Mobile Tech & Gadgets

the B side of the geological samples of the Apollo program

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When Apollo 11 astronauts They returned to Earth, bringing with them a piece of the geology of the Moon. Their objective was not only to know its mineral composition. They also sought to analyze all those rocks in search of organic materials. This involved a complete chemical analysis, but also something much more bizarre: feeding moon dust to cockroaches. Three types of snacks. NASA scientists wanted to know if there were traces of life in the lunar rock and, in the process, check if it is dangerous for life that already exists on Earth. Therefore, it occurred to them to choose a few animal species that were raised easily and quickly and feed them part of those rocks. They were divided into three groups. In the first they consumed sterilized ground lunar powder, mixed with their food and water. The animals in the second group received the same, but without sterilization. Finally, the last group did not eat lunar dust, although some specimens had to walk on the rock samples. A very particular Noah’s ark. The chosen animals For this experiment they were Japanese quail, brown shrimp, pink shrimp, oysters, house flies, cockroaches, moths and guppy fish. Only the guppies died. However, it was later found that the cause was fumes from a disinfectant that had been spilled near his fish tank. The lunar regolith had nothing to do with it. Without a trace of life or danger. In short, it was seen that the lunar dust brought back by the Apollo 11 astronauts did not contain organic compounds or the slightest trace of life. But it was also found that it did not seem to be dangerous for a large number of terrestrial and aquatic animals. It is true that it is said that cockroaches could survive a nuclear attack, but this is a myth. Furthermore, even if it were true, many more animals were included, very different from each other. If none were affected, that’s a good sign. It is not harmless. Despite what was discovered with this bizarre experiment, today we know that lunar dust is not harmless. In fact, many of the astronauts who traveled to the Moon described something known as lunar hay feverwhich they experienced when the dust clung to their suits and was introduced into the ship. It caused them to sneeze, watery eyes, and have a sore throat. This is because it is a very irritating dust for the mucous membranes and respiratory tract. As if that were not enough, it is also very abrasive. It scratched the astronauts’ helmets, which also caused a lot of discomfort in their eyes. The rest of the rocks. The other samples and rocks from the Moon were directed to very different purposes. Some were used for research. Others were sent as gifts to a large number of countries to emphasize the collaborative goal of traveling to the Moon. The rest were kept safe in NASA facilities. Although perhaps the collection was not so good, if we take into account that in 2002 three NASA interns stole a sample and two of them spread the rocks on the bed to have the closest thing to sex on the moon they could ever have. Now that we remember this, the cockroach thing may be the second funniest story regarding rock samples from the Moon. There are situations that are difficult to overcome. Image | Unsplash/NASA In Xataka | If we want to find extraterrestrial life, we already know where in space we should look: the “terminator zone”

release (many) ladybugs around the city

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Every spring, urban parks across half of Europe deal with the same problem: pests. The most common and traditional response continues to be chemical pesticides: they are effective and cheap to keep insects such as aphids at bay, but they have a well-documented ecological cost on other auxiliary fauna and the soil. However, some European cities have been exploring an even older alternative for years: returning the natural predators that always kept them at bay to the ecosystem. Logroño has just taken that step: This spring it will release ladybugs and other insects in several of its green spaces. Ladybugs and Anthocoris as a natural pesticide. The City Council of Logroño, through the UTE Espacios Verdes Logroño, is carrying out these days biological control actions in parks and gardens in the maple trees and rose bushes on Paseo del Espolón, in the lime trees in Plaza Primero de Mayo, Parque Gallarza and Parque del Carmen and in the Cercis specimens on San Antón Street. As? Introducing their natural predators. Ladybugs are the friendly and well-known face of this operation, but beneath that mottled red mantle hides a voracious predator capable of devouring several hundred aphids during its lifetime. He Anthocoris nemoralis (a predatory bug) is much less known to the general public, but equally essential on a biological level: it is a predatory bug that attacks psyllids, mites and other phytophages that especially affect urban trees. Why is it important. Because it is a natural measure to decimate pests without the need for conventional phytosanitary treatments that also favors biodiversity in the urban environment. Conventional pesticides eliminate the target species, but they also kill pollinators such as bees and butterflies, contaminating the soil and aquifers. In the long term, they end up having a kind of rebound effect in the form of resistance, which forces the use of increasingly higher doses or more aggressive compounds. Hence Europe has been warning for some time about its use and the need to look for alternatives. On the other hand, this measure also has its relevance in public health: these urban green spaces are places of daily traffic where applying phytosanitary products in those environments implies human exposure that biological control completely eliminates. The WHO has documented the effects of chronic exposure to organophosphate and pyrethroid pesticides on health, especially in children. Context. It’s no secret that we are running out of insects: this specific study in Germany shows a disappearance of 75% of flying insects in 27 years (the study is from 2017), a trend that is expanding throughout Europe. The reasons are several: pesticides, loss of habitat, pollution and climate change are just a few. Cities play a role in that they bring together many species of insects in a small space. What is a biodiversity sink can become a refuge: cities like Barcelona, ​​Huesca, Zaragoza, Pamplona, ​​Madrid and Logroño itself They have been implementing for years comprehensive pest management strategies that include biological control as a central element. Vitoria-Gasteiz deserves special mention: one of the green capitals in Europe carries out environmental policies sustainable management of urban green areas. How it works. The biological balance is simple: predator – prey. In an ecosystem in its unaltered state, aphids would be naturally regulated by their predators and would only be triggered when the balance is broken, something that in fact happens in cities, where the diversity of auxiliary fauna is low. The solution is not to eliminate the pest with a chemical product, but restore lost predatory pressure. What makes this approach so valuable is that it is a selective measure: an insecticide destroys what is in front of it, while ladybugs and Anthocoris nemoralis concentrate their activity on prey that is part of their natural diet, leaving intact populations of bees or butterflies that visit the same flora. Yes, but. The initiative from Logroño has an important blind spot: the origin of the released insects. We do not know if these ladybugs and Anthocoris nemoralis come from local populations or from foreign commercial breeding. Introducing non-native specimens can alter the genetics of wild populations in the region and even end up displacing native ones. On the other hand, we do not know the number of insects released and whether there will be subsequent monitoring: to know if the biological control has worked it is necessary to measure the density of the pest before and after, record the survival and dispersal of the released individuals and compare with control areas where there has been no release of insects. In Xataka | The European Union believes it has a solution for the decline of wine in Spain: plucking the “green” grapes in La Rioja In Xataka | The terraces of hoteliers have been taking over city streets for years. Logroño has a plan for them Cover | Afaaq Afzal and Tom Winkler

that 20 euro flights are a relic of the past

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During the great oil crisis In the 1970s, several US airlines began do something unusual to save fuel: deliberately reduce speed in mid-flight. Some They even eliminated olives of the salads served on board because every extra kilo mattered when kerosene prices skyrocketed. Half a century later, the airline industry is once again discovering the extent to which a distant energy conflict can transform something as everyday as getting on a plane. Goodbye to flying “cheap”. For more than two decades, Europe got used to it to something that would have seemed absurd in any other era: crossing the continent for less money than it costs to park your car at an airport. The low cost airlines They transformed the plane into an everyday means of transportation and normalized impromptu getaways, whirlwind weekends, and vacations designed around ridiculously cheap tickets. It so happens that the war around Iran is beginning to put into question precisely that model. He Closing of Hormuzthe brutal increase in the price of kerosene and the interruption of routes are hitting the economic heart of commercial aviation. And little by little an uncomfortable idea is beginning to emerge for the European consumer: those 20 euro flights that seemed eternal could have been a historical anomaly much more fragile than it seemed. Hormuz on the plane ticket. The Financial Times said this week that the connection between a conflict in the Middle East and a cheap flight between European cities seems distant until fuel starts to run out. Near the 40% of kerosene that Europe uses passes through the Strait of Hormuz, now converted into one of the main energy bottlenecks on the planet. The war has duplicated the global price of aviation fuel and forced to cancel tens of thousands of flights that simply became unprofitable. Some airlines have started even to carry out truly desperate logistical maneuvers to refuel in other countries or avoid certain routes. The problem is especially delicate because, even before the crisis, fuel was already the higher operating cost from any airline. When kerosene skyrockets, the entire financial architecture of the low-cost model begins to falter. Natural selection in war. Because commercial aviation has always been a brutally competitive industry with minimal margins, but the conflict with Iran is accelerating a consolidation process which had been occurring for years. There we have as a first reference the Spirit Airlines bankruptcywhich has been interpreted by many executives as the beginning of a new wave of mergers, disappearances and cuts. Weaker airlines, especially those focused on ultra-cheap fares, are beginning to face a scenario where maintaining extremely low prices can stop being viable. Even giants like Ryanair, easyJet or Wizz Air They watch with concern How rising fuel prices threaten the core appeal of your business. The problem is structural: no executive really wants to sell cheap tickets; wants to fill planes generating profits. And the less competition that survives the crisis, the easier it will be raise rates without fear of losing passengers. Flying expensive, again. For years, the expansion of low cost created the feeling that flying cheap was something natural and irreversible. But much of this phenomenon depended on a extremely delicate balance: relatively affordable fuel, enormous competition between companies, cheap secondary airports and a constant availability of efficient aircraft. The war is simultaneously eroding several of those pillars. Manufacturers such as Boeing or Airbus delays accumulate on deliveries, airlines are removing old models that consume too much and many routes are beginning to become economically unviable. Even historical giants such as Lufthansa or Air France-KLM already they are cutting thousands of flights to reduce costs. The worrying thing is that many of these measures could be maintained even after the conflict, consolidating a smaller, more concentrated industry with fewer incentives to maintain ultra-low rates. The new aerial geography. The crisis also threatens to redraw part of the world aviation map. For years, hubs like Dubai or Doha became authentic nerve centers that connected Europe and Asia thanks to abundant fuel, optimized routes and giants like Emirates or Qatar Airways. The war has hit precisely that network. Airspace closures, mass cancellations and supply problems have meant that many direct routes between Asia and Europe they fill even despite strong price increases. Some European companies are temporarily taking advantage of this situation, but everyone knows that when the Gulf airlines regain capacity they will start again a tariff war aggressive The difference is that this time they will do it in a context where fuel can remain expensive for a long time. The real problem: winter. Because summer still offers some room for maneuver as planes fly full and holidays sustain demand even with higher prices. But the industry’s real fear is what may happen next. If the conflict continues, energy prices remain high and airlines begin to exhaust their financial coverage on fuel, many winter routes they could disappear directly. That would open a dangerous spiral: fewer flights imply fixed costs that are more difficult to distribute, which forces prices to rise even further and further reduces demand. The risk is to end up entering a dynamic where low-cost travel stops being the dominant standard and once again becomes something much more limitedseasonal and expensive. In other words, the war in Iran is beginning to remind the West of something it had forgotten: behind every cheap 20-euro flight there was always abundant oil and geopolitical stability. And neither of those things seem guaranteed right now. Image | Pexels, Picryl, Picryl In Xataka | European airlines are taking advantage of the Iran crisis to accelerate something old: making your trip even more complicated. In Xataka | Iran is about to start another war: to buy a plane ticket before it costs a kidney

China is launching giant buoys into the sea that are real “small” fortified data centers. Korea won’t like it

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Ocean observation is an essential activity to monitor climate change, navigation and the security of the planet, however 95% of internet data travels therethe sighting of ghost ships is the order of the day and we continue found new islands. Until now, the quintessential element for monitoring the sea has been floating sensors that everyone knows: buoys, a legacy of the analog world. In that calm calm China has invaded with its Sea Dragon (Hailong) series, a new generation of enormous buoys that mark a before and after in scale, design and functionality. Of course, they have nothing to do with that mooring that has reigned in naval engineering since the Second World War. The new Chinese buoy. The Hailong series are literally small disk-shaped fortified data stations. Although small is relative: its diameter is around six meters in diameter and as a structure it looks more like a small unmanned oil platform than conventional buoys. After completing the relevant tests at sea, it has already been integrated into the Yellow Sea observation network to continuously and real-time monitor the entire water column, according to the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. When deploying the new buoy, technicians simultaneously removed an older buoy after 16 years of service. A deliberate symbolic gesture insofar as it is not a mere change of buoy: according to the Institute it is “the world’s first system with a single disc side anchor structure”, leaving behind the classic central mooring point that has dominated Western marine engineering since World War II. Why is it important. The problem with the design of classic buoys is mechanical and well known: when a buoy with a central mooring rotates due to currents and wind, the cables coil and generate structural and instrumentation failures. This new lateral disc anchorage solves the root problem because it uses another geometry, thus minimizing these errors, operating with more stability. That is, the importance lies in the continuity of the data. The second reason is strategic. The Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences I had already tried other synchronized observation systems capable of covering from 10 kilometers of atmosphere to 1 kilometer of depth underwater, withstanding winds of 60 m/s and waves of up to 20 meters, powered by various energy sources (wave, solar, wind, hybrid). This new buoy transfers these capabilities to especially sensitive waters. It is, in short, a buoy designed to be operational for the long term. Context. Since the 1940s, the world standard for buoys has been defined by US Navy designs, such as the NOMAD (Navy Oceanographic Meteorological Automatic Device) type. For the time, these devices complied thanks to their simplicity and ease of deployment, although due to their physics they are vulnerable to excessive swinging. If there is serious surf, precision measurements get dirty. Over the years this standard has met precisely because it complied, its maintenance is low and other alternatives present challenges to its deployment. But China, driven by its need to control the South China Sea and the Western Pacific, has chosen to redesign the platform from scratch. In fact, China and Korea have a fishing agreement in the Yellow Sea dating back to 2001 where permanent installations are expressly prohibited. So China has fulfilled it in its own way: since then it has deployed 13 buoys, two large aquaculture cages and a maintenance platform. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) qualify this strategy of “progressive sovereignty”. How they have done it. The development is led by the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which has been testing real-time transmission mooring systems since 2016. The new buoy is, therefore, the result of a decade of development, not a technological leap that arrives overnight. The secret of its design is the topology: moving the anchor point from the geometric center of the disc to the side eliminates the twisting moment produced by the entanglement of cables in the classic design. Instead of a wave-riding hull, the body is designed with a narrow cross-section at the waterline and deep ballast, which noticeably reduces hydrodynamic forces. For energy management, photographs published by the South Korean navy last year show models with solar panels that, assisted by artificial intelligence for data management and instrument optimization. The result is a platform that shines for its autonomy and resilience, since it can operate continuously in adverse sea conditions without human intervention. Yes, but. From a technical and geopolitical point of view, this deployment has a double reading: China’s official description presents these buoys as tools for the study of climate change and tsunami warning, but inherently this infrastructure is dual: if it integrates sonar and can process data in real time, it can also function as a war and control tool. On the other hand, the deployment of these intelligent platforms in disputed waters has its drawback from the point of view of international maritime law since they are complex and almost permanent structures. In other words, it is like putting a pike there. In Xataka | The United States is launching giant spheres into the sea with one goal: to take advantage of one of the largest sources of renewable energy In Xataka | A buoy from Mallorca has revealed the meteorological problem that Spain faces: the Mediterranean Sea is on fire

the answer was right under our noses

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During Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt, a French soldier accidentally found a black stone covered in inscriptions while working on fortifications near Rashid. That piece, known today like the Rosetta Stoneended up becoming the key that allowed the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs after centuries of incomprehension. Since then, a good part of the history of Ancient Egypt has advanced like this: not so much by discovering impossible objects, but by looking in a different way at things that had been in front of everyone for a long time. A mystery that had been ahead for centuries. The Great Pyramid of Giza has been obsessing archaeologists, engineers and historians for more than 4,500 years because there always seemed to be a missing essential piece of the puzzle: how to move millions of stone blocks at high speed using extremely simple tools and without leaving clear traces of the system used. For decades, theories about giant ramps, external structures or complex internal tunnels ran into the same problem: none of them fully explained the balance between speed, precision and absence of physical evidence. Now, the Spanish researcher Vicente Luis Rosell Roig propose something which completely changes the perspective of the debate. His idea is based on an almost uncomfortable premise because it seems so simple: perhaps the solution was not hidden in a lost technology or in impossible mechanisms, but rather integrated. in the geometry itself of the pyramid from the beginning, in plain sight, confused with the structure itself. A gigantic logistics machine. He great challenge of Cheops It was not only about lifting huge stones, but about sustaining an almost absurd pace of construction for decades. The Great Pyramid contains about 2.3 million blocks and, to finish it within the reign of Khufuworkers would have had to place approximately one block every three minutes for more than twenty years. Rosell understood that the correct question was not “how they lifted the blocks,” but rather “how they maintained that constant flow without collapsing the system.” Your model appears there Integrated Edge Rampa helical structure built within the pyramid’s own edges. Instead of building a huge external ramp that would later have to be dismantled, the Egyptians simply left unfilled runners around each level and used them as temporary access routes. As the work progressed, these ramps disappeared under the final blocks until they were completely hidden. The idea that emerged from an algorithm. The most striking thing is that the theory was not born in an archaeological excavation, but in front of a screen and from a computational problem. Rosell began making sketches after watching a documentary in 2020, but the project changed radically when he moved the problem to a 3D environment and began modeling the pyramid block by block. There he discovered something fundamental: a single ramp was a bottleneck, but replicating the system on several faces of the pyramid turned construction into a much more efficient parallel operation. The model then went from being a simple geometric hypothesis to a logistics simulation complete where several routes operated simultaneously, adapting as the pyramid narrowed upwards. At lower levels they could operate up to 16 ramps at a timelater on, the system was progressively reduced until there was a single track near the vertex. The pyramid thus stopped looking like a static mountain and began to behave like an enormous optimized distribution machine. The hidden gaps make sense. One of the most suggestive aspects of the study is that fits surprisingly well with some of the great enigmas recently discovered within the pyramid. Explorations using muons (cosmic particles capable of passing through dense materials) years ago detected internal cavities whose function remains to be fully explained. He Rosell model coincides with several such anomalies, including the called Great Void and the corridor on the north face. That doesn’t automatically prove the theory correct, but it does introduce something that was missing from many previous hypotheses: testable predictions. According to the studythere should be specific wear marks in certain corners and subtle differences in the masonry where the ramps were finally sealed. For the first time in a long time, a theory about the construction of the pyramids not only attempts to explain the past, but also offer concrete evidence that can be sought in the future. Surprisingly humane solution. Perhaps most interesting of all is the feeling that the answer was always ahead from our noses. For centuries, the mystery of the Great Pyramid It fueled ideas about lost civilizations, impossible knowledge or even extraterrestrials because many people assumed that such a work required extraordinary technology. Rosell’s model points in just the opposite direction. It suggests that the Egyptians solved the problem by using very simple principles of organizationparallelization and intelligent use of space. Impossible machinery was not needed, but to convert the pyramid itself in part of the tool of construction. In a way, the theory reduces one of history’s biggest puzzles to something deeply recognizable: a gigantic logistics optimization problem solved 4,500 years ago by people who understood geometry, coordinated work, and efficiency much better than we usually imagine. Image | Little girl, paweesit In Xataka | We believed that the pyramids of Giza did not hide any more secrets. we believed wrong In Xataka | Germany has set its sights on Tenerife from the sky and has discovered plasma bubbles like those of the Pyramids of Giza

the day Naples rejected a Boeing 787 with 200 people on board because it would not enter the airport

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It hasn’t been long since dawn and the passengers are stretching one day in June 2025 thousands of meters above sea level. They left Philadelphia last night and are about to land in Naples. They are about to discover that, whether they slept better or worse, they are going to have a bad awakening. And when they approach eight hours into the trip and already see the Italian coast on the screens in their seats, a voice informs them that they will not land in Naples. There is not much to fear, everything is in order. All. Except for a small bureaucratic error that is currently diverting them to Rome. They will probably find out about that later. All they know is that their flight from Philadelphia to Naples has had to be diverted. And this time it was not due to a breakdown, a storm or a health emergency. The reason is simple: the plane is too big to land in Naples. Two meters, specifically. Two meters that no one noticed The Philadelphia-Naples route operated by American Airlines is a very good option if you want to travel from the United States to Italy and do not have the need to go through the large airports of New York or Rome. It also has the advantage that it flies at night, which makes it easier to deal with jet lag. Encouragement that, surely, was appreciated by the 231 passengers who had to travel on a Boeing 787-8, according to C.B.S.. However, that day, the airline could have put someone else on board. And, for operational reasons, American Airlines used a Boeing 787-9 On that trip June 3, 2025, a plane slightly larger and with greater capacity than usual on a route that It has been operating since 2024. The aircraft are almost carbon copies. Of course, a Boeing 787-8 measures 57 meters long but the 787-9 already extends to 63 meters long. A difference that has implications beyond the number of passengers. And, according to air safety regulations, a Boeing 787-8 can land in RFFS Category 8 airports (Rescue and Fire Fighting Services) or higher. But a Boeing 787-9 does not have it so easy, it needs to do it at airports in Category 9 RFFS. The difference is small but it is substantial. A Category 8 RFFS airport can accommodate aircraft up to 61 meters long. Yes, two meters shorter than the Boeing 787-9. And you can imagine what category Naples airport has. Indeed, about 70 miles awaythe American Airlines flight asks for a runway in Naples but from the control tower someone realizes the problem: the aircraft is not the same as always. For logistical reasons, the airline was using this second, larger version of the Boeing 787 and therefore exceeded the maximum permitted limit of 61 meters. No one in the company updated the documentation or notified of the change. Technically the problem is not in the size of the trackthe problem is in the security measures. And Naples is not prepared to deal with a possible incident involving a plane of this size. Airport categories are not only classified based on the size of the runway, but also take into account their ability to accommodate emergency and firefighting services. From the control tower they see it clearly, there is no choice but to warn the pilots: they must land in Roma Fuimicino. The capital’s airport is the closest airfield where flights the size of a Boeing 787-9 can land and is therefore where the passengers were ultimately taken. From there, they were finally transferred by bus to Naples, a trip that takes between two and three hours. A lesser evil for a problem that would have been much more serious if the aircraft had had a problem when landing. Photo | Dominic Bieri and Flightware In Xataka | The inevitable increase in air travel is leading us to a reality: there are no places, no planes, no planet for so many tourists.

Benidorm triples its population in summer and does not run out of water. The secret is a miracle of invisible engineering

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We assume that when we turn on the faucet water comes out. It is an almost automatic, everyday gesture that we rarely stop to think about. However, ensuring that this resource springs up clean and safe in Benidorm, a city that its population triples In the middle of the summer high season, it requires a true miracle of engineering and management. In the Marina Baixa, one of the regions of the Valencian Community with greater water stresscatering to millions of annual visitors is a colossal puzzle. As reported by local mediathe philosophy of those who operate this gear is perfectly summarized by Ciriaco Clemente, manager of Veolia in Benidorm: “In a territory where the pressure on water resources is structural and permanent, guaranteeing that the water reaches the tap in perfect sanitary conditions and that, once used, it returns to the environment without damaging it is not an option, it is an obligation.” The challenge of quantity and quality. The water challenge is not exclusive to the Alicante coast, it is a national problem. According to official data from the Ministry of Health (SINAC)the quality of water in Spain is increasingly threatened. The filtration of nitrates from industrial agricultural activity is saturating the self-cleaning capacity of many aquifers, putting local water treatment plants in hundreds of municipalities in check, especially in inland Spain. While much of inland Spain deals with nitrate pollution, Benidorm faces its own perfect storm: extreme seasonal demand and the threat of shortages. The city not only needs to ensure that there is enough water for everyone, but that its quality is impeccable under all circumstances, regardless of whether it comes from the Guadalest reservoir, the Amadorio reservoir or the Bajo del Algar Canal. To overcome this crisis, the tourist capital has shielded itself around two essential infrastructures managed by Veolia: the Drinking Water Treatment Station (ETAP) and the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). Beyond thirst. Water quality is synonymous with public health and economic survival. In fact, consuming water with nitrate levels close to or higher The European legal limit of 50 mg/L carries serious risks, and recent medical studies suggest that even much lower thresholds could be linked to oncological problems. Treating water to the millimeter is, therefore, a matter of life or death. On the economic level, as the newspaper highlights Informationfor the enormous hotel plant in Benidorm, opening the tap and letting water flow with total health guarantees “is not a secondary detail: it is a basic requirement to operate and to maintain the trust of visitors.” In addition, the system must be able to withstand the onslaught of the weather. According to Alicante Plazathe ETAP faces extreme scenarios after episodes of torrential rains, when the water collected arrives with enormous turbidity due to the dragging of sediments. Given this, the plant adjusts its treatments in real time. “Our responsibility does not end with there being water; it ends when that water reaches the tap in perfect condition,” says Noelia Llinares, ETAP plant manager, in these media. Leaving behind traditional management. As detailed by Veoliathe answer is in technology. A digital ecosystem has been deployed in Benidorm that includes network-wide sensors, leak detection algorithms and remote control systems. This has allowed the milestone of reducing water losses in the network to minimum levels of 5%. To support this burden, ETAP itself already received a powerful injection of more than 9 million euros in its last major expansion in 2010. But the cycle does not end at the sink. The WWTP works under a strict circular economy philosophy: used water is not waste, it is a resource. Today, 35% of the water that reaches the treatment plant is already reused, mainly for agricultural irrigation. And there is an extra factor that adds complexity: wastewater treatment plants are electricity devourers. To counteract this, María José Martínez, head of the WWTP, details that the facility uses byproducts such as biogas or sludge to generate its own energy. “The objective is clear: for the plant to become increasingly self-sufficient and for its environmental footprint to be as small as possible,” says Martínez. The next challenge: squeeze regeneration. Behind all this there is an ambitious project underway: the Regenerated Water Master Plan. The short-term objective is to take advantage of up to 2 additional cubic hectometers of regenerated water for purely urban uses, alleviating the suffocation of conventional sources and reinforcing the network against drought. Benidorm has empirically demonstrated that the high numbers of mass tourism and water sustainability are not antagonistic concepts, but rather necessary allies. In a context marked by climate change, the experience of the city of Alicante provides an inescapable journalistic and vital lesson: intelligent water management is no longer a simple competitive advantage or a green slogan. It is, purely and simply, a question of survival. Every drop counts, from the moment it is dammed until, thanks to engineering, it is regenerated to start again. Image | Diego Delso Xataka | The future of 150,000 hectares of crops is decided today. We have been fighting for decades, but the wars over water have only just begun

Someone has gathered more than 13 million public contracts and has set up the Google of public procurement in Spain

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Every euro spent by a State Public Administration must be traceable by citizens. We don’t say it, the law says it. But theory is one thing and practice another: if you try, you will discover that sometimes it is a long, tedious and sometimes almost impossible mission. Let me explain: when someone wants to know which company a public hospital or city council has awarded contracts to, the official search path forces them to go through different platforms ranging from Public Sector Procurement Platform state to autonomous regions such as those of the Community of Madrid, the Basque Country or Galicia, because there are CCAA (quite a few) that have their own system and do not publish in PLACSP. This fragmentation makes the search difficult, as details the Public Procurement Observatory. So an engineer has set out to solve it by building a search engine for Spanish public contracts. The “Google” of public contracts in Spain. jobsearch.com solves this fragmentation problem with a single search engine. It is an independent project that aggregates, cross-references and allows you to consult in seconds the public procurement information that the State publishes dispersedly on a long list of different platforms. More specifically, it draws from 10 official sources, including the State Platform (PLACSP), the Official Journal of the EU (TED), and regional platforms of Madrid, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Asturias and the Valencian Community, plus data from the Commercial Registry. The result is a search engine with around 13.4 million indexed contracts, without advertising, without tracking and with open source available on GitHub. Behind the project, Gerard Sanchezprogrammer and founder of BQuant and professor at the University of Navarra and the UPF Barcelona School of Management. Why is it important. Public procurement is not trivial: in Spain it moved more than 113 billion euros in 2024, the equivalent of 10.92% of GDP, according to the OIReScon Annual Surveillance Report 2025the official supervisory body of the Ministry of Finance. Each year a sum of money is allocated through procedures that must be public and auditable. The reality is that this audit is very difficult without tools. A CNMC report of 2019 highlights that public procurement represents between 10% and 20% of Spanish GDP and that Spain is one of the European countries with the lowest participation of companies in tenders: only one company participates in one in three state contracts. With data access tools that facilitate transparency, competition could be increased and the cost for public coffers reduced. Context. In Spain there are several laws that require public contracts to be published: there is the Law 19/2013 on transparency, access to public information and good governance with a triple objective of increasing transparency in public activity, guaranteeing access to information as a right and establishing good governance obligations for public officials, but also the Law 9/2017 on Public Sector Contractswhich is a transposition of European directives on public procurement. So the problem is not that there are no regulations, but rather their application and the dispersion of data. As explains the Public Procurement ObservatorySince March 2018, it has been mandatory for the entire public sector to publish the information on their contracts in the PLACSP, but the tool is also a headache as thousands of entities upload information manually and with free-writing text, which constitutes a continuous source of error. PreciselyBuscalicitaciones.com detects and documents these inconsistencies. How it works. Technically, the project downloads and normalizes the open data that each of those 10 official platforms publishes in structured formats such as XML, JSON, CSV. Each record is crossed with data from the Commercial Registry to enrich the information of the successful bidder. The search engine offers three main modes of use: search for contracts by winning company, contracting body, CPV sector or free text of the contract; see the complete history of awards of any company by its NIF and consult a public registry of contracts with anomalous amounts greater than 1,000 million euros. Yes, but. The first major limitation is structural: it depends on the quality of the data published by official sources and that quality can clearly be improved. If the source data is bad, the aggregator inherits that error. And we have already seen that sometimes it is and that it is certainly anything but homogeneous. On the other hand, this is the first version of the project and it shows: It has flaws and the coverage is not complete. Navarra does not appear on the list and sources such as the Valencian Community do not have an aggregate amount available, the Basque Country only has an amount in 106,000 of its 651,000 contracts and Catalonia has two separate entries with different coverage. On the other hand, the independent and altruistic nature of this public utility resource also has its B side: long-term sustainability, given its great magnitude. In Xataka | Someone has passed 12,000 laws and reforms to source code and now searching the BOE is no longer an ordeal In Xataka | The “ChatGPT for lawyers” exists, it was born in Spain and has just reached a milestone: becoming a unicorn Cover | Mockuphone and Gemini

When to use one and when to use the other (and why they are not the same)

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Let’s tell you the differences and when to use NotebookLM or Geminiso that you are clear about the purposes of each of these two platforms. This way, you will be able to know the main functions, what their differentiating characteristics are, and when to choose each of them. Because yes, Google has two powerful artificial intelligence tools, but NotebookLM and Gemini They are not the same, and they neither serve the same purpose nor are they designed to be used for the same purpose. That can make deciding between one or the other somewhat confusing if you don’t understand much about AI, and that’s why we’re going to help you differentiate them. We are going to start the article with a comparative table with which you will be able to see at once all the differences there are in concept and functions of both tools. Afterwards, we will write these differences for you so that you understand them, and we will end by explaining to you when it is useful to use one, the other, or even both at the same time. NotebookLM vs Gemini, comparison feature gemini Notebooklm Tool type General AI Assistant Document analysis tool Information source Your own knowledge + the entire internet Only the documents that you upload Internet access Yes, with web searches No Integration with Google Drive, Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Maps, Flights, etc… Google Drive (to import files) Generate new content Yes. Texts, images, code, etc…. Limited. Summaries, multiple choice questions, aydio podcast Create audio podcasts No Yeah Create presentations Yes, with Slides. Yes, basic format. chat organization Through conversations, there are different chats to ask whatever you want. Through notebooks, and in each notebook you can have conversations. Memory between conversations Yes, with Gems and memory settings. No, each notebook is independent. Number of sources Unlimited by internet 50 free, and more with subscription Price Free with limits Wider limits on paid versions Free with limits Larger limits included in paid versions of Gemini Who is it for? Any user Students, researchers, professionals with many documents. The key difference between these tools is that Gemini is a general purpose AI assistantas are other alternatives such as ChatGPT or Claude. You can ask him any question you want. While, NotebookLM is a tool to work with your own documentsand will only respond based on them. Therefore, what differentiates the two is where they get the information from. Gemini pulls it from the Internet and its knowledge base, and NotebookLM pulls it only from the files you upload to each notebook you’ve created. One is used to ask what you want about what you want, and another to interact with the content that you upload. What is Gemini and what is it for? Gemini is Google’s artificial intelligence assistant. You can talk to him about anything, from asking questions to asking him to write you an email, solving problems, finding travel itineraries, or generating images or videos. When you make a request, Gemini will search your content base and the Internetand then with this data it will generate the response. It is especially useful because it is integrated into the Google ecosystem, being able to connect it with Gmail, Docs or Maps to manage emails, appointments or routes. If you use all Google services, then it is normal that Gemini helps you enhance them. Therefore, Gemini is perfect for ask general questions and ask you to perform tasks related to content creation in general. You can search for any type of information, ask for recommendations, make product comparisons or simply have a conversation about whatever you want. ​ What is NotebookLM and what is it for? NotebookLM is not an AI assistant, but a tool created to work with your documents and use Google’s Gemini artificial intelligence model to ask questions related to it. Therefore, it is not a Gemini chat, but rather a tool that uses this AI for tasks in a controlled environment. So, while Gemini responds to you based on information from all over the Internet, NotebookLM responds to you based solely on the files you attach. So, if you ask it to explain something to you, it will only use the uploaded files to do so. The files can be PDFs, audios, web pages, drive documents or even YouTube videos. You can ask Gemini to work explaining something about a specific file, but it does not do so in a closed environment, and there is always the possibility that it completes the information on the Internet. In NotebookLM you do not connect to the Internet. The results it generates can be texts, but You can also create an audio podcastalways based on the content you upload. When to use each Now let’s go summarize when to use each of these tools. Because they are totally different, so depending on what you want to achieve, it will be more useful to use one or the other. When to use Gemini: When you want to look for information from the real world, search the Internet, compare options, find out news, or ask about something that you do not have documented. When you want AI to manage the content of your Google applications, such as your emails, your Calendar agenda, your Doc documents. You want to plan routes with Maps. When you want to generate new content, such as a piece of writing (email, article, script, code) or an image. When you want to do several different things in a conversation, without having to organize the content in a notebook or upload sources. When to use NotebookLM: When you want to analyze your own documents accurately and without them being mixed with Internet content. It can be a contract, a report, a book, your course notes and anything else. When you want to study or prepare for an exam. You can upload your notes, a book or a syllabus, and you can ask them to ask you multiple choice questions or explain things … Read more

Wine consumption has plummeted to lows not seen since 1957

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Almost seven decades. This is what you have to go back in the world wine chronicle to find a year in which the world consumed less wine than it drank in 2025. This is at least shown the balance which has just been published by the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV), an organization that boasts of bringing together 51 countries that account for 88% of the world’s wine production and that now cannot but note a trend that the sector has been viewing with suspicion for some time: the world seems less and less interested in the wineries. Your data is revealing. “Adapting to challenges”. Although corporate language usually avoids fatalism, the truth is that the OIV’s latest annual report does not leave much room for optimism. Its CEO, John Barker, claims that in recent years the wine sector “has been adapting to the constant climatic, economic and social challenges”, but the reality is that the global ‘photo’ of 2025 is not good. Consumption fell worldwide until reaching unseen lows for decades and things were not much better in world trade, where exports also suffered in both volume and value. Production did improve, although in a very discreet way and insufficient to approach the average that the sector has managed so far this century. Not only that. In general, today there are many fewer hectares cultivated with vineyards in the world than 25 years ago. Has consumption dropped that much? It seems that way if we trust the OIV, which estimates that in 2025 global wine consumption will amount to 208 million hectoliters. It may seem like a large sum, but it marks a drop of 2.7% with respect to 2024 and aggravates the ‘puncture’ that the sector has been registering since 2018, widening the collapse to reach 14%. The tables of the OIV show that never before has so little wine been drunk on the planet since (at least) 2000. And that is only what their latest balance shows. The EFE agency has reviewed the historical archive of the organization and assures that in 2025 consumption plummeted to the lows of 1957. Searching for the causes. As is usually the case, this ‘puncture’ is not explained by a single factor. Inflationary pressures, geopolitical tensions, interruptions in trade due to causes beyond the control of the sector or, if we go back to 2020, the effect of the pandemic come into play. In the cocktail however there is another ingredient taken by the OIV itself: “Changes in social habits and at a generational level” that directly affect consumer behavior, a trend that is seen above all among the young. If we focus on the world map The organization focuses above all on what is happening in three large markets. The first is China, where “the greatest contraction” is noted, with the loss of about two million hectoliters per year since 2018. As a reference, if in 2020 its consumption was estimated at 12.4 million, last year it was already around 4.8. The union has also noted a sustained decline in the French market and a “marked slowdown” in the US, which contracted 4.3% in 2025. The picture is not exactly good in the EU, which although it accounts for a large part of world consumption, reduced it by 3.1%. Global data 2020 2022 2025 Cultivated area (thousands of hectares) 7,388 7,236 7,034 Wine produced (Millions of hectoliters) 264 265 227 Wine Consumed (Millions of hectoliters) 232 228 208 A business less business. Another indicator in low hours is exports. Last year fell 4.7% in terms of volume, which extends the trend observed in the market since 2022. If we talk about hard dollars (value), the puncture was even greater: world exports moved 33.8 billion euros6.7% less than in 2024. Once again, these percentages are explained by a sum of factors that include fluctuations in demand, prices and “tariff uncertainty”; but also something much more basic: less is exported because fewer vines are planted and less wine is harvested. The footprint in fields and wineries. As for the first (the area with vineyards), in 2025 contracted 0.8% until it reaches seven million hectares. “It represents the sixth consecutive year of contraction,” remember the OIV. “This confirms a continuing adjustment in the global wine sector, driven by the clearing of vineyards in several major vine-producing countries in both hemispheres.” This trend helps to understand the decline that wine production has experienced, which although it rose a slight 0.6% last year, moving away from the historical minimum of 2024, is still 9.4% below the average for the last five years. The data is not explained solely by the loss of hectares. The weather also comes into play. Is everything negative? No. The OIV too has detected markets in which the trend is clearly positive, such as Portugal or Brazil, which has significantly expanded the area dedicated to vineyards and has also increased its production. Furthermore, although exports may have faltered in the last year, the organization recalls that the value of world trade remains at “significantly higher levels” than those recorded before the pandemic. A certain balance is also appreciated from the sector. “A third consecutive year of relatively low global production means that production and consumption are generally in balance, minimizing the impact of lower consumption on stock levels,” clarify from the OIV before remembering that their merchandise is not only destined for wineries where it is bottled and sold as wine. Every year around 30 million hectoliters are reserved for industrial uses, such as distillation or the production of vinegar, wine derivatives and spirits. Images | Svetlana Gumerova (Unsplash) and OIV In Xataka | The European Union believes it has a solution for the decline of wine in Spain: plucking the “green” grapes in La Rioja

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