Month: April 2026

Chile has the lithium necessary to save the world from fossil fuels. The problem is that you are extracting it blindly

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The world desperately needs to move away from fossil fuels. To achieve this, electric vehicles and large renewable energy plants require a vital component for their batteries: lithium. This global emergency has set its eyes on one of the most inhospitable and fragile places on the planet, the Atacama Desert in Chile, which is home to about 25% of the world’s reserves of this mineral. But this “salvation” has a dark side. As deep research reveals published by MongabayChile is accelerating the blind exploitation of its salt flats. Under the institutional promise that this mineral will be the “new salary of Chile”—as It was defined by former president Gabriel Boric by promising wealth with strict environmental respect—the reality in the territory is diametrically opposite. The productive desire is crushing the socio-environmental knowledge that is required to avoid destroying the same nature that, ironically, the world is trying to save. The pact that seals the future. To capitalize on this demand, the Chilean State launched the National Lithium Strategy (ENL)seeking to consolidate the country as the undisputed leader of this market. In this context, an unprecedented mining agreement was forged. According to The Confusionthe state mining company Codelco and the private giant SQM sealed a historic pact to extract lithium in the Salar de Atacama until 2060 under a new joint venture: NovaAndino Lithium. With the aim of avoiding the local resistance that usually paralyzes these megaprojects, the agreement included an unprecedented governance model. This scheme promises the Atacama indigenous communities (the Lickanantay people) million dollars annually in profitsseats at dialogue tables and power of environmental oversight. A model that the industry celebrates as the standard for future “green mining”, but which in the territory has lit a fuse with unsuspected consequences. The disproportion of 33 to 1. Promises of environmental balance crumble when looking at the fiscal wallet. The figures are devastating: for every peso that the Chilean State invests to protect the fragile ecosystems of the salt flats, it allocates 33 to promoting productivity and mining technology. Through the Production Promotion Corporation (CORFO), the State has injected more than 166 million dollars in technological development for the industry. In dramatic contrast, the scientific investment to understand the impact of lithium on water, microorganisms and threatened species – such as Andean flamingos – is barely close to 5 million dollars. Yovisibility territorial. Added to this institutional blindness is territorial invisibility. As the media explains South Slope when documenting the scientific project LiOness Ringthe public eye has become obsessed with evaporation pools, ignoring the off-sites: the areas outside the salt flats. Transportation routes, port terminals and transit communities silently absorb equal or worse impacts under “the excuse of green development,” researchers warn. For the National History Prize winner, Lautaro Núñez, cited by the same media, the key is being lost in the debate: “The salt flats are Chile’s heritage.” Thirst in the desert. As millions flow into technology, the ecosystem depletes. Extracting lithium requires pumping and evaporating enormous amounts of ancient water. As detailed The Confusioncurrent operations consume up to 12,500 liters of industrial water for every ton of lithium, causing the salt flat to sink up to two centimeters per year. Faced with this threat, the injection of money has caused the greatest historical fracture of the Lickanantay people. The communities went from blocking routes in January 2024 to fighting each other for the millionaire loot, which could reach up to 150 million dollars annually for the region, according to data from the Chilean government. Social fracture. Rudecindo Espíndola, local farmer cited by The Confusionassures that participating in this agreement is a form of “participation justice” because, after 12,000 years of inhabiting the territory, they will finally have physical access to the plants to supervise the mining companies. However, others see the destruction of their social fabric. Sergio Cubillos, president of the Peine community, recognize the same publication that “the fact that today communities receive money is what has led to this division.” Sonia Ramos, a respected 83-year-old healer, is even more blunt. in his interview with Climate Home News: “We are land and water (…) but today there is fragmentation. Everything has become unbalanced.” For her, the mining megapact does not bring progress, but “death, the total destruction of the Salar.” So what’s going to happen? Seeking to justify its expansion until 2060, NovaAndino has promised to stop using fresh water and reinject at least 30% of the brine into the subsoil through new extraction technologies. However, this promise is being viewed with great skepticism. As microbiologist Cristina Dorador warnsthese reinjection technologies are not proven on a large scale and could alter the chemical composition of the desert. Continuing pumping until 2060, he says, could be the “coup de grace” for this vital ecosystem. The State as a facilitator, not as a protector. Politically, the course seems unchanged. The recently inaugurated far-right president, José Antonio Kast, has already promised to respect the contracts signed by the previous administration. The machinery will continue to operate. In statements to MongabayHernán Cáceres, director of the National Institute of Lithium and Salt Flats (INLiSa), justified the low state budget in environmental areas by arguing that this money is actually an “enabling expense.” That is, the State finances ecological studies and dialogue tables not necessarily to stop the impact, but to “pave the way” for mining companies, reducing the risks of social conflict and guaranteeing that companies can operate without resistance from indigenous peoples. Blindfold. While technological investments advance at record speed, legal protection, such as the recent creation of the Network of Protected Salt Flats, moves at a slow pace, trapped in bureaucracy and lack of funds. The history of lithium in Chile encapsulates the great contradiction of our time. In the quest to clean the air in the metropolises of the northern hemisphere, one of the oldest and most biodiverse corners of the global south is being squeezed and fractured. As the research concludes, the country today faces a monumental challenge: … Read more

that of capturing talent in artificial intelligence and chips

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For Taiwan, its semiconductor industry is strategic for three fundamental reasons: it represents among 13% and 15% of the gross domestic product of the country; is the engine of its exports with a value close to 40% of the total; and, finally, the production of cutting-edge chips gives the country enormous relevance from a geostrategic point of view. For this reason, it is crucial for this Asian country that TSMC, UMC, Foxconn, MediaTek and its other large technology companies have the workforce they need. TSMC, the largest chip manufacturer on the planethunts for new talent year after year to satisfy its needs. During 2023 recruited 6,000 engineers for its facilities in Taiwan, and presumably this trend also continued in 2024 and 2025. And between 2026 and 2028 it will launch several semiconductor manufacturing plants in the US, Germany, Taiwan and Japan. Be that as it may, neither this company nor any other Taiwanese company linked to the development of integrated circuits and artificial intelligence (AI) can afford to lose human capital. And they are losing it. Taiwan investigates 100 cases in its “silent technology war” against China The Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice of Taiwan is investigating 11 Chinese companies due to their possible involvement in recruiting talent in semiconductors, AI and other sectors linked to high-tech development, according to SCMP. Since 2020, the Government of Taiwan is dealing with 100 cases of possible talent theft in the field of engineering, and it is no coincidence. China has launched a huge talent search campaign in semiconductors and AI against the backdrop of its deep technological rivalry with the US. The 11 Chinese companies under investigation have been accused of illegally recruiting engineers The 11 Chinese companies that are being investigated by the Taiwanese Administration have been accused of illegally recruiting engineers by hiding their continental origin, creating front companies and establishing commercial operations in Taiwan without government approvalaccording to the Investigation Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice. Abishur Prakash, a geopolitics expert at the Canadian consultancy ‘The Geopolitical Business’, maintains that: “This is a silent technological war compared to the noisy fight between the US and China (…) While the US focus usually lies on export controls or attracting foreign capital, the Chinese focus is on those critical pieces, such as talent, that will drive the next innovations in AI. Taiwan is fully aware of this.” One of the Chinese companies that are in Taiwan’s sights due to their possible involvement in talent theft is SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp), the largest Chinese semiconductor manufacturer with a global market share of about 5%. This company is the best asset that Xi Jinping’s Government currently has to sustain China’s technological development. Hua Hong Semiconductor and SMES (Semiconductor Manufacturing Electronics Shaoxing) are also two very important chip manufacturers, but the real spearhead of this gigantic Asian country in this industry is SMIC. This company is partially public and has, as expected, the support of the Chinese Government. Image | Generated by Xataka with Gemini More information | SCMP In Xataka | We already know what the chips that will arrive until 2039 will be like. The machine that will allow them to be manufactured is close

Carlos Li, CEO of TCL Europe, on the commitment to giant TVs to conquer the high-end

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TCL is in an enviable moment in the television market. In 2025 managed to sell 20% more TVs while other of its competitors such as Hisense fell. Even Samsung, world leader in sales, fell slightly and the separation with TCL, its most direct rival, is already barely 1% share. The striking thing about this growth of TCL is in which segment it has occurred: the high-end. Nobody dispatches more MiniLED TVs than them right now and giant screens (85 inches or more) take up more than 22% of the global market. ​ The coup de effect was the recent announcement of alliance with Sony. The agreement, which is expected to come into operation in April 2027 at the earliest, is the most eloquent sign of how far a company has come that, until not long ago, was seen as good value for money and that’s it. With all this context, we were able to chat with Carlos Li, CEO of TCL Europe, who explained to us the company’s next steps to continue growing in televisions, but also in other segments such as household appliances. TCL has conquered the market thanks to a very good quality-price ratio and now I suppose the challenge is the high-end segment. What is your strategy to convince the European consumer to invest three or four thousand euros in a TCL X955For example? “We are focused on technology and also on giant screens. We believe that bigger, especially if we want to motivate consumers to return to the living room to watch television more often as a family. It takes a good experience to watch games or movies and differentiate itself from other devices, such as phones or tablets. We simply offer bigger screens and better image and sound quality. For more premium products, we are working on improving the experience, both in audio and video, to create an immersive cinema or gaming environment. That’s it which motivates consumers to pay premium prices to get a better product for their daily use.” Do you see this being a trend across Europe or just in some countries? Is it also happening here in Spain? “Yes, it has been proven and has been very successful in many markets. First years ago in China, and now in the United States, Europe, emerging markets, Latin America and also in the Middle East. We see this trend because, thanks to better products and larger screens, people are buying more televisions than before, especially high-end products with higher prices. We think we are very competitive in that area.” The recent news about the manufacturing deal with Sony has generated a lot of buzz. Beyond the volume of business, do you feel that the fact that a brand as demanding as Sony trusts its subsidiary CSOT serves as a definitive validation of TCL’s engineering and all its experience in this field? “First of all, the possible cooperation between TCL and Sony is still in the phase of a memorandum of understanding (MOU). We are still in the process of migrating from the MOU to a contract, so there are many things under discussion. But the good thing is that both Sony and TCL see the synergy that we can create together due to our capabilities in the industry, especially in the supply chain, R&D, resources in terms of CSOT panels, and our continuous investment in new technological innovations. This creates the synergy. perfect between the two companies for a new joint venture. Everything is still in process, but I think it is good proof that both parties see good added value in the other for the business portfolio.” I know everything is under discussion right now and it may take time to talk things out, but is there a tentative date to operate together? “It is a long-term bet, we are at an early stage and the two companies really need to get involved in the new strategy. There will be contracts later, so we do not expect to have an immediate impact on the market in 2026. It is more of a medium-term impact, like five or ten years.” There is a lot of talk about mini RGB or RGB mini LED as the technology that will surpass OLED and even traditional mini LED. What is TCL’s vision regarding this technology? “We have been developing Mini RGB technology for years, although we did not announce it before. We believe that SQD is a better display technology with better quality in terms of brightness and contrast. In the end, RGB is a type of mini LED TV with red, green and blue, but it has a higher cost because instead of a single LED light, you need to have three. This technology is not new for us, we have been developing it for eight years, which is why we are also launching our RGB mini LED TV. However, along with that, we will strongly push our “SQD because it is a unique technology in the industry, very robust and linked to our CSOT panel technology. For the moment, we reserve the SQD technology exclusively for our TCL brand, which creates a much better image quality compared to a Mini RGB. So the Mini RGB will be just one of the products in our portfolio.” Will they prioritize SQD then? “We believe that SQD will be the main trend for the future. We think it is a better solution as a display technology, which can really surprise the end user while maintaining the original price, and that is why we propose this.” Appliances, glasses and other areas where TCL also wants its piece of cake Carlos Li during the inauguration of the new TCL office in Madrid Many people know TCL for their televisions, but they also have appliances and we are seeing a lot of movement from other manufacturers in this segment. What is TCL’s next move in Europe regarding home appliances? “In home appliances, and together with air conditioners, we are … Read more

To rescue the pilot lost in Iran, the US has told a story worthy of Spielberg. Some explosive images tell a very different story

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In military manuals, rescue missions in enemy territory are as rare as they are dangerous: In decades of modern conflicts, only a few have been successfully completed without becoming a complete disaster. Some have marked history for their failuresothers for their execution to the limit, but most share something in common: the margin of error It is practically non-existent. Two stories for the same mission. When explaining the rescue mission of an American pilot on Iranian territory, Washington has told a story that Spielberg himself would sign: a wounded airman, alone and hiding in a mountain crevice, resisting for almost two days while the enemy searches for him and an elite force that bursts in between explosions to get him out alive. Of course, there is another version that is not narrated by American communiqués, but by some explosive images launched from the Iranian side: destroyed aircraft, improvisation on the ground and an operation that, although successful in its end, seems much more chaotic than what was intended to be conveyed. Between the two, a story full of chiaroscuros is built where epic and uncertainty coexist. The demolition and the race against time. lThe story started several days ago with the downing of an F-15E in Iranian territory, an already exceptional fact as it was the first American fighter lost in combat in years. The two crew members eject, but only the pilot is quickly rescued, while the weapons systems officer is isolated in a hostile mountainous area. From there a race against time: The wounded airman climbs a ridge, hides in a crevice and emits intermittent signals so as not to give away their position, while Iranian forces, militias and even civilians motivated by rewards search the area. For hours, not even Washington is clear if he is still alive. The perfect official version. The American narrative presents the mission as an impeccable display of power and coordination, with special forces, bombers, drones and massive air cover executing one of the most complex rescue operations in its history. There is talk of surgical precision, absolute control of airspace and clean extraction no American casualtiesculminated with a triumphalist message that elevates the operation to a symbol of military superiority. The CIA involvement adds an almost cinematic component, with an apparent deception campaign that confuses the Iranian forces as they locate the pilot “like a needle in a haystack.” A US Army AH-6 Little Bird helicopter The “other” details. However, upon delving into all the data that has been appearing, important cracks appear in the story. The first rescue attempt fails under enemy fireseveral helicopters are damaged and at least one A-10 falls during the operation, which already calls into question the idea of ​​total control. It happens that the final extraction is not goes as planned. How much? Apparently, two special operations planes were trapped on the ground after their wheels sank on a makeshift runway, forcing emergency reinforcements to be sent and, attention, to destroy them later to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. The images of the place They show charred remains of aircraft and helicopters, evidencing a much more eventful and risky operation than the official story suggests. The ambiguity of combat. Because another key point is the nature of the confrontation. While some versions speak of a “mass shooting”other more detailed sources indicate that there was no direct combat sustained on the ground, but rather air strikes against approaching Iranian forces. This difference is neither trivial nor minor, because it actually transforms a narrative of heroic confrontation in a very different where technological and aerial superiority was the truly decisive factor, reducing the drama of hand-to-hand combat, but increasing the feeling of distance between what was told and what happened. Propaganda, perception and war of stories. If you like, everything indicates that the rescue was not only a simple military operation, but a narrative battle in the middle of war. From the sidewalk in Washington, the story became a kind of “Easter miracle” useful for bolstering domestic support and projecting strength. However, from the sidewalk of Tehran, the simple fact of having shot down the plane It already served as proof that he could challenge the United States. In that context, every detail counts the same that every omissionbecause control of the story is almost as important as the tactical result. Success with many shadows. The pilot seems to have been finally rescued and that, in military terms, marks the success of the operation. However, the path to achieve it reveals something more complex: a mission on the edge, with failures, improvisation, extreme risks and decisions made on the fly that contradict the image of perfect execution. Perhaps for this reason, between the story that seems written for the cinema and the one revealed by the smoking remains on the ground, it remains a conclusion most uncomfortable: even the most successful operations can hide a reality much more fragile than one wants to admit. Image | US MARINE In Xataka | The US is going to end its war in the Middle East with a very uncomfortable reality: Iran had years of advantage underground In Xataka | If the question is “how close are we to an escalation in Iran,” the answer is US A-10s flying there

There are very good alternatives for less

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I admit it: I was wrong to buy my phone with “only” 256 GB of storage. I’m a big fan of taking photos and videos, so I’ve taken advantage of these past few days by emptying my phone in order to have room on it for my Easter getaway. The problem? There’s not much more to delete and I barely have space. I have no choice but to move to a cloud. Mostly, I use the free 15 GB of Google Drive. However, it is not an option to free up space on my phone, since for the most part I have this space occupied with emails and other types of files. So, I’ve been looking for some options that are quite interesting for what they offer (and for what they cost). I’ll tell you more about them. Proton Drive We have a good solution with Proton Drive, one of the best European alternatives to Google Drive that we currently have available. Beyond the capacity it offers, Proton Drive is a service that offers end to end encryption (so not even the company itself will be able to access our files) and a lot of control over what we upload and the links we generate if we want to share photos, videos or files with friends. Additionally, it includes Proton Docs and Proton Sheets. It has a free mode with 5 GB of storage. This may not give us much room to try it because it is not much capacity, but right now there is a promo active that gives us 200 GB for alone 1 euro per month (later it costs 4.99 euros per month). You can also opt for their annual plan, in which case each month costs 2.99 euros. Proton Drive (the first month) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links pCloud pCloud can also suit us very well. This service also has a very good level of security and encryption, as well as the ability to recover data from up to 30 days agosomething that can save you from losing something forever due to a specific error. It also has its own player for multimedia files, which is quite useful. This service, unlike what happens with Proton Drive, does not have a free modality. Its monthly modality costs 4.99 euros and gives us 500 GB storagea figure that is not bad at all (although we can save a little if we buy a year, since it costs 49.99 euros). The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Internxt Another economical alternative, also European, is Internxt. This service, as with other options such as Proton, It is open source. What does that mean? That anyone can audit it, so it is impossible to hide a back door that allows a third party to access our data. The “bad” thing about Internxt is that it does not allow us to get a month of its service, since its modality is annual. Now, it is quite economical, since it costs 24 euros per year (which is 2 euros per month) and it gives us 1 TB of storage. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Google Drive It may happen that you are comfortable with Google Drive and do not want an additional service. So, the easiest thing in that case is to expand your storage capacity with Google One. If you only need an extra capacity and you don’t want to spend too muchit is one of the best options you can choose. As I said above, Google Drive gives you only 15 GB of free storage. The basic mode gives you 100 GB storage for a price of 0.49 euros for three months. (later, 1.99 euros per month). For more capacity, it may not be so recommended, since the price becomes 7.99 euros per month (although it includes more things, of course). Google One (for three months) 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 | Proton, pCloud, Internxt, Google In Xataka | Google Drive alternatives: the best cloud storage services for your files In Xataka | Best VPNs 2025: guide with the 17 best services to protect your online privacy

That Anthropic has shut down OpenClaw is understandable. That they do so confirms that they are becoming the Nintendo of AI

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Peter Steinberger, the creator of AI agent OpenClawrose on Saturday to a ton of mentions on his Twitter account. In all of them they warned him of the same thing: Anthropic announced that Claude Code (Claude Pro/Max) accounts could not be used in OpenClaw. The decision left him anything but indifferent, and users of this agent have criticized a decision that, although reasonable, is, in a way, a disturbing tactic because of how and when it arrived. what has happened. OpenClaw is the AI ​​agent that, if you want, takes control of your machine and uses its apps to do for you everything you ask. Its operation is very powerful, especially if you use it with quality models such as Claude Opus 4.6 or Claude Sonnet 4.6. Many users were taking advantage of the Claude Pro and Claude Max plans to get the most out of OpenClaw, but Anthropic has said that that cannot be done. As explained, OpenClaw and other AI agents consume too many tokens and those plans are designed to be used in Claude Code for programming. If you want to use Claude with OpenClaw, pay. At Anthropic they do not prohibit the use of their AI models with OpenClaw, but they make it clear that if you want to use them you must use them with their API. It’s as if you bought the monthly transport pass for 20 euros to travel unlimited on the subway: it works perfectly when you go to and from work or university, but Anthropic says that you cannot use that pass to use it in your courier company that makes hundreds of trips a day. The token consumption in Claude Code is manageable, but in OpenClaw that consumption skyrockets and in Anthropic they want you to pay per use, not take advantage of the “flat rate” (with limits) of their Pro/Max plans. It’s understandable… Many users have attacked Anthropic and criticized that decision. Boris Cherny, one of the top managers of Claude Code, answered in X to a user who told him that decision “sucked”: “I know it sucks. At its core, engineering is about making hard decisions, and one of the things we do to serve a lot of customers is optimize how subscriptions work to reach as many people as possible with the best model. Third-party services are not optimized in this way, so it is very difficult for us to maintain it in the long term.” It is true that the massive use of Claude in OpenClaw raises the internal costs of Anthropic’s infrastructure: it does not pay off for them that so many instances of OpenClaw are being used with Claude, at least not if they are not used with the API. It is reasonable because these plans effectively “cheat” by being able to be used with this and other AI agents. But… …the moment is curious. This decision comes shortly after Anthropic has started to “copy” some of the OpenClaw features in their products, something we also expected. Claude Cowork, Dispatch and Remote Control have become the “official” ways to be able to do some of what OpenClaw does directly with Anthropic tools, and shortly after releasing them is when they begin to cover the way in which users can use their monthly plans. For Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, Anthropic’s decision comes now It is significant: “It’s funny how the timing coincides: first they copy the most popular features of our tool to their own closed product, and then they block access to open source.” Anthropic doesn’t lie. The technical argument that Cherny mentions is real, and the truth is that there is a capacity problem. Claude models are expensive to run, demand grows faster than infrastructure, and users of AI agents like OpenClaw consume resources much more intensively than conventional chat or Claude Code users. This is not sustainable, but it is also true that this decision comes three weeks after Steinberger “sold” OpenClaw to OpenAIAnthropic’s nemesis. Anthropic in Nintendo mode. This is the classic walled garden pattern: you see what works on another platform or rival product, absorb it, and then close the door. Nintendo has done this for decades with its platform developers, and Apple has perfected it with the App Store. The difference is that Nintendo and Apple had that walled garden from the beginning, and Anthropic is building it now. Although it’s not exactly the same. It should be noted that Nintendo is protecting an ecosystem with decades of irreplaceable IPs (Intellectual Properties): Mario, Zelda, or Metroid. It is normal that there is an access cost. Anthropic is doing that right now with Claude as the star product, but obviously it doesn’t have anything comparable (at the moment) to the IPs that Nintendo has. Here is another disturbing comparison: Apple or Nintendo charge to enter the ecosystem but it does not keep the meter running. Anthropic does: it has an increasingly closed garden, but it also forces the use of the API to use OpenClaw, with a pay-per-use model that is reasonable given Claude’s demand. But the rest do “leave”. What Anthropic has done clashes with what other AI companies are doing, especially when we talk about Chinese startups. The creators of Kimi, Minimax, GLM or the recent Xiaomi MiMo They do not have these policies: you can contract their monthly plans, very cheap, and take advantage of their models for OpenClaw without problems and without (barely) limits. It is true that these models are not as capable as Claude, but the way they act is still striking. In Xataka | OpenClaw changed the rules of the AI ​​race. Technology companies already have their answer: copy it

an engine for all speeds

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For decades, engine development has set a pretty clear limit on what a plane or missile can do in the air. Achieving hypersonic speeds does not depend only on materials or aerodynamic design, but on solving a much more complex problem: how to maintain a stable propulsion system from takeoff to beyond Mach 6. China has been working in this direction since the mid-nineties, and now claims to have completed a prototype that seeks to cover that entire range without resorting to switching between propulsion systems in mid-flight. That objective takes shape in what researchers describe as a “contra-rotary ramjet engine“, an air-breathing engine designed to operate continuously from startup to speeds above Mach 6. The team, linked to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and led by Xu Jianzhong, maintains that the prototype has already been completed and verified experimentally after more than three decades of work. Even so, the development is in a preliminary phase: the next steps involve adapting it to different platforms and subjecting it to real flight tests that allow its behavior to be validated outside the laboratory. The engine that can mark a before and after in defense The traditional solution to hypersonic and high-speed flight usually combines two propulsion systems: a turbine engine for speeds up to around Mach 3 and a ramjet for higher speeds. On the one hand, turbine engines cover takeoff and the first phases of flight, while ramjets can only operate when the device is already moves at high speed. This division of labor solves part of the problem, but it introduces other complications. As the researchers explainthe system drags unnecessary mass when one of the engines is inactive and adds technical complexity when changing regimes, a process that can become unstable in demanding phases of flight. The Chinese team’s proposal introduces changes on several fronts, but the core is in its compressor. Unlike conventional designs, it uses two sets of blades that rotate in opposite directions, one for high pressure and the other for low pressure, this configuration reduces centrifugal forces on the components. It would also improve rotation efficiency. Added to this is an unusual approach: instead of minimizing shock waves, the design takes advantage of them to compress the air flow, which would reduce its size and weight. The road to this prototype has not been quick. According to SCMPXu Jianzhong began focusing on hypersonic propulsion in the mid-1990s and by 2000 had outlined the concept of the counter-rotating compressor. For years, the project progressed until andn 2009 obtained institutional supportwhich made it possible to build experimental platforms from scratch. From there, the team spent nearly a decade resolving technical bottlenecks, especially in blade cascade design, before reaching the experimental verification now announced. If this architecture were to be transferred to operational systems, its implications would be direct in the design of hypersonic aircraft and missiles. Reduce the weight of the motor in this type of weapons open the door to increase the amount of fuel, payload or range, in addition to improving maneuverability. For reusable aircraft, a single propulsion system would simplify integration and reduce the risks associated with mid-flight mode changes. Even so, these advantages are presented for now in potential terms, awaiting validation in real conditions. Despite the scope of the announcement, development is still in an early phase when viewed from an operational point of view. The tests carried out so far have been limited to experimental settings. The next challenge, according to the researchers, will be precisely that, adapting the engine to real aircraft or missiles and checking its behavior outside the laboratory. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana | CAS In Xataka | Japan has dozens of “forgotten” islands off the coast of China: it is now preparing for the worst scenario

the reason is the laws of physics

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Surely you already know (online advertising is reminding you day in and day out) that with a simple prompt you can generate a video game. The AI ​​does it for you, but what it can’t do is play it. The reason is not that games are difficult in the abstract: it is that the real world obeys the same physical laws everywhere, and video games do not. Do, not play. The paradox is striking: with tools like Cursor either Claudea prompt generates a clone of a functional classic game. ‘Asteroids’, for example. However, that same system would not even surpass the first level of its own creation. Julian Togelius, director of the Game Innovation Lab at New York University and co-founder of the testing company Modl.ai, has been investigating why for months, and has broken it down in an interview. Programming is not a game. Togelius defines programming from a structural point of view: a very well designed game. Each line of code comes with a clear statement, a verifiable success criterion and feedback on possible failures, and the program indicates exactly where and why it failed. LLMs (language models) have been trained with massive amounts of code and fine-tuned using reinforcement learning to solve exactly those types of problems. Programming is, in terms of task structure, an exceptionally “well-behaved” game, as Togelius defines it. That’s why so many people find programming fun. However, video games are another story: the action space is governed by more arbitrary rules, feedback can be immediate or take hours to arrive, spatial reasoning is essential and the margin of error is much smaller. When an AI model is asked to play something, the result documented in the paper that Togelius made is unequivocal: “absolute failure.” With a guide, please. Gemini 2.5 Pro completed ‘Pokémon Blue’ in May 2025, but it took considerably longer than any human player, made repetitive mistakes, and relied on auxiliary software to achieve it. The TIME magazine analyzed Why the best AI systems still struggle with ‘Pokémon’. And that is one of the few titles that manage to finish. They achieve this because these systems have specific APIs to consult strategic guides. That ‘Pokémon’ or ‘Minecraft’ (another title that AIs can navigate) are two of the most documented franchises in the history of video games, with millions of hours of walkthroughs available on the internet, is the key to making it easier for them. The key is in physics. But… why can a language model write an essay on quantum physics and at the same time fail in both ‘Halo’ and ‘Space Invaders’? Togelius’s response is that “those two games are more different from each other, in a sense, than two different academic essays.” Looked at another way: video games are very heterogeneous. Each one invents their own rules, their own space logic, their own reward system. The mechanics of a platform game are absolutely different from those of a ‘Tetris’. Spatial reasoning (where objects are, how they move, how they relate) does not appear in the pre-training data of the language models because it cannot be understood from one game to the next. However, let’s look at a task seemingly more difficult than playing ‘Super Mario’: driving a self-driving car. And AIs do that well. The difference with games is that the real world obeys the same physical laws anywhere on the planet. The asphalt behaves the same in San Francisco as in Shanghai, the traffic lights follow the same principles, the vehicle always responds the same. As Togelius points out, “driving is much more homogeneous than video games as a whole.” Learn to drive and you can do it anywhere on the planet. Learn how to play ‘Doom’ and you will have no idea how to play ‘Age of Empires’. The definitive criterion. That is why Togelius proposes video games as a criterion to determine the success of an AI: it is necessary to gauge whether an agent capable of learning can complete any game in the top 100 on Steam in approximately the same time as a skilled human player, without access to prior documentation or specific integration. To that scale (which does not require winning on the first try, but rather learning at a human pace) there is no system today that comes close. Header | Photo of Erik Mclean in Unsplash In Xataka | AI entered video games as an experiment. Today more than 80% of developers no longer know how to produce without it

We were going to turn trash into clean energy. Now the biogas sector faces its biggest challenge: convincing neighbors

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Spain may be emerging as great power in solar and wind energybut there are other green energies that choke him. The Spanish state is not having a nose for biogas. Or rather: it doesn’t smell good, in the most literal sense of the word. However, the sector has practically gone from zero to one hundred in record time: in just two years there are more than 200 biogas projects on the table in different processing phases. And they bring with them a problem: biogas is the green energy that no one wants close to home. The problem: energy transition vs. social rejection. In the roadmap for Spain’s energy transition (the PNIEC 2030), whose ultimate goal is for the state to achieve emissions neutrality by 2050, biogas has its role. But to make it possible, it is an essential requirement to build and launch plants. And here it collides with a wall of social rejection in the form of citizen platforms, not so much to the technology itself, but to the implementation model. There are no shortage of reasons: from the classic fear of bad smell to the lack of territorial planning, promoter companies that present projects without setting foot on the territory and talking to those who live there, the gigantism of some facilities or the shadow of macro farms as arguments, such as They explain for El País the emeritus professor of Environmental Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia Xavier Flotats and the biologist and researcher at the National Museum of Natural Sciences Fernando Valladares. Why is it important. That biogas appears in Spain’s energy transition strategy implies that, sooner or later, it will materialize; the key now is in the as. It is also a direct path to energy sovereignty that replaces natural gas. Just take a look at the electricity price map in Europe To understand it: countries that depend on imported fossil fuels suffer from price volatility, while those who have opted for their own alternatives They achieve greater independence and stability. But its value goes beyond energy. These plants generate organic fertilizers that replace chemicals derived from petroleum and offer a real solution to waste management. The slurry or agricultural remains will be produced the same, with or without a plant; The difference is that biogas allows them to be turned into a resource instead of leaving them as an environmental problem. Context. A biogas plant is essentially a stomach where bacteria break down organic waste without oxygen, known as anaerobic digestion. From here two products are obtained: a gas rich in methane and a fertilizer. Depending on the gas obtained, the plant is simply biogas or biomethane: biogas is methane combined with carbon dioxide in almost equal parts, so it is a “weak” fuel that is usually burned on site to generate electricity or local heat. However, biomethane plants add a refining step (removing carbon dioxide) to obtain a gas similar to fossil natural gas. In Europe, the biogas sector is a consolidated industry with more than 19,000 plantsof which almost half are in Germany. A picture says a thousand words: this Europe biomethane plants map of Gas Infrastructure Europe shows the density in states like Germany or Denmark compared to the Spanish desert. The ecological dilemma. For engineer Xavier Flotats, the general rejection is a contradiction: “For some activists, it is better that a landfill is emitting methane into the atmosphere than taking the waste to a biogas plant to do something useful with it.” And he goes deeper by explaining that although this outgoing digestate has 95% of the input composition by weight, its composition changes, it is mineralized and converted into fertilizer. Valladares assures that biogas plants are greenwashing in that the process does not make the waste disappear, they only remove 5%. And that “Biogas plants cannot be understood without the macro farms industrial poultry, pigs and cows.” For the biologist at the National Museum of Natural Sciences, the only viable plants are few, small, safe and expensive. Marina Gros, representative of Ecologistas en Acción recognizes that “There are discrepancies within the organization because there is debate, there are different visions.” And in fact, have published a guide to evaluate case by case. The elephant in the room. Beneath the biogas dilemma inevitably lies the controversy of macro farms: In the event of a possible deployment of plants, the reality would be that part of the biogas produced in the state would depend on its slurry. There are those who see this as taking advantage of an already existing problem, but for other people it represents a facelift to a type of industrial livestock farming designed to maximize productivity at a lower cost compared to animal welfare and the environmental balance of the territory. Separate the wheat from the chaff. Faced with this flood of projects, experts agree on the importance of distinguishing sustainable plans from those that are not. Some signs that indicate that a project is reasonable include choosing a location close to the waste it manages and operating on a regional scale, with a plan to use the digestate as a local fertilizer and a design that guarantees total watertightness. On the contrary, there are signs that are authentic red flag: that the plant is far from the waste but close to gas pipelines, the absence of plans for digestate, the reception of waste in open pits, competition with other plants for raw materials or a logic of an industrial macroplant detached from the territory. In Xataka | A strange source of energy is putting Europe’s energy unity at risk: manure In Xataka | The ace up Spain’s sleeve to grow even more in the renewable energy landscape: biomethane Cover | Spencer DeMera and Eli DeFaria

We have found a time capsule in the form of salt in Chile. And now finding life on Mars is closer

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As we continue to explore how to get to Mars with Artemis II As a critical engineering and logistics bridge in the form of a long-term trial of interplanetary travel, science continues to search for traces of life on the red planet. And it is not easy: although 3.37 billion years ago an ocean covered half the planetMars is today a dry planet devastated by radiation. The question is where to look for that life. The answer, as incredible as it may seem, may be more than 3,500 meters high in the north of Chile, in the Salar de Pajonales, a landscape that is also desolate where there is a range of extreme temperatures ranging between -23 °C and 26 °C, one of the highest solar radiation recorded on Earth, there is hardly any precipitation and winds that exceed 100 km/h. And yet, there is life. There a research team has discovered that plaster constitutes the perfect refuge for life. Spoiler: Gypsum is a common mineral both on Earth like on mars. The discovery. According to this research, gypsum is not only a sedimentary rock, but also a biological repository. Thus, this mineral is capable of harboring both current life in the form of microorganisms that live within the crystals and preserving molecular fossils and microscopic structures. A kind of time capsule that protects organic material from degradation for millions of years. Why is it important. The consequence of this finding in space research is direct: if gypsum is a “magnet” for biological preservation in hyperaridity conditions, the scientific community knows that the abundant sulfate deposits on Mars (such as Gale crater) are a magnificent place to continue searching for traces of extraterrestrial life. If there was life on Mars, gypsum is a likely place to house its traces. Context. The Salar de Pajonales seems like a place from another planet: it is in high mountains where ultraviolet radiation is high, there is extreme aridity and thermal fluctuations reminiscent of the conditions on Mars from billions of years ago, when the red planet began to dry out. In this scenario, life has learned to hide from the unfriendly surface in a lifestyle endolithic to survive. Thus, the mineral functions as a solar shield and moisture reserve. How have they done it. To read what the rocks contain, the Tebes-Cayo team has applied a kind of high-precision molecular and mineral archaeology: With habitability and climate analysis with a meteorological station that recorded data every 20 minutes for 40 years monitoring water activity. Using x-rays, petrography and microfluorescence to create thin sections to distinguish minerals and their distribution without destroying the sample. With microscope, isotopes and DNA sequencing to identify the microorganisms, the trapped corpses and to confirm that the carbon found has a biological and not a geological origin. Yesyes, but. We already know that gypsum is the ideal candidate to search for life on Mars, but that is based on a hypothetical premise: that it ever existed. On the other hand, and although the Salar de Pajonales is reminiscent of the Red Planet, the conditions on Mars are even more extreme than in Chile (there is almost no atmosphere and it is even colder), which may have affected the preservation in a different way. And then there is the practical application: it is one thing to detect these biosignatures in the high mountains of Chile and another to use a robot thousands of kilometers away for the same purpose. In Xataka | Europe has thought of throwing three robots into a volcanic lava tube and now colonizing the Moon or Mars is closer In Xataka | If the question is “how are we going to build houses on Mars” the answer today is “with bricks made of urine” Cover | Luiza Braun and BoliviaIntelligent

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