Month: May 2026

the amazing case of Alba Carrillo

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In 2022, the name of Alba Carrillo evoked sofas on sets, Telecinco scandals and pink chronicles in their purest form. Three years later, left-wing media calls her “president” half seriously and half jokingTVE calls her to order for defending taxes and she responds by abandoning the program in which she collaborates directly. Something has happened between ‘Supermodel’ and the Faculty of Philology, and it is not just the maturity that comes with age. Ghost in the machine. Alba Carrillo made her television debut in 2007 in the ‘Supermodelo’ contest, broadcast on Cuatro when the network was not yet part of Mediaset. I was twenty years old and studying Advertising and Public Relations at the Complutense University. From there came a progressive integration into the Mediaset ecosystem: collaborations in ‘Sálvame’, ‘It’s already midday’, ‘Viva la vida’ and a contestant in ‘Survivientes’, ‘Big Brother VIP’ or ‘Bake Off Famosos’. Carrillo was perfect for the pink world because of her personal background (divorced from former tennis player Feliciano López, mother of Fonsi Nieto’s son) and because of her foul-mouthed and confrontational attitude. During those fifteen years he also studied Criminology and began to forge a relationship with reading that she herself describes as constitutivebut none of that interfered with her image as a more or less traditional collaborator. Love is over. The mechanism broke in December 2022, at the Christmas party of Unicorn Content, Ana Rosa Quintana’s production company. Carrillo acknowledged having had an affair with another collaborator of the production company Jorge Pérez, something he denied. Mediaset decided to support Pérez’s version and dispense with Carrillo’s collaboration in all his programs. The dismissal came in mid-2023 and Carrillo responded with a lawsuit. The complaint against Mediaset España, Unicorn Content and La Fábrica de la Tele accused them of unfair dismissal and fraud of law (due to how she was hired at the network). The two parts they reached an agreement in December 2023 but in the meantime, Carrillo opened a Twitch channel called ‘The Tea Room’ where, in June 2023, he attacked Ana Rosa Quintana and accused Mediaset of rigging the results of some reality shows in which he participated, such as the seventh edition of ‘GH VIP’. It was the first (but not last) time I experimented with the possibility of speak without filter from a platform that could not fire her. National signing. Alba Carrillo was banned from television for almost a year until RTVE noticed her and in April 2024 she entered several formats of the public network, such as ‘Bake Off: Famosos al oven’, ‘Mañaneros’ and ‘D Corazón’. The reunion with television coincided with an academic turn that led her to study Hispanic Philology. He completed this post-Mediaset stage by signing for Netflix in June 2025, when the platform premiered the Spanish version of the ‘Playing with fire’ format, in which contestants must give up sex to qualify for 100,000 euros. Left turn. But the space that has transformed her public image, turning her into a kind of progressive pop diva is another. Since April 13, 2026, he has presented ‘El Sótano Club’ on the TEN channel (the same one that hosted the retreaded version of ‘Sálvame’), from Monday to Friday. The program, a current affairs and humor magazine, has given him a platform from which he has been distilling a political speech increasingly explicitand where it addresses topics such as public health, taxation and the machismo of the extreme right. vs. Paz Vega. His latest fight was due to the announcement of ‘MasterChef Celebrity Legends’ on RTVE. In one of the installments of his program on TEN, Carrillo questioned the presence in the program of Paz Vega (who has a debt with the Treasury) and the influencer Ofelia Hentschel, who went viral for encouraging not paying taxes during Iran attacks to facilities in Dubai. “There are many who are fraudsters and they hire them to cook on RTVE, which bothers me a lot… This could be expensive for me, but I have to say it,” he came to say in a program on RTVE itself, ‘D Corazón’. Indeed. RTVE gave her a call to attention and she decided not to present himself to ‘D Corazón’ the following Saturday. Of course, this resignation served to allow the Streissand Effect to do its work and RTVE’s attempt to silence the collaborator had the opposite effect. The video circulated on networks and the progressive media spread it with enthusiasm. Poor audiences. One problem that Alba Carrillo may have in the face of future successes is that her audience figures are not so spectacular. After a month of broadcast‘El Sótano Club’ accumulates an average of 0.5% screen share and 41,000 viewers (half of TEN’s average), well below the formats that previously occupied that slot. ‘Not even if we were Shhh’, heir to ‘Sálvame’, averaged 2.2% in its two seasons. The maximum for Carrillo’s program came on the day of its premiere: 0.9% and 69,000 viewers, the only day in which it equaled the channel’s average. The controversies generate specific spikes (attacks on María Patiño, the slamming of the door on ‘D Corazón’), but the effect is short-lived. The channel itself, aware of the problem, cut 45 minutes of duration after the first week and now only broadcasts three and a quarter hours. Progressive diva. The most interesting thing about the Carrillo phenomenon is not so much what he says (which is not so uncommon in Spanish public conversation either) but where he does it from. As Ana Requena Aguilar points outin recent years Carrillo has become a progressive voice that has approached feminist and left-wing discourses, and has used her loudspeaker to spread them without complexes. And at the same time, Carrillo is discredited because she does not completely escape the shadow of the tabloid press, which suffers general contempt for the public with which she is traditionally associated: especially women, older people and middle or lower class. The audience of the heart, which has never been ideologically neutral (it … Read more

We have just discovered an intact medieval notebook in a latrine

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You know it and I know it: those few minutes we spend with our butts on the toilet are ideal for catching up on Instagram, sending a WhatsApp or even answering the email. Although there are some people who have gotten out of hand about using their cell phones in the toilet, which can end hemorrhoids or with company measures to minimize losses. Nowadays it is the mobile phone, but before it was a book or a magazine. And if today we talk about the toilet, in the past they were latrines. Of course, that winning combo of reading or writing in the bathroom has a dangerous B-side: you wouldn’t be the first or the last person whose cell phone has fallen from their pocket into the toilet. In fact, someone dropped a notebook into a latrine 700 years ago and now a team of archeology professionals just found it. The curious thing is not that the notebook is very old, it is its state of conservation: it is intact. The discovery. In excavations led by the Westphalian-Lippe Regional Association in the historic center of Paderborn, the team has found a notebook made of wood, leather and wax that dates back to between the 13th and 14th centuries and which, as you can see below, is in a magnificent state of preservation. In fact, archaeologist Barbara Rüschoff-Parzinger confirmed It is the only complete specimen of its characteristics in the entire region. The piece measures 10 by 7.5 centimeters, has ten double-sided wax pages and is protected by a leather bag with a lid. The cover retains a lily printed motif in its entirety, medieval symbol of purity and authority. As for the text, it is written in Latin, so as point the archaeologist responsible for the excavation, Sveva Gai, its possible owner was probably someone well-versed, a merchant from the city. In fact, short notes talk about commerce, finances or personal matters. Be careful because more than a notebook for writing with a pen, it was like a reusable waxed blackboard: the stylus had a sharp tip to engrave letters and a flat end to smooth the surface and erase. This erasure process left remains of other previous writings. A wood, leather and wax notebook in unbeatable condition… for being 800 years old and having been in a latrine. LWL Context. The notebook did not appear alone: ​​among the medieval objects recovered in one of the five latrines discovered during the excavation, they found barrels, a knife, complete medieval ceramic vessels, remains of fabrics and fragments of basketry. The set is what helps confirm the dating of the book. According to Gaithe area adjacent to the Abdinghof monastery was in the Middle Ages a neighborhood of the urban gentry of Paderborn. Knowing that it was a good neighborhood helps to better contextualize the objects, as Gai points out of the remains of fabric found: “The remains of silk fabric from the latrine were partially torn into rectangular pieces, some of them of extremely fine fabric and decoration. Perhaps it was toilet paper after the once elegant fabric was discarded.” Yes, they probably used silk as toilet paper. Why did he survive so well?. Incredible as it may seem, what saved that notebook was ending up at the bottom of a latrine in conditions of high humidity and without oxygen, a combination where the microorganisms responsible for decomposing materials such as wood or leather cannot survive. If this had not been the case, the notebook would have fallen apart in a few decades. In short: anaerobic preservation, one of the phenomena that have converted the sealed latrines in valuable deposits. Susanne Bretzel was the first person to examine the notebook and stands out that beyond giving off an unpleasant smell, it was barely necessary to clean the outside of the notebook: the wood held up without deforming and the interior pages were so adhered that no sediment had entered, which allowed the wax to remain intact and the manuscripts to be read. The unsolved mystery. No one knows how a notebook ended up inside a latrine, but Sveva Gai da the most likely explanation: that it fell by accident. What we do know is that this fate, no matter how fortuitous or deliberate, is precisely what allowed it to survive more than 700 years. The team has outlined a profile of the possible owner, but his name remains a mystery. There is, however, a way to discover it: if that latrine could be linked to a specific plot through the historical archives of Paderborn, the notebook could have a first and last name. In parallel, the team works to recover the layers of erased writing under the wax, where previous annotations, still unread, may be stacked. In Xataka | In medieval Europe, not only humans ended up on the gallows. Other criminals were also executed: the “murderer” pigs In Xataka | In the Middle Ages it was common to sleep inside wooden closets. The big question is why we stopped doing it. Cover | LWL

It’s a survival strategy

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On July 7, the Noto Satoyama airport, in the Ishikawa prefecture in Japan, will open its doors again with a new name and design: The classic corridors and high ceilings of aseptic light colors will give way to a more theme park aesthetic because that day it will be called “Noto Satoyama Pokémon With You Airport” and yes, it will be a Pokémon themed airport. Pokémon airport. This intervention will change the aesthetics of the airport from beginning to end: The main atrium, entrance columns, boarding gates and commercial spaces will have elements of the video game and entertainment franchise that just turned 30 years old. The star element will be a giant Pikachu balloon along with a replica of an aircraft inside the terminal, surrounded by representations of 111 species of Flying-type Pokémon. In the access columns there will be several Pokémon to generate an immersive experience from the beginning. Why is it important. The change of face and name aims to reactivate the flow of visitors to a region that continues to recover from one of the worst natural disasters in its recent history, the earthquake of January 1, 2024. The idea is to use a transportation infrastructure with direct international traffic in a tourist attraction to regenerate the territory’s economy. Pokémon It is the most successful franchise in the world and of all times, with an estimated brand rating in more than 100,000 million dollars and about estimated income of 147,000 million dollars. Associating a public infrastructure with such a successful asset represents an enormous visibility lever. All you have to do is take a look at the stratospheric numbers of the Pokémon GO Fest: in 2024 it generated 200 million dollars in Madrid, New York and Sendai, according to Niantic Labs. Context. The 2024 earthquake affected the Noto peninsula (where the airport is) and had a magnitude of 7.6. The figures of the earthquake are horrifying: 228 deaths, 30,000 buildings destroyed or seriously damaged, transport routes unusable, ports unusable due to the rise of four meters in sea level, as Nippon account. The Japanese government estimated a damage cost of up to $17.6 billion. This transformation is not only a matter of marketing: it is also a matter of connectivity and marketing of the region. Ishikawa’s reconstruction plan was structured in three phases. First came housing and restoring infrastructure, with the aim of returning normality and promoting the economic and cultural development of the prefecture. The Japanese Prime Minister himself explained in 2025 that this “creative” reconstruction of the Noto airport at the February 2025 follow-up meeting, noted that the creative reconstruction of the Noto region should serve as a reference model for the recovery of rural areas throughout the country. In this framework, the themed airport fits as an emblematic project within the official reconstruction strategy. MDPIPrime Minister’s Office of Japan How are they doing it. This reconstruction will be carried out through public-private collaboration between Ishikawa Prefecture and the Pokémon Foundation of Japan. The design of the venue will be based in the 111 Flying-type Pokémon as the thematic common thread, displayed at all contact points for those who step foot in the airport from the first moment: façade, columns, transit area, boarding gates and even the gastronomic proposal, with pancakes and themed drinks served on exclusive placemats. The commercial area will offer limited edition products such as t-shirts, keychains and luggage accessories, so that the airport is more than just a connecting link to reach your destination: the airport itself will also offer its own unique experience, especially interesting for fans of the saga. Yes, but. Converting a critical infrastructure such as an airport into a hybrid between airport and theme park has its B side: it depends enormously on the future of the brand and the cost of maintenance increases, as it requires investment in new content, aesthetic renewal or licenses. And how warns Bloombergdepopulation and reduced tax revenues in Japan are making it difficult to maintain basic infrastructure and recover from disasters in rural areas. If the flow of visitors does not reach the profitability threshold, the initiative can become a heavy burden for a region that is already undergoing a very expensive reconstruction process. In Xataka | In 2016, millions of people went out to hunt Pokémon on the streets. In 2026 there will be autonomous robots guided by this In Xataka | Younger millionaires have found a more profitable investment than the S&P500: Pokémon cards Cover | PR Times

Singapore achieves an almost invisible solar cell that generates energy even in the shade

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The windows of a car parked in the sun or the lenses of smart glasses can be future charging points for a battery. And the technology has already reached that point thanks to scientists from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU) who have just published in ACS Energy Letters a new type of transparent, ultra-thin solar cell based on perovskite, a semiconductor material with compositional versatility that conventional silicon cannot match. In short. The team, led by Associate Professor Annalisa Brunohas managed to manufacture cells just 10 nanometers thick. To have an even greater dimension: a human hair measures about 70,000 nanometers, that is, if that hair were the Eiffel Tower, this film would be a sheet of paper placed next to it. However, there is an even more revealing piece of information from the study, since the natural roughness of the surface on which the cell is deposited—about 2.8 nanometers according to microscopy measurements of the paper itself—represents almost a third of its total thickness. But the milestone is not in its form. The real paradigm shift proposed by this technology is the end of exclusive dependence on direct sun. Unlike conventional silicon panels, these perovskite devices generate electricity under indirect light and diffuse light conditions, making them especially useful in high-density urban environments where vertical facades and frequent cloud cover limit direct solar exposure. “Buildings consume about 40% of the world’s energy, so we urgently need technologies that turn their facades into energy generators,” explains Bruno. According to the team’s initial calculations, if we covered the glass façade of a large skyscraper (such as those in the Marina Bay financial district) with this technology, we could theoretically generate hundreds of megawatt-hours per year. We are talking about covering the annual consumption of about 100 four-bedroom apartments. These are preliminary figures, of course, but the potential is there. The secret is in evaporation. How do you keep a window looking like a window while generating energy? The answer is that these cells are semitransparent and neutral in color, with no apparent dye that reveals their presence. To manufacture them, the team used a vacuum thermal evaporation process: the base materials are heated in a vacuum chamber until they evaporate and are deposited on a surface forming an ultrathin and uniform film. Without toxic solvents, without the usual defects of solution methods. What distinguishes this work from previous attempts — and there have been many, the study compares its results to decades of studies — is that it is the first time ultrathin perovskite cells have been made using entirely vacuum processes, from start to finish. That is not a minor detail because vacuum processes are already used by the large-scale semiconductor industry, which considerably shortens the path to industrial manufacturing. The data, but with nuances. Let’s get to the numbers, which is where this technology really comes into its own. In their completely opaque versions, these sheets manage to transform 7%, 11% and 12% of the light they receive into energy, using minimum thicknesses of 10, 30 and 60 nanometers. What if we want the window to remain a window? The 60 nanometer semi-transparent model allows 41% of visible light to pass through and maintains a non-negligible efficiency of 7.6%. According to the researchers, it is the best that has been seen to date with this type of materials But here the real tension of this type of engineering appears: the more transparent, the less efficient. The study identifies the 30 nm cell as the one that best balances both variables—it has the highest potential for combined light utilization efficiency—but allows less visible light to pass through than the 60 nm cell. There is no perfect solution; There is a compromise that each application will have to negotiate according to its priorities. But what about stability? This is where any perovskite technology has to prove its maturity. The data from the study itself shows that 100 nm cells last projected for about 15,400 hours before degrading to 80% of their initial performance. The 60 nm ones, 5,800 hours. The 10 nm ones, 4,100 hours. These are figures that speak of a laboratory, not of a window exposed to rain, temperature changes and years of use. Professor Sam Stranks, from the University of Cambridge, sums it up precisely in a separate commentary on the study– The balance between transparency and generation is promising, but the next critical tests will be long-term stability, durability and performance on large surfaces. The roofs are already occupied. The next frontier of urban solar energy is the millions of square meters of glass that cover our buildings, cars and devices, surfaces that until now were passive by definition. The progress of the NTU team, already patented through NTUitive and in conversations with companies to validate the process, points in that direction. There is still a way to go, especially in real durability. But for the first time, that path has an industry-compatible manufacturing method, cells that operate with a fraction of the available light and a thickness that makes the word “invisible” not a marketing metaphor, but a technical description fairly close to reality. Image | ACS Energy Xataka | Coal is back in fashion in many countries. The problem is that it is clouding the sky from the solar panels

The Milky Way has been in the sky for billions of years. It took a natural disaster for the residents of Los Angeles to see it for the first time

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January 17, 1994. The San Fernando Valley trembled under a large earthquake of magnitude 6.7 that shook the city of Los Angeles with terrible severity. As is normal after a disaster like thisthe emergency lines were soon filled with calls from terrified neighbors. There were many common warnings, but there was a much more curious call which was repeated ad nauseam. That of a lot of neighbors scared by the enormous silver strip that had opened in the sky. What they saw, far from being something dangerous, was a clear sign of the light pollution that already covered Los Angeles 30 years ago. It was just the Milky Way. In reality, what these neighbors saw was neither more nor less than the Milky Way. Many of them were not used to traveling outside big cities, so they had not seen our galaxy crossing the sky in their entire lives. This is precisely why this true story is often used to raise awareness about the risks of light pollution. Why is it not seen? Artificial light from streetlights, monuments or illuminated shop windows is reflected and dispersed in the atmosphere, so that it illuminates the background of the sky. Normally, we see stars because there is a great contrast between them and the dark sky. However, this scattered light almost completely destroys said contrast. From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a very faint band of light. Therefore, if there is not enough contrast it is practically impossible to see it. It’s still there, but it’s hidden from our eyes. The more pollution, the worse. The suspension of particles in the air can cause artificial light to scatter even further. Therefore, the problem in large cities, like Los Angeles, is twofold. On the one hand there are many streetlights and other luminaires and on the other hand there is usually a lot of pollution. It is normal that so many people have never seen the Milky Way. Getting worse. This event took place more than 30 years ago. Although today there is more awareness about the problem of light pollution and the City Councils of some cities design lighting projects advised by astronomers and other experts, the situation has not improved. In fact, currently is calculated that 80% of the world’s population lives under light-polluted skies. Using the striking case of the Milky Way as a reference, a study published in 2024 point because 60% of Europeans and 80% of Americans have never seen the Milky Way. The case of people who believed that the sky had cracked is just an anecdote. However, the reality is that the heavens are no longer what they were. If the problem of light pollution is not solved, future generations will not be able to enjoy many of the spectacles that the sky has given us. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | James Webb has found a galaxy from when the universe was 330 million years old. Hides a whole enigma

We believed that eating with our cell phone in our hand was harmless. Science warns that it is “hacking” our satiety

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Today, a fairly everyday scene is to see how, at meal time, in addition to the plate on the table, there is also the illuminated mobile screen is next to it while playing a TikTok video or an Instagram reel. The habit of eating by doing scroll on social networks, reading news or answering messages has become normalized to the point of becoming invisible. However, scientific literature has been warning for years that this disconnection between the plate and the brain has measurable consequences. The hijacking of satiety. The fact of eating while looking at the mobile screen makes us eat much worse, and this is what is known in the literature as mindless eating, which can be translated as “eating unconsciously.” Something that makes a lot of sense because when we are looking at something that interests us, we don’t even realize what we are putting in our mouths, going into automatic mode. And this is very important, because science is quite clear that the fact of feeling full of food is not something that depends only on the gastric process, but also involves our consciousness. In this way, when we eat while paying attention to something else, we damage the episodic memory of food. in the brain there is no adequate record of the textures, flavors or amount of food that has been put in the mouth. As a result of this “food amnesia”, the signals that indicate that the stomach has become full and that one should stop eating more become blurred. This causes us to eat more at that moment, and also, since we do not have a solid memory of having been full, we tend to eat more calories at lunch or snack. The data. This lack of active attention during eating can be extrapolated to specific figures, and something that has been repeated a lot is that cell phone use can increase caloric intake by 30%. Although this is an extreme limit derived from the sum of several disconnection factors, since studies point to somewhat lower figures. a study published in 2019 showed that eating with a mobile phone increases caloric intake by around 15% compared to people who are completely aware of their food. Furthermore, we do not eat more of everything but rather the nutritional profile worsens by tending towards a noticeably higher intake of fats. In the long term, we have a studio published in 2025 by Kyoto University where regular cell phone use during meals was associated with more marked weight gain in adults. But in the case of adolescents, it is associated with a greater consumption of sugary drinks and a higher BMI attributed to multitasking with the mobile phone. That is why it is best to always eat without any type of distraction that diverts attention from the task at hand, because otherwise there are several risks to our own health. Images | drobotdean in Magnific In Xataka | Eating in front of a screen is not a modern mania: it is the new social ritual

The next Mercedes-Benz model aims like a missile to fully enter the war

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In the middle of World War II, while Allied bombing destroyed German factories and consumed resources at an impossible rate, many plants that until then manufactured cars, engines or civil machinery began to transform hurriedly to produce military vehicles, aviation parts and weapons. Some of the most recognizable brands in the European automotive industry they then discovered something that decades later resonates strongly again: in times of geopolitical tension, an assembly line can change purpose much faster than it seems. The unexpected twist, or almost. For decades, the future of the European automobile seemed to come down to a single discussion: electric, hybrid or gasoline. However, the German industrial crisis and the accelerated rearmament of Europe are opening a possibility completely different. Mercedes-Benz, like before Volkswagenhas just made it clear that it is willing to enter the defense industry if the business makes economic sense. This has been confirmed through an interview in the Wall Street Journal of its CEO, Ola Källenius, and it is much more important than it seems because it reflects a profound change within the German automobile industry: the big brands are no longer only looking at the car of the future, they are also beginning to look at war as a new industrial opportunity. In a Europe increasingly obsessed with drones, missiles, air defense and military production, car factories are beginning to be seen not only as car plants, but as possible centers strategic manufacturing. The perfect storm. The context explains why this idea is beginning to seem reasonable even for companies historically far from the military business. The German automobile industry is going through one of its most delicate moments in decades: falling profits, pressure from Chinese manufacturers, high energy costs, lower European demand and tariff threats from the United States. Mercedes-Benz, for example, suffered a strong profit drop in 2025, while practically all major German manufacturers have announced cuts or adjustments labor. At the same time, the defense industry is experiencing exactly the opposite situation. European rearmament after the war in Ukraine has fired orders, investments and military contracts to historic levels. For many German industrial companies, the military sector is beginning to represent something very different from a marginal business: stability, growth and guaranteed public financing for years. From cars to artillery. The case of Mercedes is not isolated and we have been counting. Volkswagen is also exploring possible military collaborations as defense companies such as Rheinmetall study reuse factories of automobiles or absorb part of its industrial infrastructure. The message is clear: Europe is beginning to discover that many capabilities necessary to produce modern cars (advanced metallurgy, electronics, robotics, complex logistics chains or highly skilled workers) are also extremely useful to manufacture systems military. The border between both industries begins to fade little by little. It is no longer just about producing tanks or ammunition, we are talking about radars, drones, autonomous vehicles, electronic systems and air defense platforms that require technologies very similar to those of the modern automobile. The new European war economy. As we said, the ukrainian war It has caused an enormous psychological change within Europe. For years, much of continental industry assumed that globalization and stability made a large military capacity of its own unnecessary. Now the opposite happens: European governments are increasing defense budgets at speeds not seen since the Cold War. This transformation is pushing traditionally civil companies to reconsider their role within the new geopolitical context. The CEO of Mercedes himself insist that any military activity would remain dwarfed by its core business, but at the same time recognizes something revealing: can become a growing and profitable niche. That is to say, the German automobile industry is beginning to assume that part of future European growth could come directly from rearmament. The car of the future may not be a car. If you like, the most striking thing of all is the symbolism of change. For a long time, the automotive debate revolved around batteries, autonomous driving and sustainability. Now, some of Europe’s most iconic companies are beginning to speak openly on anti-drone defensemilitary production or collaboration with weapons manufacturers. The idea that the next big European industrial business could be closer to war than sustainable mobility would have seemed absurd just a few years ago. However, the combination of economic crisis, Chinese competition and continental rearmament is slowly pushing giants like Mercedes-Benz itself into completely new and unexpected terrain. And that reveals the extent to which Europe is entering a stage where the economy, industry and security are beginning to mix more and more. Image | Nara, RawPixel, Julian Herzog In Xataka | Europe wants to make more weapons and faster. Your biggest obstacle is not money: it is finding qualified welders and technicians In Xataka | In the midst of rearmament, Spain has just surprised Europe: 5,000 million for 34 warships and four submarines

It turns out that there are invasive land snakes that take to the sea from Ibiza. And they are annihilating a unique lizard

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In addition to being one of the great European tourist destinations, the Pitiusas Islands have a unique jewel of nature: the pitiusa lizarda unique reptile in the world that only lives there. By living in isolation, the lizard populations on each islet have evolved independently, giving rise to 28 different subspecies. This biological jewel today has a direct and truly terrifying threat: the horseshoe snake, a foreign species that was accidentally introduced to Ibiza in 2003, probably through ornamental olive trees imported from the Iberian Peninsula. Or so they thought: spotting a horseshoe snake is no longer something occasional, but they can even be seen swimming in the open sea. Spoiler: they are terrestrial snakes. what’s happening. The Center for Ecological Research and Forest Applications (CREAF) has published an academic article that covers the origin and invasion status of the horseshoe snake. The expansion map is conclusive: in 2010 the snake was present in less than 5% of the Ibizan territory, in 2016 it already occupied 40% of the island and in 2025 it had reached 90%. As stated by the research team led by Guillem Casbas and researcher Oriol Lapiedra, when it conquers a new area, it can take less than three years to eradicate the entire population of lizards. The speed of expansion is unprecedented among invasive snakes in Europe. What has never been seen is also the most disturbing: they have documented how snakes swim between islets, that is, they carry out active colonization. In 2024 they recorded a snake crossing 430 meters of open sea to the islet of Santa Eulària. The same sea that has served over the years as a barrier to the evolutionary isolation of the pitiusa lizard is no longer enough to protect it from its predator. The unstoppable advance of the horseshoe snake. Ecology Why is it important. The extinction of a species is always bad news from the point of view of fauna diversity, but this one is unique: its goodbye means that a unique and irrecoverable evolutionary lineage disappears, and according to the IUCN It is already cataloged as threatened, which means that population models predict a severe and continued reduction in the short and medium term. Beyond taxonomy, this eventual extinction would have its effect within an ecosystem as particular as the island and its balance, which could end with more extinctions due to a domino effect. In the case of the pitiusa lizard, it has pollinating and seed dispersal functions and if it does not do so, it puts the reproductive success of plants in check. On the other hand, and although its importance is more relative, the Pitiusas lizard is one of the great cultural and identity icons for those who are from Ibiza and Formentera: this amphibian is deeply rooted in the collective local imagination and popular mythology. Context. The magnitude of the problem is best understood within the biology of the islands. Islands are especially vulnerable ecosystems to invasive species because the loss of a single species can trigger cascading effects throughout the entire biological community. Invasive species enter the islands like an elephant enters a china shop: they compete for resources (more limited), alter habitats (smaller) and disturb ecological processes. The Pitiusas lizard is a critical node for the islands: however, was For millions of years it was the only terrestrial vertebrate in the archipelago and did not develop anti-predatory behaviors against snakes. A parallel case studied in depth is that of the brown tree snake on the island of Guamwhich decimated native bird and lizard populations, causing an increase in insects and altering forest dynamics. tragic consequences. The immediate ecological consequences are severe and quantifiable: there have already been local extinctions of lizards on at least 10 islets, and the snake has colonized between 12 and 15 of them through active swimming. And unfortunately, it’s just the beginning: this global study highlights that the impact of invasive vertebrate species on seed dispersal in island ecosystems is even greater than that caused by the extinctions of native fauna. Or what is the same, there may be a disruption in the plant regeneration of these islets. Likewise, its disappearance can take its toll on agriculture indirectly, as the lizard regulates the insect population. Is there a solution? The most urgent and important shock measure is to actively control the snake invasion. In 2025 the Balearic Government surpassed the 4,400 captures of invasive snakes in the Pitiusas and has already opted to leave the traps throughout the year. In 2026 the device will continue to expand with more resources. Of course, with a presence of 90% already in Ibiza, total eradication is unfeasible in the short term: the most realistic thing is to contain the advance and protect refuges. On the other hand, the conservation of the pitiusa lizard is also a priority objective, with several breeding lines of pitiusa lizards with genetic criteria in collaboration with the Barcelona Zoo. In the long term, the only structural solution is to combine the control of the snake with the conservation of the lizard’s genetics for a later reintroduction into its territory. In Xataka | The Ebro is filling with brown prawns, an invasive species that we are going to find more and more on our plates. In Xataka | Spain is witnessing a shocking phenomenon: three invasive species are feeding each other to conquer the country Cover | Albert Masats and Swimming Snakes Wipe out Endemic Lizards from Mediterranean Islets, Oriol Lapiedra

The giant jugs of Laos have long baffled science. A “death jar” has solved the riddle

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The heart of Southeast Asia and scattered throughout the mountains of Xieng Khouang province in Laos, rest thousands of monumental stone vessels. Some of these reach three meters in height and weigh several tons, and that is why this place received the name ‘Plain of Jars’. However, this landscape has been a great mystery for all the experts because it is not known who carved them, nor how they moved them nor what they were for. Resolving. Now, a new archaeological study seems to have finally found the key piece of the puzzle, revealing a mortuary tradition much more complex and macabre than previously thought. The discovery of a huge “death jar” has confirmed that these stone colossi were not isolated monuments, but the protagonists of a sophisticated multigenerational funerary ritual. A secret. The key to this puzzle is based precisely on the analysis of a single, gigantic vessel that hid inside no more and no less than the bone remains of at least 37 different people. But the most interesting thing of all is that this “overcrowding” is not the product of a hasty mass grave or a sudden catastrophe, since the study shows that we are dealing with a practice known as secondary burial. How they did it. This practice, the truth is, is very far from our current customs, since instead of burying the deceased directly, the ancient culture that inhabited the area allowed the bodies to decompose first. Once cleaned of meat, the bones were transferred and deposited inside these monumental jars, being a process quite similar to the one that continues with Spanish royalty in the Royal Pantheon of Escorial. But the presence of the remains of so many people in a single jar suggests that these were reopened and reused over several generations, functioning as authentic family or community pantheons. Ritual recycling. This article does not come out of nowhere, but already in 2023 investigations at “site 1” of the plain had found signs of secondary burials around the stones, but this new discovery consolidates the hypothesis that the jars themselves were main containers of this mortuary tradition. The most fascinating thing about this research is the time lag that the dating has revealed since scientists have discovered that the history of the Plain of Jars is made up of overlapping layers. This shows that the human remains analyzed date from between the 9th and 13th centuries, but the gigantic stone jars are, according to geological and archaeological estimates, much older. What does it mean? Basically, the landscape was the subject of a profound “ritual recycling.” The medieval inhabitants of Laos did not carve the jugs; They came across a pre-existing, mysterious and monumental megalithic landscape, and decided to appropriate it for their own funerary rituals. In other words, the site was not built for a single function or at a single moment, but rather had an unusually long lifespan, being resignified by different cultures over the centuries. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | We still don’t know where Tartessos was, but we do know where we are going to solve the enigma: in Badajoz

The problem is that anyone could look

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Many homes with small children have installed surveillance cameras or baby monitors. They allow you to monitor the child while it sleeps and, if it cries, you can go to see what is happening in an instant. All advantages, except when the camera in question has a security flaw that gives access to anyone who can look. what has happened. Security expert and independent researcher Sammy Azdoufal discovered that Meari brand cameras (including electronic peepholes and baby monitors) were completely unprotected. By simply analyzing the Android app, Azdoufal was able to extract a unique key that gave him access to more than a million cameras spread across 118 countries. All your research is detailed in its GitHub repository. What is Meari?. Surely the brand Meari Technologies does not sound familiar to you, it is normal because it is a white label manufacturer, that is, it manufactures for other brands. As explained in The VergeMeari cameras are sold on Amazon under various brands, such as Arenti, Anran, Boifun, ieGeek, Wyze, Petcube, COCOCAM, PetTec, SV3C, Joystek, Luvion and Vimar. Doing a search on Amazon Spain we found cameras from many of these brands, some of them with thousands of positive reviews. Non-existent security. The problem was not in a specific model, but in the entire architecture; Many of these brands shared servers and sometimes even credentials, so the system did not have any type of isolation: any of these brands could access the cameras of another. Additionally, the MQTT system (a machine-to-machine messaging protocol that ran on the EMQX IoT platform) did not have adequate protections, allowing real-time viewing of what was happening in thousands of homes. He also discovered that many cameras were still using default passwords such as “admin” or “public” and what is even worse, the alert images that these cameras save (for example when they detect movement) were stored on Alibaba servers without any type of protection, accessible simply through a URL. And this was not all, he also found an unprotected internal server where he found passwords for Meari and the list of 678 employees, including their emails and telephone numbers. He didn’t need to hack anything, just know where he had to look. The answer. According to Azdoufal, they did not take him seriously until they saw that their own employees’ data was being leaked, then they began to respond to his emails and solved the main failure, cutting off access to their cameras. In a statement sent to The Verge, the company admits that “Under certain technical conditions, attackers can intercept all messages transmitted through the EMQX IoT platform without user authorization.” However, it did not answer key questions such as how many camera models were affected, whether different brands have warned users or whether the vulnerability had been previously exploited. Tensions. Azdoufal was paid more than $24,000 for finding the bugs, but it was after several weeks of negotiation in which Meari did some pretty shady things. According to the researcher, the company sent him messages with veiled threats such as that the access he had made to their servers was illegal, that they were ready to “protect his interests” and that they knew his address. The company also tried to pretend that they knew about the bugs before, publishing security bulletins with altered dates. What to do if you have a Meari camera. According to the researcher, Meari manufactures for more than 300 brands and on the official website we have not found any official list, so it is difficult to know which brands are affected. If you suspect that your camera is one of these, Azdoufal recommends unplugging it whenever you are not using it, because the problem is in the cloud and is not something you can fix yourself. Also, please note that some images may still be accessible, and if you live in the EU you can lodge a complaint with your data protection authority. Image | Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | NASA has had its space systems exposed to hackers for three years: an AI discovered it in four days

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