Numlock News: September 28, 2026 • Exoskeltons, Shipwrecks, Minivans

Sep 28, 2026

By Walt Hickey

Welcome back!

Endgame

The re-release of Avengers: Endgame made $26 million domestically and $60 million abroad as Marvel attempts to get audiences ready for Avengers: Doomsday this December. The Encore included additional footage as an incentive to show up, and with the second-best re-release box office ever (behind Titanic 3D), the movie inched closer to the all-time worldwide box office record held by Avatar. Interestingly, 52 percent of the domestic box office for Avengers: Endgame Encore came from Infinity Vision screens, which is a word that Disney made up so that they can charge IMAX money for certain Avengers: Doomsday big screens, even though Dune: Part Three comes out on the same day and has every IMAX screen in the country locked up for three weeks.

Ryan Gajewski, The Hollywood Reporter

Dives

There are over 100 wrecks off the coast of Canakkale in northwestern Turkey, and the country is embarking on a years-long project called Deep Heritage that will seek to preserve 17 World War I wrecks. The province, which lies on the Dardanelles, was the site of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, which, prior to the land assault, involved significant naval action. In 2021, Turkey’s Directorate of Gallipoli Historic Site established the place as an underwater park for divers, and now the country is trying to preserve the wrecks using the technique of cathodic protection, where sacrificial anodes of zinc are installed near the wreck, redirecting electrical activity that causes corrosion. The plan is to install cathodes on 17 wrecks at a cost of $150,000 to $400,000 per vessel, protecting two wrecks per year over the course of the next eight years. The organizers are describing it as the largest application of cathodic protection to a group of shipwrecks yet.

Sinan Tavsan, Nikkei Asia

Minvans

As rising gas prices push American drivers away from the aspirational and towards the sensible, minivans have mounted a bit of a comeback. Though sales peaked in 2000, minivans offer the same utility and amenities as an SUV but at a fraction of the price, averaging $31,400 cheaper. Americans bought 281,000 minivans this year through August, up eight percent over the same January to August period of 2025. That comes as vehicle sales overall are down, and even though minivans are only about three percent of the U.S. auto market, they sold more than large SUVs (277,580 sales) over the same period. Only about one in 10 Americans who own an SUV ever drive it off road.

Kyle Stock, Bloomberg

Exoskelton

In 2025, Chinese companies shopped 26,000 exoskeletons for use in industrial, medical and consumer purchases. The wearable devices are designed to augment physical abilities and either reduce injuries or bring mobility to elderly people. Interestingly, while the 19,000 consumer models accounted for 70 percent of those shipped — followed by 3,800 industrial exoskeletons and 3,200 for nursing and rehabilitation — the real money is very clearly in medical devices, which accounted for 90 percent of sales.

Tomoko Wakasugi, Nikkei Asia

Whales

Iceland is one of just three countries — along with Norway and Japan — that still allows commercial whale hunts, and it’s also got only one remaining active whaling company. The company, Hvalur, operates two catcher boats and has caught 85 fin whales against a quota of 150 animals. It employs about 150 people during the whaling season, which runs June to September. Last week, the government announced plans to submit a bill this coming February that would permanently ban whaling, though that would be controversial; 41 percent of Icelanders oppose whaling, a third support it and 26 percent are neutral according to the latest polling.

Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Reuters

Phono V

How much money artists get from the sales and streams of their music is downstream of a negotiation that takes place between streaming services, record labels, songwriters and publishers. The proceedings that began earlier this year — the Phonorecords V proceedings — will set the rates for physical CDs, vinyl, downloads and streaming royalties owed to songwriters and publishers from 2028 to 2032. The labels and the publishers reached a deal on the physical and the permanent download rates in June, which is now under review by the Copyright Royalty Board. The bigger fight will be streaming, and that dealmaking is still under way; streamers, songwriters and publishers will file their formal submissions on October 5, and the Board will make a determination by the end of next year. The big issue this time around is bundling; basically, when Spotify added audiobooks and introduced a family plan — those had a lower mechanical royalty under the previous agreement, Phono IV. The National Music Publishers Association contends that the rate cost publishers and songwriters $500 million since 2024 and, if unaddressed, would cost them $3.1 billion from 2028 to 2032.

Alex Heiche, Billboard

Tri-Generation

Researchers looked into a way to get the most value out of a small modular nuclear reactor. They’re not just having it produce electricity all the time for the grid, but also using its steam for high-temperature steam electrolysis to produce hydrogen, and they’re also using the remaining heat in the water to convert seawater into freshwater. Essentially, this kind of system would get consistent use out of the 200 MW of thermal power with little waste heat released. Such an integrated system would be able to simultaneously produce 90 MW of electricity, 52 tonnes per day of hydrogen and 613 cubic meters of fresh water from a single reactor module.

Lorna Brigham, Physics World

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Numlock News is written each day by Walt Hickey. Email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Every post is entirely by a human; send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. If you enjoy Numlock, tell a friend, word of mouth is the only way that independent publications like this one grow.

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