Month: May 2026

We had been wondering for years why the Chernobyl wild boars were so radioactive. The answer was not in the accident

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Four decades after the accident at the nuclear power plant located in Prypiat, the animals of Chernobyl they continue generating fascination. These survivors in one of the most contaminated regions in Europe they surprise us in many ways, but if there is an enigmatic species in this place it is the wild boar. One of the most radioactive species from Chernobyl. Solving the mystery. In 2023 it appeared a new trackrevealed by a team of researchers, about these animals: we finally know why their radioactivity is greater than that of other species. The answer has less to do with the nuclear accident itself than with something that happened long before. More radioactive? There is very little we still know about the animals of Chernobyl. One of the most curious enigmas was that of wild boars. To understand why we have to talk about one of the most polluting radioactive isotopes, caesium 137 (Cs137). The half-life of this isotope (the time in which half of the atoms we have of the material will have disintegrated) is just over 30 years. The concentration of cesium in the food chain should in principle be reduced even further since the atoms tend to leach into the soil or be carried away by water into rivers. Going down. That is why the level of radioactivity in animals such as deer or roe deer has decreased significantly in the area. Not only has this situation not occurred in wild boar populations: their radiation levels have remained almost constant, that is, the decrease is not even in line with what the semi-disintegration of Cs137 would imply. It is the “wild boar paradox”. Nuclear tests and radioactive truffles. The answer comes from cesium 135. The team that solved this mystery did so by focusing not on the radiation levels but on its origin. They verified that it was this other isotope of cesium that was behind this phenomenon. Cs135 has a much longer half-life, which explains why the reduction had been smaller. This also makes it more difficult to detect the presence of Cs135. As explains the responsible team From the study, each type of nuclear incident has its own “signature.” It is estimated that 90% of the Cs137 present in Europe was released by the Chernobyl accident, but this is not the case for Cs135. The origin of this is 68% in the nuclear tests carried out in the context of the cold war. Just the right depth. The diet of wild boars has also been one of the key factors when it comes to understanding the reason for their radiation levels. These animals feed on a type of truffle (Elaphomyces) that grows in the subsoil, at depths of between 20 and 40 centimeters. As we pointed out before, part of the radioactive cesium It was seeping year after year into the soil of the area. At the rate of a few millimeters a year, cesium (both from nuclear tests and from the accident) has been advancing towards these depths, contaminating these mushrooms, a source of food for wild boars. From Chernobyl to Bavaria. The study that clarified this mystery was carried out by analyzing a population of 48 wild boars in the state of Bavariasouthern Germany. The analysis details were published in the magazine Environmental Science & Technology. In the long term. The results of the study invite us to think that the situation will not change in the short term. That is, it is unlikely that the radioactivity levels of wild boars will begin to decline in the coming years until they are equal to those of other similar animals such as deer or roe deer. The greater radiation present in these animals has made hunters resist their capture. This implies that the populations of these wild boars will go increasing in the future. Perhaps their expansion through central Europe will cause the radiation levels of these animals to decline generation after generation but, from what we have seen, this process could still continue for decades. In Xataka | When Chernobyl exploded in 1986, Spain was freed from the radioactive cloud. AEMET has now discovered that it did it for very little In Xataka | Some Spanish scientists are recreating the Chernobyl accident in Seville. Objective: see how it affects biodiversity Image | Joachim Reddemann / Кирилл Пурин *An earlier version of this article was published in July 2024

The Bernabéu can now hold concerts again. The question is whether anyone will want to do it.

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Real Madrid has not held concerts at the Bernabéu for more than a year and a half. This week, the Provincial Court of Madrid has filed the criminal case that weighed on the club due to the noise of the shows in the summer of 2024. But the stadium has been hosting events for months but not live music, and no one in the promotion industry has the intention of re-signing a contract that, from now on, has all the criminal responsibility for the matter. What is this about? In the spring of 2024, the newly renovated Bernabéu began hosting large-format concerts. From the first events with Taylor Swiftresidents of the Chamartín district complained about the noise levels, which sometimes exceeded 85 decibels, when the municipal ordinance sets the ceiling at 53. As the problems persisted, a few months later the club suspended its entire musical agenda to undertake acoustic improvement works. Experts already warned that soundproofing the stadium would be almost impossibleand in mid-2025, Real Madrid definitively canceled the concerts. Meanwhile, the Association of Neighbors Affected by the Bernabéu filed a complaint for environmental crime, alleging that the club rented the stadium to concert promoters even though it knew that the facility lacked the necessary acoustic insulation. What the car says. The 3rd Section of the Provincial Court upheld the appeals presented by the club and agreed to the free dismissal of the process (that is, the case is filed and reopening it is ruled out). According to the court, Real Madrid Estadio SL limited itself to renting the venue; he did not organize the concerts, manage the sound system or make decisions about volume or technical production. The Court concludes that those who “promote, organize, develop and execute each show” They are the promoter companies that are the transferees of the stadium.and that they are the ones obliged to respect the decibel limits set by the Municipal Ordinance for Protection against Noise Pollution of 2011. In other words, the owner of the stadium has no legal or contractual duty to monitor acoustic emissions once the venue has been transferred. What the neighbors say. The Association of Neighbors Affected by the Bernabéu affirms that the ruling “doesn’t change anything”in their opinion the concerts are still illegal, and they are going to file an appeal. The resolution, they claim, does not determine that the concerts are legal or that they can be held, it only exempts Real Madrid from criminal liability. The acoustic problem that gave rise to everything is still there. Besides, there is a parallel judicial path: The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid has another case open related to the licenses and authorizations of the events, considering an appeal by the neighborhood association against administrative decisions. In the hands of the promoters. The order clears of responsibilities, but it does not solve the problem: any promoter that signs a concert at the Bernabéu now assumes, alone, the criminal risk from which the club now escapes. And it is not an attractive panorama: during the 2024 concerts, The Madrid City Council imposed 24 sanction acts with a cumulative amount greater than 2.6 million euros. Real Madrid’s measures, first canceling the concert schedule and later acoustic improvement works, make it clear that the club is very aware of the difficulties of giving concerts. Which promoter is going to assume responsibility for the fines? And now what? And now nothing. Real Madrid celebrates the judicial victory in its statement, but it will be difficult for it to find promoters willing to organize concerts in a stadium with such a sanctioning record, assuming the criminal risk alone. Meanwhile, on the other side of Madrid, the Riyadh Air Metropolitano can boast an impeccable track record: since its inauguration in 2018, the Atlético stadium has held more than 50 concerts without a single acoustic violation or a neighborhood complaint. The secret: the Metropolitano was built in the San Blas-Canillejas district, but far from the residential fabric. Sometimes it is not about ambition, but rather respecting some ordinance or other. In Xataka | Real Madrid invested 1,000 million euros in the Bernabéu to host concerts: at the moment it has tennis

Who do you love more, bars or Mercadona? Hospitality is taking the battle over prepared food to a zero-sum game

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Since Spain believe made the “menu of the day” official 61 years agoin Manuel Fraga’s time, workers, travelers and families have gone to bars at midday basically looking for two things, in addition to food: time savings and good prices. That sacred triad turned the menu into the great success of the national hospitality industry (with forgiveness for the omelette). Now it plays against him. The same customers who have been eating in restaurants for generations have found an alternative that offers them food at better prices and with greater flexibility: supermarkets. The hoteliers, of course, they are not willing to give up and have taken out their best weapon: regulation. What has happened? The event was intended to review the data and needs of the sector, but it ended up leading to something else: a call to attention to chains such as Mercadona or Alcampo. Yesterday, during the General Assembly of Hospitality of Spain, the president of the group, José Luis Álvarez Almeida, post against a rival that until recently was off the radar of the country’s bars and restaurants: supermarkets. Without expressly mentioning them, the head of the employers’ association complained about the competition exerted by firms such as Mercadona, Carrefour, Bon Preu or Alcampo (to name a few), which have been betting on the sale of prepared dishes for some time and, in some cases, even include dining rooms in their premises so that customers can consume the food and drinks that they previously bought in the store right there. A model, Almeida insistswhich looks too similar to yours. “Unfair competition”. “Now we have gas stations, stores, hypermarkets or supermarkets that want to be bars. That is unfair competition,” argument the president of Hospitality of Spain during an event that was also attended by the Minister of Tourism, Jordi Hereu. “What we tell them is that, from an economic and competitive point of view, they can do what they want; but we all have to play on equal terms and be equal before the law.” your words have resonated with force in the sector, although it is not the first time that the expansion of the ready-to-eat dishes business within the supermarkets themselves leads to this question: Can it be considered unfair competition? He floated the same idea in December during an interview with SER Emilio Gallego, general secretary of Hospitality of Spain. “It is a controversial question. Either you are a supermarket or you have a space for a restaurant,” argument. “If you have a space where you buy food and eat it, you obviously have to have a restaurant activity license.” The key word: merchant. That the hospitality industry has raised its voice just now is no coincidence. Although supermarkets have been selling pre-cooked and ready-to-eat food for decades, in recent years some chains are shifting towards a new business model: the merchants. It is no longer about buying a tray of sushi, a cold tortilla or some pre-cooked noodles from a factory that the supermarket sells packaged. The key is that the customer can choose what they want to eat on a counter full of steaming stews, stews, fish… and then, if they want, they can devour that same food without leaving the store. The menu dilemma. Things get complicated there for bars, especially those that rely most on the concept of ‘menu of the day’: an affordable, varied and time-saving gastronomic offer. For years bars dominated that field. Now they have to fight with heavyweights like Mercadona, which offer prices that are difficult to match by family businesses that have been juggling for some time to make their menus profitable. This change in trend was summed up wonderfully well a few months ago by a gym instructor who The World interviewed while eating in a Mercadona in Madrid: “Although they pay me for the food, this is more practical and faster. You eat for six euros and I don’t spend 45 minutes. I haven’t eaten from a menu since summer.” In that same reportage The journalist spoke with other customers who came to Juan Roig’s store to buy dishes (stews, casseroles…) that they then ate in their own living rooms or office. Two years ago they might have gone to a bar with a menu or cooked at home. Not anymore. Has things changed that much? The data is revealing. In 2025 Mercadona had a turnover of around 700 million euros in Spain through its ‘Ready to Eat’ section. It may not seem like a big deal for a corporation whose sales exceeded 41.8 billionbut it is good to keep several things in mind. First, the ‘Ready to Eat’ section is very young. It was launched in 2018 and has expanded to more than 1,400 points of sale. Second, that those 700 million of euros are just part of the cake. If we take into account the entire supply of pre-cooked products (refrigerated, trays…) and the business in Portugal, the figure rises to 3,000 million. To give us an idea, this figure exceeds the annual sales of McDonald’s in Spain (2 billion) or Burger King (1,500). In general, it is estimated that the Valencian chain accounts for a 19.7% share of value in food and beverage consumption. That is, almost two out of every ten euros What we spend on that branch ends up in the company’s coffers. A key percentage: 7.6%. To understand how quickly the prepared food business is expanding, it is good to review Algori data advanced a few days ago by theEconomist. According to the consultancy, this segment was (by far) the one that recorded the greatest growth in sales volume last year among supermarkets and hypermarkets in Spain. In general, the sale of pre-cooked and cooked dishes soared by 7.6% in volume. Above fruits and vegetables (7%), meats (6.1%) and fish and seafood (4.9%). The Valencian chain is not the only one that is committed to this business niche, although it has managed to lead it. Your … Read more

surpasses all existing defense systems

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In 1961, the Soviet Union Tsar bomb detonated over the Arctic. Its shock wave was so enormous that it broke windows hundreds of kilometers away and circled the planet several times, registering at seismic stations around the world. That essay didn’t have much practical military sense: It was, above all, a psychological demonstration intended to send a very specific message to the West. Since then, much of Russian nuclear strategy has revolved around the same idea: convincing the adversary that there is always a weapon capable of overcoming any defense imaginable. The “ultimate weapon” card. Yes, Russia has just recovered one of the most classic elements of the Cold War: announcing a missile as if it were a tool capable of completely breaking the global strategic balance. Vladimir Putin confirmed that he RS-28 Sarmatknown in NATO like Satan IIwill be operationally deployed at the end of 2026 after a new successful test including video. Moscow does not simply present it as a new intercontinental nuclear missile, but as “the most powerful missile system in the world”, a platform specifically designed to overcome any existing or future anti-missile shield. The message is not accidental. Russia wants to reinstall a very specific idea in the minds of the West: that, even in a scenario of maximum technological defense, it still retains the capacity to guarantee mass nuclear destruction. Sarmat does not seek only to destroy. The most important thing from Russian speech It is not only the power of the missile, but the insistence that it can avoid any attempt at interception. According to Moscow, the Sarmat combines ballistic and suborbital trajectories, a range of more than 35,000 kilometers and penetration systems capable of confusing or saturating anti-missile defenses. Russia also claims it can carry multiple nuclear warheads and potentially maneuverable hypersonic vehicles. like the Avangard. In other words, the goal is not just to unleash more power, but to break the Western defensive logic built for decades around radars, interceptors and anti-ballistic systems. The implicit threat is clear: even if the United States invests billions in missile defense, Moscow wants the feeling that no shield is truly reliable. “Apocalypse” after years of failures. However, behind the bombastic narrative there is a much more rugged reality. The Sarmat program accumulates delays for years and should have entered service already in 2020. Since then has suffered multiple technical issues, including failed tests and the destruction of a silo trial in 2024. The difficulties reflect both technological complexities and the effects of sanctions, economic pressure and Russian industrial attrition following the invasion of Ukraine. This is precisely why the latest essay has such political importance for the Kremlin. Moscow needs to demonstrate that it remains capable of developing new generation strategic weapons despite international isolation and despite enormous strains on its military industry. The disappearance of New START changes the context. The chosen moment is not coincidental either. Sarmat arrives in a scenario where the limits of the New START treaty have disappeared and where both Russia and the United States they think again in expanding and modernizing their nuclear arsenals. Without these restrictions, Moscow can replace old Soviet missiles with more advanced systems without the previous numerical limitations. At the same time, the United States continues to deal with delays and cost overruns in its own ICBM replacement, the Sentinel. The result is a climate that increasingly resembles a new arms racewhere both powers try to demonstrate that they maintain second-strike capacity even in the face of defensive technological advances from the adversary. The real battle is psychological. Beyond its actual specifications, the Sarmat fulfills a very specific strategic function: strengthen deterrence through fear and uncertainty. Russia has been using this type of advertisement for years to convey the idea that has “unstoppable” weapons capable of altering any Western military calculation. The Kremlin understands that perception matters almost as much as actual ability. If he manages to install the idea that his missiles can break through any defense existing, forces the United States and its allies to assume that no defensive system guarantees total security. That is the essence of the Russian message: no matter how much Western anti-missile technology advances, Moscow will still have the ability to respond with devastating force. The logic of the Cold War. If you also want, the reappearance of Sarmat It symbolizes something broader than the deployment of a new missile. It reflects the return of a strategic logic based again in gigantic weaponsexistential threats and public displays of nuclear power. For years, many thought that military competition between great powers would mainly revolve around artificial intelligence, drones or cyberattacks. Russia is remembering that nuclear weapons continue to occupy the center of the board geopolitical. And it does so by recovering a classic but always effective narrative: announcing a missile presented like so powerful and so difficult to intercept that it forces the rest of the world to wonder if there really is any defense capable of stopping it. Image | Russian Media In Xataka | In 2024, a Russian ship sank off Spain under mysterious circumstances. What he was carrying is even more suspicious In Xataka | Russia has built an imposing nuclear submarine with one mission: to launch one of the most extreme weapons ever devised

As Europe builds data centers to achieve independence, its power grid enters the hunger games

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Europe finds itself at a crossroads. If you listen to the CEO of Mistral, you should start investing big to stop being the technological vassal of the United States. That implies investing and part of that investment is in data centers. But American Big Tech is also moving and, if in the US they find frontal opposition to the construction of data centersthey move and there are countries like Spain that are favorite destinations. But there’s a huge problem: it’s not so much about money as it is about energy. And European macroplans are colliding with the reality of the electricity grid. Full speed ahead. The United States has the most brutal data centers on the planetbut Europe has a plan to arm itself and achieve that technological sovereignty. The plan goes through energy thanks to geothermal energy and, above all, renewables. Europe is a power in this and Spain has already shown its plumage to attract European and Big Tech data centers. esteem that there are 5,400 in the US and 3,400 in Europe, and Europe wants to close the gap. There is a very small problem: renewables are not enough to satisfy the voracity of data centers. We are constantly seeing it: data centers need constant power, but when they enter intense computing phases, the expense is so high that they need energy spikes that renewables cannot satisfy. That’s where they come into play. nuclear, gas and even coaland a Europe that cannot play that due to environmental policies is where it has its weak point. Spain. There are several points to analyze. As we say, Spain is one of the countries that is presenting itself as one of the best assets to host data centers. Aragon, specifically, is a community that is pushing hard in this direction and serves as an example. AWS is going to put some gigantic data centers in the community, adding more than 10,800 GWh of energy per year. To contextualize, it is more than all the current electricity consumption of the community. But it is not only happening in Aragon and the fear is that the saturated Spanish electricity grid will now have to deal with those data centers that they can collapse the network. He blackout ghost it’s still there and it’s already been warned in the Official State Gazette that an increase in installations that are not capable of withstanding voltage dips pose a very high risk for the network. the hunger games. Because first the principles of agreement came and, now, the different EU countries are realizing that, perhaps, it is not such a good idea. One of the most recent cases is that of Energinet, the state operator of Denmark’s electricity grid, which, in March, suspended all new large-scale connection agreements by receiving requests that would reach 60 GW, with 14 GW of them being for data centers. As in the case of Aragon, it must be put in context and, according to According to CNBC, the country’s maximum demand is 7 GW, so that total of 60 GW exceeds the country’s consumption almost nine times. It is not about canceling plans, but about an extension until we discuss what to do with that demand, but there are already those who point out that the extension cannot be ruled out because, simply, the country’s network may not be prepared. Estimation of increased energy demand for data centers FLAP-D. But they are not the only ones. Amsterdam, London or Dublin can no longer absorb the brutal energy consumption of artificial intelligence and the technology industry has set his eyes on the northern countries (in which wind energy is the protagonist) and in those in the south (with solar as a guest star). They are three important names because they are part of the FLAP-D, the conglomerate of Flankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin that, historically, have been the dominators of the data center sector. Because these facilities have existed before the arrival of AI, but with the conversion to computing centers for AI is when their consumption has decreased. shot and when these metropolitan areas cannot meet demand. Those needs are so exaggerated It is estimated that data centers accounted for almost 80% of Dublin’s electricity consumption, forcing Ireland to impose a de facto moratorium on new data centers in its capital until 2028. braking. The situation, of course, is not the most promising for those who are building the AI ​​infrastructure at the moment. The boss of SMIC, one of the Chinese companies that is leading the country’s technological transformation, pointed out a few weeks ago that the AI ​​Big Tech companies are building all the infrastructure they will need over the next decade. in just one or two yearswhat is generating that plug in stock components worldwide. But then there is the energy plug which, as we see, is not small. And, obviously, it also generates delays in supply. According to the calculationsa decade to connect the new facilities to the electrical grid. If Microsoft, or whoever, builds a data center by 2027, but can’t pull the plug until 2037, something is clearly wrong. What is clear is that regulators are going to look at these projects with a magnifying glass because there is a physical limit that is that energy and connection requests. In fact, it is already recommended that before coming with a monstrous data center and then looking to see if there is a plug, construction plans take into account consumption and connection planning to national networks from the beginning. But there’s another problem: You can build a data center today that consumes x energy, but when you upgrade to more powerful platforms, those calculations may blow up. Either that… or self-powered data centers, as already stated made in Dublin. In Xataka | Data centers are real “heaters”. And they are settling in regions as hot as Aragón

Android 17 says it’s okay now

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Uploading content to social networks from an Android mobile has been, for years, a real punishment. Beyond specific agreements with Samsung or Google —which did introduce relevant improvements, such as HDR support on some platforms— the difference between iOS and Android when it came to sharing content on networks was simply abysmal. The problem went far beyond the casual user who uploads a photo to Instagram and wonders why it looks so bad. It was a structural limitation that pushed companies and content creators to buy an iPhone or the latest high-end Galaxy if they wanted to develop any network strategy with a minimum of seriousness. It is something that will finally change with Android 17. Or so Google says. The change. Mishaal Rahman himself, one of Google’s workers, admitted after Google’s presentation that taking a good photo is 50% of the job. The rest is provided by the operating system. “Recent benchmark testing using the Universal Video Quality (UVQ) model confirms that video captured and uploaded to Instagram from flagship Android devices scores the same or better than the leading competitor.” Google. It thus announced that Google has been working with Meta to completely optimize upload flows to social networks like Instagram. Starting with Android 17, they promise a notable improvement. Specifically, “impressively sharp” and much faster climbs. Beyond. In addition to solving the structural problem related to uploads, more than interesting functions are added from Android. Ultra HDR capture and playback Integrated video stabilization Night Sight integration in Google Pixel New interface for tablets Additionally, Android will have direct integration with Editsthe Instagram app for editing videos. With a single touch, using AI, we can improve the quality of low-resolution photos and videos. The small print. Without giving too many details about the implementation of the measure, Mishaal lets it be known that these news will reach “lThe most advanced Android devices“. It remains to be seen if for practical purposes these changes are really noticeable and if they end up reaching all devices or are restricted to the high ranges. It is also worth keeping in mind that video recording continues to be the Achilles’ heel on many Android phones. Even if Instagram and Google optimize the flows, if we do not have a quality native recording, the upload will be limited. Why is it important. For most users, the quality of what they upload to networks may be secondary. For Google, it is not at all. In markets like the United States, where the iPhone dominates with an iron fist, one of the most difficult fronts to attack is precisely that: Apple’s product works exceptionally well on social networks, and Android has not been able to say the same for years. Finally without weak points? With Android 17, it seems that Google has read the list of weak points that the system had to eliminate them one by one. We are facing the safest version of its historywith a renewed and 100% own design, without being “inspired” by Apple’s Liquid Glass, as expected. Gemini has a real and meaningful integration as AI, there is compatibility with AirDrop for everyone, a universal clipboard (something that was missed if we came from iOS), important new features in Android Auto… In short, a version that can return Android to the top. In Xataka | Android 17 wants to be more than Gemini Intelligence: its other news also has a lot to say

20,000 million more will be spent on a factory with little water and labor

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TSMC’s journey in Arizona (USA) continues. Yesterday the board of directors of this chip manufacturer, the largest on the planetapproved an injection of 20 billion dollars in what is already its most advanced semiconductor production plant of any it has in the US. The start-up of this factory It was full of setbacks.. In fact, it started production of integrated circuits almost a year late due to how much it cost TSMC. find qualified personnel that I needed. At the beginning of 2025 the first good news arrived. The plant had been producing semiconductors for several months at the N4 lithography node, which belongs to the 5nm FinFET family, and was ready to deliver to Apple the first batch of SoC A16 and SiP S9. This factory, known as Fab 21, made $514 million in profit last year according to Yeh Chun-Hsienthe minister of the National Development Council of Taiwan. This is not bad at all if we keep in mind that during the first year of operation, semiconductor plants do not usually deliver profits. In this scenario, the investment of an additional 20 billion dollars in the expansion of Fab 21, which is the purpose of this money, makes sense. In fact, this project is part of the $165 billion expansion plan that TSMC presented last year. However, not everything is going well for this company in Arizona. According to the newspaper Taipei Timesthe shortage of labor, and, above all, of water, is giving many headaches to the management leadership of this factory. And solving this last problem is not easy. Arizona’s water shortage is a huge challenge for TSMC Arizona is the second driest state in the US only behind Nevada. Semiconductor factories need a large amount of this resource, but it is not ordinary water like what comes out of our taps; They need a type of water almost impossible to find in nature. And its scarcity is getting worse. In fact, it is slowly becoming a systemic threat to the industry that sustains the artificial intelligencecell phones, electric cars and virtually any device that has an advanced chip inside. The water we are familiar with, such as that which comes from the tap, spring water, and even bottled mineral water, is full of impurities. It contains bacteria, dissolved gases, mineral salts and microscopic particles in suspension. This is not a problem for most of the everyday applications we usually use it for, but This water is not suitable for making chips. Even the slightest impurity invisible to the human eye is pure poison when involved in the production of cutting-edge semiconductors, such as the 2nm integrated circuits currently being manufactured by TSMC. The industry standard calls for water with an electrical resistivity of 18.2 megohms per centimeter The integrated circuit manufacturing process requires cleaning silicon wafers dozens of times. Every time a geometric pattern is transferred to wafers using lithography, they need to be cleaned. Also after pouring chemical reagents and photoresist fluids on them. However, the water used to remove any residue that may have deposited on the wafer cannot have the slightest impurity. It must be absolutely pure. In fact, the industry standard calls for water with an electrical resistivity of 18.2 megaohms per centimeter, which is the theoretical limit of water purity at room temperature. The problem is that producing ultrapure water is not easy. And it is not because it is necessary to subject it to reverse osmosis in multiple stages and ion exchange treatments. It is also necessary to degas it under vacuum, eliminate any microorganisms it may contain with ultraviolet light and filter it using membranes expressly designed to capture the slightest impurity. In this article we do not need to investigate these processes in detail, but there is something that we cannot ignore: this treatment consumes energy and requires the use of a large amount of chemicals. Furthermore, a significant part of the water that is processed is not transformed into ultrapure water, so it cannot be used. Once the water has been subjected to this demanding treatment, it acquires such a high purity that it becomes corrosive if it comes into contact with a very wide range of materials. Because it lacks its own ions, ultrapure water absorbs ions from virtually any material it comes into contact with. This is the reason why the pipes used to transport it must be made of materials immune to corrosion, such as PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride), a fluorinated thermoplastic polymer similar to Teflon, non-polluting and extremely stable because it does not give up ions to ultrapure water. A single cutting-edge semiconductor plant consumes between 10 and 30 million liters of ultrapure water every day. This range is equivalent to the daily drinking water consumption of a city of between 50,000 and 150,000 inhabitants. Plus, there’s another challenge we haven’t looked into yet: ultrapure water degrades very quicklyso chip factories must have a very sophisticated production and distribution system capable of working in real time to deliver the ultrapure water required by the manufacturing process of advanced integrated circuits. Image | TSMC More information | Taipei Times In Xataka | Intel’s plan against an unattainable TSMC: beat Samsung and consolidate itself as the second largest chip manufacturer

1,800 years ago the Romans had an amulet against bad luck. It was literally a tiny penis.

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Measures about three centimetersis cast in bronze with great detail (anatomical) and despite being around 1,800 years old, it is surprisingly well preserved. We talk about a phallus. A penis. An ancient figurine representing male genitalia that archaeologists have just unearthed in a roman site from Cumbria, in the northwest of England. The most curious thing, however, is not the appearance of the penile statuette itself. But that it took so long for researchers to find it. We explain ourselves. Under a cricket pitch. He Carlisle Cricket Club is a large resort for cricket lovers located on the outskirts of the town of Carlise, in Cumbria, England. That’s today, of course. If we go back almost 20 centuries to that same land, located on the banks of the eden riverwelcomed some hot springs where the Romans came to chat and relax. Years ago a group of archaeologists started investigating in the area to search for remains of that remote Roman past. Among the many things they recovered at the site, in addition to ceramics, fragments of pillars and heads sculpted in stone, there is one that has attracted attention: a penis. What do you mean, a penis? The figurine in question revealed it a few weeks ago the photographer Pete Savin in And archaeologists believe that the piece has some 1,800 years. It would be logical to think that Savin or the director of the site, Frank Giecco, raised their eyebrows when they encountered such a discovery. However, the opposite happened: what had surprised them for some time was not finding any phallic figurines among the Roman ruins of Carlisle. “It is unusual that we have not found a phallus-shaped object at the site before, as it is very rich in other types of objects,” admits Giecco to the BBC. Don’t say penis… No, say best amuletwhich is the function fulfilled by the figurine found in Cumbria. The researchers they are convinced that its purpose was not to simply represent a penis and the piece did not have an obscene or sexual nature either. It was not even a symbol of fertility. At least that wasn’t his main goal. For the Romans the device surely acted as a talismana protective tool designed to attract good luck and ward off the evil eye. The Romans were so convinced of the healing power of these phallic representations that they frequently resorted to them, either by capturing them in figurines that they would then hang from their belts and use as jewelry or by carving them on the walls. Click on the image to go to the tweet. A phallus for the collection. The truth is that you have to take a quick look through the newspaper archive to see that discoveries like the one in Cumbria are relatively frequent. Even in England. Or in Cumbria itself. In 2019 a group of archaeologists from the University of Newcastle cataloged there several inscriptions left by Roman soldiers in a quarry near Hadrian’s Wall, a series of ‘graffiti’ drawn on the rock in 207 AD and including (exactly!) the relief of a phallus. Last year another team focused on Vindolandaone of the Roman forts that protected Hadrian’s Wall, encountered another similar surprise. During their excavations they located a penis-shaped pendant hidden among the challenges of a wall from the 4th AD. Archaeologists speculate that the piece, made of jet, was lost at the beginning of that same century. And given how polished its surface is, they believe that the owner of the amulet handled it frequently. Small, big, huge. Carlise’s piece barely exceeds three centimeters and Vindolanda’s (at least for the photos shared by researchers) appears even smaller. However, not all representations were so minuscule. In 2022, while investigating a site in the province of Córdoba, archaeologists discovered a bas-relief that shows a 45 centimeter phallus long. The figure was carved directly on the cornerstone of a large building, another relatively common habit. “It was common to place them on the facades of houses and soldiers wore small phallic amulets as symbols of virility,” explains to The Country Andrés Rodlán, director of the project, although he also recognizes that Córdoba engraving breaks the mold. “This one is unusually large.” The list of phallic representations found in recent years goes on and on, with discoveries stretching from the distant lands of Britannia. to Omritin Israel. Why this obsession? The experts believe that phallic figures were so popular not because of their explicit nature, but because of their enormous load of meanings. Whoever carried a figurine of a penis or decided to sculpt it on their wall did not simply intend to show a male genital. He sought to protect himself with an amulet capable of warding off the evil eye. In fact, they not only surrounded themselves with images of more or less anatomically accurate penises. They also created figurines of winged phalluseswith animal shapes or with bells. “Phallic emblems are found on a wide variety of Roman objects, from amulets and frescoes to mosaics and lamps. They were symbols intended to attract good luck and ward off evil spirits. As the ancient author Pliny attests, even babies and soldiers wore such amulets to invoke divine protection,” they explain from the MET Museum. The reality is that, if history has shown anything, it is that humanity has always shown a fascinating inclination to represent penises everywhere. Images | The MET Museum and Carole Radatto (Flickr) In Xataka | Almost 2,000 years ago a Celtiberian soldier visited the most remote frontier of the Roman Empire. Then he returned to Soria with a souvenir

They have brought Mad Max to ships

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In World War II, several Allied ships began to cover parts of your covers with mattresses, wooden logs, sandbags and improvised metal structures to try to survive the kamikaze attacks and the bombs that fell from impossible angles. Those modifications seemed absurd to many naval officers of the time, but they hid an uncomfortable reality: when a cheap and difficult to stop threat suddenly appears, even the most sophisticated war machines end up looking more like vehicles. improvised survival than symbols of military power. The war that turned the front into a “Mad Max” landscape. It we were counting during 2025. The war in Ukraine began to generate images that seemed taken from George Miller’s post-apocalyptic universe. Covered tanks with metal cagesvans protected with anti-drone nets and civilian vehicles transformed into improvised war platforms they became common on both sides. Those structures, baptized many times like “cope cages”were born as desperate solutions to FPV drones that attacked from above and turned any armored vehicle into a vulnerable target. The important thing was no longer to advance quickly or shoot further, but survive a few more seconds under a sky saturated with cheap and omnipresent drones. Little by little, this improvised aesthetic stopped seeming temporary and began to reflect a transformation much deeper than modern combat. Russia already escorts vehicles with “electronic guards.” One of the most revealing changes appeared at the end of January of this year with the Russian Zemledeliye systemsvehicles capable of laying mines kilometers away. Russia began to accompany them with GAZ-66 trucks loaded with electronic warfare equipment, antennas and even anti-drone networks to try to protect them during their operations. The important detail was not only the visual improvisation, but what it revealed tactically: Ukrainian drones have turned even the Russian rear into a dangerous zone. Convoys, engineering systems and logistics now need specialized escorts solely to defend against low-cost air attacks. And yet, defenses continue to have enormous limitations against fiber optic drones immune to traditional electronic warfare. GAZ-66 “Mad Max” Roads in hunting areas. While Russia improvises defenses, Ukraine is perfecting an attrition strategy based on increasingly autonomous drones. Ukrainian units no longer attack only positions close to the front, but deep logistics routes connecting Russian ports, warehouses and supply lines. The use of drones with artificial intelligence capabilities It allows trucks to be located and pursued with very little human intervention, increasing constant pressure on Russian mobility. The goal is not just to destroy vehicles, but to slowly erode Russia’s ability to sustain mechanized operations and supply the front lines. The consequence is quite clear: every major road begins to function like a hostile territory where any vehicle can be located from the air at any time. Grachonok a la Mad Max Mad Max, but in the water. The most disturbing evolution has appeared when this improvised logic has jumped from the land front to the naval field. They counted the TWZ analysts than a Russian patrol car Project 21980 Grachonok was spotted sailing in the Black Sea covered by enormous metal anti-drone screens installed on its superstructure. Seeing a military vessel equipped with a kind of improvised cage made clear the extent to which the drone threat is also disrupting naval warfare. The ship attempts to protect itself from aerial drones and munitions dropped from the sky, but the defenses themselves partially limit the operation of its weapons and leave vulnerable gaps. The image perfectly sums up the new reality: even relatively modern military ships are beginning to look improvised armored vehicles designed to survive in an environment saturated with cheap threats. Naval drones are changing maritime warfare. The problem for Russia is that Ukraine no longer uses only maritime suicide drones. Their unmanned vessels begin to act as mobile platforms capable of launching FPV drones and bomber drones against naval targets and positions in Crimea. This evolution has forced the Russian Black Sea Fleet to reduce operations near the peninsula and transfer part of its assets towards Novorossiysk. However, withdrawal does not eliminate the threat. Ukrainian drones combine range, low cost and tactical flexibility in a way that is breaking traditional naval logic. In other words, maritime warfare is beginning to look less like a battle between large ships and more to a constant chase between small and extremely difficult to neutralize autonomous platforms. A much more chaotic phase. The most important thing about this evolution is that Ukraine is showing a broader transformation of contemporary combat. For decades, powers envisioned wars dominated by sophisticated platforms and extremely expensive technology. The conflict is proving something much more uncomfortable: Cheap, improvised, large-scale produced systems can completely upset the military balance. First it happened on land, where multimillion-dollar armored vehicles ended up covered with improvised structures to survive armed commercial drones. Now the same phenomenon is beginning to spread to the sea. The image of protected ships with metal cages reflects precisely that, a modern war that looks less and less like a display of clean technological superiority and more like a chaotic ecosystem of permanent survival. Image | Russia-24, X In Xataka | To achieve the milestone of building the largest drone industry without China, Ukraine has found an explosive ally: Taiwan In Xataka | Today in “the war in Ukraine beyond all comprehension”: drone pilots are training with ‘Grand Theft Auto’

some Amazon employees use AI just to inflate their token metrics

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He tokenmaxxing now has its most documented case. Some Amazon employees have been using MeshClaw for weeksan internal AI agent tool, to automate unnecessary tasks and thus inflate your consumption of tokens in the internal markers that the company has implemented. This is not the first time something like this has happened in Silicon Valley: Meta had its own leaderboard tokenswith a winner who took the title of Legend Token. And similar patterns have been documented at Microsoft. But the Amazon case adds a detail that makes it more striking: the tool used to cheat is the same one that Amazon has officially deployed to make its engineers work better. Why is it important. Amazon requires more than 80% of its developers to use AI tools each week and measures compliance using data consumption markers. LLMs. The company has said those statistics will not be used in performance reviews. Several employees have responded with variations of the same phrase: managers are looking at it. “When you track usage, you create perverse incentives and there are people who are very competitive with this,” one of them told the Financial Times. Yes, but. There is a more generous reading. Forcing a large organization to come into contact with new tools has a certain logic: if you force enough people to use them, someone eventually finds a really useful use for them. The problem is that that only works if there is real exploration. An employee who delegates to an agent the task of summarizing emails that no one will read is not learning anything, he is just inflating his metrics. The big question. amazon has committed 200 billion in AI infrastructure whose demand, in theory, is absorbed as it is deployed. If a part of that internal consumption is tokenmaxxing Purely, the figures that justify these requests are less reliable than they seem. The distinction between real adoption and inflated consumption matters because the former generates lasting demand while the latter disappears as soon as incentives change. Amazon has already restricted public access to device usage statistics. When the marker is no longer visible, the behavior it encouraged also changes. Go deeper. The Goodhart’s law He has been explaining this for fifty years: when a measure becomes an objective, it is no longer a good measure. Amazon hasn’t built a system to know if its engineers are using AI well. You have built a scoreboard, and the scoreboards are played. In Xataka | If the question is whether using ChatGPT or Claude in English is more efficient and saves tokens, the answer is: yes Featured image | Xataka

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