usatoday24

includes video game and a gift

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MediaMarkt is one of the stores that is offering the most packs for the Nintendo Switch 2. They are not official but assembled by the store itself, which gives them a wide range of options when it comes to adding video games or other accessories. We have already seen many so far and now a new one has arrived: Nintendo Switch 2 along with ‘Super Mario Bros. Wonder’ and a keychain by 479 euros. Nintendo Switch 2 + Super Mario Bros. Wonder + keychain The price could vary. We earn commission from these links New unofficial MediaMarkt pack The nintendo switch 2 It is a particularly interesting console for many reasons. Beyond the physical changes that we have seen with respect to the previous generation, especially in power and sizethere is something especially interesting, especially if we had the first Nintendo Switch. First of all, current generation is backward compatiblewhich means that you will be able to play most of the video games on the market. nintendo switch. In some cases you can do it with improvements by paying for them (approximately 10 euros) and in others you can have the best ones offered by the dock when playing on the television, but playing in portable mode. Obviously, it is not a console that only allows you to play video games from the last generation. Little by little it is adding exclusive titles of his generation to the catalogue. Maybe ‘Mario Kart World‘ and ‘Donkey Kong Bananza‘They are two of the most popular, but we cannot forget the curious one’Pokémon Pokopia‘ either ‘Hyrule Warriors: Age of Banishment‘. ⚡ IN SUMMARY: Nintendo Switch 2 offer today ✅ THE BEST The pack: The store offers you a video game for little more than what the Nintendo Switch costs alone (difference of 30 euros). The price: In general, official and unofficial packs usually sell for approximately 500 euros, something that MediaMarkt has taken into account because theirs usually sells cheaper. ❌ THE WORST Yesno possibility of choosing the video game: The pack is not bad, but the store has offered on other occasions to choose a video game as a gift from several different options. For this same reason, it is not the best pack it has had to date. The battery: The autonomy varies greatly depending on the video game, but it usually lasts approximately three hours. 💡 BUY IT IF… You want to be able to play the Nintendo Switch 2 the moment you receive it home, especially if you want to do it with a good video game from the Super Mario saga. ⛔ DON’T BUY IT IF… You are not convinced by the video game; MediaMarkt tends to renew Nintendo Switch 2 packs quite frequently, so you may be more interested in waiting for them to arrive. You may also be interested tomtoc Shoulder Bag Sling Bag Compatible with Nintendo Switch 2 Console 2025, Protective Bag Portable Travel Gaming Case with 8 Cartridge Slots, Charger and Accessories, Black The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 8BitDo Pro 3 Bluetooth Controller for Switch/Switch 2 – TMR Joysticks, Swappable ABXY Buttons, Pro Back Buttons, Charging Dock, Hall Effect Triggers, for Windows, Apple, SteamOS, Android – Purple The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Alejandro Alcolea (edited), Nintendo In Xataka | The second pack of the Nintendo Switch 2 arrives with the new Pokémon: you can now reserve it in these stores In Xataka | The best accessories for your Switch: cases, carrying bags, batteries, and more

Three decades of innovation in lithium batteries and a 99% drop in price, in an illuminating graph

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The world has been immersed for years in two essential transitions to leave fossil fuels behind: energy and mobility. But for both to be possible, it is an essential requirement that a technology continue to improve and also drop in price: that of batteries, one of the main components of electric cars and the one responsible for storing excess energy in times of energy surpluses, for example in wind and solar energy. And in fact, this is what he has done: In the last 35 years the price of lithium batteries has plummeted 99%. In 1991, a lithium ion battery cost $9,210 per kWh (in constant 2024 dollars). In 2023, that same kilowatt-hour cost $111: we are talking about a drop of almost 99% in almost three decades. To make it tangible, Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado of Our World in Data gives an example applied to car batteries: the battery of a current standard electric car with a range of 350 to 400 kilometers today costs about $5,000. A decade ago the same component would have cost more than $20,000. In 1991, almost $600,000. There is a strategic threshold that we have surpassed recently: 100 dollars/hWh, considered historically the point of economic parity with the internal combustion vehicle, but At the end of 2025 we will already overcome the barrier reaching 84 dollars/kWh. First of all, let’s start with the presentations: the graphics are from Our World in Dataa project of the Global Change Data Lab linked to the University of Oxford. And the primary source is a data series updated by Rupert Way, built on the original work by Ziegler and Trancik and completed with data from BloombergNEF and Avicenne Energy. All data is expressed in constant 2024 dollars. The price of lithium batteries has fallen 99% in 35 years The first graph shows the evolution of the price of lithium ion cells between 1991 and 2024, in constant 2024 dollars per kWh on a logarithmic axis. The line declines continuously and sharply throughout the series of years without any signs of stabilization until ending around $50-60/kWh in 2024. Evolution of the price of lithium ion batteries: 1991 – 2024. Our World in Data The second graph combines price with global accumulated production and uses a double logarithmic scale: it starts from an installed capacity of 130 kWh in 1991 and reaches 3,510 GWh in 2023. That the line remains straight for more than three decades, in two different graphs and with data from different sources, confirms that The price drop is not a coincidence or a streak. It is a stable mathematical pattern that allows you to project where prices will go. This trend is more important than the fall itself. Every time global cumulative production doubles, battery prices have fallen by 19%. Our World in Data This second chart shows that every time global cumulative lithium-ion battery production doubled, the price fell by 19%. That is the learning rate known as Wright’s Law. The learning curve remains stable for more than thirty years, regardless of financial crises, supply problems and even a pandemic. Behind that graph is that enormous jump from the 130 kWh installed in 1991 to 3,510 GWh in 2023. That is 27 million times more capacity in three decades and each doubling along the way led to a 19% reduction in price. With the current rate of installation, these duplications occur in less and less time, which implies that the curve is not going to slow down due to inertia. These graphs do not describe the past: they are a projection of the future. A stable learning rate of 19% per capacity doubling is a planning tool: it helps the industry and its actors to reliably estimate when storage will reach cost thresholds that make the electricity grid viable with high renewable penetration. According to IRENAthe cost of solar energy fell by 90% between 2010 and 2023 following the same logic. That the threshold has fallen below $100/kWh already has consequences: the European Commission estimates that the EU will need between 200 and 600 GWh of storage by 2030 and precisely this trajectory means that Europe will get the bills for its energy transition. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the graphs show the average cell price of the different types of lithium ion batteries, which have very different profiles of cost, life cycles or energy density. That doesn’t appear on the graph. Nor that battery cost is not everythingsince it has associated costs, such as installation or replacement. Likewise, it does not touch on the structural risks of the supply chain: lithium, cobalt or nickel are geographically concentrated and vulnerable to geopolitical tensions, such as warns the International Energy Agency. And although they are becoming cheaper, their weight and volume are still a handicap for some scenarios such as aviation or heavy trucks. In Xataka | The last piece of the renewable puzzle now fits: the price of storage batteries has reached its minimum In Xataka | China dominates the world of renewable energy, but it has an Achilles heel: it depends on the West more than it admits Cover | Our World in data

We believed that the success of artificial insemination was a genetic lottery. Turns out it depended on your shopping list.

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When we consider having a child, the truth is that there are many factors that can intervene such as real obstaclessuch as age. This means that science is focused on looking for different variables that can be ‘altered’ to tip the balance in our favor and favor fertility. And the last one that has been known is related to the much loved Mediterranean diet. A new investigation. In a recent published study in the magazine Food & Function, A Spanish research team has come to the conclusion that it is not about eating healthily, but rather that we need a set of nutrients that the Mediterranean diet gives us, which directly modulate the ecosystem of bacteria that our body has and that prepares it for a successful pregnancy. The bacteria. On many occasions we see them as our enemies by causing very severe infections, but the reality is that they play a fundamental role within our body. In this sense, we have spoken on many occasions of the intestinal microbiota, but there are also large bacterial colonies in the vagina that protect against a large number of infectious diseases. In this sense, the research team analyzed vaginal samples from 104 women between 18 and 38 years old who had been diagnosed with primary infertility and were undergoing artificial insemination processes. What they saw here is that the success of fertility treatment depended largely on who “governed” the patients’ vaginal microbiota. The results. After crossing the samples with the patients’ diet, it was seen that those who followed a Mediterranean diet had a microbiome dominated by bacteria of the genus Lactobacillus. These microorganisms act as a protective shield and are strongly associated with a higher rate of successful pregnancies. On the contrary, a poor diet left the door open to bacteria such as Gardnerella vaginalis. This pathogen is not only linked to the annoying bacterial vaginosisbut the study directly relates it to implantation failures and failure of artificial insemination. Because? Here the Mediterranean diet stands out for the micronutrients that foods contain and that we ingest almost without realizing it when we follow this dietary pattern that is so common in our country. Here vitamins A, C, D and E, along with beta-carotene, calcium and zinc, act as protectors of the vaginal ecosystem. These elements not only nourish the patient, but selectively nourish the Lactobacillus, strengthening defenses against bacterial vaginosis and creating the perfect uterine and vaginal environment for insemination to thrive. It is becoming more and more important. Although this study details for the first time this interaction between diet, vaginal bacteria and artificial insemination, scientific literature has already been warning that the refrigerator matters a lot in fertility. But previous studies already indicated that women who followed a Mediterranean diet in the months before undergoing in vitro fertilization had success rates that were up to 68% higher. In this way, you can see that it is increasingly important to keep in mind that what you are going to eat is essential for even a new life to take shape. Images | drobotdean in Magnific jcomp In Xataka | If we want to increase human fertility, mice have something to tell us: fecal transplants

They did not need kings or nobles to build them

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Four thousand years ago, on the central plains of China, a community of about five hundred people built something that has taken us millennia to discover: a network of ceramic pipes. Longshan period buried under its streets. They are not the oldest pipes in human history (that honor corresponds to the Temple of Bel in Nippur and in Eshnunna in Mesopotamia), but those of China. Finding such an ancient and complete drainage network is a milestone from an architectural point of view, but the discovery goes one step further: demonstrates that preparedness for natural disasters is truly a lifelong experience. Because the pipelines at the Pingliangtai oilfield were built monsoon-proof. The discovery. The paper published in Nature Water describes the results of excavation and a geoarchaeological study of water management infrastructure, which reveal the operation and maintenance of a well-planned and regulated two-level rainwater drainage system. On the first level there were individual domestic ditches that collected water from each home and on the second a network of ceramic pipes buried under the roads and next to the walls, responsible for channeling the water outside the urban center. The operation is surprisingly modern: each segment of pipe measured between 20 and 30 centimeters in diameter and between 30 and 40 centimeters in length and were assembled together thanks to a recess at one end, so that once joined they allowed water to be transported over long distances. Why is it important. The relevance of the finding has two dimensions, the technical and the social: The Pingliangtai pipe network is the oldest and most complete urban drainage discovered to date in China, making it a reference for understanding Neolithic water engineering in East Asia. Calls into question “hydraulic despotism” theorized by Karl Wittfogel: Historically this type of infrastructure has been associated with centralized states with ruling elites capable of undertaking it, but in Pingliangtai there is no evidence of noble palaces or great social inequalities, which suggests that this sewage network was created through community cooperation. Context. The Longshan period spanned approximately 2600 to 2000 BC About 4,000 years ago, the central plains region of China suffered from an extremely variable monsoon climate: the summer monsoons could download 45 centimeters of rain per month in the region, as evidenced by geological evidence of episodes of catastrophic rains. These seasonal floods constituted a threat to permanent settlements, so in that transition period between the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age, towns began to build defensive walls, not only against enemies, but against water. Pingliangtai was a perfectly square walled city that housed about 500 people and had protective walls and a moat around it. It is located on the plain of the Upper Huai River, in the vast plain of Huanghuaihai, precisely in that region of China. The drainage system was the technical solution to an existential problem: how to inhabit a flood-prone area without the adobe homes dissolving with each storm. With “up to date” maintenance. The dating of the pipes indicates that they are between 3,900 and 4,100 years old and the ditches showed signs of various repairs and even reconstructions, which shows that there was maintenance. The quality of the ceramic indicates advanced knowledge in clay firing, essential to guarantee the durability and impermeability of the system. And be careful, because the research team found the pipe segments in situ, assembled and structurally intact after 4,000 years, quite an achievement. Given that the slope exists, the design is coherent and the tubes still fit, the hydraulic logic is still intact. Bottom line: if water was introduced into those fragments, it would work. What the discovery reveals about the city and society. What most attracts the attention of the research team from Peking University and the Institute of Archeology at University College London is that the Pingliangtai settlement point to a horizontal and highly organized society. All the houses were uniformly small and not even the cemetery left any clues of social hierarchy, something different regarding the excavations in other nearby cities. Unlike Mesopotamia or Egypt, where these constructions were commissioned by kings, the design of the houses and the distribution of pipes suggest that decisions were made communally. Thus, water management in Pingliangtai gravitated toward shared collective interest in response to frequent environmental contingencies. Additionally, it displays a long-term prevention and maintenance mindset, as the system required constant cleaning to prevent sediment blockages. In Xataka | What we see in Petra is a city “carved in stone”: what it really hides is an amazing water system In Xataka | China has been selling its largest waterfall to tourists for years as a wonder of nature. It is actually fed with a tube Cover | Yanpeng Cao

It is the secret entrance to the safest place in the US

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In 1942, in the middle of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered construction under the White House a secret refuge with concrete walls and steel doors, a space designed to disappear from the surface in a matter of seconds if Washington was attacked. For decades, that place barely appeared in official documents and its existence moved between rumors and stories fragmentary. But the idea left by that project remains disturbing: in certain buildings, the most important thing is never in sight. A building that hides much more. The White House has always been an example of architecture where appearance is deceivingwith a design that hides beneath its surface a complex network of technical and security spaces developed over decades. That logic remains in the major reform proposed until now, which not only transforms its visible silhouette, but also takes advantage of the constructive opportunity to intervene in what is never seen. As has happened in other major renovations of the complex, the true scope of the project is measured more underground than in what protrudes above the grass. From ballroom to strategic infrastructure. The new projected hall, of about 90,000 square meters and capacity for a thousand people, is officially presented as a solution to lack of space for large events within the presidential complex. However, from the beginning it has been linked to a security argument, especially after recent incidents that have highlighted the limitations of external venues such as hotels. The idea is not only to concentrate events in a controlled environment, but to integrate them within a space designed from scratch with criteria advanced protection. President Trump showed a mock-up of the planned new East Wing to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on October 20, 2025. Architecture as an excuse. The key element of the project is that it is not in the room itself, but in what it allows build under it. Various official statements have described the hall as a structure that “covers” a much larger complex, designed with explosion-resistant materials, anti-drone systems and secure communications. This approach responds to a logic known in the White House itself. throughout history: take advantage of any surface work to expand or modernize underground infrastructure without excessively altering the visible historical complex. Mockup of the proposed East Wing/Ballroom of the White House (photo released by the White House on October 22, 2025) The heir to the safest bunker in the US. I remembered a few days ago time that under the demolished east wing was the Presidential Emergency Operations Centerthe historic bunker built during the Second World War and expanded in successive renovations. This space, conceived as shelter and command center in the event of a crisis, it has evolved with each generation to adapt to new threats, from nuclear war to terrorism. The current reform aims to replace it with a more advanced versionmaintaining its function as the safest point in the country in extreme situations. Vice President Dick Cheney with senior officials at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on September 11, 2001 A complex beyond a simple refuge. The known plans describe a facility that combines multiple functions in the same underground core. Includes hardened shelters, medical facilities, biosecurity systems, and high-security communications centers capable of sustaining government operations. in critical conditions. From that perspective, more than a traditional bunker, it is an environment prepared to operate during prolonged crisesintegrating military and civil capabilities in the same protected space. Between legality, heritage and security. It is one of the great debates in the nation at the moment, because the project has generated a legal and political conflict significant in considering the extent to which a president can transform the White House without approval congressional. While preservation groups they denounce the demolition of the east wing and the impact about historical heritagethe administration defends that the work it is essential for national security. The courts have opted for an intermediate solution, partially blocking the visible construction while allowing progress on the elements considered critical for protection. The perfect moment. There is no doubt, the recent security incident in an official event it has served as argument to reinforce the urgency of the project on the part of the administration, by highlighting the vulnerabilities of external spaces. From this perspective, the new room not only responds to a logistical need, but also to a change in the way presidential security is managed. The combination event and protection in the same place is presented as a solution that avoids depending on less controlled environments. The discreet entrance to the safest place. Altogether, the controversial reform aims to redefine the White House as a dual structure where the visible fulfills a representative function and the hidden concentrates the true core of power and security. The new ballroom thus acts as the architectural piece that, if necessary, allows access, coverage and meaning to an underground infrastructure. much more ambitious. Perhaps for this reason, more than an aesthetic or functional extension, the project is understood as a discreet door towards the better protected space of the United States, a bunker anti everything where the continuity of the government is guaranteed in any imaginable scenario. Image | White House, National Archives In Xataka | After the Guggenheim fever in Bilbao, Alcorcón wanted to replicate its success with a megaproject in 2004. It ended very badly. In Xataka | The biggest disaster in sports history dates back to the Roman Empire: the tragedy of the Fidenae “VIP boxes”

The world depends on gas to produce food. Paraguay believes it has the definitive solution thanks to the Itaipú dam

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In the midst of a scenario of high tension in the Middle East and threatened trade routes, a project in the heart of South America promises to change the rules of the game for global agriculture. The British company Atome has given the final green light for the construction of Villetaa fertilizer plant in Paraguay valued at 665 million dollars, which will completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels in its production. A question of food safety. As detailed Financial Timesthe fertilizer industry’s dependence on natural gas is an Achilles’ heel for the global economy. Traditionally, most nitrogen fertilizer is produced by combining nitrogen from the air with hydrogen extracted from natural gas. However, Villeta will use renewable electricity to separate hydrogen from water (electrolysis). For Olivier Mussat, CEO of Atome, the project’s focus goes far beyond sustainability. “It’s not an ecological story, it’s actually a food security story,” declared in FT. Mussat’s warning is no small matter, since between a quarter and a third of global nitrogen fertilizer exports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. With the recent conflicts, gas shipments have fallen, raising prices and raising alarms about a possible food crisis. For Latin America, an agro-export power but highly dependent on imported fertilizers, the project works as a “structural hedge” against geopolitical volatility. The financial milestone that Wall Street observes. Atome managed to close a financing package that includes $420 million in debt and $245 million in equity. This backing comes from development lenders of the caliber of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), along with specialist hydrogen investment fund Hy24. “We have shown that you can actually close and finance a green fertilizer facility on an industrial scale. It has never been done before,” Mussat said. For his part, Pierre-Etienne Franc, executive director of Hy24, explained to the press that having cheap and non-fossil energy sources offers “a route to green fertilizer that will be localized”, making the industry independent of raw material prices dictated by natural gas. The technical feasibility. Green hydrogen has historically been too expensive to compete with its fossil counterpart. However, Paraguay’s competitive advantage changes the equation. The Villeta plant will operate with electrolyzers large-scale powered by the Itaipú hydroelectric dam (shared between Paraguay and Brazil). According to the company’s projections, electricity costs will be just under $30 per megawatt-hour under a long-term agreement. This technical and economic feasibility was enough to convince the Norwegian fertilizer giant, Yara International, to sign a binding contract of 10 years to purchase the entire production of the plant, estimated at around 260,000 tons per year, a detail exhaustively covered by the industrial press. The view from Asunción. For decades, Paraguay has exported its surplus energy generated in Itaipú to its neighbors, Brazil and Argentina, at very low prices. For the local pressAtome’s installation represents a historic paradigm shift. It means taking that clean energy and using it within the national territory to generate local jobs and produce a good with high added value. Although Villeta will represent less than 1% of the global nitrogen fertilizer market when it begins production in 2029, its backers and market observers agree on something fundamental: if the Paraguayan model works, it could become the definitive template for freeing global agriculture from its dependence on fossil fuels. Image | Atome Xataka | We are wasting a valuable resource: urine is helping solve the fertilizer crisis

We thought that domestication shrank dogs’ brains forever. Now we know we were wrong

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When the first wolves began to approach human settlementsthey signed an evolutionary contract that would change their species forever. They gained easy food, warmth and protection, but in exchange they had to give up their brains, which have been reduced in size since we began to domesticate them, as science has pointed out. But this is changing now. From more to less. that the animals domestic have smaller brains than their wild ancestors is something already well known, but the “when”, the “how” and above all the “why” of this phenomenon were between two questions. But now a new study published HAL Open Science has managed to put a key date on this transformation, revealing that the brain “shrinkage” of dogs was already fully established in the late Neolithic. How it has been seen. To understand what happened inside the head of man’s best friend, the team of researchers did not limit itself to measuring the skulls with a tape measure, but used CT to analyze 22 prehistoric skulls dating from the Mesolithic to the late Neolithic in Western Europe, comparing them with 185 modern dog skulls, and using as a reference a 3D model of a wolf skull from the 19th century. The results. Here they were quite forceful when they saw that the Neolithic dogs already had an amazing 46% reduction in volume endoraneal compared to wolves. According to the data, these prehistoric French dogs had what we could call “miniature brains”, as a consequence of undergoing an evolutionary adaptation to new roles in agricultural settlements. And, by not having to hunt in nature, defend vast territories or be on constant alert against predators, the parts of the brain dedicated to extreme survival, which consume a lot of energy, simply ceased to be necessary. There are more culprits. Although this story sounds perfect, biology is more complex and that is why domestication is not the only factor highlighted here. Here, at do phylogenetic analyzes Comparing dogs to other wild canids, scientists found that older dog breeds fall within the “normal” brain size ranges expected for their body size. In fact, they suggest that there are ecological factors that can cause brain reductions even greater than domestication. The best example here is the raccoon dog, whose brain experiences drastic reductions linked to its hibernation periods to ‘save energy’. The script twist. If the story ended in the Neolithic, we would have an animal with an increasingly smaller brain without any type of limit. But here a recent study suggests that the modern dogs bred in the last 150 years They have relatively larger brains than their ancestors. That is, the downward trend has reversed. To understand this, we must keep in mind that humans have stopped using dogs solely as basic guardians or shepherds, and have begun to require them to perform more complex cognitive tasks, such as obeying orders, assisting humans with disabilities, drug detection, and other functions in our society. And it already shows. This has not only changed the size, but also the internal architecture of the brain, as seen in the MRIs performed on 85 dogs of different breeds that revealed abysmal differences between “primitive” and modern breeds. For example, dogs that are trainable have a much larger cut, and it makes sense because this is the area responsible for learning and decision-making. On the contrary, the most primitive and ancient races retain an expanded amygdala, which is the region linked to the processing of fear, instinct, and rapid survival responses. Some qualities that are essential to be able to hunt and respond to any type of threat. Images | Pauline Loroy In Xataka | We have been using our pets to relieve our anxiety. And now the stress is on them

Having a beer in the sun was the problem. The residual hops from manufacturing it are the solution

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When you slather on sunscreen, most conventional sun-blocking ingredients are synthetic. He problem is where the chemical UV filters that make sunscreens effective They are endocrine disruptors.can penetrate the skin and are toxic to coral reefs. So the industry has been looking for years for sustainable alternatives that provide that protection while minimizing the environmental impact. A research team from the University of São Paulo has found a natural alternative that also usually ends up in the trash: the remains of hops discarded after brewing beer. The discovery. It turns out that the hops used in beer production, a waste generated on a large scale, can serve to significantly improve sun protection. Through a process of maceration and percolation in ethanol, the bioactive compounds are extracted from discarded hops and incorporated into sunscreen formulations. When they mixed 10% of this extract with the usual UV filters, the resulting sunscreen multiplied its protection factor by more than three: it went from 53 to 178 in laboratory tests. Interestingly, those used hops performed better than unused hops, although the authors admit that the exact mechanism by which this occurs is still unclear. Why is it important. Approximately 85% of the bioactive compounds in hops remain intact in the material discarded after dry hopping (dry hopping), which turns this waste into a functional raw material that today is mostly thrown away or used as feed. Revaluing it as a cosmetic ingredient reduces the environmental impact of the brewing industry, opens a path towards more sustainable and potentially cheaper sunscreens, and fits directly with the principles of the circular economy. Context. Hops contain a family of compounds with proven properties on the skin: reduce inflammation, neutralize free radicals and even stop enzymes that degrade collagen. Especially relevant is xanthohumol, a polyphenol with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and metalloproteinase inhibitor properties in dermal fibroblasts. The key is how the hops are processed: when added cold after fermentation, without boiling, the xanthohumol is not thermally degraded and remains intact in the residue, which partly explains why reused material is more active than fresh hops. How they do it. The team left From the remains of hops from a craft brewery, he immersed them in ethyl alcohol to extract their compounds, dried the result and incorporated it at 10% into a standard sunscreen that already contained two conventional UV filters. They then measured how much ultraviolet radiation that cream blocked using international reference equipment, the same ones used by health authorities to certify sunscreens. Yes, but. As the research team itself recognizes, all the results are exclusively in vitro, since they used plates and not human skin. Likewise, there are no clinical trials that study whether the cream is stable over time or whether it can cause irritation. Furthermore, it is not clear why it works so well. As says the coordinator André Rolim Baby himself In the note from the FAPESP Agency, stability studies, standardization of assets and clinical evaluation of safety and efficacy will be necessary before any commercial application. On the other hand, the variability in the composition of reused hops (depending on the variety, the dry-hopping process or its origin) complicates standardization: for a filter to be approved by authorities such as the European Commission (EC Regulation 1223/2009) or the FDA in the United States, it is necessary that there be chemical consistency from batch to batch. In Xataka | We humans like beer. The big question is whether we like it enough to have invented agriculture In Xataka | Spain can tell itself as many times as it wants that it hates Cruzcampo. The figures say a very different thing Cover | Onela Ymeri and Urban Gyllström

the day the US stole a Soviet nuclear submarine 5,000 meters deep

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In the 1970s, a gigantic American ship sailed slowly through the Pacific while several Soviet ships they watched him a few meters away, taking photos and listening to every conversation. On deck, the sailors talked loudly about rocks on the seabed and collected samples so that everything seemed routine, without anyone suspecting that, right under their feet, one of the most unusual operations of the entire Cold War. An impossible robbery. At the end of the 60s, in the middle of the Cold War, the United States secretly located the Soviet submarine K-129 sunk to more than 5,000 meters deep in the Pacific, a distance that made any recovery attempt practically unfeasible. Even so, the strategic value it was hugesince the submersible carried nuclear missiles, codes and key technology that could tip the balance at a time of nuclear parity between superpowers. With that goal in mind, the CIA launched the Azorian Projectan operation so ambitious that for years only a small circle within the Government knew of its existence. Context. In reality, the mission, which lasted more or less six years, had begun in 1968, when the K-129 loaded with ballistic missiles disappeared without explanation somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The situation was not entirely strange if we think that, at that time after the Cuban Missile Crisisboth American and Soviet submarines patrolled the high seas with nuclear weapons on board, prepared for possible war. Model of the sunken and deteriorated submarine K-129 The sinking. There are reports indicating that it was due to a mechanical failure, such as the missile’s engine accidentally starting, while the Soviets suspected for a time that the Americans had acted in bad faith. Be that as it may, and after two months, the Soviet Union abandoned the search for the K-129 and the nuclear weapons it carried, but the United States, which had recently used Air Force technology to locate two of its own submarines sunken, located the submarine 2,400 kilometers northwest of Hawaii and 5,030 meters deep. According to the declassified history of the project by the CIA decades later, “no country in the world had managed to recover an object of this size and weight from such depth.” Sherman Wetmore, chief engineer of the Glomar Explorer, looks at an oil painting of the ship refloating the Soviet submarine The great theater of lies. Once Washington found its location and in order to hide the true purpose, one of the more elaborate covers of history: an alleged underwater mining mission led by the eccentric millionaire Howard Hugheswhose reputation made any extravagant project credible. As? The enormous was built Hughes Glomar Explorerpresented to the world as a ship capable of extract manganese nodules from the seabed, while in reality it hid inside a secret system designed to capture the submarine. The operation was so convincing that even influenced markets and universitiesfeeding for years the illusion of a new mining industry that was never actually the objective. Details of the construction plan of the Glomar Explorer (reproduction), from 1971. In the lower central part of the ship, you can see the plans of the so-called “lunar pool”, into which the claw could introduce the submarine The giant claw. The heart of the mission was, possibly, the most exciting part of an already incredible story. It was a device hidden under the boat: a gigantic mechanical “claw” capable of descending kilometers to the ocean floor, hugging the hull of the submarine and raising it through a complex system of pipes and cables. The entire process had to be executed out of sight, using an internal opening in the ship (the called “moon pool”) that allowed working completely hidden, even under the constant surveillance of suspicious Soviet ships, but they couldn’t prove anything. There is no doubt, the operation required extreme precision, withstanding colossal stresses and maintaining the ship’s position in the open sea for days, something that in itself already represented an unprecedented technological challenge. Everything (almost) ready. In the summer of 1974, after years of preparation, the CIA managed to reach the submarine and hooked it with the claw, at which point he began to slowly raise it towards the surface, in an operation that lasted days and kept the entire crew tense. However, halfway through the ascent, the structure gave way and much of K-129 fell back to the ocean floor, leaving only a recovered section. Even so, they managed to rescue remains of the helmet and bodies of several Soviet sailors, who were buried with honors at sea, while the real loot (the missiles and secret codes) was shrouded in uncertainty and absolute secrecy by the United States, since many of the details remain classified today. “We neither confirm nor deny.” The biggest twist in history came when the operation came out in 1975 after leaks and thefts of documents linked to the business cover, forcing the US Government to face a most delicate diplomatic situation. However, instead of admitting or denying the theft of a Soviet nuclear submarine more than 5,000 meters deep, Washington adopted a response that would go down in history: “We neither confirm nor deny”a formula designed to avoid direct tensions with Moscow and which has since become a standard in intelligence matters. That calculated silence It encapsulates the essence of the entire operation: a gigantic mission, almost impossible on paper, visible to everyone in appearance, but whose true purpose and results remain, to a large extent, hidden from the general public. The legacy. Although he Azorian Project did not recover the entire submarine, it left a deep mark on history of espionage and engineeringamong other things because it demonstrated that it was possible to operate at extreme depths and execute missions of a unprecedented complexity. Of course, it also demonstrated the extent to which the Cold War promoted radical technical solutions and operations that bordered on the improbable, in a race for gain strategic advantage at any price between both sides. Decades later, it remains one … Read more

a material that “fishes” it in the sea

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Building a nuclear power plant costs a fortune. It is estimated that between about 24,000 and 60,000 million, depending on the characteristics of the plant. However, China has taken the lead in this race and account with 56 nuclear reactors, as well as almost another thirty under construction. It takes half as long to build a plant and it is cheaper, which puts them in the race to be the greatest nuclear power by 2030. But these plants need to ‘eat’, and China has realized that it has to get uranium from wherever. His latest invention is a metamaterial that fishes that uranium in the sea. Prevailing need. Being a powerhouse in renewables is not enough for a China that needs energy both to satisfy its population and its industry and, above all, its data centers. With his Big Tech thrown into the roboticsthe chip creation and the artificial intelligence, all the energy It is welcome to dump it into the grid, but as we say, a nuclear power plant needs fuel. They need a lot, a lot of uraniumand the problem is that their mines do not produce enough. It is estimated that, in 2023, production was only 1,700 tons. In 2024 they imported 22,000 tons and, if they want to continue at that pace, they need more. They have found important reserves in Ordosbut they also want to exploit the sea. The oceans have uranium. It is estimated that there are about 4.5 billion tons of it, but it is found in an extremely low concentration of just three micrograms per liter. Due to the vastness of the ocean, there is a thousand times more uranium in the seas than in known land reserves and China wants to apply the “whoever extracts it first, keeps it.” The metamaterial. For that, the Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, presented A few days ago a peer-reviewed study detailed a metamaterial that, in essence, is like a sponge for hunting uranium. It is extremely small, just two micrometers in diameter (much thinner than a human hair). The ‘device’ is a metal-organic framework (MOF) micromotor that moves autonomously in two ways. When exposed to small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, it travels at about seven micrometers per second. When exposed to light, it doubles that speed. According to the researchersby moving passively, is more efficient and environmentally friendly than other materials. Uranium as prey. But… fishing? According to the investigation, in laboratory tests they achieved that each gram of material captured up to 406 milligrams of uranium. It is an amount that may seem ridiculous, but the idea is to have swarms full of these uranium ‘sponges’ hunting in unison. The researchers point out that, in the tests, they noticed patterns reminiscent of hunting, with the swarm of sponges chasing the uranium particles. According to them, the application of the metamaterial goes beyond uranium fishing and could be used to recover other strategic elements such as rubidium and cesium. These are alkaline elements that are very valuable in advanced navigation technologies, electronics, ion propulsion or atomic clocks. In short: like uranium, it is a very valuable element in technology, defense and the aerospace industry. Work to go. However, although the laboratory results are promising, the Qinghai researchers’ work has important challenges to overcome. Micromotors, for example, are in their early stages of development and also ensure that high-salinity environments limit system performance. They are not the only ones. For now, this uranium-hunting sponge is a successful proof of concept, but it will take a lot of work before it can be applied to the real world. Now, China is promoting not only its nuclear programbut everything that has to do with high technology and strategic elements, and the one from the Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes is not the only uranium-fishing MOF metamaterial that we have known recently. The Frontiers Science Center for Rare Isotopes at Lanzhou University is also developing a similar concept capable of absorbing up to 588 milligrams of uranium per gram of material. In the end, the idea of ​​fishing for uranium is not new, since Japan began developing the technology in the 80s and other countries are developing the technologybut with a China that, esteemwill need 40,000 tons of uranium by 2040, it is not strange that they are the ones taking giant steps to get uranium out from under the stones. Images | Esin Üstün, RobertoUderio In Xataka | Much of the world economy right now consists of Google and Amazon buying GPUs: 95% are idle

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