Numlock News: September 10, 2025 • Technicolor, No Hitter, Pollen

Sep 10, 2025

Demobilization

Russia is trying to plan ahead for the end of the war in Ukraine, since the large-scale national demobilization from last time carried with it a host of problems and social issues. Following the end of the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan, the returning veterans struggled to reintegrate; many joined large organized crime organizations that emerged in Russia following the fall of the USSR. What’s especially worrisome for Moscow is the economic element; an army recruit from Moscow can make 5.2 million rubles (US$65,000) in their first year in Ukraine with a signing bonus of 1.9 million rubles (US$24,000), the latter of which is roughly equivalent to the average annual salary in the region. Officials fear that a massive pay cut might cause discontent

Reuters

Technicolor

Technicolor, the company that became synonymous with bright and colorful films, started in the Golden Age of Hollywood as a venerable postproduction effects company and lasted up to earlier this year. The company has since been liquidated, and the company’s downfall can be attributed to general struggles for the film industry, as well as some more specific issues for Technicolor related to acquisitions and restructurings. At this point, though, Technicolor has been chopped apart and sold off to pay a list of creditors that will almost certainly not be made whole. Even the brand name “Technicolor” was sold for 1.25 million euros to the company that also bought up the RCA logo.

Irene Garcia Perez, Bloomberg

No Hitter

Last Saturday saw the closest thing to a no-hitter this season: 8 2/3 innings without a hit in a Dodgers-Orioles game. It’s weird to go this long into a single season without a no-no, and even though no-hitters are rare in general — there have been just 326 of them out of about 250,000 MLB games — it’s even rarer to go a full season without one. There have been just seven seasons since the end of World War II with zero no-hitters, and the last time the MLB had a season with not a single no-hitter was 2005.

Jared Diamond, The Wall Street Journal

Pollen Banks

Seed banks are ways to preserve genetic samples of plants for long periods of time, with the earliest ones designed to preserve the diversity of agricultural crops. Now, many more are seeking to serve as assets to conservation. However, they’ve come to face an issue: some plants — “exceptional species” in the lingo — can’t be preserved in a seed bank using the orthodox method of collect, dry and store. For instance, up to a third of the threatened and endangered species of Hawaiian plants can’t be banked as seeds. The National Tropical Botanical Garden, which carries 18 million seeds from 530 species in its freezers, works on this kind of problem. One emerging strategy used in this case and others is pollen banking. Instead of banking the seed, you bank the pollen instead, which advocates argue is a more feasible way to store genetic material long-term.

Adrienne Mason, bioGraphic

Graphic Novels

Sales of the top 20 graphic novels in August were up six percent year over year, making it the fourth straight month to see growth. Solo Leveling Vol. 13 topped the list with 20,302 units sold, followed by Jujutsu Kaisen Vol. 27 with 20,262. All but three of the 20 titles on the list (two Batman comics and a Superman comic) were manga, as imported titles continue to dominate the format.

Milton Griepp, ICV2

Green

In June, a quarter of U.S. power generation was green, which is an increase compared to 18 percent a year ago. California has broken its own record on solar electricity generation eight times in the past year, most recently on July 30, when it produced 21.7 MW. In Texas, up to 11 percent of power demand is being satisfied by large batteries that have stored away cheap electrons from renewable sources available for actication at peak times.

Kyle Stock, Bloomberg

Rivers

In 2024, scientists observed that at least 75 streams in a northern Alaskan mountain range had turned orange, which they now attributed to melting permafrost. A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the Salmon River in northwestern Alaska, which has turned yellow and orange since 2019, pigments that are the result of melting permafrost leaching heavy metals into the rivers. This might happen when bedrock rich in sulfides is exposed, which could form sulfuric acid and dissolve metals in rocks like cadmium and iron. At one point in 2023, the Salmon River’s levels of iron, aluminum, cadmium, copper, nickel and zinc were between three and 37 times higher than a decade earlier. Those are the kind of numbers that would get a mining operation in serious trouble.

Warren Cornwall, Science

If you subscribe, you get a Sunday edition! It’s fun, and supporters keep this thing ad-free. This is the best way to support something you like to read:

Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today.

Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news.

Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement.

Previous Sunday subscriber editions: Dark Roofs · Geothermal · Stitch · Year of the Ring · Person Do Thing · Fun Factor · Low Culture · Romeo vs. Juliet · Traffic Cam Photobooth · Money in Politics ·