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Exact time left for Earth in the habitable zone before ocean collapse

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

For as long as humanity has been aware, it has wondered when and how the end of the world will come. Far from apocalyptic prophecies, science has a much more calculated, cold and inevitable response, since it is clear that the Earth has an expiration date, or at least its capacity to host life as we know it does. It has been calculated. A classic study published in the magazine Astrobiology In 2013 by researcher Andrew Rushby, he calculated the “habitability window” that our planet has left. The magic number, popularized from these physical and climate models, is around at 1.8 billion yearswhich is the average value that we find in the range between 1,750 and 3,250 million years. The problem is that this date is not entirely real, since within 1.8 billion years there will be no type of life on our planet, but for human beings and complex life the expiration date is much earlier. The culprit. To understand how scientists arrived at the figure of 1.8 billion years, we must look at the Sun. And, like any star of its type, our Sun is subject to a process of stellar evolution that means that, as it consumes its nuclear fuelits core contracts and heats up, causing the outer layers to expand and, therefore, its luminosity does not stop growing. Here Rushby’s team did not make a simple random prediction, but rather their methodology consisted of combining models of this evolution of solar brightness with parameters of the greenhouse effect and the energy balance of the Earth. What they were looking for was to calculate the exact moment at which the Earth will leave the so-called “habitable zone.” A little further. The habitable zone is that orbital strip around a star where temperatures allow the existence of liquid water on the surface of a rocky planet. But as the Sun becomes brighter and hotter, that fringe moves toward the edges of the solar system, while the planet does not move from its orbit. And that is a problem. All this means that when the Earth crosses the inner limit of this zone, the increase in solar radiation will trigger a runaway greenhouse effect, similar to what Venus suffers today. The effects of this will be the evaporation of the oceans, which will contribute to the greenhouse effect, trapping heat even more and accelerating the process until the Earth loses its liquid water irreversibly. And with it life. Different types of life. It is crucial to differentiate what “habitable” means in astrobiological terms versus what we consider “habitable” in our daily lives. A very important fact is that the Earth is approximately 4.545 billion years old, and life in its simplest forms emerged surprisingly early about 3.7-4.3 billion years ago. With all this we mean that the end of life will be staggered, starting with affecting complex life like us, which are extremely fragile to thermal variations. This makes the authors emphasize that the conditions for animal and human life will be greatly lost before reaching those 1.8 billion years. The last to die. The Apocalypse of 1.8 billion years refers to the last breath of the planet. In that final scenario, when the oceans are evaporating, only the most resistant extremophile microorganisms will be able to survive in isolated niches such as pockets of groundwater at very high temperatures before facing total extinction. Looking to the future. At this point, one might wonder what point it is to calculate exactly when the oceans will dry up eons from now if humanity today has more pressing problems. And the answer lies in the search for other planets, since by perfectly understanding how the “window of life” evolves in our solar system, astronomers have tools to apply to exoplanets that we are discovering thousands of light years away. In this way, knowing how long a planet’s habitability lasts depending on its host star helps us know where to look. We may find a planet in the “habitable zone” of its star, but if calculations reveal that it has only been there for a few million years, it is likely that complex life has not had time to evolve yet. Images | Javier Miranda In Xataka | Ryan MacDonald, astronomer, on the future of the Earth: “The death of the star is not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter”

Anthropic has condemned him to “I would rather not do it”

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

The anonymous narrator of our story hires a clerk named Bartleby for his law firm. The employee starts working in an enviable way, but after three days, something happens. The narrator asks him to compare a document and Bartleby answers with a immortal phrase: “I preferred not to do it”. That famous quote is part of the story ‘Bartleby, the clerk’ that the American writer Herman Melville (author of ‘Moby Dick’) published at the end of 1853. The story was barely successful at the time, but over the years it gained more and more impact. That phrase became a kind of hymn to apathy, inaction and laziness, and these days we have been surprised to find a new Bartleby. one called Fables 5. Anthropic’s AI model was launched on June 9 as the most powerful, expensive and exclusive in historyand although its performance in benchmarks was spectacular, we barely had time to taste it: the US government decided that it was too good to be publicly available to non-US citizens. Then Anthropic decided to cut off access globallyand for three weeks Fable 5 was in limbo. This week Fables 5 has become available again, but from the beginning Anthropic warned that I did it with a few asterisks. The AI model, they explained, brings new security filters to avoid misuse. In the original launch, the company already indicated that if the model detected problems in the conversation, it would not be Fable 5 that would answer. Instead, they said, “Queries on some topics will instead receive a response from our second most advanced model, Claude Opus 4.8.” With the “redeployment“Those filters would be even more severe. What we didn’t know was how much. Fable 5 prefers not to do things Multiple comments on networks like X or Reddit reveal that Fable 5’s performance has been absolutely artificially layered or, in industry jargon, “nerfed”. The model seems to behave worse, but the real problem is that it is a model that constantly resorts to Bartleby’s “I’d rather not”. Instead of doing what the user asks, it automatically makes the jump to Claude Opus 4.8, a model that is certainly capable, but is not what users would want because they intend to take advantage of the theoretical power of Fable 5. The worst thing is that Fable 5 resorts to that “I’d rather not” philosophy with practically everything. Dylan Patel, creator of the famous consulting firm SemiAnalysis, did the test with the traditional “how many R’s are there in ‘raspberry’” and Fable 5 warned him that the model could not answer that question. The performance of the model also seems to have been greatly affected by this redeployment, and independent tests They showed how in the BridgeBench benchmark the score of the original Fable 5 and the current Fable 5 was very different. That specific test It was too specific. as some analysts commented, and the problem is not so much that performance drops (it doesn’t do it too much, or even improve) like the one in Fable 5 just refuse to answerwhich also does very difficult Evaluate your current performance. Added to this factor is the fact that Fable 5 will be a particularly exclusive model: it can be used with Anthropic’s free and paid subscriptions until next July 7, but then this model will disappear from said plans and it will only be possible to use it with credits. That is, paying per use, which for intensive uses can be very, very expensive. We are therefore facing a particularly delicate moment: if companies like Anthropic begin to artificially limit the capabilities of their most powerful models or “route” them to inferior models at the first change… What is the point of developing these models? Commercially, the idea doesn’t make sense either: if business users are going to find that the model goes to “I’d rather not do that” and goes on to respond with an older and worse version, they won’t be particularly happy about paying for the “expensive” model. Anthropic is in a compromised situation, and what is happening with Fable 5 may end up marking a turning point in the way end users and professionals work with AI models. In Xataka | The future of geopolitics is played in AI models: Claude Fable 5’s veto indicates that Europe is offside

While AEMET fears the second great heat wave of the year, meteorologists warn that “we have to prepare for harsher summers”

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

At this point in July and with another heat wave showing its teeth starting next week, we can already say that high-latitude blockages are altering the forecast for the summer. And they alter it for the worse: meteorologists They take it for granted since the situation is going to be quite persistent. The data is worrying, but as meteorologist Mercedes Martín says that we have to “prepare for harsher summers” does not mean that “we have to resign ourselves.” “There has never been so much information available as now and, however, it is not always able to transform what we think, feel or make decisions,” explained to National Geographic Spain. And he is somewhat right “it is not to diminish the urgency of the climate crisis, but to prevent the message from always being trapped in the same tone of alarm.” But what exactly does that mean? There are reasons for alarm… Of course there are. Spain has warmed around 1.75 °C since 1961approximately double the global average, and summer is moving dangerously towards 2 °C. Since 1975 there have been registered 12 heat waves in Juneand half are from 2015 onwards: if between 1975 and 2000 there were two, between 2001 and 2025 there were ten. The March 2022 superclimate left PM10 peaks of 3,070 µg/m³ in the southeast. That is, about 68 times the WHO daily limit. And, if that were not enough, the Mediterranean is warming at an especially rapid rate (up to three times faster than other bodies of water). The problem is that we get used to this exceptionality very quickly. And yes, “problem” is the word. This has long since ceased to be something from 2100. June 2026 has been the second warmest June since 1961with an anomaly of 3.2 °C and the MoMo system estimated about 900 deaths attributable to heat that month alone. In France those figures have been much worse. That is, we are not talking about projections or statistics: we are talking about people dying every year. Our inability to translate climate data into accepted and acceptable policies costs lives. And what do we do? Because, as Martín points out, the permanent catastrophic tone saturates, tires and sometimes paralyzes more than it mobilizes. But, on the other hand, turning down the volume just when the numbers are getting worse (the worst fire year in three decades, the second warmest June, hundreds of deaths, etc…) can be read as subtracting urgency. The answer is simpler than it seems. Because, whether we like it or not, the big problem with climate communication has never been drama. It has been the enormous gap between knowing and doing. Although there are many things we can intuit, the truth is that climate change is putting us on an unprecedented path. These uncertainties are added to the difficulty of predicting anything related to the weather and generate the feeling of doing politics blindly. But it is not true: that France have 50 degree exits for the next few weeks is exactly the kind of thing we would expect. That figure will not be reached, it is true: but it contains almost everything. We just have to realize Image | Benbaso – Xataka In Xataka | Europe enjoys the cleanest skies in half a century. And that’s one of the reasons why this summer is burning up.

In the midst of a heat wave, Europe has started buying air conditioners in droves. And China can’t cope

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

I don’t know anyone who likes air conditioning, especially for sleeping. However, when the heat hits, it is impossible to spend the days indoors. if we don’t have the device on. The problem is that I am speaking from the position of a Spaniard who lives in La Mancha, where air conditioners practically come with houses. Further north or in the rest of Europe, directly, the air conditioning with 20% penetration in houses, it is a mythological animal. It was, rather. With the current heat wavecountries like France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have started buying air conditioning units like crazy only to find themselves with a problem: China is the main supplier and the manufacturers cannot cope. And I’m not going to say that air conditioners now are geopolitics, but a little… yes. Let’s see it. It’s hot and there is no solution. Two weeks ago I was at Vivatech, in Paris, and this past weekend in London and Liverpool. At 29º, the Apple Watch showed me that in Paris They were on orange alert by heat. 29º in my land is a slightly hot spring day (unfortunately). In the United Kingdom, however, things changed and it wasn’t just incredibly hot: when you entered an establishment it was even worse. Not only do they not have air conditioners because they have not needed them, but have built so that the houses retain heat. A taxi driver told me that the best time of day is when he is working because his house is a sauna, and it makes perfect sense. Spain and France are two of the most affected countriesbut northern Italy, Belgium, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Germany and the aforementioned United Kingdom are also suffering the consequences. And the problem is no longer that it is hot, but that mortality due to heat has skyrocketed in recent weeks. The solution? The north of Spain and European countries have started buying air conditioning units like crazy, but there is a problem. Exhausted. The middle SCMP He has a representative in Paris and tells how, a few days ago, he approached several businesses to try to get an air conditioner. The answer that he found in several of them, and that some friends reported to him, is that everything was sold. The scene is like something out of an apocalyptic movie, with stores with shelves full of everything except the air conditioning section, which is empty. He started looking at online stores, such as a German website designed so that people can find specific models of these devices and, after searching 1,176 stores, the model he wanted was only in one of them. In these countries where air conditioning is not normal, people go out to cool off in fountains and rivers, and even French President Emmanuel Macron has addressed the population pointing out that it is impossible for them to adapt “to a peak that has no equivalent anywhere in Europe today and that has never had an equivalent in our history.” Perhaps he has become a little heated with that statement, but it reflects that the situation is becoming unsustainable. And you would think that the solution is to start importing more, right? The problem is that it is not that simple. Bottleneck in production. China, as with other everyday devices, is the main manufacturer of air conditioners. Brands such as Haier, Gree, Hisense or Midea are some of those that lead the market, even creating models adapted to European regulations in certain countries (such as the Midea PortaSplit for windows, which makes little noise and has a very low refrigerant charge, ideal for Germany). There are others like Xiaomi (whose model we analyzed last year and a year later I confirm that it is still going great), Dreo with its fans or Dreame that are starting to bring their models to Europe because they have seen that they definitely have a pull. Only in May, esteem that China exported air conditioners worth $3.33 million to France, $2.82 million to Germany and a whopping $7.69 million to the Netherlands. It implies an increase of 186.2%, 69.6% and 139.1% respectively compared to the previous year. This percentage in France is explained if we take into account that, according to French data, only between 18% and 26% of homes had air conditioning until then. Also in logistics. Another problem is that these brands mentioned do not manufacture only for themselves, but for other manufacturers that sell OEM equipment, which implies that the factories are full. It is estimated that China accounts for 40% of global air conditioning exports and, to meet that demand, some manufacturers have begun to work day and night to satisfy European demand. “China cannot ship air conditioners fast enough to meet European demand” They are prioritizing more portable models and split for Europe because they have seen a huge market, but they cannot multiply production indefinitely without incurring overcapacity the rest of the year. Giants like Cainiao, AliExpress or Joybuy they are meeting with a brutal bottleneck because, although they have had units in advance trying to tackle this summer’s situation, they have simply… flown out of European warehouses. And in the installation. Faced with this situation, and seeing that heat waves are increasingly common, Europe estimated in 2024 that expected 70 million AC devices to be installed by 2030. This would mean covering 35% of European homes, but if all these factors were not already a salad of problems full of ingredients, two more are added. The first, the regulation of each city. In Spain we are used to seeing the typical indoor split unit with a compressor hanging from the façade, but there are important heritage restrictions in historic centers that allow drilling into walls or altering the aesthetics of buildings. In neighborhood communities you must ask for permission, there are fines for installation on facades without authorization (in Italy, for example) and the price of electricity doesn’t help … Read more

“Many do not check the air conditioning gas because they do not spend 60 euros and the breakdown is 400”

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

To no one’s surprise, this weekend it will be hot. The news is not that it will be hot in Spain the first weekend of July, the news is that we are on our way to burning this summer. To lighten the drama a little, we can look for remedies to cool our houses, get the most out of our air conditioning and strictly follow the usual recommendations so as not to cause new health problems. But although it is recommended that we leave the long trips for the less hot hours of the day, we all know that is not always possible. The heat, a car full to the brim and a vehicle that has not been serviced in a timely manner are the best ingredients for having a problem. One that can leave us stranded in the ditch, which is not always pleasant when the sun beats down on the asphalt. The key is foresight (of course) Just as when we go on a trip we mentally write down a few details to take into account (take some water for the road, look for the least hot hours, keep an eye on Google Maps and look for a place to eat…), doing the same with our car before leaving will also save us a lot of trouble. “The key is to anticipate,” he assures us. Xavier Celda, Market Manager, Workshop Specialist at Norauto Spain. “The best remedy is always preventive maintenance. Have the car ready and checked to prevent all this from happening as much as possible.” They think the same from Midas. Francisco Javier Fuentes, mechanic and trainer at Midas Spainpoints out that “the best way to avoid breakdowns resulting from heat is to opt for preventive maintenance.” And both focus on four key points to review: Coolant liquid Tires Battery Air-conditioning Given the high heat that we have to face, Xavier Celda is clear that the first thing to look at is “the coolant. We must check that it is at the correct levels and, above all, that it has not lost its properties (it is recommended to replace it every 2 or 4 years according to the manufacturer).” And he warns: “a small leak or not changing this fluid can cause extreme overheating in the engine. This usually leads to the breakage of the head gasket, one of the most feared breakdowns whose cost on the market can exceed 1,000 euros, depending on the model.” Francisco Javier Fuentes makes the same recommendation but points out something very important: “in case of overheating, I never recommend opening the coolant tank while the engine is hot, since there is a risk of serious burns. The best thing to do is to turn off the engine, wait for it to cool and call for assistance. if required”. Checking the tires, they both match, it is essential. Always when cold, we must check the tire pressures and follow the manufacturer’s instructions if we are going to fill the trunk with packages and the passenger compartment. Firstly because any imbalance will cause constant deterioration of the moving parts of the car but, above all, for a matter of safety. And not having adequate pressure can cause greater instability, lengthen braking or, if wear is excessive, induce a blowout. The most frequent breakdowns Although this is the most important thing to look at before leaving home, Norauto and Midas point out two major victims due to the heat. The most common fault, according to both experts, is the battery. “Extreme heat accelerates the degradation of the internal components of the battery and evaporates water from the electrolyte. It is the number one cause of roadside assistance in summer and one of the main reasons why people visit our workshops during these months of intense heat,” they explain from Norauto. And they repeat from Midas: “The battery is sensitive to temperatures above 25 °C. (As a result of extreme heat) its useful life is reduced when it is continuously exposed to high temperatures.” This fault can leave us stranded at any point when we have stopped the car but there is another big signal that can leave us stranded while moving. It is not essential to continue but it has become essential to travel comfortably. It is, of course, the air conditioning. Xavier Celda, from Norauto, is clear that investing a few euros can save us a major breakdown and, above all, the inconveniences of not being able to have air conditioning: “Many drivers do not refill the gas or check the circuit until the air stops cooling completely. The problem is that forcing the system to work at the limit without the appropriate level of gas and oil can end up seizing the air conditioning compressor, a part whose replacement costs more than 400 euros, compared to the 60 or 90 euros that a recharge and preventive diagnosis costs” And although we think of air conditioning as an element of comfort, it is also an element of security. According to the Foundation for Road Safety (FESVIAL)“driving at a temperature of 35ºC, inside a vehicle, can represent a risk similar to that of being under the influence of a blood alcohol level between 0.5 and 0.8 gr/l.” According to their data, when driving with such a high interior temperature, “approximately 20% of traffic signs are not perceived and serious driver errors increase by up to 35%.” In fact, they claim that the probability of suffering an accident increases between 15 and 25%. Photo | Windy and Paréj Richárd In Xataka | Resolving one of the great debates of the summer: whether the car consumes more with air conditioning or not

limit the capacity of Barajas and El Prat

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

If you visit the airports of Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga or Palma de Mallorca (among many others) these days, you are likely to encounter a flood of travelers pulling suitcases and with more or less happy faces, depending on whether they are going or returning from vacation. Normal in July. The problem is that: that this image is increasingly ‘normal’, more common. So much so that last year Aena reached a passenger record in 23 terminals. In fact, El Prat already has surpassed its ceiling and Barajas is about to do so: in 2025 it moved about 68.2 million of passengers, very close to the limit of 70 million that Transport assigned in 2023. Given such a panorama and the “limitations” that El Prat and Barajas are already suffering, Aena has had no choice but to rethink its way of managing the grid. Objective: avoid collapse. The news has advanced it The Country: faced with the avalanche of travelers in its airport network, especially pronounced in certain terminals, during certain months and at certain times of the day, Aena has opted to take action. Looking ahead to the summer of 2027, the operator will apply a series of adjustments to optimize its two hubs with greater activity, Barajas and El Prat, taking greater advantage of the strips in which it can still grow. Both the airport Madrid like that of Barcelona They have projects on the table to strengthen their capacity in the future, but the idea is to improve traffic organization until then, taking advantage of the room for maneuver they have left. That Aena has decided to make a move just now is no coincidence. In 2025 both terminals saw their traffic grow until touching (or exceed) its operating limit, and everything indicates that tourism will continue to grow in 2026. What do you want to do? In a release launched this morning, Aena explains that it wants to “optimize the use of available capacity” in Barajas and El Prat for next summer. As? “Ordering and distributing” the spaces in both terminals when responding to airlines that need slots. In practice, this means that Aena will reconsider their way of working. Until now, it announced the total capacity of the aerodrome taking as a reference what was happening on the flight strips. In the future it will include capacity per terminal and specify passengers by space and type of traffic. It will do so, he specifies, “in the face of capacity limitations” at times of greatest saturation. “Aena seeks to deseasonalize the new slots within peak hours of activity in favor of off-peak hours. This is a measure that will dynamically adapt the space of the terminals without limiting their current capacity. The aim is to make the terminals more efficient to guarantee quality service,” insist the airport manager before clarifying two aspects. With expiration date. The first thing Aena specifies is that this “redistribution of spaces” will only affect airlines that want to grow in Barajas or El Prat at certain times and months. Second, that these limitations “will disappear” as soon as the investments planned for the year have been made. cycle 2027-2031 and that seek to reinforce the capacity of both terminals. What the data says. It may seem excessive, but the data from the Ministry of Transportation speaks for itself. In 2025, the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport registered 68.18 million passengers and Barcelona-El Prat another 57.48. Not only do they exceed 2024 results and pulverize the pre-pandemic marks, when both terminals moved respectively in 61.73 and 52.69 million. They also test the seams of both infrastructures. As remember The CountryRight now the capacity of the Madrid terminal is around 70 million passengers and the ceiling of the Catalan terminal is about 55 million. Peak hours. Of course, these are annual data and the volume of passenger and airplane traffic fluctuates considerably throughout the year, but what is most worrying are the ‘peak’ moments in which activity skyrockets. For example, peak hours in certain summer weeks, when hundreds of thousands of families from all over the world pack their bags to travel. Both foreigners bound for Spain, and Spaniards flying to other parts of the country or the planet. The new measure announced by Aena is not exceptional. In Heathrow either Amsterdam They already limited the number of flights or passengers after the pandemic, although in that case the reason was staff shortage for its management. Beyond the “limitations”. In your statement Aena emphasizes that the “limitations” are only a temporary handicap and “will disappear once the proposed investments for the 2027-2031 investment cycle are executed”, the DORA 3. In fact, it comes after other news that important mobilizations of funds are advancing to strengthen the operations of the Spanish airport network. In September 2025 the Government advertisement investment close to 12.9 billion of euros between 2027 and 2031. In total, the expansion of AS Madrid-Barajas will be allocated 4.5 billion and the objective, recognized by the Executive in 2024, is to reach a capacity of 90 million of travelers. In El Prat a draft improvement to raise your potential to 80 million. Images | John Waco,jr (Unsplash), John Oswald (Unsplash) and Angela Compagnone (Unsplash) In Xataka | The Albaicín of Granada is one of the most popular destinations in Andalusia. And now the new victim of “overtourism”

The two top Coca Cola machines return to Lidl for this summer: they prepare pizzas and popcorn

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

You enter Lidl and on many occasions you don’t know what you are going to find, since, above all, its Bazaar section usually stands out for its products. You can see some electric guitar, pressure washers and Coca Cola machines. These last ones are the most current, since after launching them on sale a few weeks ago, they have returned with a reduced price: Coca Cola popcorn machine by 74.99 eurosideal for enjoying summer vacations watching movies. Coca Cola pizza machine by 84.99 eurosperfect for gatherings with friends. Coca Cola popcorn machine The Coca Cola popcorn machine It has a particularly attractive retro design, its dimensions are 29 x 24.8 x 49 centimeters and its price is 74.99 euros instead of 169.90 euros. It includes a stainless steel cauldron that can be easily removed and a pouring system to extract the popcorn. In addition, it incorporates a crank to rotate the boiler and a measuring spoon. If you are looking for an alternative to this machine to prepare popcorn, the Cecotec Fun&Taste P’Corn Classic It is a little cheaper as it has a price of 62.90 euros. On the other hand, if you want a very economical one with a good number of ratings, the Princess it costs only 23.73 euros. Princess popcorn machine The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Coca Cola pizza machine The Coca Cola pizza machine has a price of 84.99 euros instead of 159.90 euros and is ideal for those homes that do not have an oven. It comes with four temperature levels, its dimensions are 36.5 x 35.4 x 22.3 centimeters, it includes a spatula and can be cleaned comfortably. If you are looking for an alternative, the Cecotec Fun Pizza&Co is cheaper, since its price is 49.90 euros. We can also find the Ram 909 which has more than 13,000 reviews on Amazon, although it is a little more expensive than Coca Cola as it has a price of 94.99 euros. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Lidl and Compradicción (header), Coca Cola In Xataka | American refrigerator or 70 cm Combi? Be careful with making mistakes when buying liters that you may not be able to use In Xataka | Which home theater projector to buy, which is better?

Anthropic is already preparing just the only thing it was missing to reinforce its AI leadership: its own chip

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

Tech giants have learned something the hard way: depending on third parties is a weakness. Anthropic seems to have realized the same thing, and has been mulling over an important idea for months: making its own AI chip. As indicated in The Informationthe company is in negotiations with Samsung for a potential collaboration, although at the moment everything is unknown. Surprise, none. Already in April Reuters Indian that Anthropic was considering the idea of developing its own AI chips in order to respond to the chip shortage. It seems that this proposal is really gaining traction, because what was once a possibility has now translated into concrete conversations with one of the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world. The shadow of OpenAI. The move comes just a week after OpenAI unveiled its own custom inference chip, baptized as “Jalapeño” and developed in collaboration with Broadcom. According to company officials, that chip offers better performance per watt than other inference chips, and that could leave Anthropic behind in this race. The reaction of the firm led by Dario Amodei therefore seems logical. They want to diversify, not replace. The strategy, however, is not to completely eliminate its current partners, but rather to have a more diversified strategy for the future. In statements to TechCrunch Anthropic officials have indicated that its “diversified hardware stack, which includes chips from Google, Amazon and Nvidia, will continue to be crucial to its computing strategy.” Everyone wants their own chip. The announcements and news surrounding OpenAI and Anthropic are not, as we said, any surprise. In the last two years we have seen how more and more technology companies joined the trend of having their own AI chips, when before they delegated that aspect to specialized companies like Nvidia. Thus, we have: Samsung, a perfect partner. The South Korean company has been deeply involved in the AI industry for some time. It is a key partner of Nvidia, as it manufactures some of the chips it needs to train and run AI models with its GPUs. Not only that: Samsung is improving your OPC lithography of chip manufacturing thanks in part to the “AI Factory“of both. In Xataka | Anthropic already had Claude writing code. Now he has put it in the laboratories

18 years ago he went viral for his famous “I’ve messed it up.” Now Antena 3 has paid him 50,000 euros to turn it into a meme

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

Spain repeated the phrase “I have messed it up” with an unmistakable Madrid accent for almost two decades, being very clear about the origin (a young lifeguard whose intervention in the Antena 3 news program had gone viral on the Internet), but perhaps without knowing the true scope of the joke. The Provincial Court of Madrid has just set the effects of one of our most famous memes at 50,000 euros. The sentence. The Provincial Court of Madrid sentenced on May 5 Atresmedia to compensate the woman who starred in the video for “La he liado parda” with 50,000 euros. The court raised the amount set in the first instance, which had been 40,000 euros, and rejected the appeal presented by the audiovisual group. The resolution also orders the removal of the recordings from all Atresmedia platforms and prohibits their reuse in similar circumstances. What happened. The origin of the video is in the summer of 2008: an Antena 3 interview with a young lifeguard after an incident with chemicals in a swimming pool in San Sebastián de los Reyes, where she utters the phrase that would become a classic of Spanish humor. The original interview, protected by the right to information, is outside the sentence. What the sentence punishes is subsequent reuse: The condemnation also extends to La Sexta, Onda Cero and Europa FM, stations from the same group that continued to exploit the recording for years in comedy programs and compilations. The demand. The woman filed the lawsuit in 2021, after verifying that her voice and image continued to circulate without her permission. more than a decade later from that afternoon at the pool. There is an episode that gives an idea of the scope and consequences of the video: years after the recording, some police officers, upon identifying her, came to comment among themselves “we are here with the one who has gotten into trouble.” It is just an anecdote that allows us to guess the pernicious reach of a video that went viral without the woman’s permission: it took her several years to return to work, it was an ordeal for her to see her image on television, she found herself wearing t-shirts with her face on it and she even had problems developing her profession almost a decade later, due to anxiety attacks, hospitalizations and medical leave. Who pays for the meme. The ruling does not hold Atresmedia responsible for the original viralization of the video, which attributed to the dynamics of the internet and social networks. The damage is “serious” in moral terms, although it is not entirely attributable to the chain. What he does attribute to him is the decision to continue broadcasting that material for years in his own programs, with massive audiences, when there was no longer any informative justification. Atresmedia is not planned appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court Other victims of memetics. The case of the Madrid lifeguard is, of course, not the first. The Star Wars Kid dates back to 2002, and his fame began when, at the age of 14, he recorded himself imitating a Star Wars lightsaber combat. A colleague found the tape, uploaded it to the Internet and the video became one of the first big virals on the internet. As a result, the boy suffered bullying, had to change schools and received psychiatric treatment. His family sued the colleagues responsible, claiming around $250,000 and reached an out-of-court settlement in 2006. Years later, he explained that a crime would have given him more legal protection than a viral video without his consent, since juvenile laws did not contemplate that scenario at that time, which was not yet known as cyber bullying. Victims in Spain. In Spain, the perhaps best-known case is that of Álvaro Muñoz, the 12-year-old boy who burst into unexpected racist comments when talking about tranquility is what is sought in the summer pools. He suffered his corresponding share of bullying and harassment when his address was made public, he received 17 complaints of racism and spent five years going to juvenile court. Recently has announced that he had regretted the comments and was entering a seminar, closing this circle of Celtiberia Memes. Luckily not all the protagonists of youth memes in Spain are broken toys: Miquel Montoro, the boy from “Host, piles”has become influencer of the rural world with social media accounts that exceed 400,000 subscribers. And José Gómez, who uttered the glorious phrase “You can’t live off petanque” has ended up becoming world champion of the discipline. The meme as a meat grinding machine. Researcher Limor Shifman defines memes, in her book ‘Memes in Digital Culture’as units of digital content created, imitated and transformed with the awareness of belonging to the same shared pattern. This is what explains why “La he liado parda” survived for so long: it stopped being the testimony of a specific person and became a reusable piece, without the need to reference the original event. The ruling recognizes, in some way, this mechanism: the magistrates distinguish between the legitimate informative use of the interview and its subsequent reuse for entertainment purposes, which they consider an interference in the right to one’s own image. Journalist Jon Ronson describe Similar processes occur when digital lynchings take place: the target loses its personal context and begins to function as a symbol of the transgression it represents, almost as if it were a company that has been involved in a public relations disaster and not a person with a life behind it. In this case, that symbol was not just constructed by anonymous users: the network itself that recorded the original interview fueled its circulation for more than a decade. In Xataka | When a town found a dead whale on its beaches, it decided to dynamite it. 55 years later they still celebrate it

having an older brother is destroying your health

July 3, 2026 by usatoday24

If you’re the little one in the house, you probably inherited your older brother’s clothes, toys, and textbooks. But, according to science, you also inherited something much more harmful, which is its viruses. And what might seem like a simple childhood anecdote about boogers and daycare has a real, measurable and profound impact in the health, educational level and even the economic future of minors. Something common. For decades, sociology and economics have documented that first-born children tend to do better academically and economically. Traditionally, this was explained by theory of “parental care” pointing out that first-time parents dedicate more time, energy and resources to the first child, which is more complicated to offer later with a second child. However, a new wave of macro studies with millions of data is showing that biology and epidemiology have as much or more weight than parenting. The nursery. A recent massive study based on Danish administrative records, which has followed 1.2 million individuals for forty yearshas put figures to this phenomenon. And their conclusion suggests that younger siblings are two to three times more likely to be hospitalized for respiratory infections during their first year of life compared to older siblings. The reason is obvious to any parent, since the older brother acts as a “vector of contagion”, bringing home countless pathogens from daycare or school just when the immune system of his younger brother, who in this case is a simple baby, is most vulnerable. The impact on payroll. What is truly revolutionary about the Danish study is not that the babies get sick, but the long-term consequences. Here researchers have directly linked this severe exposure to early respiratory diseases with lower income, lower educational level and worse mental health outcomes, both in adolescence and adulthood. In fact, data suggest that this early exposure to disease explains about half of the economic and vital gap between firstborns and younger siblings. The other 50% would still be attributable to the difference in parental care. It had already been studied. These data confirm classic studies, such as the one carried out in 2005 with population registries in Norway, which already warned that the higher the order of birth, the worse the socioeconomic results. Norwegian data showed that the fourth or fifth child in a family has almost a year less of formal education than the first, and that women born last have higher rates of teenage pregnancy. The disease. But birth order not only punishes the little ones, it simply distribute risks differently. A colossal study by the University of Chicago carried out in 2026 on 10.3 million people and a previous Swedish macroanalysis have drawn the definitive map of how our position in the family shapes our medical history. In this case, although first-born children enjoy better overall health throughout their adult lives, first-born children have a significantly increased risk of developing autism, Tourette syndrome, childhood psychosis, anxiety and depression. Furthermore, they bear the brunt of autoimmune and dermatological diseases: more allergies, rhinitis and acne. It’s just statistics. Faced with this avalanche of data from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the US, it is easy to fall into determinism. However, the researchers behind all of these works emphasize a golden rule of statistical science by pointing out that all of this refers to population trends, not individual convictions. Images | Annie Spratt In Xataka | Carles Lalueza-Fox, geneticist: “We probably have more than one double somewhere on the planet”

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