Shoo fly

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: Mortgage refinances drop 18% after interest rates rise again; Just how sweet is champagne, anyway; Samsung gets very generous with its workers; and new study finds animals are 4x more likely to star in a film than women over 60…👀

Let’s get into it!

You ever have yourself a little bit of the bubbly and wonder how much sugar you’re actually consuming? It’s a fair ask, given how sweet Champagne can be, and it turns out there’s a whole process behind that sweetness.

The final step of the vinting process—also known as méthode traditionnelle—involves the inversion of the bottle to collect dead yeast cells into its neck, which is then frozen before compressed air violently ejects the remnants in an act called disgorgement, leaving behind a sparkling wine known as Champagne.

It also leaves quite a bit of acidity, which is why the natural sugar is added in a process called dosage, in order to provide balance.

“We keep a lot of acidity here in this region,” says Philippine Lipka, head of export for Champagne Chassenay d’Arce. “That’s why we always keep a pretty good balance between sugar and acidity, so it’s quite smooth.”

So how much sugar is actually added? It depends on the style of dosage being used, and various makers can be quite particular. The most popular method in use, according to Comité Champagne, is called “Brut,” which involves between zero and 12 grams of sugar per litre.

Samsung recently eclipsed the $1 trillion market cap milestone, with revenues soaring a whopping 800% in Q1, largely due to its manufacturing of semiconductors for use in AI.

The company is without a doubt the most important business in South Korea, accounting for 16% of the entire national GDP. In that regard, it’s essential for business to go uninterrupted, so when 48,000 unionized workers in Samsung’s semiconductor division threatened to go on strike, their demands were promptly met.

94% of operating profits were generated by the semiconductor division, but until the deal was announced the other day, employee bonuses were capped at 50% of the employee’s annual salary.

Moving forward, 48,000 workers will share in 10.5% of annual operating profits. In Q1 alone, those profits amounted to US$35.8 billion. 10.5% of that divided by 48,000 workers comes out to $78,000 in bonuses just for Q1; at an annual pace, each employee would hypothetically receive an additional $312,000 every year.

The strike was threatened after rival semiconductor manufacturer SK Hynix amended its compensation structure to better reward those making the hardware required for AI.

Forever chemicals—which are officially referred to by the abbreviation “PFAS”— pose a significant risk for the environment. Various environmental and health detriments have been linked to their presence, and global regulatory bodies have been trying to eliminate their use for decades.

That use started in the 1960s and peaked in the 1990s. Now, due to regulatory efforts, their presence was just found to be down 70% in certain marine ecosystems.

A study published in Applied Toxicology outlined the findings. Researchers analyzed the eggs of seabirds called northern gannets on Bonaventure Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where PFAS content has dropped 70% over the last 55 years.

“We see this incredible rise to a peak where concentrations seem to be higher than toxicological threshold for those birds, then it really decreases in a nice way,” Raphael Lavoie, a co-author and ecotoxicologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, told The Guardian. “The regulations are having a good effect.”

The team’s findings were noteworthy because St. Bonaventure Island is directly downstream of the Great Lakes, where forever chemicals were routinely dumped during the peak of their use. Their depletion in this area likely spells progress in other areas that were subject to their use but not in such high quantities.

A U.K. study analyzed the highest-grossing 100 films from 2023, 2024, and 2025, and found more movies featured a lead actor named Chris than a woman over 60.

In fact, it found films are four times more likely to feature a talking animal than an actress over 60.

The Age Without Limits survey was part of the broader goal of the U.K.’s Centre for Ageing Better, which is an anti-ageism group dedicated to fostering greater recognition of the ageism problem where it exists, and advocating for solutions to end it.

Actress Emma Thompson commented on the survey, saying she supports the Age Without Limits campaign.

“Women are half the population and we get older. So where are the stories about us? The older we get, the more interesting we are. I want to see more films center aging women, we are compelling, relatable, and overdue for center stage. Older women don’t need permission to exist on screen. They already exist in the world, cinema just needs to catch up,” she said.

Oddities

We’re back with another round of Odd Song Out with today’s trivia! Just pick the one that doesn’t belong, and you’ll be on your way 😏