Month: February 2026

I was about to buy the best-selling Chinese motorcycle in Spain. Until I read the fine print

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Chinese motorcycles They are driving the Spanish crazy. So much so that they are achieving the unthinkable: snatch the throne to the historic Japanese Honda and Yamaha. It is no wonder, since both in terms of performance and price, what the Chinese proposals offer is simply unbeatable. Servidor was recently at the Zontes dealership to test what is currently the best-selling A2 license scooter in Spain: the 368G. I went down from trying it convinced of the purchase, until I read the fine print. One that has a lot to do with China’s strategy to conquer Europe. The aforementioned. If you don’t understand much about motorcycles, the summary is easy: this motorcycle is “the SUV” with the best quality-price on the market. It costs less than 5,000 euros, has a 368cc engine and almost 40hp of power, and comes with extras such as rear and front cameras with Sony sensors, heated grips as standard, keyless boot and hood, screen with mirroring for the mobile… The equivalent in any traditional brand costs about 1,500 euros more. The rolling smoothness of the motorcycle is excellent, and although the general qualities are somewhat tight (something completely logical, given the price), it is an absolutely winning purchase. Everything good, except for one little problem. We are guinea pigs. China is achieving something unthinkable a few years ago in the world of motorcycles (and cars). They have not come to compete against smaller brands or carve out a niche for themselves. They have landed in Europe to take the top positions in the ranking and end the leadership of traditional brands. Decades of reign that they have managed to end in a very short time. To do this, at least in the territory of motorcycles, something key is needed in a vehicle for daily use and enjoyment: reliability. And to ensure that the bike passes through the workshop frequently, the inspection intervals are especially abnormal. Yes, but. In the case of this Zontes, the maintenance interval is 4,000km. Yes, every 4,000km you have to go to the workshop. To give you some context, its rivals like the Honda 350 ADV They go through the workshop every 12,000km, and the Yamaha Xmax 300 every 5,000km for oil changes and every 10,000 for the rest of the consumables. The brand is completely aware of the problem this poses, and the 2026 model will arrive in summer with maintenance intervals of 6,000km. It is a substantial change, since every 12,000km a 368g will have passed through the workshop three times. One 2026, two. Little by little. Zontes is not alone in this problem. Voge, the Chinese manufacturer that has managed to become the top 1 in the best-selling trail motorcycles in Spain, has several models with service intervals every 6,000km. But in its star versions, such as 900 DSXthis goes up to 10,000km. If they still sell, imagine in a year. There are many bikers who do not put too many kilometers on their motorcycle, or those who are willing to visit the workshop twice a year in exchange for taking a much more equipped, complete and powerful product. China is managing to place its motorcycles in the top 3 in sales even with this enormous handicap on the table. When your maintenance intervals match the rest of your competitors, the rest will be history. Image | Zontes In Xataka | Spain loves one thing: cheap motorcycles. Europe doesn’t like something else: cheap motorcycles.

In 2010, a student from Barcelona was looking for an easy way to edit PDFs. 16 years later, it is one of the most viewed websites on the internet

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From a form to a receipt to an invoice: PDF is the quintessential extension for sharing documents, regardless of whether you do it from a Windows computer to an iPhone or an Android tablet. It doesn’t matter: you’re going to see the original format no matter what. But, oh my friend, if you have to get your hands on a PDF. Marco Grossi also found himself in trouble with a PDF. One, who is already in her years, had to make a living to avoid paying for the Adobe Acrobat license (in the past it was not a subscription and the price was not exactly cheap) to edit a PDF for a cent by the wind: from printing and scanning to wasting time reconstructing with a word processor. In that first decade of the 2000s I was a student who struggled with documents and Marco Grossi, too. Back in 2010, this Barcelonan, who has studied Multimedia and Photography and also programming, found himself faced with a task as mundane as having to copy and paste a PDF: it was not an easy task. How does it count himself for La Vanguardia“I’m a programmer, and I’m good at computer issues, so it took me about 15 minutes to figure it out.” And then came iLovePDF. As the founder and CEO confesses for El Paísat that moment he discovered that there was a need: “I realized that it was very simple and that I could create it myself.” It was not the first (the ancient but reliable PDFSam It had an interface that was backwards), but it was the one that managed to establish itself as the software to manage PDF for normal and ordinary users (although also for companies reluctant to pay, because it solves the basics quickly and well). A meteoric rise. What started as a personal project that he combined with freelance web design, in 2014 became his 100% occupation. Until 2017 he worked alone from home, but at that moment he took a step forward: He rented an office and hired an old college classmate. Now there are 43 people. At that time, his website was already receiving between 200,000 and 300,000 daily visits from organic traffic. In 2025 Grossi counted which were around 150 million unique users per month. The portal ahrefs listed it in 2024 in 34th place on a global scale, above Amazon in India and just below Wikipedia in Russia. Screenshot of iLovePDF from 2018. via Archive.today Good, nice and cheap free. Your philosophy From the beginning it has been to be a free, accessible, high-quality and easy-to-use service. A quick visit to their website gives us a mosaic with icons and clear messages “Join PDFs”, “Split PDFs” and an agile and intuitive step by step to obtain documents with good quality, without limitations or watermarks. We are using iLovePDF in Spanish, but the website is translated into 25 languages ​​so that language is not an obstacle. In 2018 (the oldest capture saved on Archive.today) also. They also do not market with the data: Marco Grossi details that as a European firm they are governed by the GDPR and that all PDFs are deleted within two hours, without anyone being able to access them. In addition, he explains that they have ISO 27001 certification. In the beginning they financed themselves by advertising, but according to their CEO that is very risky. How iLovePDF Makes Money. So since 2014, in addition to the free options, they offer subscription services, so that advertising generates residual income. They are a small company, but they provide service to those people who visit their website, which we have already seen are many. That is why the Barcelona native explains that “we only need a very small percentage of users who pay to finance us.” 80 – 90% of your income they come precisely from its premium subscriptions, aimed at companies. The rest comes from an advertising banner that, my servant who has been using the service for so many years that she does not remember, nor did she remember it. The cost of being premium It is 5 euros per month and access to extras such as digital signatures or getting rid of ads, but it is totally dispensable: its founder details that the free version is enough for 99.9% of those who use us. They are not for sale. Marco Grossi is not a wolf of Wall Street: he himself admits that he never had an entrepreneurial spirit and that he does not open purchase proposals, something similar to the VLC project and that has turned both platforms into memes of saints or heroes on social networks like X/Twitter. Being a self-financed company allows Marco and his team to maintain their philosophy and reject offers. Although its history is meteoric considering its 15 years of life, the CEO speaks of sustained business growth and that they will never hire 200 people in a year to have to close. Their staff turnover is very low, but solid: they want to replicate their model with their counterpart for images, iLoveIMG. In Xataka | In 1990, a company in Barcelona came up with a crazy and visionary idea: talking on your cell phone while you’re stuck in traffic. In Xataka | In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

We’ve been believing oatmeal is the perfect breakfast for years, but science has a warning: there’s a limit

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Over the past few years, oatmeal has been crowned the undisputed queen of healthy breakfasts. And you just have to look at the internet a little to see the porridge from Instagram wave cardiologists recommendation to think that we are facing a perfect food without any type of failure. However, everything can have fine print and oatmeal is one of them. Investigating. Even if you eat healthy, there are people who experience abdominal bloating, gas, or general digestive discomfort with oats. And it’s not that oats are bad, but there are chances that we are eating them wrong. This is something you have already researched. to Monash Universitya world leader in digestive health, by putting an exact figure on the table: 52 grams. This is something that also the nutritionist has put on the table Óscar Hurtado who points out that oats are healthy, but they have a very strict “tolerance curve” for some intestines. The reason. The problem with oats is found in the FODMAPs (oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and fermentable polyols). These are nothing more than short chain carbohydrates that the small intestine cannot absorb well, and that is why They continue their ‘journey’ to the large intestine where the bacteria found here rapidly ferment them. producing gas. But not only this, it can drag water causing diarrhea. And this is where Monash University comes in, which has measured the effect that these compounds have on our body. One of its main conclusions It is in that 52 grams of oats (which is half a cup) is the safe amount of fructans for most humans. If we go too far. In the case of passing the barrier of 60-70 grams, the fructan content in the intestine it triggers and begins to cause problems. Something that is of great interest to those who suffer from a digestive problem such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)since it would be going from an ‘anti-inflammatory’ breakfast to a trigger for abdominal distension and pain. More studies. This is not a warning from now, but has great support in science. An example is the Halmos pivotal trial that showed that a low-FODMAP diet reduces gastrointestinal symptoms. between 22% and 45% more than usual diets. This was because they reduced the amount of fructans, very present in oats, in the diet they ate. But in addition, a 2022 study also confirmed that portion control of this type of fermentable carbohydrates significantly improved life in patients with IBS. And it wasn’t about eliminating oats from the diet, but about keeping them in a “safe zone.” There is no need to demonize. With these studies, logically we do not have to reach this point with oats, since it has many benefits behind it. The Spanish Heart Foundation and multiple nutritional studies remind us why it rose to the breakfast throne in the first place. And it has the ability to give satiety, which helps with weight control, and also delays the absorption of carbohydrates to prevent insulin spikes that are really harmful to the body. Although it doesn’t stop there, since for people with high cholesterol its high amount of beta-glucans can reduce the “bad” cholesterol known as ‘bad cholesterol’ or LDL. Based on tolerance. The conclusion we can reach is that if you have an iron stomach and a good oatmeal breakfast does not affect it at all, you can continue taking it normally. But in the event that symptoms such as bloating or diarrhea begin to appear, it is better to start lowering the dose to see if this “perfect breakfast” begins to feel good again. In this way, we are left with its beneficial properties without the digestive discomfort that we can hate so much. Images | Dor Farber In Xataka | We have been relying on the Nutri-Score in stores for years. Science believes that its real impact is zero

inviting to “dinner” is increasingly becoming inviting to order on Glovo

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It’s Saturday afternoon. The sun begins to set and in the living room of a shared apartment, the Catan board It is spread out on the low table. We are four friends. The conversation has drifted, as almost always lately, towards uncertainty: the price of rentals, geopolitical instabilityhow difficult “everything” is. Suddenly, there is silence. It’s 8:30 p.m. and hunger is pressing. A decade ago, someone would have gotten up to the kitchen. “I have pasta, shall we make a quick sauce?” the host would have said. Today, no one moves. Almost by a synchronized reflex, three phones are unlocked at the same time. Nobody wants to cook. Nobody wants to stain. And, above all, no one wants to wait. Within minutes, a delivery person will be at the door. We have outsourced the most basic act of survival and socialization: feeding ourselves. It’s not that we became lazy overnight. The structure of our consumption has changed radically. If we look at the x-ray of Spain, the data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) draw an ascending curve that is dizzying, the consumption of prepared dishes has grown by 514.8% since 2004. In the last two decades, we have gone from seeing convenience food as an emergency solution to making it the base of our nutritional pyramid. In 2024, each Spaniard consumed on average almost 17 kilos of prepared food per year. The penetration of this habit is absolute. According to data from the consulting firm Kantar“ready to eat” already reaches 98.6% annual penetration. Virtually all Spanish consumers resort to it. The point is that we no longer look for flavor, or even health as an absolute priority (although it is valued). He drivers The main thing, in 85% of cases, is convenience. Six out of ten Spanish households openly declare “not having enough time to cook.” We don’t buy food, we buy time. The monopoly of “not cooking”: how Mercadona kept half of the cake On this game board, there is an undisputed winner who saw the future before anyone else. Mercadona, with its “Ready to Eat” section, has achieved a dominant positioncapturing 51.2% of the market share in the distribution of ready meals. Juan Roig not only sells ingredients; Now sell the time that you don’t have—or don’t want to dedicate—to cooking them. This brings us to the prophecy that the president of Mercadona launched a year ago and that sounded like a death sentence: “In the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens.” Roig maintains that, in the future, houses will not have space to cook because we will simply arrive at them with the food already made. The industry seems to be betting everything on this card: the Familia Martínez group, Mercadona supplier, is investing 150 million euros in facilities to manufacture roasts and gratins on an industrial scale. This trend has transformed even historical giants. Telepizza, the pioneer that taught us to order food by phone in the 90s, has entered the red in 2024. The paradox is cruel: they lose money in the golden age of delivery because the market has been saturated. They no longer compete against another pizzeria, they compete against all types of gastronomy delivered to your door in 30 minutes. Roig’s prophecy is not science fiction, it is current urban planning. Our own homes are expelling us from the stoves. Domestic architecture has undergone a radical bifurcation explained perfectly in a report by elDiario.es: the “decorated” kitchen and the “waste” kitchen. On the one hand, in luxury or renovated apartments for tourist rental, we see immaculate kitchens, open to the living room, designed to be photographed but not used. As the architect Luis Lope de Toledo explains: “Many contemporary kitchens seem designed to be photographed, not to be stained (…) When the kitchen becomes an aspirational symbol rather than a tool for living, it loses its authenticity.” On the other hand, the reality of housing precariousness in large cities pushes towards the model kitchenless (without kitchen). In the growing “mini apartments” and studios, cooking space is reduced to a minimum. The architect Laura Pato points out the harsh reality of the real estate market: “It is very common to see apartments that only have a stove and most do not have an oven.” If your kitchen is a narrow, unventilated hallway or a corner in your bedroom, the app of delivery It stops being a leisure option and becomes an infrastructure necessity. Saying goodbye to the aspiration of cooking If industrial investment is face A of this phenomenon, face B is found in second-hand platforms. Wallapop has been filled with kitchen robots Thermomix of previous models (TM5, TM31) at knockdown prices. At first glance, it might seem that there is a culinary resistance that seeks to equip itself cheaply. But a more cynical—and probably more realistic—reading suggests the opposite: it is a failed operation. Thousands of users are getting rid of an appliance that cost more than 1,000 euros and that promised to make cooking easier, realizing that even with a robot, you have to peel, clean and wait. The Thermomix requires planning that the average user no longer has. Selling the robot is the final act of giving in to immediacy. The decline of cuisine brings with it the death of a sacred ritual in Spain: the after-dinner meal and the traditional structure of meals. According to the Gastrometer 2025 by Just Eathe delivery It is no longer a weekend treat but has become part of the work and family routine. But the most alarming thing is how we eat. The Ministry of Agriculture confirms an extreme simplification: Half of the meals we eat during the week are already single dishes. In the case of dinners, the figure skyrockets: 7 out of 10 times we have a single dish for dinner. We have eliminated the first, the second and the dessert. The dining room table, that piece of furniture that once presided … Read more

We know it as “the red planet”, but 3.37 billion years ago Mars was almost as blue as Earth

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The mystery of Mars and water has a new chapter. The missions like Curiosity in the Gale crater they show clear evidence for the existence of liquid water lakes for thousands or millions of years. That climate models show that the early Mars It was a cold place. with temperatures significantly below the freezing point, it was elucidated with seasonal ice shields. However, among the pending subjects of Mars astronomy is knowing how much there was water and when was there. Mars was (half) blue. A recent study published in the scientific journal npj Space Exploration echoes the discovery of a “tide line” that explains that there was once an interconnected water system. Ignatius Argadestya, the lead author of the study, explains that although today Mars is a dry and reddish planet: “our results show that in the past it was a blue planet similar to Earth.” In fact, they have been able to demonstrate the existence of the deepest and most extensive ocean that has existed on Mars to date, account the scientist that half the red planet was once blue: “an ocean that extended across the planet’s northern hemisphere.” Valles Marineris in Hi-Res The “deltas” of Mars. More specifically, they have investigated geological formations called deposits with steep front located in the region of Valles Marineristhe largest canyon system in the solar system. Using very high resolution images from Cassis of the European Space Agency and the CTX and HiRISE from NASA (the latter provides a maximum resolution of about 25 to 30 centimeters per pixel), have been able to identify these deposits with identical morphology to the river deltas that we see in rivers such as the Ebro or the Danube when they flow into the sea. Thus, on Mars there was a time when water flowed from the mountains through branching channels until it reached a kind of lake or sea, where sediments were deposited. These deltas end in an abrupt step that is located at exactly the same altitude at different points on the planet, between -3750 and -3650 meters with respect to the reference level of Mars. About 3.37 billion years ago. This is not a geological coincidence, it is that at one time there was a body of water like a sea that maintained a stable level for a long time: it is a mark of the shore of a primeval Mars, since these deposits were formed between the Late Hesperian and Early Amazonian periods. According to the research team, that was the time in the history of Mars with the greatest availability of liquid water on its surface. Why is it important. Already had applied previously the existence and size of this Martian ocean, but its conclusions come with more precise and direct evidence. In addition, they have been able to determine when the water peak occurred on Mars. The deltas found constitute a magnificent base to study their sediments in depth in search of traces of life because where there is water, there could be life. On the other hand, among the next steps is to understand how Mars went from having an ocean that occupied half the planet to being a frozen desert. In fact, there are already clues: the research team detected desiccation cracks and dunes on these channels, which indicates that after this aquatic period, there was a progressive drying until they became arid. In Xataka | Mars has just entered the exclusive club of planets with rays. This is discouraging news for NASA. In Xataka | We had been wondering for decades how Mars could have water, cold and life. Today we finally have an answer Cover | Javier Miranda

He planted 16,000 trees and turned it into an anti-rich sanctuary

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What of send everything to fry asparagus and go live on an island It is something that, more or less, has occurred to everyone. Now, whether you do it is another thing. If we talk about buying an island, the circle is already closed to a few and although the story we are going to tell is not from today and does not have current prices, the reality is that the 8,000 pounds that Brendon Grimshaw paid for the small island of Moyenne in 1962 (approximately 200,000 pounds today, about 230,000 euros) they gave him to buy almost three houses in his native Britain. He would have had real estate to speculate on, but the world would not have the Moyenne National Park. But let’s start at the beginning. Brendon Grimshaw was a British journalist who, after starting his career in popular newspapers such as the Batley News and the Sheffield Star in his native country, moved to Africa, where worked in important media such as the East African Standard magazine or the Tanganyika Standard. At the age of 37, he made a drastic decision: he was on vacation in the Seychelles when he made the decision to acquire an island of just nine hectares. Why buy an island? There are those who say that more than a vacation, he was looking for a purpose in life: to demonstrate his peace and love for nature. The BBC mentions “protect Moyenne from excessive urban development” as its initial objective, but it must be said that Until 1973 he continued working as a journalist and visiting the island on vacation. From that date on, he said goodbye to his profession and moved there to create a natural paradise that would last over time. The Sheychelles were beginning to emerge as a tourist destination and although it was abandoned, it would be a matter of time before someone arrived and set up a resort. And he changed Moyenne from top to bottom. The island had not been inhabited for half a century, except for a family of fishermen, and was in a scruffy state as a result of negligence and excessive human intervention: impenetrable thickets where invasive species reigned, as he himself says in the documentary. A Grain of Sand (which before it was a book). Note: globally the concept of environmentalism and care for the environment was being forged and was beginning to take off (the first “Earth Day” dates back to 1970). He was not alone in this mission: he worked hand in hand with the local René Antoine Lafortunea 19-year-old young man from that family of fishermen. Throwing everything away and setting up a five-star hotel is much easier than restoring an ecosystem, something that It took him a lifetime, literally.because Grimshaw died in 2012. René died younger, in 2007, leaving Brendon as a true Robinson Crusoe for five years. A restoration plan that took a lifetime Its areas of action can be divided into three: massive reforestation with native species, tackling the rat infestation and introducing some infrastructure. In A Grain of Sand narrates how the undergrowth was so thick that a coconut that fell from a tree did not reach the ground and that only four tall native trees remained that stood out, counted for the BBC in an interview. So planted by hand more than 16,000 trees of species such as mahogany, palm trees and other endemic species that had disappeared from the island. In the documentary he tells how the silence impacted him due to the absence of fauna: the absence of native fruit trees and the dense layer of scrub made it not an attractive place for birds, which are looking for a nesting place with food and safety. The reintroduction of native species and the restoration of the flora attracted more than 200 species of birds. Grimshaw also explained that when he arrived, there were also no giant tortoises that are now emblematic of the island: he introduced and bred Aldabra giant tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) from other islands of the archipelago, which he later marked to continue their growth. Today there are more than 120 copies. Less striking but also very useful was that They built almost five kilometers of trails to improve accessibility. Practically with pick and shovel. In the 1980s, offers flooded in to buy the island, including that of a Saudi prince, who is said to have offered up to $50 million. Brendon Grimshaw’s response did not give rise to negotiations: “the island is not for sale“. The former journalist was getting older and had no children, so in 2009 and when Lafortune had already died, he arranged for the government of the Seychelles will declare to Moyenne as the Moyenne Island National Park to find legal protection for the island and its preservation. Today Moyenne has an essential biological importance for the Sheychelles archipelago: it serves as a seed bank and refuge for species, since while other islands are plagued with resorts, there there are no shops, restaurants or hotelshardly a basic restaurant for those taking an excursion to the island from neighboring islands such as Mahe. In Xataka | An atoll in the South Pacific has become a magnet for millionaires. Its great attraction is not its beaches, it is its banks In Xataka | A billionaire bought an island in Hawaii for himself and his friends. So the locals had to leave Cover | Jean-Francis Martin and documentary A Grain of Sand on YouTube

Global sperm count has been sinking for years

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There was a time when the movie ‘children of men‘ It seemed like a fairly distant dystopia, but today science forces us to look at it with different eyes due to the great drop in birth rate that we are seeing. Although in principle it could be attributed to social issues such as difficult access to housing or one could even look at women as responsible for this. But it is becoming increasingly clear that human sperm quality is declining. The quality is going down. In this way, it is not that we have fewer children just because we decide to have them later (which too), but that biologically our ability to father them is plummeting. The scientific evidence tells us shows in this case that between 1973 and 2018 total sperm count has fallen by 62.3%. And logically, if men have fewer sperm in general, this leads to a reduced chance of conceiving. Although it does not stop at this data. Studies that have followed men for several years also show that the average sperm concentration has gone from 101 million per ml in the 1970s to just 49 million per ml of ejaculate today. In a generalized way. This is not a phenomenon that is only occurring in Europe or North America, but has also been confirmed by recent studies in Latin America, Asia and Africa that are suffering the same decline. Although the most alarming thing is not the accumulated decline that we are experiencing, but the speed. Specifically, we see that since 2000 the rate of decline has accelerated, exceeding 2.6% annually without any signs of stabilization over time. It’s not just the culture. It is easy to blame the social changes we have experienced to justify the drop in birth rates, such as the delay in couple formation or the economic stress we are experiencing. And it is true that everything influences the birth rate, but it does not explain why semen quality is increasingly worse in our environment. To put it in context, a 30-year-old man today has, on average, half the sperm concentration than the one his grandfather had at the same age. Because. To understand what is happening, there are different scientific reviews that point to lifestyle like an enemy. The obesitysmoking, sedentary lifestyle or diets that have a significant presence of ultra-processed foods They destroy sperm quality. A study published in PMC in 2024 also directly links obesity to oxidative stress and hormonal imbalance to the destruction of sperm quality. But not everything focuses on what we eat, but on what we breathe and touch in our environment. The exposure to microplasticspesticides and endocrine disruptors It is altering male hormonal production that leads to this serious problem. New biological factors. The investigations carried out in 2025 point out two new fronts here to attack in this case. The first is paternal age, since after 35 years of age not only does sperm movement decrease but sperm DNA fragmentation increases, making it of poorer quality. Besides, imbalance in bacteria of semen is behind many cases of infertility that we previously considered “of unknown cause.” If it is true that knowing that the pathogen called Ureaplasma is one of those responsiblecan give rise to personalized treatments. Imminent collapse? The short answer is that we are not facing an apocalyptic scenario where humanity becomes sterile overnight, but the trend is worrying. In the event that sperm concentration continues with this downward trend, a large part of the male population could fall below the threshold of natural fertility, making assisted reproduction cease to be an option and become a structural necessity to perpetuate the species. However, there is a species for the nuance, since a 2025 study in the US suggests that the decline may not be as pronounced in men whose fertility is already confirmed, indicating that the problem could be concentrated in specific subpopulations or closely linked to those environmental factors that we can control. What can we do? The good news is that, unlike other genetic problems, many of these factors are modifiable. The science in this case suggests that adopting the Mediterranean diet, exercising and controlling obesity is a good way to mitigate this decline. Images | freestocks Mohamed Hassan In Xataka | There are couples who couldn’t have children. Now AI has managed to give them hope

Someone has paid 2.4 million for a check for 500. It bears the signatures of Steve Jobs and Wozniak

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Turning $500 into $2.4 million could be anyone’s wet dream cryptobro, but the story at hand It has nothing to do with investment. The protagonist is a small piece of paper, and not just any one, but one that was key in the creation of one of the most important technology companies of our era: Apple. lto auction. It occurred a few days ago via RR Auction. The object auctioned was the $500 check that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak signed in March 1976 and its final price was $2,409,886, 4,800 times its original value. The check is encapsulated in a plastic casing and its authenticity and quality is certified with a “MINT 9” note, which indicates that it is in a perfect state of conservation. The first check. Throughout their time together, the Apple founders signed many checks, but this one is special because it is the first of all. Furthermore, getting the money was not easy. At that time neither of the two steves He was rich, so Jobs had to sell his van and Wozniak his HP 65 calculator. At the time of his signature, there were still 16 days left before the official birth of the company, so we can affirm that he was a key player in the birth of Apple. The assignment. We already know who the senders were, but who was the receiver? The check is made out to Howard Cantin, who at the time was designing printed circuit boards at Atari. The commission for which he received this amount was to create the plaque that would carry the Apple Ithe company’s first computer that went on sale a few months later. When it was time to get paid, Steve Jobs offered Cantin shares in Apple, but Cantin preferred money. Little did he know that the company would be worth $4 billion. It was not the only thing that was auctioned. The check was the star object of the Apple 50th anniversary auctionbut there were many others such as the opening document for Apple’s first bank account, which sold for $828,569. The Apple poster that Jobs had hanging in his living room was also sold for $659,900 and the most expensive: the prototype of the Apple I board, which reached $2,750,000. In total, the auction has raised more than $8 million. In Xataka | Einstein’s first violin had passed unnoticed. Until an auction house put it up for sale. Image | Wikipedia

There is only one market in China where European brands dominate. Exactly, the one that no one cares about

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Much has been written about the decline in sales of European and traditional manufacturers in China. Volkswagens, Porsches and Mercedes have collapsed in a market that, until very recently, was key when it came to presenting results year after year. Have they collapsed? Not in all markets. In one they are still leaders. Exactly, the one that no one cares about. Leaders. A ranking where 18 of the 20 best-selling cars in China are not Chinese? Yes. It is the extra-luxury market, the one where cars that cost more than a million Chinese yuan are collected, almost 122,000 euros in direct exchange. They collect in CarNewsChina that in this list only BYD has made it among the best sellers. The rest, 90% of the list, is made up of the so-called traditional brands. If we remove Lexus, which is Asian and enters with its Lexus LM (a minivan with a screen that crosses the entire width of the car) and its Lexus LS, the rest are European brands. Yes, Europe also rules in China but it does so in a market of ridiculous volume. Porsche dominates here. The best-selling car over one million yuan is the Porsche Cayenne. Before its renewal that will offer an electric version, the Porsche SUV leads this table with 17,194 units sold in 2025. Land Rover closes the podium, which has placed the Range Rover and the Defender as the second and third best-selling car in this group. Below, Porsche repeats again with the Panamera (fourth classified) and will appear again with the Taycan. But the brand that is most repeated is Mercedes. Cars signed by the brand appear up to seven times, although, yes, it accumulates the sales of the AMG and Maybach divisions separately. Their S Class (fifth, signed by Maybach, and sixth classified) are the best sellers. It also appears with the G-Class and the GLS. The exception. From the Chinese market, only BYD penetrates this hyper-luxury market. It does so with the YangWang U8 and its even longer version, the U8L. This car, both versions of which have exceeded a thousand units, is a gigantic SUV with extended range options (plug-in hybrids with very wide electric range) that has become famous because it is capable of floating on rivers thanks to the enormous power of its wheels. A drop in the ocean (1). There are two problems for European manufacturers. The first is more than evident: its sales are very low. Porsche, which in 2020 shipped almost 89,000 units in China has closed 2025 selling less than half (it has fallen short of 42,000 units). The drop compared to 2024 is 26%. Mercedes boasted when it comes to presenting results of continuing to lead the extra-luxury market in the Asian country. The accumulated sales in this list exceed 38,000 units but the fact that the twentieth place is the Mercedes-AMG GLS with 83 units sold throughout the year gives an idea of ​​its size and its competition. Yeah, Mercedes sold almost 460,000 units in China last year but it is 12% less than the previous year and is very far from the almost 775,000 units placed in 2020. A drop in the ocean (2). This market, if we analyze its best classifieds, almost entirely lacks electric cars. The closest thing is the plug-in hybrid versions, like those offered by BYD. They are automobiles, pure gasoline ones, that are clearly declining in China. Where in 2020 17.8 million gasoline cars were sold Today 10.85 million cars of this type are sold. New energy cars (plug-in hybrids and electric) already account for 60% of sales in the Asian country. In Autohomeexplain that this situation has weakened brands that have collaborations with European automotive companies. They give as an example the case of Maiteng, a company associated with Volkswagen that was a symbol of status and recognition and that has had to lower its prices to continue selling. Right now, the market where European manufacturers succeed is the niche of the niche. They don’t even consider it. But there is also another reason why Europeans succeed in this market. The Chinese don’t even consider entering it. With the market clearly betting on its local manufacturers, they are offering their most advanced cars at “affordable” prices compared to foreign manufacturers. Already in his presentation, the Xiaomi SU7 Ultra highlighted its price difference with the Tesla Model S (DEP) and Porsche Taycan Turbo. While the first one came on the market with a price of 814,900 yuan (it would not be included in the previous list), the German one cost almost two million Chinese yuan. The price war in China has pressured all companies to reduce their prices drastically. This has left out traditional companies that have found an evident loss of competitiveness in all types of markets, from general to luxury, where Chinese manufacturers are offering features and equipment typical of hyper-luxury segments in cars that, due to price, do not fall into that category. Photo | Hong Wei Fan and Arthur Wang In Xataka | We tested the Ojo de Dios with which BYD wants to break the market: autonomous driving for a 9,000 euro car

A wind farm in Tudela is going to lose most of its wind turbines. And despite this it will produce much more energy

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The useful life of wind turbines is between 20 and 25 depending on the location and can reach up to 30 with some investments. The old blades are then removed and They are recycled in the most diverse ways and the wind turbines (some) are replaced by others. Or almost not, because the iconic Montes de Cierzo wind farm in Tudela is practically going to stay bald. Paradoxically, it will produce almost double. The skyline of Montes de Cierzo is going to change a lot. One of the autonomous communities that previously and most intensively opted for wind energy was Navarra, reaching become the Silicon Valley of wind turbines. Its deployment began in 1994 in the Sierra del Perdón, covering its territory from north to south that decade. What does that mean? Taking into account its useful life, in recent years there has been a renewal of its machinery. Latest, that of the Montes de Cierzo in Tudela. On the Statkraft roadmap is removing these veteran wind turbines from the Navarre park this year, removing 41 wind turbines to replace them with four latest generation models. Before, in the first phase of this renovation project, had already retired 44 machines to replace them with 10. In short, the park is going from 85 wind turbines to 14, with what that means in terms of visual impact. For this purpose, the company will allocate 40 million euros and has already been selected to receive aid of up to 24% from the IDAE. Less mills, more energy. Of course, the wind turbines will have a nominal power of around 6.5 MW (standardized by common companies such as Siemens Gamesa either Nordex). Thus, when the park is operational, there will be 84% fewer wind turbines disturbing the horizon of the Ebro Valley, but that will not mean that Monte del Cierzo takes a step back in energy supply, quite the contrary. We are facing a full-fledged repowering: the installed power will go from 60 MW to 90 MW, growing by 50%. Annually, the production estimated by the Norwegian company will go from 145 GWh/year to around 300 GWh/year, almost double. This change of wind turbines will be accompanied by storage systems. Repowering with hybridization. Having fewer mills and producing more is the standard for updates, but this project hides a technical singularity: the incorporation of a lithium ion battery system with 14.26 MW of power and 28.51 MWh of capacity. In fact, it is one of five projects by a Norwegian company to combine sun or wind and storage. only in the Spanish state. With a loading and unloading capacity of two hours, the park will be able to carry out peak shaving and energy shiftingor what is the same, smooth out production peaks and be able to move energy at times where it is needed or the price is higher. In addition to better peak management and improving efficiency, the company explains that this system will allow you to reinforce the security of supply. Why is it important. Because although there are fewer machines, power increases by 50% and production doubles. Furthermore, with this system the wind farm will function as if it were a bank: if there is excess energy, it will be stored for when the wind stops or there is high demand. In this way, it minimizes one of the endemic evils of renewable energy such as wind or solar, which depend on external and unrelated factors such as the climate. On the other hand, cleaning the horizon by almost decimating the number of wind turbines is also important from an environmental point of view. Finally, Statkraft has explained that will prioritize companies in the area in the construction of the project, which will directly generate employment in 2026. In Xataka | The solar miracle that went wrong: Spain produces more electricity than it can manage In Xataka | We have a problem with heat in buildings. A Navarrese investigation knows how to cool them without air conditioning Cover | Statkraft

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