Month: March 2026

It has more than 200 euros off and Movistar Plus+ for free

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Are you looking for a TV with a good screen but don’t want to spend a fortune? At MediaMarkt there is a discounted model that may interest you. It’s about this Philips Ambilight 55OLED770/12which has gone from costing 997 euros to 777 euros. Additionally, with your purchase, you get six months of Movistar Plus+ as a gift. Philips Ambilight 55OLED770 4K OLED Smart TV The price could vary. We earn commission from these links An ideal TV to enjoy a totally immersive experience The television market seems to be somewhat saturated, but there is a brand that has managed to differentiate itself and this is Philips, thanks to its lighting system Ambilight. This is made up of a three-sided rear LED strip that synchronizes with the image or sound that appears on the screen. This TV model on offer at MediaMarkt also stands out for its panel 55 inch OLED with 4K resolution. Another of its assets is the Philips P5 processor with AI, a brain that analyzes each frame to optimize color, movement and sharpness. It is compatible with Dolby Vision and HDR10+ (in the image section) and with Dolby Atmos and DTS Play-Fi (in the sound section). It comes with Titan OS operating system (own brand) and its refresh rate is 120Hzthus also being a TV that you can use in gaming. ⚡ IN BRIEF: offer for the Philips Ambilight 55OLED770/12 smart TV today ✅ THE BEST The Ambilight effect: It is, without a doubt, its great differentiating factor. Once you get used to the wall lighting up with the colors of the movie, any other TV will seem boring and small. If you really like watching movies in the dark, this lighting system greatly reduces eye strain. The OLED panel: It offers true blacks (since the pixel is completely turned off), which will make you forget about gray spots or light halos in dark scenes, something that usually happens on cheap LED TVs. ❌ THE WORST The standard sound: Despite being compatible with Dolby Atmos, the speakers integrated into this TV fall short. If you want a real movie theater experience, you’ll have to invest in one. sound bar. Brightness in brightly lit rooms: Like almost all OLED TVs in this range, if you have a living room with huge windows and a lot of direct daylight, you may need a little more brightness power, if you compare it with a MiniLED TV. 💡 BUY IT IF… You are a lover of movies and series, you like to watch TV in low light and you want the immersive experience of Ambilight that no other brand offers you as standard. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… Your living room is tremendously bright and you usually watch TV during the day and with the blinds up. You may also be interested Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus The price could vary. We earn commission from these links LG S40T – Smart Sound Bar, 300W, 2.1 Channels 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 | Webedia and Philips In Xataka | The nine best sound bars and bases for less than 400 euros In Xataka | Mega-guide to set up a home theater: projector, screen, sound system and more

to open Hormuz the US is no longer going to bomb, but rather something more dangerous

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In the Persian Gulf there is an enclave of just a few square kilometers that, despite its size, became bombed hundreds of times during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s while continuing to function as one of the main crude oil outlets in the world. Their history shows that sometimes the smallest places are also the hardest to replace. The war is changing the verb. Over the weekend, the arrival of a second amphibious group US launch into the Gulf, with thousands of Marines on board, is not just another tactical move but rather a sign that the war is possibly coming to a head. a new phase: to open the Strait of Hormuz, Washington is no longer thinking only of bombing, but of doing something much more dangerous, taking the key territory. How have we been countingKharg, the small island off the Iranian coast, concentrated near the 90% of exports of the country’s oil and has become the true center of gravity of the conflict, not because it is large or defensible, but because whoever controls it control the flow economy that sustains the regime. After weeks of remote attacks, the accelerated dispatch of amphibious forces indicates that the United States is preparing the option that involves boots on the ground, a qualitative leap that transforms an air campaign into a potential occupation operation. The plan is not new, it is from 40 years ago. I remembered the financial times this morning that what today seems like an improvised escalation actually has much deeper roots, because the idea of ​​taking Kharg is not new, but is part of a script that Trump had already outlined in the eightieswhen he openly argued that the United States should directly hit Iranian oil assets to force concessions. So talked about “go and take the island” as a response to any challenge in the Gulf, and four decades later that same scheme (ultimatum, economic pressure and decisive use of force) reappears almost no changes. The difference is that now it is not campaign rhetoric, but a very real option on the table, turning an old strategic intuition into an operational plan with global implications. The economic switch of war. The logic behind this move seems quite obvious: Iran has managed resist bombing and, at the same time, maintain its crude oil exports while blocking those of its rivals, turning the closure of Hormuz into an economic weapon that puts pressure on the rest of the world. From that perspective, for the United States, taking Kharg would break that dynamic by cutting off Tehran’s main source of income and striking back in the same area, the economic one, where Iran is trying to win the war. In other words, it is not so much about destroying as to control and taketo use the island as a negotiating lever to force the reopening of the strait and, ultimately, force the regime to accept imposed conditions from outside. The impossible operation. On paper, the capture of the island could be relatively fastsupported by previous attacks and the deployment of amphibious units capable of assaulting key points such as the airport and port facilities. However, the difficulty is not in conquering Kharg, but rather in holding it: its proximity to the Iranian coast makes it an exposed target to missiles, drones and constant attacks, while American supply lines would be vulnerable in an environment saturated with asymmetric threats. That is to say, the scenario looks less like the traditional blitzkrieg campaigns of the Americans and more like a war of attritionwhere holding a small island can become a large-scale strategic problem. The risk of escalation without return. Most analysts agree on the same diagnosis: the real danger is not only military, but political and economic. Such an assault operation would imply a direct escalation against the economic heart of Iran, with unforeseeable consequences: from regional attacks to energy infrastructures (Iran, in fact, has already warned with this) to a prolonged rise in oil prices and increasing pressure on the United States to exit the conflict. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that there is no guarantee that taking the island will force Tehran to give in. In fact, it could, on the contrary, further harden its stance and widen the conflict. In this unstable balance, Kharg Island has ceased to be just a military objective and has become a strategic bet high risk for Washington: a move that could change the course of the war… or trap it in an even more dangerous phase. Image | USN In Xataka | We wonder if it is safe to fly now that there are more drones than Ryanair planes: the answer is an Ockham’s razor In Xataka | The weapon to liberate Hormuz has fled 6,000 km from the war. And that just means the US is preparing for what comes next.

In 2014 Amazon failed miserably with its Fire Phone. AI has given him the perfect excuse to go back to his old ways

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In 2014 Jeff Bezos was still the absolute boss of Amazon. And it occurred to him that Amazon should have its own smartphone, so the company ended up launching the fire phone. That device boasted a 3D screen that overheated the battery and a catalog without the apps that everyone used, but it also it was very expensive for the time ($649). It was canceled 14 months later and became one of the most notorious failures of the recent history of technology. Now Amazon wants to try again with a project codenamed Transformer. Same idea, different time. In reality, the underlying concept has not changed much since 2014. Here Amazon’s goal is to have its own device that has Alexa as an integral part of the experience, but that is also a gateway for purchases on Amazon, connects with Prime Video or its food delivery services. Or what is the same: it is the perfect mobile for those who make their lives revolve around the Amazon ecosystem. And be careful, because what failed in the past may have a chance now. AI as an argument. The Transformer project wants to integrate AI functions to ensure that with it we do what theoretically will end up arriving sooner or later: that we simply ask for what we need so that the phone takes care of everything. Alexa would be a central component of that experience here, and the advantage that Amazon has is that it has the infrastructure and ecosystem that should allow doing something like this. AI agents begin to demonstrate their potential —we are seeing it with OpenClaw—and if Amazon can make that shopping experience easier, you may have a winning idea here. A team with tables. The project is led by J. Allard from an internal unit called ZeroOne in which the objective is to create “revolutionary” devices. Allard was one of the fathers of the original Xbox at Microsoft and also of the Zune, the music player that tried to compete with the iPod and failed. But above him is Panos Panay, who headed the Surface division at Microsoft before joining Amazon. They are certainly two veterans with a lot of experience in the hardware field and know first-hand what it is like to compete with the market leaders from disadvantaged positions. Now they have a unique opportunity to shine, but the challenge is colossal. The ‘dumbphone’ as a back door. One of the most curious twists of the project is that Amazon is not only exploring a conventional smartphone, but also a “dumbphone.” That is, a simple and minimalist mobile with limited functions inspired by the Light Phone and its interface “dumbed down“. The argument is striking: here it is not about trying to unseat the iPhone as the main device, and instead Amazon could position it as “a second phone.” Mobile phones with limited functions represented 15% of global mobile sales in 2025 according to Counterpoint Researchand although it is a small market, Amazon may have an interesting entry point there. But. The context, however, complicates everything. Amazon comes to this project at a particularly difficult time for mobile hardware. The number of smartphones distributed (“sold”) will probably fall more than ever in 2026, and in fact the preliminary descent of that figure is 13% due especially to the RAM crisis. AI hardware is the holy grail. To this we must add the fact that for now no AI hardware device has succeeded, and those who have tried have been an absolute failure. The Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 have been painful lessons for an industry that now certainly wants to try again—let them tell it to OpenAI and its alliance with Jony Ive—. The project is underway, but it is not ruled out that Amazon ends up canceling it if the strategy changes or the numbers do not add up. A golden opportunity. But what is certain is that Amazon has indisputable advantages in getting it right. For example, a service ecosystem with hundreds of millions of active users who already shop, watch content, and use Alexa, even if it’s just to set timers. The multi-million dollar investment in Anthropic and a relationship increasingly narrower with OpenAI they can also be key in this project. The question, of course, is whether an AI phone can really convince us to switch phones. And Amazon wants to have the answer to that question. In Xataka | NVIDIA is doing better than ever. And there is also more competition ready to eat it than ever.

It continues orbiting and was mistaken for an asteroid

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It’s not every day we see a car end up in space, but that’s exactly what happened in February 2018. with the first launch of the Falcon Heavy. On board was a Tesla Roadster and a mannequin nicknamed Starman, conceived as a test load for the mission. What is striking is that this was not a simple one-time experiment: over the years, this object has continued its trajectory around the Sun and has once again captured attention for reasons that go beyond the initial spectacle. What SpaceX sent into space that day was not just a car floating aimlessly, but a technical set designed to validate the behavior of the aforementioned rocket. The mission included the upper stage, the vehicle itself and the Starman dummy, and ended up placing them in a heliocentric orbit after a final maneuver outside of Earth’s gravity. According to NASAthat elliptical trajectory causes the object to move between distances comparable to the orbits of Earth and Mars. The car that one day looked like an asteroid The story took an unexpected turn in January 2025. The Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union announced the discovery of a new near-Earth object, identified as 2018 CN41. However, the correction came just a day later: “The orbit coincides with that of the artificial object 2018-017Athe upper stage of the Falcon Heavy with the Tesla Roadster. The 2018 CN41 designation will be removed and omitted,” they said. What seemed like an astronomical find was, in reality, the same car launched years ago. This episode is not only a curious anecdote, it also gives us clues about how sky surveillance works. Systems that track near-Earth objects work by comparing trajectories and observations to identify possible asteroids or comets, and they do so in an environment with tens of thousands of cataloged objects. This helps to understand why an artificial object can, for a brief moment, fit the parameters of a natural one. If we want to land the story in the present, the question is inevitable: where is that car right now. At the time of writing this article, whereisroadster.com placed the object about 284 million kilometers from Earth, about 214 million kilometers from Mars and about 229 million kilometers from the Sun. According to these calculations, it completes one revolution around the Sun approximately every 557 days and has already traveled more than 6,550 million kilometers since its launch. It is worth making an important clarification here: we are not seeing the car in real time. The position offered by tools such as the one mentioned is based on orbital models built from data collected after launch and subsequent calculations, not on continuous direct observations. NASA itself points out that the trajectory is adjusted with solutions such as those of the Horizons systemwhich implies that we are talking about very refined estimates, but not an exact location at all times. If we look back and forward, his career also leaves some interesting milestones. In 2020, for example, it made a close approach to Mars, passing within about 5 million miles of the planet. And it will not be the last: the US space agency’s forecasts point to new encounters in the coming decades, as a close pass to Mars in 2035 and approaches to Earth in 2047 and 2050, always within margins that do not imply impact. From there, what remains is the terrain of probabilities and very long-term scenarios. Some studies have attempted to calculate what could happen to the object in millions of years, including the possibility of collisions with Earth, Venus or even the Sun, although with low probabilities and subject to uncertainty. However, long-term predictions could be skewed by factors that are difficult to model, such as thermal radiation or possible uncharacterized degassing accelerations, leaving its final fate open. Images | SpaceX In Xataka | NASA has been racking its brains for years to figure out what we will eat on the Moon. Answer: Madrid stew

Nuclear waste is a problem, so Germany is looking for the solution in a Jurassic rock in Switzerland

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Nuclear energy is capable of generating clean electricity, continuously and in large quantities. A marvel except for two small details: the risk of a possible leak and what to do with its waste. The most widespread solution is bury them in a nuclear cemetery and wait. How much? Well, it depends, but it could be hundreds of thousands of years, until they are no longer dangerous. The million dollar question is where. An international research team led by Germany has started to drill a hole in a Swiss mountain to try to answer it. The project. Her name is DEBORAH (Deep borehole to resolve the Mont Terri Anticline Hydrogeology), stands for deep drilling to understand the hydrogeology of the Mont Terri anticline and is exactly what it does. Your goal? Document in great detail the layers that exist and their properties. There is some especially interesting material: Opalinus Clay. This deep experiment involves the German Geosciences Research Center GFZ and the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), the Nuclear Waste Service (NWS) of the United Kingdom and Swiss researchers from the University of Bern. Why is it important. Because it can be the ideal rock to build a radioactive waste deposit. As details GFZSwitzerland has already made the decision, but Germany and the United Kingdom (the other parties to the project) have not yet. The key is what the analysis of the drilling says: details such as how much water it allows to filter, at what speed or where it will be key to making the decision. It is not trivial: a leak, no matter how slow and small, can contaminate aquifers. What’s special about it. The Opalinus is a clay rock dating back to the Middle Jurassic, with an estimated age of approximately 175 million years. Simply put, it is clay that has been compacted into rock. And it has a property that makes it a good candidate for nuclear storage: its very low permeability. Context. The study of Opalinus is not new by any means: GFZ’s on your radar for 30 years because, in addition to its very low permeability, it has properties such as its plasticity (under pressure, warps instead of breakingsomething convenient if it works as a radioactive deposit) or its ability to retain certain radionuclides. Switzerland has already chosen it, but it remains to be known how it behaves under the conditions that exist in much deeper areas, where, for example, temperature or pressure change noticeably. How they do it. In the Swiss canton of Jura, near the municipality of Saint-Ursanne, there is that Mont Terri. In its bowels there is an underground laboratory that is accessed through the security gallery of a highway tunnel, about 150 – 200 meters underground. A drilling platform works continuously there, advancing meter by meter, until reaching a depth of 800 meters. The drill uses a hollow crown that allows extracting intact rock columns, the sample that is later analyzed in the laboratory. Each advance works as a witness insofar as it reveals the age, the composition, the fractures and the differential quality: how it behaves with water. In addition, they use seismic and gravimetry techniques to obtain a complete x-ray of what is hundreds of meters deep. In Xataka | Ships have been damaging the oceans with noise for centuries. Germany is working on silent propellers to solve it In Xataka | 700 tons of nuclear waste have arrived in Germany from England. The Germans are not entirely happy Cover | Ilja Nedilko and Evangelos Mpikakis

the science of “chrononutrition” is solving them

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If there is one food that has polarized nutritionists, doctors and diet enthusiasts, it is undoubtedly breakfast. Indeed, for years we have been told the mantra that it is “the most important meal of the day”, conceived above all by companies that sell cereals. But then this went to the opposite side, driven by the popularity of intermittent fasting which pointed out that skipping it was not only bad, but could be beneficial. Then the trouble is over. Many doubts. The logical thing to do here is to ask yourself many questions: Is it good or bad? What happens to our body if we eat breakfast at 7:00 versus having it at 11:00? The answer to this great debate is not only in that we eat, but in when We do it, and it is where one of the most fascinating areas of research in recent years comes into play, which is chrononutrition. An internal clock. Our body does not process food in the same way at 8 in the morning as it does at 3 in the afternoon, nor does it do so at night, where digestion slows down. Everything is mediated in detail by our circadian clock, controlled in part by the famous melatonin, and also by hormones such as cortisol, which is popularly known as the stress hormone. Here we have seen how the human body experiences a natural peak of cortisol between 8:00 and 9:00 in the morning to help us wake up and activate. The problem arises when we delay breakfast beyond 9:00, since by not receiving food, the body interprets this lack of energy with food intake as a situation of stress and artificially prolongs the cortisol spike. The consequences. Here a process called gluconeogenesis is activatedwhere the body begins to make its own glucose and insulin sensitivity worsens. On the contrary, a classic trial showed that eating breakfast reduces cortisol levels after an episode of stress compared to fasting, improving the endocrine response. Breakfast time. Beyond the hormonal theory, large population studies are providing compelling figures. If morning intermittent fasting had its defenders, large-scale epidemiology is beginning to tip the balance towards early risers. This is what he pointed out a great study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health that analyzed data from more than 103,000 people. In these cases they concluded that eating breakfast after 9 in the morning increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 59% compared to those who eat breakfast before 8:00. And all due to the action of insulin. And it agrees. With previous meta-analyses that integrate the routines of thousands of patients, such as the one published in the British Journal of Nutrition that confirm that systematically skipping breakfast increases the risk of diabetes by between 21% and 48%. That is why desynchronizing our meals profoundly alters the hormones and normal lipids in our body and that is why eating breakfast irregularly or even not eating it favors the storage of abdominal fat. Not anything is worth it. Knowing that we should have breakfast early is only half of this equation, since sending that metabolic “safety” signal to the body requires quality fuel. In this way, an optimal breakfast should represent between 20 and 30% of our daily caloric intake, and science has an idea of ​​what feels best. What they suggest should be prioritized are high-quality proteins, eggs, Greek yogurt, cheese, fish or legumes. And it is very important, since morning protein stabilizes blood glucose, reduces cravings during the rest of the day and modulates cortisol. Although it should not be taken in isolation, it should be combined with healthy fats and fiber. To avoid. On the other side of the scale we can find simple and ultra-processed sugars that make up the classic industrial pastries, cookies or sugary cereals. These foods cause an immediate glucose spike followed by a sudden drop, which triggers cortisol again and leaves us without energy and hungry in the middle of the morning, which leads to eating more food and giving in to cravings. Fasting is not bad. The great debate that is on the table right now is the one that seeks to maintain a balance between the currents of fasting and those of five meals a day. That is why chrononutrition does not rule out the benefits of stopping the digestive system from resting, but it proposes displacing that fast. In this way, what is proposed here is that it is advisable to maintain a 12-hour overnight fast, having dinner early and also having breakfast first thing in the morning. Images | Rachel Park In Xataka | We’ve gone from “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” to “I grab something quick and stick with it.” And that has problems

AI is the future

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“We all sighed when we heard the news, but there were no great emotions.” Sixth Tone picks up the reaction of a photography student from the Communication University of China upon hearing the news. The higher education center, one of the country’s leaders in performing arts and communication, stopped offering five degrees in the branch: photography, comics, visual communication design, new media art and fashion design. Dazhong Wang meets in a table the before and after of your offer. Liao Xiangzhong, Party Secretary of China Communication University declared that the form and content had changed and that now the way of thinking had to change as well. And he pointed to a future where humans and machines distribute tasks: “We need to find solutions and let AI take care of the rest so that students learn.” The small print. In reality, the majors and postgraduate degrees suppressed from the CUC study offer there were 16 in totalwhich include the aforementioned arts, three humanities, six economics and business administration and two sciences and engineering. And more than a cancellation, it is a restructuring seeking to optimize existing programs. So, now photograph is framed within photography and production for film and television. At the same time, in this restructuring, new programs such as intelligent cinema and television and intelligent media have also been launched, laying the foundations to address the arrival and consolidation of artificial intelligence in these areas. Best nearby example: what it does Seedance 2.0. It is not an exception. It is not a decision of a specific rectorate, but a trend that affects several institutions at the same time. By the end of 2025, several Chinese universities had stopped admitting students in arts-related careers, such as echoes China News Service. The CUC thing is not an isolated case: Nanchang University he said goodbye of four artistic careers (of eight in total). Jilin University has been withdrawing arts courses both in 2024 (six) like in 2025 (four). East China Normal University in Shanghai advertisement in the fall that suspended three arts programs. Tongji University communicated last September that would eliminate three arts programs. The China University of Petroleum was more drastic: in his statement announces that all admissions to art studios are suspended. There is a state plan behind. Liao already hinted that this decision is due to an imminent reality for which the Chinese government is already preparing. He Action Plan for the Adjustment and Optimization of Disciplines and Programs in Higher Education It has a triannual nature. This plan works as a kind of legal mechanism that allows universities to cancel degrees with low labor demand while expanding others considered strategic, aligned with national development objectives, such as artificial intelligence, science and data. According to Wu YanDeputy Minister of Education, in 2024 alone, 1,600 new programs were created and almost the same number were eliminated following that strategy. AI is the argument, not the cause. Liao Xiangzhong explains that the great threat of AI is not to replace a specific skill, but to deprive people of their interest and ability to think. And that it should not be considered simply a tool, but rather an assistant, a partner, a competitor and even a completely new collaborative entity. That division of labor between man and machine. This paradigm shift is what China is preparing for with practicality as its flag: in full battle for AI hegemonya drop in birth rate and his huge youth unemployment problem (especially in some races) the Asian giant needs to prioritize its best resource (human resources) where strategically it needs it most. In Xataka | China looks at VET: why more and more generation Z students prefer trades over university degrees In Xataka | China has a huge youth unemployment problem. So much so that some people pay to pretend to work Cover | Yue Wu and Đào Việt Hoàng

the new ones are worth up to 300 euros

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The other day, while I was brushing my teeth, my electric brush made a strange noise. I didn’t give it much importance, but a few days later it happened again and this time it was accompanied by a clear drop in power. Finally what was expected happened: it stopped working. I bought it in 2020 for 17.99 euros, so I am more than satisfied with the service provided. Plus, it caught me just the day Amazon’s spring sales ended, so I ran to look for a replacement. What I found left me quite surprised. A huge (and very expensive) offer It’s been six years since I bought my ill-fated Oral-B Vitality brush. Six years in which I have not found out what was going on in the electric toothbrush market, for whatever reason, it has not interested me either. First of all, I clarify that I went directly to see the Oral-B offer because I was happy with my previous brush, but above all because I still had several heads to use. In 2020 I was aware that there were models much more expensive than the one I chose and in fact this time I went to Amazon with the idea of ​​looking at a slightly more advanced model, what I did not expect was to find these prices. The Oral B spring sale cover The most notable offer on the Oral-B website is the Oral-B iO 10, which cost 299 euros (today it costs 309 euros), but those that followed were not short; 289, 199, some for 129 euros… truly crazy. At what point have electric toothbrushes become a luxury product, I thought. These ultra-expensive brushes have a color screen, magnetic base, travel case with charging function, seven cleaning modes and of course AI, Don’t miss out on AI. I understand that many of these functions will be very practical and have their audience, but personally I am not going to spend three figures on a toothbrush. In addition to prices, there are a lot of models and it is quite difficult to understand what their differences are. Suddenly I found myself looking for comparisons and reading spec sheets. For a toothbrush. The premiumization of the everyday Is a phenomenon that affects all types of products and services. We are seeing it with the gourmet bakeriesthe specialty coffee shops and even with the kebabs. Another establishment that we have seen premiumize recently are the stationery stores. They are traditionally cheap products that are given a patina of luxury and exclusivity to justify much higher prices. With electric toothbrushes, the point is also added techie. In mobile phones we have long since overcome the 1,000 euro barrier and have it normalized, but at the time we also it seemed crazy to us. They have achieved this based on exclusive functions, designs with premium materials and also the phenomenon of aspirational purchase. I didn’t expect that the same thing would have happened with toothbrushes; Providing them with countless functions, they justify paying 300 euros for something as basic as brushing our teeth. The chosen one Seeing the prices and knowing that I was not planning to pay more than 50 euros, my range was drastically reduced. The Oral-B iO 2 was one of the options I considered. Costs 50 euros and it is not the most basic model of all. Among its advantages is that it comes with a travel case and a stand to store two heads, as well as a pressure sensor and timer. I had it in my basket, but I finally ended up buying the Oral-B Vitality Pro, which is basically the same model that I already bought in 2020, but with a couple of new features and a black design. I paid 22 euros and I hope it lasts another six years. Images | Xataka, Amazon In Xataka | The price of housing in Spain is already higher than at the peak of the bubble. But the data has a little trick

birch tar was its own prehistoric “Betadine”

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In recent years, the image of the brute Neanderthal has gone fading based on the different discoveries that are being made. Now we know that buried to their dead, who they made art and? they dominated the firebut we also now know that they were the first in the chemical industry to create the world’s first synthetic glue: birch tar. Although under his ingenuity, this can also be a great member of high prehistoric medicine. The new thing we know. Beyond being a great glue, the Neanderthals could have used this tar as a powerful antiseptic to heal wounds and avoid deadly infections, like the ones we have in our home medicine cabinet. This is something that is known thanks to the research published this March in the magazine PLOS One which has tested the effectiveness of this prehistoric material in healing wounds. To ensure that their conclusions were faithful to the reality of the Pleistocene, the team did not limit itself to analyzing modern samples purchased in the laboratory, but rather they replicated Neanderthal extraction methods. How it was done. To do this, they used techniques accessible to the hominids of the time, such as distillation in primitive clay wells and the condensation of birch bark smoke on stone surfaces. Putting it to the test. Once they had this “Neanderthal-style” tar, they pitted it against several common bacterial strains in the laboratory. And the result showed that he had strong antibacterial propertiesbeing especially useful for attacking bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, which is a bacteria that can cause infections in wounds on the skin. And if we go further, in our daily lives we are also ‘putting up’ with it because it is one of the famous ‘superbacteria’ against which we have fewer and fewer antibiotics to act on. More than a band-aid. If you got a cut or wound hunting 100,000 years ago, a simple infection could be a death sentence. This is why the study suggests that Neanderthals, by manipulating birch bark to make their adhesive, probably discovered its medical benefits empirically. Simply by observing that, by putting it on the wound, they saw how it did not start to look bad. That is why we are faced with a discovery that transforms our vision of the technological resources of the Neanderthals, since we now know that the product was a true ‘multipurpose’ product of the time. Its uses. The first of them is as an industrial adhesive to be able to manufacture composite weapons, but also as an antibiotic and antiseptic against cuts, as if it were our precious ‘betadine’ or chlorhexidine. Now a door is also opening to see its use in our daily lives, although there is still a lot of research ahead on the many open fronts to be able to find any substance that can attack bacteria that they are giving us more headaches. Images | Marc Tremblay In Xataka | Manufacturing materials to produce chips in space is not science fiction. It is a very real plan that is already underway

depends on China to do it

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I don’t need to tell you that the world is becoming a vibrant hornet’s nest with several open fronts. Some explode directly, such as conflict between the US, Israel and Iranand others endure, buried and palpitating, in the form of diplomatic tensions and tariffs. The United States has been and is the dominant world power economically (in terms of nominal GDP) and militarily, but China is moving inexorably to break its hegemony on all fronts. Trump has the main mission of “Make America Great Again” and in the military it involves adopting a more proactive role: we have seen in Venezuela and in Iran but also on a small scale with the boarding of ships. Given this scenario, China is in an uncomfortable position (buys 90% of all the oil Iran exports) that attempts to resolve with maximum diplomatic pressure but without military action. There is a broad business relationship at stake. If it did, the United States would have a lot of problems. Because the relationship between the United States and China is paradoxical: they are geopolitical rivals but at the same time they have a symbiosis economically and industrially. And if the United States wanted to strengthen its military, China would be essential, as evidence this internal report commissioned by the Department of Defense itself. Why is it important. Because we are probably in the greatest moment of military tension between both powers since the Cold War and the United States has been declaring China since “pacing challenge“(for Pete Hegseth, it’s already “pacing threat“): in different defense documents: The pace of the Asian giant is a challenge that threatens the supremacy of the United States. Despite this, its dependence on the military supply chain has not decreased, quite the contrary. If China decided, either in retaliation or on its own initiative, to disrupt its supply chain, the operational capability of the US military would be seriously compromised. Context. The fall of the USSR in the late 1980s was followed by a reduction in defense spending in the 90s, at which time the industry moved in search of economic efficiency in the form of contractor mergers and supplier outsourcing. To where? Towards Asia, something that its base industry also did. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, China was establishing itself as a global supplier of electronics, semiconductors and critical raw materials. A concrete example that you can see at a glance in this graph: the rapid rise of China in rare earth production and the fall of the United States. Chinese suppliers to the US military. NUMBERS MATTER: DEFENSE ACQUISITION, US PRODUCTION CAPACITY, AND DETERRING CHINA In figures. Govini’s internal report from 2024 leaves some numerical data that supports the serious dependence of the US military on China: 41% of the semiconductors in its weapons systems and infrastructure depend on Chinese suppliers. Chinese suppliers in defense supply chains have quadrupled between 2005 and 2020. US dependence on China in electronics increased by 600% between 2014 and 2022. Graphic that relates American weapons to their Chinese producers. NUMBERS MATTER: DEFENSE ACQUISITION, US PRODUCTION CAPACITY, AND DETERRING CHINA China is the world’s factory. A no-brainer: semiconductors are everywhere, from cell phones to missiles or drones. And China makes more chips than anyone else and also dominates in assembly, although lags behind in advanced chips. Yes indeed, is among your priorities. The United States has attempted to repatriate chip production with its Chips lawbut its consequences will be seen in the medium and long term, not in the coming months. At the moment, its first green shoots are the plant TSMC in Arizona. China is the “mine” of the world. We mentioned it above because it is the clearest example: in rare earths, China is the absolute queen of the industry from start to finish: from deposits to processing. And it’s not just rare earths: it’s also gallium, germanium, graphite, antimonyhe cobalt or the tungsten. Be careful, this does not necessarily mean that it dominates because of the deposits it owns, but because it has set up a powerful refining industry that allows it to control the processing link, so that other countries turn to China for this operation. They are industries that require high investment and low margins, which makes them unattractive for private companies without state support to enter the sector. China knows this and uses it as a currency of pressure in the form of restrictions and locks. In Xataka | The US Navy warns Congress: China is erecting the largest nuclear barrier in its history under the sea In Xataka | China needs chips and the United States needs energy: in the AI ​​race the two great powers have divergent paths Cover | Nick Fewings and Scandinavian Backlash

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