Neighbors in Chile tried to stop an Amazon data center. Justice has left a clear message with its decision

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Artificial intelligence has been part of our lives for a long time, often almost without us stopping to think about what is behind it. We use it as if everything were happening in an invisible layer: models, algorithms and, perhaps, servers in some remote location. But we can also look at it from another perspective. The infrastructure that supports that world is very real: it has a location, consumes resources, requires permits, involves enormous investments, and can also alter the environment of those who live nearby. That is one of the great debates that is beginning to accompany the rise of AI: the cloud also has neighbors. They lost the case. A specific case leads us to Huechurabanorth of Santiago de Chile, where Amazon plans to build a data center. The initiative had received a favorable Environmental Qualification Resolution in July 2024, but not everyone was convinced that the project had been evaluated accordingly. That concern reached the judicial route through a claim presented by Patricio Hernández Valenzuelaa resident of the area, and the Second Environmental Court resolved on April 9, 2026 to reject ita decision that leaves the data center in a position to move forward. A very specific concern. Hernández questioned whether the environmental evaluation of the project had not adequately taken into account a possible high voltage line that, according to his approach, would be necessary to power the data center. The criticism was not minor: if both infrastructures were linked, they had to be analyzed together. For residents, not doing so meant leaving relevant impacts on the environment out of the analysis. The key to the failure. The court’s reasoning involves clearly separating both pieces. The ruling concludes that the data center and the eventual high-voltage line cannot be considered to form a single initiative, among other things because the Amazon project does not include that infrastructure as part of its design. Furthermore, the planned electricity supply does not depend on its own installation, but on the network managed by third parties, which reinforces the idea that these are different projects. Without joint evaluation. Once the existence of a project unit has been ruled out, the court concludes that an integrated environmental assessment is not appropriate. The sentence explicitly states it: “it has been proven that between both initiatives there is no relationship of functional interdependence that conditions their execution.” This nuance is key, because it implies that the data center can operate using the available electrical infrastructure, without the need to subject its viability to a future high voltage line which, in any case, would have to be evaluated separately if it were to be considered. Beyond the legal debate. The Amazon project has very specific dimensions on paper. The data storage center in Huechuraba is designed to operate for 30 years, with an estimated investment of 205 million dollars. It would be built on an area of ​​10.9 hectares, with a construction of 21,350.07 square meters, in the street of Américo Vespucio 1055. From the company, collects Reutershave pointed out that the design of the infrastructure focuses on minimizing energy and water consumption, and maintains that the plan met environmental requirements. Chile as a hub. The Huechuraba project is not an isolated initiative within Amazon’s strategy. Amazon Web Services has proposed an investment of more than 4,000 million dollars in Chile over 15 years to build, operate and maintain its infrastructure in the country. The idea is to turn Santiago into its third major center in Latin America, after São Paulo and the central region of Mexico. Factors such as connectivity through fiber optic cables are added to this context. The concern of those who live nearby. Beyond the investment and digital infrastructure they promise, data centers are often accompanied by very specific concerns: high electricity consumption, use of water for cooling, heat or noise generation, and their fit into environments that, in many cases, have environmental or community value. Google did not have the same path. The case of Amazon is not the only one that has gone through this type of debate in Chile. Google had obtained initial approval in 2020 to build a $200 million data center in Cerrillos, southwest of Santiago. However, the project’s journey was different. In February 2024, the Second Environmental Court decided to partially reverse that permissionand months later the company announced that it would not continue with the initiative as it had originally been proposed, opting to start a new process from scratch for a project in the same location, but with a redesign based on air cooling. Electricity enters the scene. If we broaden the focus, the debate is not limited to a specific project, but to the system’s capacity to absorb this type of infrastructure. A Systep reportpublished on September 23, 2025 with data from the National Electrical Coordinator, indicated that, taking 2025 as a starting point, the electrical demand of data centers in Chile could increase by 270% in five years. The same projection places this consumption at around 1,207 MW in 2030. These figures help to understand why the energy issue has become one of the central axes when talking about the expansion of the cloud and AI. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | In 2024, Big Tech spent absurd amounts of money on AI. In 2025, they managed to spend 77% more

China wants to do a “CAT scan” of the Earth, and to do so it has launched a hyperspectral satellite to see what the eye cannot see

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A Kuaizhou-11 rocket put into orbit On March 16, Xiguang-1 06, the most advanced commercial hyperspectral satellite that China has sent into space. The satellite is capable of analyzing the chemical composition of the Earth’s surface with great precision, opening up a whole range of possibilities. What a hyperspectral satellite allows. A conventional satellite captures images of the planet in a similar way to how a camera does. A hyperspectral satellite, on the other hand, is able to distinguish the unique spectral signature of plants, tissues and other objects on Earth, which allows, among other things, to prevent crop losses, locate mineral deposits or monitor the state of the environment. While a normal satellite can identify a forest from space, one equipped with hyperspectral technology can differentiate between different types of trees and even determine the health status of each of them. The key is that these sensors capture dozens or hundreds of bands of the electromagnetic spectrum simultaneously, something that provides spectral information so detailed that it often produces results impossible to obtain with multispectral satellites or other types of observation systems. The satellite. The Xiguang-1 06 was developed by Xi’an Zhongke Xiguang Aerospace Technology Group and launched aboard the Kuaizhou-11 Y7 rocket from the Jiuquan launch center in Gansu province. It is the first commercial hyperspectral satellite in orbit with full spectral coverage in the 400 to 2,500 nanometer band (from visible to shortwave infrared) and operates with 26 independent spectral bands. In practical terms, that means it can “see” far beyond the human eye, detecting mineral compositions, differentiating healthy crops from diseased ones, and tracking changes in ecosystems that would be invisible to any other system. According to Kou Yiminchief engineer at Zhongke What is it for in practice? In the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan the satellite monitors crop growth high value such as tea and traditional Chinese medicinal plants; in the mining areas of the northwest of the country, it issues early warnings about geological risks such as landslides. But the potential reach goes much further. Hyperspectral technology can analyze phytoplankton levels in the oceans, detect fuel spills from ships, measure methane leaks in energy facilities or monitor polluting materials from mining ponds before they reach nearby soil and vegetation. It can also locate mineral deposits such as gold under the surface, identifying the presence of chemical elements in its composition such as copper. one of many. Xiguang-1 06 is one more piece of “Xiguang-1”, a constellation that contemplates a total of 158 satellites: 108 general purpose hyperspectral remote sensing, 40 specialized in carbon emissions monitoring and 10 specific function. The goal is to complete the in-orbit network by 2030, forming a “full spectrum in 100 bands” observing system with more than one hundred operational satellites. To understand its scale, Xiguang-1 06 was one of eight satellites that traveled aboard the same Kuaizhou-11 rocket at the March 16 launch. What’s behind. Until a few years ago, hyperspectral remote sensing from space had been a field almost exclusive of government missions. In recent years, however, commercial companies have begun to emerge launching their own constellations of hyperspectral satellites. China, with Zhongke Xiguang at the helm, is one of the actors that has risen the fastest in this sector. The company also has the “CAS Xiguang Remote Sensing Cloud” data platform, considered the first hyperspectral data platform from China. The stated goal is to become the world’s largest hyperspectral constellation, with applications already covering agriculture, forestry management, oceanography, carbon monitoring and mining. Cover image | China Daily and Richard Gatley In Xataka | The origin of the “blue moon” is actually a translation error: how a “betrayal” ended up giving the satellite its name

the new family operating system that prioritizes mental health over extracurricular activities

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A drawer full of tupperware mismatched that threatens to overflow when opened. A costume from the school function forgotten for weeks in the back seat of the car. A mother laughing out loud with her children in the middle of a living room where the cushions serve as a military fort, blatantly ignoring the fluff in the hallway. It might seem like a portrait of an overwhelmed family, but it is, in reality, the image of a silent revolution. For the past two decades, the gold standard of parenting seemed to have a name: Mother Tiger. Inspired in Amy Chua’s controversial book In 2011, this model required parents—especially women—to act as CEOs of their children’s future. The ultimate goal was to optimize their success through packed schedules, tutoring, fluency in three languages, and an immaculate diet. But the mothers have said enough. Faced with unsustainable levels of exhaustion, a new generation is deciding to get off the wheel. They claim their right to live with dirty dishes in the sink and to accept that a grade of “Good” (a B) on the report card is more than enough. The Beta Motherand this new family operating system is showing that, sometimes, the best way to protect your children’s future is to simply leave them alone. The rebellion of the imperfect As stated an extensive report on The Wall Street Journalthese acts of daily “renunciation” are adding forces to become a “discreet feminist revolution.” The American newspaper illustrates this paradigm shift through women like Sophie Jaffe, a mother from Los Angeles who allows her 13-year-old son to do parkour around the city or set your own schedules, as long as you respect the curfew. “I see what happens to children who are overly controlled,” Jaffe tells the newspaper. “I’d rather them be out making memories than sitting in front of a video game.” In internet culture and popular psychology, this profile has been called a “Type B” mother. The magazine TODAY includes the explanations of psychotherapist Colette Brownwho defines these mothers as “relaxed, very patient, women who don’t mind chaos.” According to Brown, the rise of this profile on social networks is a direct response and a frontal rejection of pressure from the tradwives (traditional wives) and the toxic perfectionism of Instagram. Mothers like Katie Ziemer summarize this philosophy with a lapidary phrase: “I’m Type B, of course my house doesn’t look like a museum. I prefer my children to have fun playing in the mud rather than watching television.” The spectrum, however, has nuances. For those women unable to let go of control completely, the publication The Bump marks the emergence of a middle ground: the “Type C” mother. Coined by content creator Ashleigh Surratt, it defines “recovering perfectionists.” They are women who maintain non-negotiable structures (such as sleep schedules or medical appointments), but who apply strategic neglect to the rest. As one of them relates: “They have their shirts clean, even if they are not hanging in the closet; I know exactly which pile they are in.” This rebellion towards the imperfect is not born of whim, but of absolute collapse. Sociological data show that the demands on parents have multiplied exponentially. Recently in Xataka we documented how parents millennials Today they dedicate four times more time to their children than the generation of the baby boom. And the economist Corinne Low confirms in WSJ that, paradoxically, after the massive entry of women into the labor market, the time they dedicate to children’s tasks has skyrocketed (from 14 minutes a week of help with homework in 1975 to more than an hour today). Globally, the family scaffolding is creaking. A study published in the scientific journal Healthcare reveals alarming rates of burnout (burnout syndrome) applied to motherhood and fatherhood: it affects 8.9% of fathers in the US, 9.8% in Belgium or 9.6% in Poland. And they bear the worst part. Although in countries like Spain leave has been equalized to 19 weeks, recent studies indicate that 78% of mothers declare themselves overloaded, assuming the invisible weight of the “mental load.” As researcher Eve Rodsky warnsmen today “help”, but women continue to be the directors of the project, managing their partners as if they were kind subordinates. Science dictates sentence But this maternal collapse is not the only collateral damage. If all this enormous sacrifice had guaranteed the well-being of the minors, the story would be different. But scientific evidence has shown exactly the opposite. Parenting under the “helicopter” model—flying over children to spare them any frustration or failure—is destroying them. Academic journals are blunt. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of Adult Development, which reviewed 53 independent studiesshowed that paternal overprotection is directly associated with an increase in internalizing problems (such as anxiety and depression) and a sharp decline in self-efficacy and academic performance of young people. Along these lines, an investigation of Journal of Youth and Adolescence showed that excessive parental control directly threatens the satisfaction of adolescents’ basic psychological needs, especially their sense of autonomy. The real-life result is a drastic increase in adolescent psychiatric admissions and alarming rates of suicidal ideation linked to the inability to manage frustration. Preventing a child from tripping deprives him or her of the neurological development necessary (specifically in the prefrontal cortex) to learn to stand up. However, we must take a broader look. How it contributes The Conversationthe phenomenon of hyperparenting is the psychologization of an enormous social problem. In other words, it is easy to criticize the mother who calls the university to review her child’s exam, but we ignore the macroeconomic context. Parents subject children to academic training programs almost from preschool because they perceive a wild and stagnant job market. When you compete with millions of graduates to obtain a halfway decent job, the anguish of ensuring the child’s future becomes a suffocating control. Furthermore, getting off the wheel has a high emotional cost. The publication Bolde documents the “B side” of being a Beta mother. These … Read more

The Solar Impulse made the dream of the solar airplane a reality. Now it has ended up destroyed after an accident

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There was a time when the Solar Impulse 2 It seemed like it came from a simple question: how far can a plane go if we leave out conventional fuel. The answer was not a commercial product, but an experimental aircraft powered by solar energy and batteries that ended up flying around the world. That is why the news has a special charge. That plane that symbolized a different way of imagining aviation has ended crashed in the Gulf of Mexico during an autonomous test. The coup came on May 4. According to Aviation Safety Networkthe Solar Impulse 2 was conducting an autonomous test flight when it lost power and ended up crashing into the water. The least bitter part of the news is that there were no injuries or deaths, something important because the plane was already flying without a crew in this new stage. The most symbolic part is another: the device that for years turned a technological promise into something visible has been reduced to the remains of an accident. Behind the project was Bertrand Piccarda figure marked by a family tradition of explorers: his grandfather Auguste Piccard was a pioneer of the depths and his father, Jacques Piccardarrived at the Mariana Trench. In 2003 started to imagine a solar aircraft capable of going around the world to draw attention to the “sustainable energy“First came Solar Impulse 1, with its initial flight in 2009and then the final jump. The plane that converted the sun into flight energy What is striking is that this ambition was not based on a gigantic machine in the traditional sense. The Solar Impulse 2 had a huge wingspanabout 71 meters, higher than that of a Boeing 747, but it weighed around 2.3 tons thanks to its carbon fiber structure. The energy came from 17,248 photovoltaic cells distributed throughout the plane, with a maximum power of 66 kW to drive four electric motors and charge four lithium-ion batteries. The moment that made it more than a technological oddity came in 2016. That year, the Solar Impulse 2 completed the first trip around the world of a fixed-wing plane powered entirely by solar energy, a journey that It lasted for more than 15 months. Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, co-founder of the foundation, alternated at the controls during the tour. It was not a demonstration of speed, of course: the plane was moving between 31 and 62 miles per hour, slowing down during the night sections. After that feat, the story changed tone. In 2019, the Solar Impulse Foundation announced the sale of the plane to Skydweller Aero for an undisclosed amount. The Spanish-American company did not view the project from exactly the same place as its creators: its interest was in exploring the potential of the aircraft as a surveillance and communications platform, a very different destination from the original message of energy awareness. With Skydweller the technical transformation of the device also began. After incorporating numerous modifications, the plane completed in Spain his first autonomous flight in 2023and the following year it carried out its first completely unmanned operation at Stennis International Airport, near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The company’s stated goal was to develop a fleet of solar aircraft capable of non-stop flights at certain latitudes, between Miami and Rio de Janeiro. The ambition was evident: almost continuous operations for military and commercial contracts, at a much lower cost than satellite-based options. A huge promise that has ended underwater. Images | Solar Impulse (1, 2, 3, 4) In Xataka | While we all look at Iran, something is moving in the Arctic Circle: Russia is sending bombers with missiles

12 premieres this week on Netflix, including the return of one of the platform’s most successful franchises

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We cross the midway point of May, and we do it in a big way, with two premieres that are among the juiciest of this week in streaming: the return of ‘Berlín’ with a second season that recovers the most filigree and elegant side of ‘La casa de papel’, and ‘Flow’, one of the best animated films of recent years. And it is not the only thing that the most popular platform has in its portfolio this week. series Berlin and the Lady with an Ermine The second installment of the, for now, only spin-off of ‘La casa de papel’ announced by Netflix (we will have to see what those already announced next steps are in the franchise expansion) takes us to Seville: a great Andalusian businessman commissions Berlin, again played by Pedro Alonso, to steal ‘The Lady with an Ermine’, the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci that arrives in the city for an exhibition. Berlin believes that it is better to rob the thief himself, and sets up his usual gang: Michelle Jenner, Tristán Ulloa, Begoña Vargas, Julio Peña Fernández and Joel Sánchez, who are joined by Inma Cuesta as an unpredictable and temperamental Sevillian. Premiere: Friday, May 15 Nemesis More robberies, more suspense and more tension with this series about the confrontation between two men who, despite being on opposite sides, share more than they imagine: an obsessive detective and a sophisticated thief expert in high-profile robberies. But they both share something that makes them more similar than they want to admit: they want to protect their families using the only means they know. Matthew Law and Y’lan Noel lead the cast of this series co-directed and produced by Mario Van Peebles. Premiere: Thursday, May 14 Other series Devil May Cry (Season 2) – Tuesday, May 12 Secrets of sport – Tuesday, May 12 Gallitos (T2) – Wednesday, May 13 Between father and son – Wednesday, May 13 Soul mates – Thursday, May 14 The Middle – Friday, May 15 The SUPERgeeks – Friday, May 15 Movies flow One of the most extraordinary and celebrated animated films of recent years, premiered in Cannes in 2024, and winner of the Golden Globe for Best Animated Film and the Oscar in the same category, becoming the first Latvian film to win an Academy Award. It stands out for being completely rendered with the free and open source software Blender, and for not containing any dialogue. The film tells the story of a cat, a dog, a capybara, a ring-tailed lemur and a secretary bird who travel together through a surreal, dreamlike landscape flooded by water, in a world in which human beings have disappeared. An allegory about cooperation in days of adversity, more than necessary in these times. Other movies Marty, Life is short: The documentary – Tuesday, May 12 The crash – Friday, May 15 In Xataka | Netflix premieres today the dystopian series that has risen to the throne of the best in history in six seasons

A new search method detects dozens of possible planets with two suns that had gone unnoticed by us

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Nowadays, more than 6,000 planets are known which, like ours, revolve around a star. On the other hand, only 18 planets have been found that orbit a binary system, with two stars. For this reason, they are considered a rarity. They are so rare that the best known of them all is Tatooine and, far from existing, it belongs to Star Wars fiction. However, a team of scientists from the University of New South Wales has decided to change the method we use to search for planets. In doing so, they have suddenly found 27 candidates for planets with two suns. An underused method. The method that have used These scientists know as apsidal precession. It was already used in the past to characterize binary star systems. However, until now it had not been used to check if there is another object, such as a planet, within that same system. Broadly speaking, it consists of locating possible changes in the eclipse calendar of the two stars. If these changes cannot be explained with general relativity or stellar physics, there must be something disturbing their movements. This is how, thanks to the TESS telescope, 27 candidates for circumbinary planets (with two suns) have been located, although it will still be necessary to confirm which ones are really planets. Stars playing hide and seek. Eclipses occur when, from the position of the telescope observing them, one star interrupts the light of the other. In a known binary system, these eclipses are predictable. Therefore, if we see something that doesn’t add up, there could be a planet in the way. TESS typically relies on the transit method to detect exoplanets. It detects periodic disturbances in a star’s brightness, which could indicate that a planet is crossing between it and the telescope. However, if the planet has an irregular orbit that is not in the telescope’s line of sight, it may go unnoticed. However, with this new method that is not a problem, because you do not have to see the planet or the changes in the brightness of the star. It focuses rather on the gravitational effects that affect its two stars. It doesn’t matter that its orbit is not visible to us. It’s just the beginning. This team has detected 27 candidates for circumbinary planets in a total of 1,590 two-star systems analyzed. That means about 2% of these systems could host planets. If this is true, thousands more planets could soon be detected. For a long time, exoplanet detection would have been highly biased. Artist’s representation of a system with two stars A great variety. The smallest possible circumbinary planet that has been detected has a mass similar to that of Neptune, while the largest is 10 times more massive than Jupiter. The closest one is 650 light years away from us, while the furthest one is 18,000 light years away. There are candidates in the northern and southern skies. In short, there is a great variety. That also supports the hypothesis that there are a wide variety of planets out there that, until now, have been invisible to us. And now what? Now it will be necessary to check which of those 27 candidates are really planets. Some stars, such as brown dwarfs or white dwarfs, could also alter the eclipse calendar of the binary system. Even black holes could do it. Therefore, it must be ruled out that it is any of these phenomena. To resolve this question, another instrument will be used, the Anglo-Australian telescope from Coonabarabran. With it these other very massive objects could be detected. If no plausible explanation is found, it would be concluded that it is a planet. What we can learn. Having techniques to detect another totally different type of exoplanet gives us much more information on planetary formation. There could be planets similar to Earth, whose only difference is the existence of two suns. Some of them could even host life or have hosted it in the past. The range of possibilities would open up greatly. About half of the stars in the universe are found in binary or multi-star systems. And all of that is still unexplored. Image | Star Wars | NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle In Xataka | There is only one chance in 11,000 years to reach the planet Sedna. Some Italians want to use this nuclear engine

a soap opera of dirty laundry in which no one comes out well

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He Elon Musk lawsuit against OpenAI (or rather, against Sam Altman) is being the soap opera of the year in the tech universe. The main accusation is that OpenAI violated its founding agreement to be a non-profit organizationbut the rivalry between its two protagonists goes far beyond business, it’s personal. The trial was intended to be a spectacle in which all kinds of dirty laundry were going to be aired and it is not disappointing. Two versions very different. Or rather, completely opposite. Elon Musk’s version is that OpenAI has betrayed the founding agreement of being a non-profit organization, whose goal was to achieve AGI that would benefit humanity, all because of the greed of Sam Altman. “This lawsuit is very simple: it is wrong to steal from a charity,” he said in his opening statement. The OpenAI version It’s just the opposite: the one who intended to profit was Elon Musk and, when the rest of the founders did not want to follow his plans, he left angry. According to OpenAI’s lawyer, Musk’s anger began when the ChatGPT boom occurred in 2022. “That’s when the resentment arises,” he declared. I didn’t read the fine print. The main reason for the lawsuit is, as we said, that OpenAI changed its founding commitment to achieving AGI to serve humanity. Although there are emails that agree with Musk, in 2017 he signed a document detailing the transition to a for-profit company. When asked why he signed said document if he was against it, Musk said that “I didn’t read the fine print, just the headline,” a statement that doesn’t play in her favor, especially when she has tried to sell the role of deceived victim. Desperate Altman. Both parties have provided evidence to defend their position, among which all types of annotations and private conversations that leave both in a very bad place. One of those conversations is an exchange of messages between Sam Altman and Mira Murati in 2023when Altman was removed from the companyin which he has a desperate attitude, even suggesting that Microsoft buy OpenAI to be able to return. The exchange shows a very non-transparent and chaotic internal climate, closer to a power negotiation than an organization with an altruistic mission. burning man. Part of the defense strategy of OpenAI’s lawyers is to paint Elon Musk as an unstable and unreliable person. Among the questions they asked him, one stood out in which they questioned whether Musk had attended the Burning Man music festival and whether he had consumed ‘rhino ketamine’. The CEO of SpaceX denied it and the judge vetoed further questions about substance use. The informant. One of the key witnesses is Shivon Zilis, who between 2020 and 2023 was part of the OpenAI board. At the same time, Zilis was in a romantic relationship with Musk and had four children with him. The problem, according to OpenAI, is that none of this was communicated and Zilis was actually acting as an informant of Musk, who tried to influence the company’s decisions from outside. Brockman’s Diary. Greg Brockman, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, kept a diary in which he wrote down all kinds of thoughts. Brockman saw the break with Musk as “the only opportunity” to remove OpenAI from its orbit, while he openly considered how to reach $1 billion. For Musk’s team, the diary is gold because they present it as proof of their intention to get rich. For OpenAI, it is simply the internal dialogue of a Brockman concerned about the tension between its mission and economic sustainability. Cover image | Village Global and Gage Skidmorevia Flickr In Xataka | Sam Altman has been searching for a revolutionary device for the AI ​​era for some years. That device is… a cell phone

How a seat change on flight KL592 has shown the cracks in the system

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We’ve been talking about it for two weeks. hantavirus in Europe and the script is getting more complicated. It is no longer just the three dead, the rejection of the president of the Canary Islands, the air evacuations to Nebraska or the French emergency decrees. Now, in the last few hours, the plane thing is added. And the Health Department of the Generalitat of Catalonia investigate a third case: a passenger on flight KL592 who did not appear in the first scan because she had changed seats during the flight. The important thing here is not the virus. It never has been: hantaviruses have been known for decadesthe Andes variant has waging war for years and the WHO itself classifies the population risk as low. The important thing is the x-ray that traces everything about our international epidemiological control system. And what a picture… The way in which this outbreak has been detected (an autopsy in Johannesburg and not through active surveillance protocols), the failures of tracing (about thirty people disembarked before there was an alert) and the heterogeneous response of the different states are drawing the first serious “stress test” for a world that said it was prepared for the post-COVID world. But it wasn’t. Although the response is being good, effective and worthy of praise, there are three big gaps that we cannot ignore: how diseases are tracked in an increasingly complex world, what happens to the international health cooperation network (when there are people actively trying to dismantle it) and how is it possible that a change of seat can be, even today, enough to lose a contact. In the end, what differentiates this outbreak from that of El Bolsón in ’96 or that of Epuyén in 2018 is that, in addition to affecting a considerable group of Westerners, it has generated an enormous trail of cases internationally. We must not forget that the first deceased from the ship died on April 11 and no one identified the cause until three weeks later. In fact, the detection has had a lot to do with chance: if it had not been for the autopsy that was performed on his wife in Johannesburg, no one would have found out until a long time later. That allowed more than thirty people to get off the ship and move around the world. And how is it that we have ‘unlearned’? The best example is the EU cross-border tracking system which, although it has many technical and legal devices, has been hibernating since 2026. But there are many more, no country had updated protocols for a virus that, let us remember, was causing problems in one of the largest (and interconnected) metropolitan areas in the southern hemisphere. And that should lead us to reflect on how we are going to prepare for a world where these types of problems They are going to be more and more common. Image | Ministry of Health In Xataka | It is not so contagious, but it is very lethal: in Argentina the hantavirus went from 17% to 33% in the blink of an eye

A gigantic tunnel boring machine 16 meters in diameter is devouring the sea floor under Genoa. It is your solution against traffic

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Under the port of Genoa, the largest in Italy, there is a machine that aims to devour the sea floor meter by meter. And it does so from the bowels of the earth, 45 meters deep and without interrupting the traffic that passes above it every day. The key is a 16 meter diameter tunnel boring machine that is drilling into the seabed like butter. This is how Italy is solving one of its most entrenched mobility problems, and in the process building the first underwater tunnel of the history of the country. A problem that has been unsolved for decades. Genoa is a city trapped between the Mediterranean Sea and the foothills of the Apennines. It has no room to grow. Its historic center is a labyrinth of narrow streets, and east-west traffic has always been a headache. The solution adopted in the 1960s was to build a gigantic elevated highway, the Sopraelevata Aldo Moro, which crosses the city like a concrete scar. for her About 80,000 vehicles pass through each daybut at a high price: it blocks the view of the sea, generates constant noise and, for many citizens, is a barrier that separates the city from its own port. Its demolition has been stalled for years because no one knows what to do with that traffic in the meantime. Tragedy. The tunnel project was born from an agreement between Autostrade per l’Italia, the Italian Ministry of Transport and local administrations as compensation to the city after the collapse of the Morandi bridge in 2018. That collapse, which claimed 43 lives, left Genoa without one of its main accesses and put the highway concessionaire company under the spotlight. As part of the repair agreement, signed in October 2021, Autostrade per l’Italia, the Liguria Region, the Western Ligure Sea Port System Authority and the Municipality of Genoa agreed to build this underwater tunnel. It is, in practice, the great work of compensation for a city that suffered a tragedy. What is being built. The total route is 4.2 kilometers, of which 3.4 run under the sea floor. It will consist of two separate galleries, one in each direction, each 16 meters in diameter, and will reach a maximum depth of 45 meters below sea level. When completed, it is expected to be Italy’s first underwater tunnel, the largest in Europe (with pardon is being built between Germany and Denmark) and the fourth largest in the world by diameter. Next to nothing. The key: a Hydroshield TBM. Excavating under an active port without interrupting its activity is a monumental challenge. The solution is a TBM tunnel boring machine (Tunnel Boring Machine) Hydroshield type. Each of the two main galleries will be constructed by mechanized excavation with a Hydroshield type back-pressure armored TBM milling cutter, with an excavation diameter of approximately 16 meters. Why this type and not another? In a Hydroshield TBM, the balance in the excavation chamber is maintained through the pressure of water or bentonite slurrywhich stabilizes the excavation face. The extracted material is mixed with these sludge and transported to the surface through pipes. It is the ideal technology for unstable terrain with the presence of water: it allows you to continue drilling without the sea floor crumbling and without the sea entering the gallery. The port above is still working. The gallery measures 15.4 meters in diameter on the outside, but the useful space for circulation is somewhat less, 14.3 meters, because the walls are considerably thick. These walls are built by assembling prefabricated pieces of concrete, as if they were the staves of a giant barrel, joined together with screws and sealed with rubber gaskets so that water does not enter. As if that were not enough, an additional layer of concrete is added inside that further reinforces the impermeability, especially in the sections that are just below the port. The result is a practically airtight tube capable of withstanding the pressure of the sea on its walls. lto logistics of the work. You can’t just place a tunnel boring machine on the seabed and run it. First you have to prepare the ground. The tunnel boring machine was thrown from an attack pit in the San Benigno areaon the west side of the city. To free up that space, Autostrade first had to move a port railway line that ran through there. The railway route, about 700 meters long, has been moved about 70 meters to the south with respect to its previous position, running parallel to the port sopraelevata until passing under it in its final section. Deadlines. Preparation works started in 2023, and work began in March 2024. However, the full tender for the construction of the two main galleries was not approved until January 2026. The specifications set a period of 75 months to complete the entire work. According to the latest Autostrade documents, the TBM will complete excavation work in October 2030, with full completion of the work planned for 2031. Budget. The project started from a budget of 700 million euros, although the mayor of Genoa, Silvia Salis, confirmed that Autostrade now places the cost at more than 1,129 million euros. An escalation of costs that, according to the original agreement between the parties, is covered by a mechanism linked to national highway tolls. Transformation. When the tunnel is completed, it will allow the creation of new green areas (10 hectares, distributed in three public parks) and pedestrian routes that reconnect the city center with the sea. In the San Benigno area, on the new railway gallery already in use, the Lantern Park will be built, which will connect that sector with the city’s historic lighthouse through a bicycle and pedestrian path. In Xataka | Mexico touches the sky with a new and elegant skyscraper of 484 meters and 99 floors: it will be the tallest in all of Latin America

We had been searching for the origin of the most massive black holes for years. The answer is a cosmic carom of extreme violence

by

All black holes They are the fruit of a very violent activity. However, there are some for which the known processes are insufficient. Now, an international team of scientists has discovered how the most massive black holes in the Universe form. It is a process so violent that it needs a huge star cluster to support it. Two groups of black holes. This team of scientists has analyzed the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC4), which includes 153 detections of black hole mergers through gravitational waves. By analyzing all the available data focusing on the spin of black holes, they have seen that all of them can be divided into two large groups. On the one hand, black holes of lower mass, which arose from an ordinary stellar collapse. On the other hand, very massive black holes, arising from secondary mergers in the environment of dense star clusters. Okay, now that you understand. Generally, black holes are formed when a very massive star that has already run out of fuel collapses. This gives rise to an explosion in which the outer layers of the star are expelled, leaving only a very dense core. It is so dense that it generates a great gravitational pull and nothing can escape from it. On the other hand, there are such massive holes that do not fit with this process. They are believed to be second generation black holes. That is, two black holes they merge and then the result merges with another black hole, becoming much more immense. That would be the second group that has been detected in the GWTC4 catalog. Something doesn’t add up. This black hole merger process is so violent that, as soon as the first merger occurs, the result would fly away like a rocket For it to stay in place and merge with a third black hole, something is needed to retain it. These scientists have discovered that these are densely populated star clusters. There are so many stars in them that the gravitational attraction of all of them keeps the black hole still in place. And what does spin have to do with it? Spin is a parameter that refers to the spin of black holes. When formed in the conventional way, the spin is predictable and perfectly aligned with the star that gave rise to the black hole. On the other hand, when they are formed by a process as violent as these consecutive fusions, the spin takes a random direction, but a value predictable from the sum of the spins of the rest of the black holes. These scientists, therefore, saw that all the data coincided with that hypothesis: consecutive mergers in the environment of a very populated star cluster. A forbidden zone. On the other hand, these scientists found a forbidden strip of stellar size in which black holes could not form. There are small or huge ones, but not medium ones. Although this is something that was intuited, the complete set of data they have obtained gives a twist to what is known about the formation of black holes. Relationship with nuclear physics. As explained by these scientists, this detected mass limit seems to be related to a series of nuclear reactions that take place inside stars. Stellar nuclear reactions are nuclear fusion. Humans have learned to control nuclear fission, but it poses risks that would be solved if we also mastered nuclear fusion. Until now It is being a complicated challengebut perhaps these new findings, obtained thanks to gravitational wave analysis, could shed a little more light on this research. Everything adds up. Image | NASA, ESA, STScI and A. Sarajedini (University of Florida)/NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) In Xataka | What happens if you fall into a black hole, explained simply in an overwhelming NASA simulation

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