at least when it comes to terrible bronze statues of prominent sports figures. For whatever reason, communities and teams attempting to commemorate an iconic player seem to cut corners on the cast, and whether it’s the downright iconic pinched bust of Ronaldo at an airport in Portugal, Dwyane Wade’s comical statue in Miami unveiled at the end of October, or a £7,200 monument unveiled this week erected by London’s Waltham Forest council to commemorate and presumably mock English soccer star Harry Kane, for whatever reason those who commission sculptors to immortalize athletes in bronze manage to find artists who root for the other team.
Octopus
It takes a lot of energy for an octopus to activate its camouflage and change its colors in an attempt to hide or stalk prey, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found. Based on an analysis of their energy use when activating chromatophores, a ruby octopus weighing 100 grams would use 219 micromoles of oxygen per hour to activate all its pigment-containing cells. By comparison, the creature’s resting metabolic rate is 237 micromoles per hour, meaning that it basically takes as much energy to change appearance as it does to just remain alive.
Football
Last year, Hayfield Secondary School in Alexandria, Virginia, wanted to become a high school football champion, so they poached a coach from Freedom High School who subsequently brought all of his top players with him, which is admittedly pretty odd for a high school football team. The plan worked, and Hayfield has since smoked the competition ever since acquiring Freedom’s team lock, stock and barrel, going 9-0 and racking up a scoring differential of 563-13 against other public schools. That remarkable scoring dominance and the manner through which Hayfield came by it has caused a tizzy in Fairfax County and a disaster down the road at Freedom High, which went from a 29-game win streak to fielding a team for just 7 of 10 scheduled games and getting outscored 392-10. It’s one thing for the pros to pull this, and another even for colleges to do it — heck, it’s probably fine for Texas high schools to do it, even. But Northern Virginia?
IV
The flooding throughout North Carolina in September following the Hurricane Helene hit affected a Baxter International facility in Marion, specifically one responsible for producing 60 percent of the intravenous fluids used in the United States. That’s led to nationwide rationing of IV fluids and many hospitals reassessing how they keep patients hydrated as supplies get thin. As of November 7, the facility had resumed producing some IV fluids, but as flu season kicks off, many hospitals are still trying to conserve as much of their supply as possible.
Hazelnuts
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the genetic similarities of beaked hazelnuts throughout British Columbia and found significant evidence that hazelnuts were deliberately spread throughout the region by Indigenous people, who carried nuts for up to 800 kilometers to cultivate the trees in new regions. The researchers sequenced the DNA of 219 hazelnuts collected around British Columbia and found that among the northern population of hazelnuts, there were five distinct genetic subgroups, of which four could be traced to locations in British Columbia hundreds of miles away. That’s the opposite of what you’d expect with a purely natural, more genetically random distribution. Based on hazelnut pollen found at archaeological sites in that area, there’s already evidence that Indigenous people purposefully brought the hazelnuts with them. This could have implications today, as evidence of cultivation and continuous use of the land is potentially legally significant when it comes to First Nations arguing in Canada’s courts for land rights.
Leaks
The “why” is a matter of dispute between the Americans and Russians that oversee the station, but the fact is the International Space Station has a leak and it’s not really great. Since September 2019, air has leaked from the transfer tunnel connecting the Zvezda module and the docking port. As of February, the leak hit 2.4 pounds of air lost per day, and by April it increased to 3.7 pounds lost per day, at which point managers upped the risk level of the transfer tunnel. A round of repairs in September cut the rate of the leak by a third, which still isn’t awesome. The Russians blame high cyclic fatigue; NASA blames pressure, mechanical stress, residual stress, environmental exposure and more. NASA thinks it’s at risk of catastrophic failure, Roscosmos does not, and there’s an impasse as to whether it’s time to seal it off. The module launched in 2000 and is getting on in years, and it’s yet another indication that the ISS is really in the endgame, with Roscosmos only committed to it through 2028 and NASA eyeing 2030.
Glicked
Headed into the big weekend, Wicked is currently projected to win the weekend with a $100 million to $110 million domestic box office, a $20 million increase from previous tracking. The marketing is inescapable, and there are something like 400 brand partnerships trying to get you into the theater this weekend to see Oz. Other projections get it to something like $130 million, but we’ll see. Either way, it’s all but certain to beat Into the Woods’ $31 million to be the biggest debut for a Broadway adaptation. Gladiator II is projected to make $65 million, which would be pretty good for an R-rated movie, and needs a pretty big international sandalprint to make good on its $250 million budget.
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I was supposed to attend Hayfield. It's strange watching the controversies from my new perch inside the Beltway following more than 30 years somewhere else. I ended up going to three high schools on two continents, and two different US states. The fun of being an Army brat....
Was thinking about you, yesterday, @walt sifting through the discussion about some of the brainwormed RFKJ's new focus on removing fluoride from public water supplies. It made sense in the middle of last century, but it's amazing just how cheap dentistry is today. But, no, we've gotta stick to regulations from 1952 because, you know, tooth decay.
Much as I enjoy sitting next to a radiator and watching the snowfall out the window, why would anyone build a building otday that uses a boiler+radators for heating today?
Things progress. HVAC and dentistry are great examples.