Month: May 2026

All the founders of OpenAI have become billionaires with ChatGPT. Everyone except Sam Altman, who has no shares

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Sam Altman is the most recognizable face of the AI ​​industry in the world. He directs OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT and is today valued at 852,000 million of dollars. However, a leaked document during the ongoing trial between Altman and Elon Musk Due to the change in status from an NGO to a for-profit entity, it has revealed who the true investors of OpenAI are and how much their participation in the company amounts to. In the box next to his name, only three letters appear: TBD, which in English means “to be determined.” The man who leads the biggest technological revolution in recent years does not own a single share of his own company. Sam Altman works for the love of art. OpenAI was born in 2015 as non-profit organization with an ambitious mission: to develop AI safely and for the good of humanity. That Altman did not take stock then made some sense since his role was presented as the neutral guardian, the leader whose decisions were not tainted by money. A noble mission, without a doubt. But that It is not the scenario in 2026. In 2019, OpenAI’s charity structure began to become too small to compete in the AI ​​race. OpenAI created a for-profit subsidiary under the so-called “capped-profit” model, in which investors they could make profits limited. That opened the door for capital and also for executives and co-founders to secure huge stakes in OpenAI. Altman’s name, paradoxically, remained blank. Those who did get rich, and a lot. As and how I collected Forbes, Greg Brockman, co-founder and former president of OpenAI, admitted during the trial that he owns a stake worth about $30 billion for which he paid nothing. Ilya Sutskever, former scientific director, has a participation between 30,000 and 35,000 million dollars. Figures very far from the annual compensation of $76,001 that its CEO receives, according to the tax form from OpenAI. The other major beneficiary is the Sound Ventures fund, linked to actor Ashton Kutcherinvested 30 million dollars in an early phase and that bet is now worth 1.3 billion, a return of 43 times the investment. In total, current and former employees control about $165 billion in company shares. The distribution among the greats. The block of corporate investors formed by Microsoft, SoftBank, Amazon and NVIDIA, together control 46.58% of OpenAI, with a stake valued at $396.9 billion against a combined investment of $122.7 billion. Microsoft leads that group with 26.79% of the company, a position valued at $228.3 billion built from an initial investment of 13,000 million. SoftBank occupies second place with 11.66% of OpenAI, valued at 99.3 billion compared to an initial payment of 64.6 billion, which represents a profitability of 1.5 times. amazon It has 4.66% of the company, valued at 39.7 billion dollars with an investment of 15 billion and a profitability of 2.6 times. At the top of the table is the OpenAI Foundation, the original non-profit entity, with 25.80% of the company and a stake valued at $219.8 billion which, having been formed with contributions without financial compensation, technically has an infinite return. Here may lie the key to the mystery of Altman’s retribution. A calculated move. The most widespread theory is that Altman and the board of directors, which he has firmly controlled since surviving the 2023 impeachment attempt, They are simply biding their time. Once the dispute with Musk concludes, the OpenAI board is likely to retroactively determine that Altman deserves participation commensurate with his responsibility. It is likely that, as is the case with other CEOs, This remuneration is linked to milestones like taking the company public with a valuation of more than a billion dollars. Perhaps this retribution will arise from that reserved fund now controlled by the OpenAI Foundation. Meanwhile, Altman is not exactly in trouble and your personal assets exceeds 2 billion dollars thanks to investments in companies that, curiously, are very well positioned to benefit from the growth of OpenAI. Without being a shareholder in his own company, he has built a personal business ecosystem that prospers directly thanks to his success. In Xataka | “The problem is Sam Altman”: more and more voices within the AI ​​industry are beginning to question the CEO of OpenAI Image | Flikr (TechCrunch)

an all-stars of engineers from Porsche, BMW and Lamborghini

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It is not easy to build a car brand from scratch. In fact, if you appreciate advice on how to go broke, put all your money into trying to build one. Over the decades, the number of companies that have succeeded in the automotive industry from nothing, completely from scratch, are absolutely exceptional. The electric car has been a breakthrough which has facilitated the entry of new players, such as Tesla, and despite everything, many have failed along the way. Let’s think about Fisker, Dyson, Apple… All of them were projects that were developed with more or less effort but that they have not finished curdling. And to start a new company you need a lot of money. You have to design a car, have access to the factory and the corresponding machinery, distribute the cars and offer after-sales service. And, above all, gaining the trust of the general public, key when it comes to trusting a brand without references, without a story behind it and a brand that has to prove to be solvent enough to get ahead. That opportunity offered by the electric car, as we said, has been taken advantage of by China. For years they have built a supply chain and invested huge amounts of money in researching how to get the best out of this technology. And to do this they have not hesitated to absorb the knowledge of European manufacturers. He all-stars from Xiaomi is a good example. Learning from the classics In its learning to position itself as the market leader in electric cars, China has not hesitated to rely on European knowledge. In the early 2000s, European manufacturers thought that the Chinese state was laying out a red carpet for them to produce their cars on its soil. They did it with one condition: that manufacturers ally with a local company. In this way, the engineers assimilated the knowledge coming from outside and were able to apply it in entirely Chinese companies, already outside the European orbit. He result We have seen it years later. The Chinese customer now prefers the purchase of a locally developed car because it better adapts to their demands and they consider them more advanced than Western ones. The gap, even, has forced Volkswagen to look for engineers in China in order to better understand the market and produce specific vehicles for said market. In the opposite direction, Chinese firms have armed themselves with Western talent to bring their cars closer to the European and American aesthetic standards. We have seen historical designers like Wolfgang Egger, who designed the beautiful Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, carry out the Yangwang U9, BYD’s supercar. Or Walter de Silva, who built his career in the arms of the Volkswagen Group, designing cars for the BAIC group. But design has not been the only rock on which Chinese manufacturers are building their new house. And Xiaomi is an example of this. Just as Volkswagen has hired Chinese engineers to be able to approach the Asian market, Xiaomi is aware that it has to adapt to European tastes so that their cars find sufficient support outside their borders. A decision that is summarized in a photograph. In it we find the design and research and development team that will lay the foundations of the product that we will see in Europe. Click on the image to go to the original tweet As seen in the image in the post, Xiaomi has built a kind of all-stars of German engineering. And there are such relevant figures in his team that they have directed the teams that have produced cars of the caliber of the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the Mercedes S-Class or the BMW i8, among others. Where Xiaomi Much emphasis has been placed on design. Jean-Arthur Madelaine He was part of the team that created the Mercedes-Benz Vision GT Concept, a prototype created for the Gran Turismo 6, but his most relevant positions have been as head of interiors for Citroën first and Polestar later. He now heads the Xiaomi electric design team in the plant that the company opened in Germany last year. Julien Cueffwho is in charge of the interiors, worked for Mercedes but has been in the orbit of Chinese manufacturers such as Nio or Lotus for years. Fabian Schmölz-Obermeierdedicated to the exterior appearance of cars, has worked for Porsche and Lamborghini. In this last company he was the person most responsible for the exterior design of a car like the Temerario. But beyond the design, the company has looked for prominent heads in the market to guarantee the good performance of its cars. Simon Schmitt is an engineer specialized in aerodynamics who has been part of the BMW racing team. From the same company they have arrived Claus-Dieter Grollfor the development of the dynamics of their cars, and Kai Langerwho worked for 22 years at BMW and was design director of the Bavarian company’s electric range to lead the team focused on user experience. These names are just a handful of examples. The company seems aware that it needs to get closer to the European public in its expansion strategy outside of China. And in recent years we have seen very good competitors arrive from China but also how some of these cars had not adapted to the tastes and demands of the European public. In Xataka we have counted the case of firms like Omoda/Jaecoo, which have tweaked their cars in record time to make them harder and leave aside dynamics supported by suspensions that are too soft. A good part of the Chinese market needs to delve deeper, for example, into driving assistance systems, which are clearly not tuned for European roads and our way of driving, with narrower lanes. But Chinese manufacturers are demonstrating enormous adaptability. Stellantis assures that Leapmotor vehicles are tuned in Italy To suit our tastes, BYD aims to produce a purely European vehicle with its Hungarian factory. At Ebro they assure … Read more

This is how stars in birth shape the destiny of their neighbors

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An international team of scientists has studied the clusters in which stars are born with both the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb and has discovered very useful data to understand how galaxies form. Both telescopes are very good separately, but the combination of both has been the key to reaching this information. Two giants of space. The Hubble Space Telescope takes many years studying the clusters in which stars are born. It is very good at reaching far and capturing high resolution images. However, the gas clouds resist it. For this reason, James Webb has used its infrared radiation detection instruments to lift the gaseous veil that covers stars in their earliest stages of formation. Together They have discovered something interesting. That the most massive star clusters finish forming stars more quickly. It may seem banal, but it has very important implications. From cloud to star. Stars are born in star clusters that form when a cloud of gas collapses under the effect of high pressure and gravity. Therefore, we have the gas cloud, then the star cluster, and then the stars that are being born. Stellar feedback. In turn, stars can influence the birth of other stars through a process known as stellar feedback. Two things can happen. Violent processes, such as a supernova explosion in massive stars, cause gas clouds to collapse, promoting the formation of more stars. On the other hand, younger stars release a lot of ultraviolet radiation during their birth. This radiation, together with the stellar winds, causes the gas clouds to disperse, so that no more stars can continue to form. beyond the veil. Thanks to James Webb’s ability to go beyond the gas cloudsit has been possible to reach the interior of 9,000 star clusters, located in 4 different nearby galaxies. Thus, it has been possible to analyze the spectrum of light emitted by each of them. This information is used to know their mass and age. For this reason, it has been proven that the most massive clusters disperse the gas clouds in 5 million years, while those with less mass can take up to 8 million years to do the same. Okay, so what? We already have this information, but why is it so useful? The truth is that it is very interesting information, because it helps us understand how galaxies are formed. Depending on the location of the most massive star clusters, the formation of new stars will be shaped differently. As soon as the gas clouds disperse, stars can no longer continue to form, so at points where there are massive clusters there is less time for this to occur. We also learn about planets. On the other hand, as explained in a statement from the European Space Agencythis information also helps us understand how planets form. And we must not forget that around the stars are the protoplanetary disks in which the planets are born. The faster gas is removed within a star cluster, the sooner protoplanetary disks around the stars will be exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation from other stars. That means they will have less opportunity to attract gas and accumulate dust to create new planets. Everything is connected. Thanks to the team formed by James Webb and Hubble, we now know much better how it happens. Image | THAT In Xataka | We have been studying the planets of TRAPPIST-1 for years with great hope. James Webb just knocked it down

the search against time to locate the “loose ends” of the hantavirus cruise

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Although how much the experts insist In which the risk for the populations is very low, the fear of the hantavirus continues to travel through each of the countries through which the passengers of the MV Hondius have circulated. Actually, it’s normal. Fear is a very human emotion, which helps us be alert in situations as new as this one. There is considerable uncertainty in this situation, especially in relation to passengers who got off the ship before the hantavirus outbreak was confirmed. However, little by little this uncertainty is fading as information about their countries of origin arrives. Saint Helena, April 24, 2026. On April 24, 13 days after the death of the first infected passenger with hantavirus, the ship made a stop on the British island of Saint Helena. He took the opportunity to lower the body and prepare it for repatriation. His wife traveled with him, who became the second victim, after traveling to South Africa. In addition to the two deceased, it is known that on the island another 28 people got off. It was not yet known that the first victim had a contagious virusso no passenger control was carried out. Then what? Since it became known that there was a hantavirus outbreak on the ship, attempts have been made to locate those 28 people and their close contacts. It is known that among them there were passengers of at least 12 different nationalities. There were mainly British and Americans, but also people from other countries such as Singapore, Canada or Germany, among others. The countries of origin or residence of each of them have also been taking charge. Thus, some have already achieved the goal of finding them and putting them in quarantine. From the United States to Singapore. In the United States there are five people in quarantinespread across Texas, California, Arizona and Georgia. In Singapore too have been quarantined and to the two passengers who got off in Santa Elena. France had no citizens among that group of passengers, but has quarantined eight citizens who were in contact with one of those people on a flight from Saint Helena to Johannesburg. In short, many of these people are already under observation, although it is true that there are others to be identified and monitored. Many of the passengers who got off in Santa Elena have already been identified. It is not very contagious. The positive part of all this is that hantavirus is not as contagious as other pathogens with pandemic potential such as the COVID-19 coronavirus. In general, contagion between people, which only occurs with Andes variant (that of the boat), requires very close contacts. It is possible that he was a super-spreader on board the cruise ship. That is, a person from whose body a virus is transmitted exceptionally well. We saw some cases with COVID-19, for example. However, it is normal that the rest of those infected are not super-spreaders. Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that there were several simultaneous infections when coming into contact with mice on an excursion. It would not be a patient who is super contagious, but there could have been an initial event that caused a good part of the cases. In both scenarios, the contagion capacity would decrease over time. dead end. Another positive point about hantavirus is that has what is known as a dead end. It cannot be contagious continuously. It is known that, at most, it usually reaches three links. That is, one person infects another, that second infected person passes the disease to a third and that’s it. The chain cuts itself. For this reason, even if some of the people who got off in Santa Elena could continue to be contagious, they would not infect many people beyond their closest contacts. And what about those who are still on the boat? Spain is prepared to repatriate all passengers, with or without symptoms, or treat whoever is necessary. In that case, the transfer will be carried out with the necessary safety conditions so that there are no more infections. Therefore, from now on, the important thing is that these people undergo the necessary quarantines. Each country will decide how long they will be, but always taking into account that the incubation time in the most extreme cases can exceed 40 days. Easy to detect. The genome of this virus is very well known. For this reason, the diagnosis is simple through PCR. This test will be carried out on passengers on several occasions during the quarantine, to check their evolution. They cannot be discharged without repeating it once again. That said, although it is logical that uncertainty worries us, it is important that we keep in mind the limited pandemic potential of this virus. There is a lot of work to be done to ensure that the situation does not get worse, but there are already many people working on it. Image | CDC/Magnific | Fdesroches In Xataka | We believed that hantavirus did not jump between humans. Until someone went to a birthday party in Argentina

The PC market is mortally wounded because of RAM. Excellent news for Apple’s plans

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If there was something missing from Apple’s catalog, it was undoubtedly the cheap MacBook. The non-Pro MacBook died a long time ago, the last attempt at a MacBook without a surname did not work and that role of “affordable” laptop fell into the Macbook Air. That laptop was still missing to stand up to the 800-900 euro market that Windows dominated at will and it turns out that Apple had the answer at home: the iPhone. Its processor, rather. Because that’s what he is macbook neo: the guts of a iPhone 16 Pro in a laptop chassis. In our analysis We lowered a bit what was being said about the MacBook neo, but pointing out that it was not only a very interesting device for a wide range of users, but a blow to the PC market. This is something that Apple does not want to miss and it seems that they have bent MacBook neo orders. However, they now face the “neo dilemma.” Stop or pay more, the neo dilemma To no one’s surprise, The MacBook neo worked like a charm in its first week. 699 euros for a perfect laptop for students, or for those of us who want a second computer, is an option that is difficult to reject. Because there are cheap laptops, but not with these battery features, system speed and, above all, build quality. For find something similar in Windows You have to go to more expensive models. In the midst of a memory crisis, furthermore, those 699 euros for the basic version seemed even more appealing. And it seems like Apple expected it to do well in the market, but maybe not so well. Tim Culpan is a former Bloomberg reporter, based in Taiwan and has a very interesting newsletter. Most importantly, you have some sources at the heart of the factories that produce components for these equipment. On your speaker, Blame point that Apple had planned a total shipment of between five and six million MacBook neo. Tim Cook described the reception of the laptop as “a demand through the roof”, showing himself very satisfied with its performance, and Apple was at a time when it had to take a decision to ensure the future of the device. The reason is that this laptop uses A18 Pro chips… different. They are the processors of the iPhone 16 Probut they were not suitable for the high standards of the iPhone. In this case, it implies that instead of six GPU cores, they had five. This happens with many other processors that are renamed or derived from more affordable products. They had a lot due to leftover shipments and they converted them into the guts of the laptop. These processors were practically “free” for Apple, but now Culpan points out that those in Cupertino had to decide whether to let the inventory run out or ask TSMC to manufacture a new batch. They have chosen the second. in a new publicationCulpan claims that Apple now aims to have a base of 10 million unitsdouble that initial forecast. But of course, ordering TSMC to manufacture a new batch of A18 Pro would mean having to pay a significantly higher price to build the laptop. This would greatly narrow the profit margin they have per unit sold. Although Apple to be TSMC’s second customerthe Taiwanese foundry does not work for free, obviously. A few days ago, Tim Cook pointed out to investors that Apple had been able to avoid the first wave of the RAM crisis due to the amount of stock accumulated, but that is over. After loading memory options both from Mac Studio as of Mac Miniit is evident that not even Apple is untouchable. Here, Culpan points to two scenarios. One is to eliminate the basic option of 256 GB of memory, which costs 699 euros, leaving only the 512 GB option for 799 euros. It would be the move they have already made with other products. The second letter is raise the price of both optionsbut giving some extra to “compensate”, such as extended free storage in the cloud for a period of time. We have already seen this strategy in the PC segment. The problem is that it doesn’t just increase the memory. Aluminum is also increasing and, no matter how little it increases, anything that increases the cost of a manufactured unit is something that will have an impact on the sales price. And there is another question. Since the MacBook neo was being manufactured with those A18 Pros that were not the best, when ordering a new batch you enter a scenario in which it is possible that the new MacBook neo are “better” than the ones we had until now. Simply because they have all six GPU cores intact. TSMC is not going to make them limited on purpose. Apple has the option of software limit one of the GPU coresbut in the end that is the least of the company’s problems at the moment. All components, including processors, have increased in price since the initial order a few months ago. If we are seeing something in the industry, it is that, in case it was not already clear, It is the user who ‘eats’ the problems either due to price increases or due to the impossibility of acquiring products because they simply do not exist. And something that we are also observing is that Apple is in that “neo dilemma” because they are seeing that the consequences of launching a product with an attractive price and a good value on a daily basis translates into they take it away like hot cakes. And all this within the context of the brutal component crisis that we are experiencing. In Xataka | Tim Cook optimized factories and processes, John Ternus builds things: what we can expect from the “new Apple”

spanking children with a cane

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When it comes to applying rules, in Singapore half measures are not worth it. That’s something the rest of the world has learned the hard way. viral news like the one that has been starring for a few weeks (much to his regret) Didier, a young Frenchman who risks two years in prison for vandalism. The reason: take a straw from a vending machine, lick it and place it back on the display, a ‘feat’ that he recorded and ended up circulating on the networks. With this backdrop, it is better to understand why Singapore is in the news for its peculiar way of combating bullying in schools. While organizations like the WHO either UNICEF increasingly deny physical punishment, in the Asian city-state they have decided to demand the power of the rod. What has happened? That Singapore has shown that it does not mind swimming against the current when it comes to education and pedagogical strategies. While much of the world moves away from physical punishment in classrooms (in Spain they take time banned and the EU has campaigned against them), in the Southeast Asian city-state they have just claim its usefulness to bring certain students into line. And not in a discreet way or away from the spotlight. It was the Minister of Education himself, Desmond Lee, who has been in charge to claim the benefits of a good spanking (literally) in the Singapore Parliament. He did so this week, in response to questions from several deputies and with extensive arguments that can be consulted directly on the official website of the ministry. Is it something new? Yes. And no. What is new are the guidelines issued by the Singapore Government to combat bullying. A few weeks ago, on April 15, the department headed by Lee published a series of guidelines ‘anti bullying‘ prepared after a year of work and interviews with 2,000 people. The Government’s idea was to establish a series of clear recommendations on to do in cases like the one recently shook an elementary school where three children threatened to kill a classmate and her mother. These guidelines include physical punishment for aggressors, which reveals the Government’s commitment to a measure that actually has little novelty. The country’s School Regulations, published at the beginning of the 90s, already included its article 88 the possibility of applying “corporal punishment” to certain students with “a light cane on the palms of the hands or the buttocks, over the clothing.” What does the Government say? In your parliamentary responsethe head of Education has been very clear: the idea is not to simply spank, but to do it as a last resort and in a controlled manner. “Our schools use corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure if all others are inefficient and given the seriousness of the situation,” argues the Executive, which also clarifies that “strict protocols are followed to guarantee the safety of the student.” For example, spanking must be approved in advance by the principal, must be administered by authorized teachers, and the center will take into account “factors such as the maturity of the student or whether the punishment will help him learn from his mistake.” Singapore Legal Advice remember that the rod cannot be used without rhyme or reason: the law does not allow more than three blows. Do we know anything else? Yes. Lee wanted to make it clear that it is not about simply spanking, but about corrective measures being part of a much larger strategy. “If applied, it is never administered in isolation, but always as part of a set of disciplinary and restorative measures.” “The centers will monitor the well-being and progress of the student after the punishment and advise him to reflect and learn,” insist the minister In case there were any doubts, the Government argues that there is research that “shows that children learn to make better decisions when there are clear limits reinforced by firm consequences.” Does it apply to everyone? No. The Government refers to what is included in the school regulationswhich clarifies that corporal punishment, inflicted with a cane, can only be applied to boys. The girls get off the hook, which doesn’t mean that breaking the rules or harassing other classmates gets them free. Other penalties are reserved for them: expulsions, having to stay after classes or a drop in grades, among “other school disciplinary measures.” Education insists that in general the idea is to apply “a graduated disciplinary system” and that the cane is only used with boys “in cases of serious offenses”, when everything else fails. “This is not a new measure, it has been used for quite some time,” underlines the ministry. Regarding the ages of children who can be spanked, Guardian precise that the measure is also limited (although only slightly): it is restricted to students who are at least nine years old. But… Does it work? For Singapore education authorities the answer appears to be ‘yes’. In fact from the ministry fencing a curious argument: although it recognizes that there are studies that show that “frequent and poorly administered corporal punishment” can have “negative consequences”, they relate these practices above all to what happens in homes and “unregulated environments.” “The context in our schools is very different. Our centers use corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure if all other alternatives have proven insufficient,” he says. Things are quite different if we ask the WHO, which just last year published a report warning of the “risks” of corporal punishment of children. “The consequences can last a lifetime and impair physical and mental health, education, and social and occupational functioning,” argues the organization, dependent on the United Nations. According to their calculations, there are around 1.2 billion minors (between 0 and 18 years old) in the world who receive corporal punishment at home each year. In schools, it is estimated that it occurs between a quarter and a half. Does it only apply to children? That is one of the great … Read more

We believed that hantavirus did not jump between humans. Until someone went to a birthday party in Argentina

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In recent weeks, the term ‘hantavirus‘ is on the lips of many people, and it is no wonder to the big outbreak that has emerged in the middle of the ocean on a luxury cruise ship. As time goes by, there is more and more data that we have on the table, since we have gone from having the idea of ​​being faced with a virus no possibility of transmission between humans to a scenario in which this is possible and has already occurred. What we knew. When we think about hantavirus, epidemiology usually leads us to a very specific scenario, such as rural areas with infected rodents and humans who become ill by inhaling particles of their excrement. The cycle usually ends there, in an evolutionary dead end that goes no further. However, there is an exception, which is the Andes variant of this hantavirus, which has a high lethality and circulates mainly in South America, being the only one that can be transmitted from person to person. It is not a new phenomenon, but its propagation mechanism, strongly linked to social events and the so-called “superspreaders“, makes it a pathogen of special surveillance, as has been demonstrated by the recent large outbreaks in Argentina and its impact now on an international cruise ship with people who are not currently under control due to its long incubation period. His past. To understand the magnitude of the problem, you have to travel back in time and more specifically to the mid-90s where the medical community believed that hantaviruses were strictly zoonotic pathogens, that is, they were transmitted from animals to humans. But in 1996, an outbreak in southern Argentina changed virology textbooks. Here the publications of the time They made it clear that the 1996 outbreak was happening directly between humans thanks to molecular analyzes that determined that the viruses that were infecting patients were quite similar. A birthday. In a simple meeting between several people in November 2018 in Epuyén, it was clearly confirmed that something was happening with this virus. Here are three symptomatic people who attended a birthdaya funeral and a doctor’s office caused the contagion of 34 people, of whom eleven ended up dying due to the clinic that presents this very aggressive virus. This case set a great precedent, being the clearest example we have to see that the Andes hantavirus can spread in social environments without there being close and continuous contact as was thought until relatively recently. But the most interesting thing is the possibility that there are ‘super-contagators’, who are people who can more easily infect those around them and which right now may be the most plausible theory that explains this contagion on the cruise. Similar. Abdirahman KHALIF Mohamud, spokesperson for the World Health Organization, was the one who shown the similarities that may exist between this birthday in Argentina in 2018 and the case of the cruise because in both cases there was a concentration of people in a closed space. The tranquility. In the cases that are documented right now, which are not many, it could be seen that at the moment in which the authorities isolated the confirmed cases, the transmissibility began to decrease. But in addition, it is also known that when a virus is transmitted three times, there is no more contagion from it, so its capacity to spread is lower, which is good news. The problem is that there is still a lot of information that is emerging in this regard, and although there are experts who point out that we are not going to be facing a major pandemic like Covid, fear is still quite present. In Xataka | The hantavirus was going to reach Europe sooner or later and, as always, it caught us offside

from useless grass to the birth of fascinating life

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In 1995, several scientists who They studied ancient craters left by World War II bombs in Europe discovered something unexpected: Decades after the war, many of those holes filled with water had become small natural refuges where amphibians, insects and birds that barely found safe spaces elsewhere in the landscape thrived. A hole in the ground that ended up changing an ecosystem. In many gardens, the corners where water accumulates after rain are often seen as a problem: uncomfortable mud, grass that is impossible to maintain or small puddles that sooner or later someone ends up draining. However, in the midst of the global crisis that amphibians go throughthose spaces are beginning to look different. In fact, they had a few days ago in Economics a story that occurred on a small plot of land near a fish farm that demonstrates the extent to which something seemingly insignificant can be transformed into an unexpected refuge for wildlife. The idea of ​​building a pond that would disappear. Apparently, the owner decided to dig a shallow depression, barely about 60 centimetersright in an area where thaw and rain already accumulated water naturally before ending up being lost in a ditch. The key to the project was precisely that it was not a permanent pond. It was designed as a “vernal pool”a seasonal pond intended to fill during winter and spring and gradually dry out in summer. This detail is essential because it prevents the presence of fish, one of the greatest dangers for eggs and tadpoles. Shallow water also warms faster and accelerates the development of larvae before the pond disappears, something essential for species that live against the clock. The frogs are coming. The most surprising it was the speed with which nature responded. Just weeks after filling with rain and meltwater, five gelatinous masses of wood frog eggs appeared attached to submerged branches near the shore. Although at first glance they seemed like small isolated groups, each of these masses could contain hundreds or even thousands of eggs. The pond still had very little vegetation and just a few logs, leaves and accumulated mud, but that was enough for the amphibians to immediately identify the place as a safe breeding point. A corner of grass with no apparent use had just become a natural nursery for one of the most endangered species on the planet. The mud also attracted other species. The frogs weren’t the only ones to take advantage of the change. Part of the shore was deliberately left bare and muddy to favor swallows, which need wet mud to build and reinforce their nests. The previous year several had inspected the dwelling without remaining definitively, possibly due to lack of suitable materials nearby. Now the garden offered just what they needed. Plus: to that was added a bat box placed next to the pond, creating a small ecosystem where insects, amphibians, birds and mammals began to interact around the water. What was once a uniform surface of grass and pine trees began to transform into a much more vivid and diverse mosaic. The silent amphibian crisis. As they remembered in the middleall this occurs at a particularly delicate time for amphibians. Near of 40% of the species on the planet are threatened with extinction due to habitat loss, disease and climate change that alter the rains and dry out entire breeding areas. In this context, small temporary ponds like this one are beginning to acquire enormous importance because they offer just the conditions that many species need to survive. The problem is that, being small and seasonal spaces, there are often outside the protections traditional legal systems and go unnoticed in the face of much larger wetlands. The idea that is changing many gardens. He experimentFurthermore, it leaves a powerful conclusion: a simple shallow hole can become a useful piece within a much larger network of refuges for amphibians and other species. Obviously, a single pond will not change on its own the global crisis of biodiversity, but thousands of small interventions distributed among gardens, farms, parks or schools can begin to create safe corridors for increasingly pressured animals. And perhaps the most striking thing is that a good part of these spaces already exist: they are precisely those corners of the garden where every spring a puddle appears that someone usually tries to eliminate as soon as possible. Image | Pexels In Xataka | Searching for dinosaurs in Argentina they have found a treasure that is 161 million years old. The oldest tadpole on the planet In Xataka | This frog screeches in ultrasound. We don’t really know why, but we just found out.

Vevo was all over the internet in the 2000s. Today is just another forgotten episode of the old music industry

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In December 2009, two of the biggest record labels on the planet organized a party in New York with Bono as the guest of honor to celebrate the launch of something that, according to them, was going to give them back control of the music business on the Internet, which, as we will now see, was not going through its best moment. It was called Vevo, an acronym for “Video Evolution.” The (r)evolution lasted less than a decade: the fundamental changes in the business and the arrival of a different way of understanding music videos relegated it to the secondary level of nostalgia for millennials which is today. Bad times. In the late 2000s, The music industry was collapsing.. Income from record sales had been falling for years due to the combined effect of piracy and chaotic digitalization, unbeknownst to the labels, and which was very far from the orderly and official moment that it is experiencing today thanks to streaming platforms. For example: YouTube (which had already been bought by Google in 2006) accumulated hundreds of millions of video clip views without the labels seeing a single euro in compensation. Attempts were made to renegotiate the terms of that relationship, without success: Warner Music was the first to withdraw their entire catalog from YouTube in 2008. Ideaca. Doug Morris, then CEO of Universal Music Group and a central figure in the creation of Vevo, envisioned a way to enter the internet and video clip business when he saw his grandson consuming online video clips with advertising, which led him to ask how much money Universal was generating with those reproductions… The answer was obvious: zero. From that point on, Morris pressured companies like Yahoo and MTV to compensate him for playing his videos. He did end up reaching an agreement with Google. Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Vevo! Vevo officially launched on December 8, 2009 following an agreement between Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI, with Warner Music Group joining years later, in August 2016. Vevo would provide the official catalog in high definition, YouTube would serve as a mass distribution platform, and both parties would sell advertising on that inventory. In October 2009, the Abu Dhabi Media Company already had invested about 300 million dollars to operate in the United States and Canada. Immediate result? Spectacular. In its first month it was already the most visited music site in the United States, surpassing Myspace Music. The economic impact was also rapid: according to Vevo’s CEO at the time, the average CPM of an online music video went from $3 before launch to more than $30 in 2013. In 2012, Vevo accumulated 41 billion views annually across its network, with a catalog of around 75,000 videos. By August 2013, Vevo had surpassed MTV in terms of digital viewership: 609 million video views versus MTV’s 261 million that month. Vevo Certified for artists who surpassed 100 million streams became an indicator of cultural relevance comparable to a number one on sales charts. Issues. However, Vevo’s structural problem was not the audience, but your delivery model. Although the company had a turnover of $250 million in 2013, more than 90% of that income was shared between labels, Google and music publishers. Universal and Sony captured 55% of the total and Vevo operated at a loss. It was, in practice, an advertising inventory manager without its own capital: it generated value for its shareholders, the labels and Google, but not for itself as an independent operating entity. In 2014, the company hired Goldman Sachs and The Raine Group to find a buyer willing to pay nearly $1 billion for the company. None appeared. Vevo ruled out the sale and announced that it would seek profitability through its own means. Change of course. In April 2015, Erik Huggers (creator of the famous BBC iPlayer) arrived as the new CEO. Vevo then wanted build your own applications for mobile and connected TV, reduce its dependence on YouTube and eventually launch a paid subscription service. They began developing apps for iOS, Android and connected TV platforms, but it was short-lived: the paid subscription project was canceled in February 2017, and Huggers left the position. Sizes and layoffs took place and the commitment to technological autonomy ended. Coup de grace. In January 2018, YouTube automatically migrated subscribers from Vevo-branded channels (such as “RihannaVEVO” or “JustinBieberVEVO”) to YouTube’s new Official Artist Channels. That same week, YouTube relaunched YouTube Music as a paid subscription service, directly competing where Vevo had tried to enter. Paradoxically, Vevo had broken even that year for the first time. But the proprietary model had never caught on, and without it, there was no reason to maintain the infrastructure. What’s left of Vevo. Vevo has not completely disappearedlike other projects of the time. The company pivoted to the connected television business and FAST channelsthe free shelves with advertising. Its library exceeds 900,000 video clips and generates approximately 25,000 million monthly views. The model is, ironically, the one that MTV never managed to make happen: a free music network supported by advertising, although in the case of Vevo, distributed over the Internet instead of cable. Vevo’s footprint is not entirely negative: it set the standard for the official high-definition music video on YouTube, created the monetization infrastructure that allowed video clips to become a business again, and demonstrated that the recording industry could negotiate on an equal footing with technology platforms. But the fact that the video clips have ended up becoming amateur choreographies on TikTok is something that, of course, the CEO of Universal could not foresee. In Xataka | MrBeast created an extreme survival challenge with the goal that no one could overcome it. Until ‘Juan the Mexican’ arrived

They dedicate four times more time to their children, but mothers are still on the brink of collapse

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Let’s imagine for a moment the classic picture of a living room in the 1950s. The father, fresh from work, barricades himself behind the newspaper or asks for silence to listen to the radio. His parenting figure is peripheral, an economic provider whose emotional absence is normalized. Let’s now jump to 2026. Today’s father kneads gluten-free pancakes on a Tuesday morning, manages the third grade WhatsApp group, reads positive discipline manuals and monitors every millimeter of his offspring’s cognitive development. If we traveled back in time, today’s fatherhood would be unrecognizable to a father from the “Silent Generation.” However, this revolution, which a priori should have created the most balanced generation in history, hides a deep structural trap. If today’s parents sin something, it is not that they are absent, but rather the opposite. And this hyperpresence – crossed by a fierce demand of class and gender – is triggering the anxiety of children and causing unprecedented exhaustion, especially in women, who continue to support the invisible scaffolding of the home. The sociological data is compelling. According to analyst Derek Thompson in your newsletterparents millennials in the United States spend approximately four times more time caring for their children than parents of the generation of the baby boom. The hours of male involvement have taken a historic leap. However, this phenomenon is deeply fragmented by socioeconomic status. The research of economists Guryan, Hurst and Kearney They already warned of an astonishing paradox: The higher the educational level and purchasing power, the more hours are invested in parenting. The famous study The Rug Rat Race (The Rat Race)created by Valerie and Garey Ramey, hits the nail on the head by explaining why. This hyper-involvement responds, to a large extent, to the anxiety to ensure the future success of minors in the face of a savage academic and labor market. It has become a status symbol; a frenetic competition where free time is sacrificed on the altar of extracurricular activities. In Spain, this desire for presence has been supported by the institutions. From Moncloa trace the evolution: we have gone from the ridiculous two days of paternity leave prior to 2007, to consolidating ourselves in 2025 as a European reference model with 19 paid and non-transferable weeks per parent (and 32 weeks for single-parent families). The father, by law and by cultural change, is at home. But what happens behind closed doors? In Spain, the dynamic is identical. Studies on time use like those of the sociologist Pablo Gracia confirm that Spanish parents with higher education dedicate significantly more time to the physical and interactive care of their children. A will to be present that has also been supported by the institutions. The Moncloa figures trace undeniable progress: we have gone from the ridiculous two days of paternity leave prior to 2007, to consolidating ourselves as a European benchmark with 19 paid and non-transferable weeks per parent (and 32 weeks for single-parent families). The father, by law and by cultural change, is at home. But what really happens behind closed doors? The mirage of the distribution Headlines celebrating the “new super dad” demand critical reading. Researcher Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play, warns in the magazine Lounge of the trap of traditional surveys: they measure execution time, but ignore cognitive effort. Today’s men “help” more, yes. But the mental load—conceiving, planning, and continually anticipating family needs—continues to fall on them. Today’s mothers feel, in Rodsky’s words, “overwhelmed and bored” by having to act as directors of a project where their partners often act as kind subordinates waiting for instructions. The x-ray of this inequality in Spain reveals an exhausting panorama: Chronic overload: 78% of Spanish mothers declare themselves overloaded, assuming 64% of domestic tasks, regardless of whether they work outside the home. according to data from Make Mothers Matter. Class gap and vulnerability: The situation becomes dramatic for single-parent families and women with precarious jobs, who lack the network and resources to outsource care. Fear of penalty: A report of TELOS evidence that, when push comes to shove, more than 90% of mothers use up their entire birth leave, compared to 85% of fathers, still inhibited by the culture of corporate presenteeism. This systemic pressure to achieve everything invariably results in burnout or parental exhaustion. The psychologist Silvia Álava It is estimated that 7 out of every 10 Spanish parents They are exhausted by the effort to achieve perfection. Worse still, clinical research on this syndrome (such as the psychometric analyzes of Suárez, Núñez et al.) warn that extreme exhaustion ends up causing serious emotional distancing. It is the final paradox: parents try so hard to be present that they end up emotionally disconnecting from their own children for pure mental survival. The bill is paid by the minors We live in the era of “helicopter parents” and “lawnmower parents”: those who, as illustrated in the magazine International School Parentthey compulsively pave the way so that children do not even stumble. And the great irony of this intensive parenting, spurred by the suffocating showcase of social media, is that it is devastating those it seeks to protect. The great irony of this intensive breeding is that it is devastating those it is intended to protect. A Norwegian review of 38 studies has detailed that between 70% and 90% of research associates excessive parental control with profound mental distress in children. Avoiding frustration deprives them of the tools to be functional adults. A Norwegian review of 38 independent studies makes it clear: Between 70% and 90% of research associates excessive parental control with profound discomfort in children. Avoiding frustration deprives them of the basic tools to be functional adults. In fact, neurology confirms that taking constantly Decisions for children stunt the development of their prefrontal cortex, the area of ​​the brain responsible for solving problems and regulating emotions. The brain literally needs to fall down to learn to get up. In Spain, the clinical alarms are ringing loudly: Psychiatric admissions: The magazine … Read more

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