Month: June 2026

Spain is 2º C warmer than in the 80s

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When a new summer season arrives, almost all of us have a conversation that includes one sentence: “Every year it gets hotter; the summers before were not like that.” And although for some it may seem like a true exaggeration based on nostalgia, the reality is that the data confirms that we really do have much hotter summers. Certificate. Multiple independent studies, supported by official organizations such as the State Meteorological Agency or the Ministry for the Ecological Transition, have reached a devastating conclusion: the average summer temperature in Spain has increased around 2 °C in the last three decades. Although this is not the worst, because even the nights are no longer a refuge from the heat that occurs during the day. The data. If we look at the thermometers with the perspective that time gives, the trend is an ascending line without brakes. According to the Sustainability Observatory, if we compare the decade of 1969-1978 with that of 2009-2018, the average summer temperature has gone from 21.4 °C to 23.8 °C, so there is talk of an increase of 2.4 °C. But it is not necessary to go that far to notice the acceleration of the phenomenon, since the weather reports most recent from MITECO and AEMET point out that the summer of 2025 broke all records since 1961, reaching an average peninsular temperature of 24.2 °C, which represents an anomaly of 2.1 °C above the average we had as a reference, surpassing the previous record held in 2022 of 24.1 °C. Endless summers. The heat is not only more intense, but it lasts much longer. According to AEMET Open Data, the climatological summer current lasts five weeks longer than in the 80s, gaining ground on spring and autumn at a rate of 9 days per decade. And since 1975, the summer heat period has been officially lengthened by 20 days. The impact is even greater in urban environments, where asphalt and concrete act as heat accumulators, as stated in a study by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia that analyzed the period 1971-2022 in peninsular cities and shows chilling figures: an increase of 3.54°C. Tropical nights. During the summer, many of us wait for nightfall to get the temperatures to drop so we can go outside or sleep more comfortably. However, the nights when the thermometer does not drop below 20 ºC They are the order of the day. And to give us an idea, there are 32 million Spaniards regularly affected by these suffocating nights. In Spain as a whole, they have increased an average of 6 days in the last 50 years. If we focus on specific areas, Andalusia, Murcia and the Valencian Community, citizens today suffer 12 more tropical nights a year than a few decades ago. And the reality is that to sleep this becomes very complicated, forcing the use of the beloved air conditioning or fan. In Xataka | Raffaele Bernadello, climate change expert: “The need to actively capture CO₂ is increasingly evident”

They have asked a Galician judge if Raynair and Vueling can charge for hand luggage. The answer could not be more Galician

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Two years later, it will be Europe that contributes its point of view. The answer will be key to deciding whether Ryanair, Vueling or Volotea can charge for hand luggage. The decision falls on a court in A Coruña, after the Public Prosecutor’s Office sued these three companies. Those involved will have to wait to know what the High Court of Justice of the European Union says. The demand. Ryanair, Vueling and Volotea are three companies that have been operating at A Coruña Airport. All of them are low cost and are known for applying very strict measures when it comes to hand luggage. So strict that passengers have been allowed for years only with a small backpack if they do not want to face an extra cost on their flight. The Public Prosecutor’s Office, however, considers these practices to be abusive. It is the same line that the Government has followed, which even sanctioned the three for this luggage policy. In that fineRyanair with more than 100 million euros in punishment was the one that had the worst stoppageBut the legality of that fine is in doubt. And what has happened? That the A Coruña court handling the matter has referred the matter to the Superior Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as explained in The Mediterranean Newspaper. Now, the CJEU must give a reasoned response to the matter and with this response the magistrate will decide. For now, the procedure is suspended. This occurs because the magistrate handling the matter requires the involvement of Brussels in two questions. The first is whether the European Union’s freedom of pricing regulations go against Spanish regulations that require airlines to allow free travel with hand luggage. And, second, if this extra price on the ticket is an abuse of consumers. There is nothing clear. It is not the first time that a Spanish magistrate asks the CJEU for help. The question raised refers to a similar decision taken in 2014 in favor of Vueling, but according to the judge, that victory for the airline is not enough to now settle this new confrontation. And justice itself in Spain has taken decisions that may seem contradictory. In fact, there are two very clear examples: The airline wins: last year, in SevilleRyanair won a trial in which it was accused of a position of power by charging for hand luggage. The passenger wins: also last year, in SalamancaRyanair lost a trial in which 147 euros were claimed for charging a passenger for a carry-on suitcase on different routes between 2019 and 2024. Why does it happen? The problem is that the rules that regulate air traffic do not clearly specify what is or is not carry-on luggage. And they do not specify minimum measurements either. This has caused tension in Spain that is repeated. For the Government, the measures used by low-cost companies They are clearly insufficient to carry the essential luggage. On the contrary, these companies defend that they do allow a backpack to pass under the terms offered and that the law protects them when they decide to price larger packages. Furthermore, they point out that on their planes there are no spaces for all travelers to carry their luggage in a suitcase, but the Government defends that if the luggage fits under the seat, this cannot be an excuse. And Europe has already positioned itself. The problem is that Europe has already taken a position repeatedly on this issue. First, we know that the European Union has worked on a new regulation in which it will specify what minimum measures are required… and the problem for Spain is that These measures coincide with those requested by Ryanair on its trips. Furthermore, the Transport Commissioner of the European Commission seems to have positioned itself clearly in favor of companies. In fact, a file has already been opened against Spain for the fine imposed on Ryanair and the rest of the low-cost companies in relation to the charge for hand luggage. With everything and until there is a clear ruleit seems that the conflict can be repeated over time. Photo | Dimitri Karastelev and Ray Freimanis In Xataka | When Ryanair CEO went to a restaurant he was charged for two extras: “priority seating” and “legroom”

It refreshes us but gives us torticollis

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When summer arrives, it is easy to see how thermometers reach 40 ºC, or even before, how we are suffering right now. Here the air conditioning in the office, at home or even in the car becomes our best ally, since at first glance it is seen as an indispensable lifesaver. However, scientific literature tells us that it also has quite negative effects that go beyond the classic cold due to the extreme temperature changes that we face. The most general effects. Centralized air conditioning systems are a problem, as has been documented by science itself, since it has been seen that they are direct sources of health problems if the indoor air quality is not optimal. And the consequences are quite clear: dry eyes, headache, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. With concrete data. A study published in 2023 with 400 adults in India compared people who were exposed to air conditioning versus those who used natural ventilation in their daily lives. What was seen is that users who were regularly air conditioned suffered many more cases of dry eyes, pharyngitis and nasal congestion than those who were in more natural conditions. But in addition, medical tests showed that lung function was significantly lower in people under constant air conditioning. Specifically, 35% of them developed rhinitis, compared to only 9% in natural ventilation environments. The consequences. This impact on health translates into lost days, since people who work with air conditioning missed an average of 22 days a year, compared to just 13-15 days for those in offices without artificial air conditioning. Muscle pain. Something that I have personally heard a lot, especially from older people, is that air conditioning makes them have severe ‘bone pain’, especially if it hits them directly. And the reality is that direct cold triggers a defense mechanism in the body to increase the temperature and stay at 36-37 ºC. through muscle contraction. So, if the exposure of the muscle to the cold of the air conditioning produces a muscle contraction, it means that those people who set the air conditioning to 18 °C see their maximum grip strength decrease by 20% and the speed of development of that force plummets by 50%. In the cervical This is where it has been clearly seen that superficial cooling increases the tension of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which explains the classic torticollis. But they even explain the facial paralysis that occurs due to exposure to these jets of frozen air and that we colloquially call ‘it has given him a wind’. Pollution. If the air conditioner cools, but its filters are not maintained, the device becomes a diffuser of pathogens. This is especially important in hospital centers where the prevalence of diseases can increase. nosocomial. But in Spain the most serious danger has a name and surname: Legionella pneumophila. This is a bacteria that finds its perfect ecosystem in cooling towers and air conditioning generators, causing legionellosis, which is a very important atypical pneumonia condition. The protective character. If the air conditioning has high-efficiency filters, the picture changes radically by eliminating these pathogens. But the most interesting point is in a 2017 study involving 200 participants in Taipei that showed that air filtration improves cardiovascular health by reducing fine particles and volatile organic compounds from the outside. The ideal temperature. Knowing all this, what is the balance point? The consensus of experts and clinical studies indicates that the thermostat should be between 24 °C and 25 °C. Medical evidence indicates that going below 20°C guarantees the appearance of significant musculoskeletal problems and would also irritate the bronchial mucosa, which would be a major problem for patients who have lung disease. And if you want to have a refrigerator at home below 17ºC, the clinical literature points to significant exposure to respiratory and also joint problems. Images | lifeforstock in Magnific In Xataka | We have a problem in Europe with air conditioning. There are reasons to use it little, but when the heat hits everything changes

the story of how Ridley Scott blew our minds in the most terrifying scene in cinema

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One of the most disturbing inspirations of Alien He was not born in a Hollywood studio, but in a doctor’s office. For years, screenwriter Dan O’Bannon suffered from Crohn’s disease and he described some episodes as the sensation of having something alive trying to break through from inside him. That experience would end up becoming in the seed of one of the most disturbing images in the history of cinema. The scene that changed terror. In 1979, Ridley Scott took a unusual decision even by horror film standards: hiding from their own actors a good part of what was going to happen during one of the key sequences from Alien. The director was convinced that performed fear could never equal real fear. The script barely indicated that “something emerges”but the exact appearance of the creature, the amount of blood, the violence of the scene and the way everything was going to unfold remained deliberately hidden for most of the cast. That commitment to surprise would end up giving rise to one of the most shocking, imitated and studied scenes in the entire history of cinema. The origin of the nightmare. The famous chestburster sequence It was not born solely from the imagination of its creators. Dan O’Bannonscreenwriter of Alien, wore years fascinated by parasites and by some of the most brutal reproductive mechanisms in the insect world. Wasps that lay eggs inside other animals, larvae that grow by feeding on a living host, and organisms capable of controlling the behavior of their victims served as inspiration for the creature. To this added an experience much more personal: the severe intestinal pain derived from Crohn’s disease that O’Bannon himself suffered from. The feeling of having something growing and fighting By coming out of his interior he ended up becoming the central idea of ​​the monster that would end up terrifying the public. The battle for the perfect alien. Once the idea was conceived, O’Bannon knew exactly who should give it visual form. During his experience in the failed project of Dune by Alejandro Jodorowsky had discovered the work of the Swiss artist HR Gigerwhose biomechanical illustrations mixed sexuality, death, bones and machinery in a way never seen before. The problem was that the producers and the studio considered those images too disturbing and they resisted hiring him for months. Everything changed when Ridley Scott joined the project, saw Giger’s designs and was completely fascinated. Their support was decisive in incorporating the artist, a decision that would end up defining the visual identity of Alien and much of subsequent science fiction. A monster inspired by nature. The creature was also not conceived as a simple aggressive alien. O’Bannon wanted his life cycle to be as disturbing as it was plausible. The facehuggerin charge of implanting the embryo in the victim’s body, was born from the combination between the screenwriter’s ideas, Giger’s designs and the work of various artists and technicians. The goal was to create an organism that would use humans as involuntary guestsreproducing in a horror key some behaviors observed in real insects. The true horror of Alien came not only from the physical violence, but from the loss of control over one’s body and the feeling of becoming a vessel for something unknown. Preparing for the big shock. Ridley Scott was aware that the alien birth sequence would decide the success or failure of the film. If the public took it as a joke, the whole threat would disappear. That’s why he spent weeks perfecting the creature’s design and carefully planning the shoot. HE built an artificial torso for John Hurt, the actor who played Kane, and a complex hydraulic system was installed under the table. The fake breast was stuffed with real organs obtained in butcher shops and slaughterhouses, in addition to seafood and organ meats that provided a texture that was impossible to reproduce with the effects of the time. To give us an idea, the smell was so intense that the cast themselves I would remember decades later the mixture of formaldehyde, blood and decaying flesh that permeated the set. Giger airbrushing an alien hieroglyph showing the violent and parasitic life cycle of the Alien The best kept secret. The actors knew that something was going to come out from Kane’s chest, but they were practically unaware everything else. While technicians worked for hours preparing the special effect, the cast remained away from the set. When they were finally called to film, they found a stage covered with plasticscameras protected by transparent tarps, buckets scattered everywhere and team members wearing raincoats. Nobody explained to them the reason. That strange atmosphere generated a growing tension that Scott deliberately sought. I wanted the cameras to capture real uncertainty, not just interpretations. Giger’s first failed attempt to create a chest-busting alien, inspired by Francis Bacon Reality surpassed acting. The filming was not as simple as it is usually remembered. The first attempts failed because the creature could not properly pass through Kane’s shirt and some blood systems were blocked. However, these errors had an unexpected effect: They further increased the anxiety of the actors, who saw how something seemed to try to make its way from inside their partner’s body without understanding exactly what was happening. When the tiny bug finally managed to emerge and jets of blood began to shoot in all directions, the reactions were authentic. Veronica Cartwright received a direct hit in the face that she did not expect and ended up emotionally overwhelmed. Sigourney Weaver confessed that at that moment she was not even thinking about the film, but about John Hurt. Yaphet Kotto was so affected that, according to several testimoniesisolated himself for hours after filming. The scene that no one forgot. There is no doubt, Scott got exactly what he was looking for. The expressions of astonishment, horror and revulsion that appear on the screen belong largely to people that they were living something unexpected before your eyes. The director summarized years later … Read more

Some astronomers made a paella at 2,000 meters above sea level in Almería. And they discovered the best cooking point for rice

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If you like cook a paellait is best that you do it on the coast. And not only because of how pleasant the impression of having a rice at the beach bar looking at the sea is. Also because, basically, it will cook better. Astronomers know this well. Calar Alto Observatoryin Almería, who have a curious anecdote with this story. It wasn’t the chef’s fault.. Years ago, the astronomers at the Calar Alto Observatory enjoyed the dishes prepared by a magnificent chef, from a small town in the province of Almería, during their work days. In his municipality he was known precisely for the quality of his rice. However, I had a thorn in my side with the paellas I was trying to prepare at the observatory. Rice never suited him. At least, not as tasty as normally. In Xataka We have spoken about it with Ana Guijarro, one of the astronomers at this observatory. One day she explained to him that he should not martyr himself. The fault was not his, but rather the fact that the facilities They are 2,168 meters above sea level. The physics behind. As we rise meters above sea level, the atmospheric pressure is lower. To understand it, we can visualize it: there is less column of air above our heads, therefore there is also less pressure acting on them. The boiling point of liquids depends on the pressure. If we heat waterthe molecules that make it up will move faster and faster, colliding with each other. When they reach the surface, they may attempt to “escape,” turning into vapor. However, atmospheric pressure pushes them down and prevents this from happening. If the atmospheric pressure decreases, so does the boiling point. That is, the temperature at which the liquid can begin to turn into vapor. At sea level, the boiling temperature of water is 100ºC. However, at 2,168 meters, water boils at approximately 92.6ºC. A cooking class. For rice to cook properly, it is necessary for the starch in its grains to hydrate and gelatinize correctly, and for that to happen, sufficient heat is needed. The problem is that, when a liquid boils, all its energy is invested precisely in that change of state instead of continuing to raise the temperature. The 100ºC at sea level, or 92ºC at higher altitudes, remain stable so that the liquid turns into a gas. Therefore, there is not enough temperature to process the rice grains in the best possible way. And what about Andean rice? In the Andean countries there are many rice-based dishes that are very tasty. The height is even higher than that of the Calar Alto Observatory, but in these places, where they have no choice but to cook at high altitudes, They have a very precious trick: the pressure cooker. Precisely the objective of this utensil is to artificially increase the pressure, so that the boiling point rises and the food can be cooked for longer. It is valid for rice and all types of stews. Even at sea level it is very precious for cooking certain dishes, such as stews. Sometimes physics makes it difficult for us, but there are tricks to deal with it. It’s not just a matter of rice. Ana Guijarro tells us that this does not only happen with rice. “For example, tea or any infusion They don’t taste the same in the mountains, because the water boils at a lower temperature and that affects the extraction of the flavor that these things have.” It is something that can frustrate a chef a lot, but with which people who, like astronomers, usually work many meters above sea level, are more than familiar. Better paella on the beach. In short, the next time you have a paella on the beach, remember that it is the best place you can have it. And everything is much more enjoyable when you know the science behind it. Images | MagnificentJorgechp In Xataka | The paella Taliban have been growing strong for years. More and more evidence points to the contrary.

2,000 years ago the Romans sold perfumes in glass doves that could only be opened by breaking their necks.

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Despite their great efforts, the cities of the Roman Empire they didn’t smell good and well, it makes sense: they lived in conditions of high fecal contamination and also they used feces as medicine. Of course, to Caesar what belongs to Caesar: they had bottles to store their ointments and oils that, like the best current perfumes, promised a lot. Without going any further, the two bottles you see above these lines date from the 1st century AD, are from the Roman Empire and belong to the MET collection. Because from then on they knew that the (good) smell, coming from anointing oneself after bathing in hot springs, from incense from temples or from burials, was something more: it could be a language of status, identity and power. So for those smells they needed a container at their height that would turn the task of perfuming themselves into almost a ritual. For example, a dove. Dove-shaped jars. The ointments of the Romans were, in a nutshell, something like today’s ampoules: small ceramic or glass containers where they stored oils, commercial products or substances for funeral practices. blown glass arrive In the 1st century BC and 200 years later, the Romans were true virtuosos of glass manufacturing both in quality and quantity: according to the Penn Museummanufactured up to 100 million containers a year. These curious zoomorphic specimens in the shape of a bird and the size of which fit in the palm of the hand became so popular that they constitute a subcategory in themselves within their unguentary and it is common to find it in deposits. The method of use was practically identical to a vial: you have to break that small neck to access the contents inside. In this case, literally breaking the bird’s neck. In addition to its aesthetic value, they met their goal when storing valuable ointments: it protected the contents from excessive exposure to oxygen and helped to dose the amount poured. Why is it important. Converting ointment bottles into something more sophisticated in the shape of a bird constitutes one of the first and most striking cases of packaging and user experience (imagine that unboxing of an influencer of the time). Have a glass jar and also with this type of shapes It was a status indicator.as witnessed by the art of that period, where we see men and women perfumed after a visit to the hot springs. On the other hand and leaving aside the shape, these jars are the vestiges of the imperial commercial network: spices from India, resins from Arabia and locally grown flowers were used to make perfumes and ointments. If they also go to the laboratory, they constitute a valuable source of chemical data on Roman civilization and its customs. Without going any further, a laboratory analysis allowed identify a primal patchouli in an exhibition in Carmona (Seville). Context. Among these zoomorphic glasses the dove was the star: archaeological evidence suggests that the dove was one of the first birds domesticated by humans, so people learned its habits and characteristics and used it for messaging. On the spiritual level, they introduced it into their religious rituals and mythology. Thus, the dove was the sacred animal of Venus and she was often represented in statues with a dove perched on her hand or on her head. However, this relationship is much older: already in the Bronze Age, in Sumerian Mesopotamia, consists the association between doves and the mother goddess. Storing perfume in a container in the shape of your sacred animal is a fully conscious and coherent act. Yes, but. Many of these readings of the dove-shaped glass jars are hypotheses based on what we know about the Romans, but we don’t know for sure: these perfumes could well be for everyday use or for funeral rituals. Likewise, they were not exclusive objects of the wealthiest classes: the simplest ointments were within the reach of the popular classes and their shapes were refined over time. In short, the dove could have different meanings depending on who had it and what for. In Xataka | The fall of the Roman Empire has obsessed us for centuries: some economists believe they have the answer in 400,000 coins 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 Cover | MET

60 years ago they sank a thousand-year-old church in a reservoir in Barcelona. Only the drought has brought it back to the surface

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He Sau swampin the Osona region (Barcelona), has a surprise: when the drought hits, lowering the level of the reservoir enough, it reveals a superb stone bell tower that has been submerged since 1962. The tower belongs to Sant Romà de Sau, a Romanesque church from the 11th century that the Franco regime sank (normally up to 23 meters deep) to supply water to Barcelona In fact, during the pressing crisis of 2023, the drought left it completely grounded, as NASA photographed from spaceThe fact that it is more than a thousand years old and still standing even though it lives submerged is commendable, but it is also the oldest church in the world that is still standing in water. according to the Official World Record. Once upon a church (and a town) submerged in a swamp. More specifically, the church of Sant Romà de Sau is in the Lombard Romanesque style and was consecrated in the year 1061. It was originally built with a single nave oriented from east to west and with a square bell tower three-story semi-detachedprecisely the one that can be seen when there is drought. The church that It is normally submerged at a depth of 23 meters It is not exactly the original: it has been accumulating interventions, such as a reform and expansion after the damage of an earthquake or a remodeling in the 19th century, when the apse was demolished and the orientation of the temple was changed. The bell tower is the vestige of what was once there: the church of a town that was also submerged. The settlement of Sant Romà data 917. Before the water level rose and flooded everything, there they lived 300 inhabitants in the middle of the 20th century who were dedicated to agriculture, livestock and forestry. That of Sant Romà is another story of towns submerged after the execution of the hydraulic project, which led to the expropriation of homes and agricultural farms, its inhabitants had to leave their home without taking part in the matter or receiving compensation. Context. The water that reaches the Catalan capital comes mainly from the Ter and Llobregat rivers through a network of reservoirs. In the case of the Ter, specifically the reservoirs of Sau and those of Susqueda and Pastry. The metropolitan area of ​​Barcelona suffered significant demographic growth during Franco’s development, so the infrastructure was no longer adequate. The construction of the reservoir falls precisely within those years, although the original project goes back to 1931 and the works did not begin until 1942. As the professor and director of the Department of History at the University of Santiago de Compostela Daniel Lanero explains to Newtral.es, what the Franco regime did was “give continuity to the hydraulic policy that had been put into practice since the end of the 19th century.” Beatriz García, professor of contemporary history at the University of León, explains the two bases of this water resources management policy: general plan of irrigation canals and swamps of 1902 and the national hydraulic works plan approved in the Second Republic. Why is it important. That this church breaks conservation records in such complicated conditions does not mean that it is eternal: in 1999 it was already had to be restored after decades under water due to the weakness of its structure. In any case, the church of Sant Romà de Sau is a clear example of the “submerged heritage“, a category in which archeology and cultural law have been trying to regulate for decades. without much success. The sinking of Sant Romà and its church is not an isolated case but a common practice of the Franco regime: the construction of reservoirs during the dictatorship led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people from their towns in a traumatic process of forced displacement of rooted places for its population. In the Spanish state alone there are about 500 towns that were swallowed up by the water due to the construction of dams and reservoirs. In Xataka | In World War II, a town in Lithuania buried its bell to protect it from the Nazis. They did not find it until 2024 In Xataka | For 60 years, a farmer with no idea about architecture built a cathedral from scratch in Madrid. The bureaucracy has closed it Cover | joan ggk and Quico Llach

Russia shielded its logistics routes against drones. Ukraine has responded by attacking something much more vulnerable: asphalt

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In the spring of 1945, the United States launched a campaign called Operation Starvation. Instead of concentrating on destroying Japanese ships one by one, he began laying mines in the straits and sea routes through which they had to pass. The result It was so effective that dozens of convoy routes had to be abandoned and Japanese maritime traffic plummeted, making logistics as valuable a target as the vehicles themselves. From trucks to roads. The logistics war between Russia and Ukraine is entering in a new phase. For months, Ukraine concentrated its efforts in destroying trucksconvoys, fuel depots and other targets that kept the Russian army supplied. Moscow responded by strengthening the protection of its supply routes, deploying anti-aircraft defenses, adapting its movements and building corridors that were increasingly protected against drones. Now kyiv appears to have identified a vulnerability that is more difficult to fix: the infrastructure itself on which those supplies circulate. Instead of only pursuing specific vehicles, Ukrainian drones are beginning to lay mines on the roads that connect Crimea with the occupied territories, transforming essential routes for Russian logistics into spaces where any movement can become a risk. The strategy of the logistical blockade. Ukrainian authorities describe this campaign as an attempt to impose a “logistical blockade” on the Russian military. The goal is not necessarily to completely cut off communications or destroy every vehicle that passes through them. The key is slow down movement of supplies, increase uncertainty and force the enemy to dedicate increasing resources to protection and cleanup tasks. If a convoy must constantly stop to inspect the road, if each journey requires additional escorts, or if a route remains closed for hours after the appearance of a mine, the cumulative effect can be as damaging as the direct destruction of vehicles. Modern warfare depends on both the speed and the volume of supplies, and any reduction in the pace of movement has a direct impact on units deployed on the front. Roads to Crimea under pressure. Information from Russian sources they point because the campaign is focusing especially on the land corridor that connects Russia with Crimea through the occupied territories of southern Ukraine. Roads such as the M-14 between Mariupol, Melitopol and Chongar or the R-280 Novorossiya have suffered partial closures, traffic restrictions and damage caused by mines dropped from drones. In one of the most notable incidentsa Kamaz truck was reportedly destroyed and several vehicles damaged after mines fell on a road near the border between the occupied regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. These episodes also occur after a series of attacks against tankers and convoys that had already forced Russian authorities to modify routes and temporarily limit heavy traffic. Drones that turn asphalt into a trap. The novelty does not lie in the use of mines, a practice that has been present for decades in any conflict, but in the way they are deployed. According to various analystsUkraine is using drones to distribute 3D printed light mines equipped with motion sensors or magnetic systems. These charges do not need to completely destroy a vehicle to be effective. Enough with immobilizing a truck in the middle of a road to create traffic jams, disrupt traffic and create a concentration of targets vulnerable to subsequent air attacks. A single mine can stop a whole column. Several mines spread periodically along a route can paralyze traffic for hours while inspections and clearance operations are carried out. The creation of interdiction zones. The tactic is part of a broader concept that seeks to turn Russian logistics routes into true layered interdiction zones. Drivers traveling these roads must already face ambush FPV dronesautonomous drones assisted by artificial intelligence and attacks directed against the anti-aircraft defenses that protect the logistics corridors. The incorporation of air-dropped mines adds a permanent threat under the wheels of every vehicle. The result is a combination of risks that multiplies the psychological and operational pressure on any movement of supplies, forcing Russia to simultaneously monitor the sky, the roadsides and the asphalt surface itself. The Russian adaptation. The Russian response is already beginning to be seen in some sectors of the front. Ukrainian sources claim to have destroyed Tor-M2 anti-aircraft systems that were being moved to reinforce the protection of these vulnerable routes. At the same time, some analysts believe that Moscow could try extend to roads further from the front the anti-drone network and tunnel structures that it already uses in closer combat zones. However, they remembered in Forbes that protecting hundreds of kilometers of open roads represents a logistical and economic challenge much greater than that of shielding some sections close to the battle lines. Precisely therein lies the logic of the Ukrainian strategy: the more extensive the infrastructure that must be protected, the more difficult it will be to guarantee its security. Crimea as an indirect objective. The pressure on the roads also has a strategic dimension related to Crimea. Ukraine has been attacking anti-aircraft systems, radars, missile launchers and other assets that protect the peninsula for months. If land routes supplying the region become slower and more dangerous, Russia could be forced to rely even more from the Kerch bridgeone of the few high-capacity logistics arteries that continue to directly connect Crimea with Russian territory. This would increase the importance of an infrastructure that has already been a priority objective of kyiv on repeated occasions. Keep a road open to make it useless. In short, the great innovation of this campaign is that it does not necessarily seek to permanently cut a route. Ukraine seems to be pursuing something more subtle: keeping the roads technically open while progressively reducing its usefulness. If each convoy requires more time, if each inspection causes delays and if each stop increases exposure to new attacks, the logistics flow is degraded without the need to destroy the infrastructure. Russia has dedicated enormous efforts to protecting its convoys and supply corridors from drones. The Ukrainian response now consists of moving the … Read more

“I think it’s the most valid criticism of AI right now, there is a lot of expense”

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The artificial intelligence race is causing large technology companies to squander enormous sums of money to have the best AI, the one that the most people use and, above all, the one that generates the most money (three concepts that are far from the same thing and, rather, let them tell Google). According to Goldman Sachs databig tech and their infrastructure providers have on their roadmap to spend more than a trillion dollars on chips, data centers and software. The million dollar question is: is there a return after that investment? The CEO of OpenAI, one of the companies in the fight and certainly one of the most interested (it does not have the muscle of veterans like Google, Meta or Microsoft), has already recognized it in an interview for CNBC: It is absolutely normal to worry about that spending on AI due to the waste and the uncertainty of when they will get their reward (if it ever arrives). Sam Altman’s statements. Asked about the doubts generated by AI, he responded bluntly that it is “the fairest criticism that can be made of AI at this moment.” And he added: “I know big things are happening, but I know there is a lot of waste.” He also put on the table the two questions that companies that adopt AI in their processes ask: how long do they have to wait for this change to be noticed in their income and how long for costs to be under control. Spoiler: taking into account the latest movements from Uber and Microsofttwo completely successful companies, things are looking bad. The most interesting thing about this display of honesty is where they come from. Altman is the person who has raised the most money for fund OpenAIone of the leading companies in the AI ​​sector but also one of the newcomers, a baby compared to mythical companies that have been dominating the technology for decades. That Altman talks about waste is a before and after in the industry’s discourse. Why is it important. Until now, the ROI of AI has been a concept on the lips of skeptical analysts, economists and people who disbelieve this boom who point directly to a bubble about to burst. But Altman has integrated it into his corporate discourse and that represents a paradigm shift: it is no longer a critical position from outside the sector, it is that the most influential company verbalizes it to users and investors. As we mentioned in the intro, Goldman Sachs already considered this same question back in 2024 with its “Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”. Economist and 2024 Nobel Prize winner Daron Acemoglu of MIT published a study called “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” where he estimated that the real impact of AI on economic productivity in the next decade would be a paltry (especially if we take into account the speeches and investments) of just 0.5%. Context. That in this phase of expansion and training of AI It is not profitable it is no secretbut this is both an economic and a technical problem. With data in hand, there are reasons to worry. This recent Cast AI report It includes the analysis of 23,000 computing clusters, revealing that the average utilization of GPUs is only 5%. That is, 95% of the most expensive and advanced hardware on the market (those highly sought-after NVIDIA graphics cards) is operating well below its capacity. Part of the explanation lies in FOMO: explains Venture Beat that there are many companies acquiring AI chips not because they need them right now, but out of fear of running out of them in the future. The phenomenon is not new, we already saw it during the pandemic with semiconductors (and on a domestic scale, with toilet paper). There is someone who wins. In this story of companies investing to win the AI ​​race and other companies adopting it to modernize, there is someone who is winning from the first minute: NVIDIA bills the same whether its chips work at 5% or 100%. And he is breaking all his records. In 2024 record revenues of $60.9 billion (126% more than the previous year) thanks to this excessive demand for data centers. The large cloud providers, the holy trinity composed of Amazon, Microsoft and Google (the three occupy 70% of the market, according to Synergy data) bill the same regardless of whether the client is achieving results. According to Synergy Research Groupthe global cloud infrastructure market will exceed $330 billion in 2024. The underlying problem is incentives: those who have the most weight in the pace of investment in AI are precisely those who lose the least, hence no one is taking measures against waste. Yes, but. Making a catastrophic reading of Altman’s statements would be a mistake and in fact, the CEO of OpenAI himself expressed his confidence “the industry will solve it quickly.” After all, in that initial phase it is normal to incur losses and if not, tell Netflix with streaming. Current waste may simply be the cost of setting up infrastructure whose value will be realized later. Even the Goldman Sachs report acknowledges that bubbles take time to burst, meaning there is room for AI to deliver on its promises. Of course, a good part of the current artificial intelligence expenditure is linked to GPUs with specific architectures that could become obsolete in the face of more efficient models or specific architectures. In Xataka | The problem is not spending a lot of tokens, it’s that most of them are being wasted In Xataka | Anthropic has moved ahead of OpenAI in its race to go public. This is very bad news for Sam Altman Cover | TechCrunch (CC BY 2.0) and Giorgio Trovato

the battle to explain gravity that Einstein won thanks to an eclipse in 1919

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This summer, many people have organized their holidays around the eclipse that will be seen in Spain on August 12. Without a doubt, many see it as a spectacle that perhaps they can only see once. or very few times in life. However, we must not forget that it is still a phenomenon with very interesting scientific implications. For example, something very curious is that in 1919 It was used to prove Einstein right. Einstein vs Newton. In 1915, Einstein enunciated his Theory of General Relativity. In it, broadly speaking, he pointed out that the attraction of gravity is due to a space-time curvature caused by the effect of objects with mass and energy. Before him, the most accepted theory about gravity was the one launched by Newton. In it, it was pointed out that the gravitational attraction was due only to the mass of the objects. Energy had nothing to do with it, and of course I had no idea that time and space could be intertwined. Einstein’s hypothesis was received as interesting, but many physicists of the time were not willing to abandon Newton’s theory. If Einstein wanted to be believed, he would have to prove that he was right. An eclipse ultimately turned out to be the ideal experiment for his demonstration, although it was carried out not by him, but by a British astronomer named Arthur Eddington. Light issue. Newton considered that light was composed of corpuscles with mass. Therefore, these could also be attracted to massive objects. If the Sun drew light from the stars around it, for example, it would do so with an arc of 0.84 seconds. Einstein, on the other hand, made different calculations. For him, light is not attracted like a magnet attracts metal or anything like that. What happens, according to his theory, is that massive objects curve space-time, like a ball falling on top of an elastic fabric. The light, to pass through there, must take the easiest path, which is passing through the edges of that groove that the massive object has generated in space-time. In short, it also deviates, but much more so. According to Einstein’s calculations, we would be looking at an arc of 1.74 seconds. Massive objects warp spacetime The trick. To know who was right, it would be enough to observe the effects of the Sun on a nearby star cluster. But of course, during the day those stars are not seen. Therefore, the ideal would be to take advantage of an eclipse that blocks the light of the Sun and allows you to see the stars when they are very close to it. A very useful excursion. To try to prove Einstein right, Arthur Eddington traveled to Africa in May 1919. On the 29th of that month a very interesting eclipse would occur, since at that time the Sun would be very close to the Hyades, a large star cluster. He went to Príncipe Island and made the calculations of the position in which the stars should be when they appeared when the Sun set. I only had 7 minutes to try to take photographs and the weather did not make it easy for him, but he managed to take advantage of a cloudless moment and take the snapshots that would prove the German physicist right. As he already sensed, the stars in the cluster were deviated from where they should be if the Sun did not exert any gravity on them. Specifically, with an arc of 1.7 seconds. Nowadays. Eclipses have not been used for a long time to confirm theories that the scientific scene takes with suspicion, but they are still very useful for science. They expose the solar corona, that superficial layer of the sun in which solar storms brew that can affect terrestrial communications so much. Nowadays there are coronagraphs that create a kind of false eclipse so that the corona can be studied. However, eclipses offer a very interesting natural opportunity to see it in all its splendor. That’s also very exciting. Image | Wikimedia Commons/Luc Viatour |ESA In Xataka | A third of Spain will be completely dark for a minute or two. The astronomical event of the century is approaching

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