Mobile Tech & Gadgets

The blockade of ingredients to Nazi Germany led Coca Cola to throw away whey and apple pulp

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When you open a Fanta, you hardly think about World War II. However, this fruit-flavored drink was born in 1940 within Nazi Germany. It was a solution from Coca-Cola, owner of the brand, to the blockade of ingredients that the allies imposed on the country. Quite a commercial turn that would result in one of the company’s most popular drinks. To block. In September 1939, when Germany invaded Poland and the United Kingdom and France declared war on the Third Reich, the economic consequences spread far beyond the battle fronts. American multinationals that maintained industrial ties with German territory saw communication with their subsidiaries interrupted. The British naval blockade closed the ports; Trade with the United States, which had grown throughout the previous decade, stopped. The Coca-Cola situation. The company had been operating in Germany since 1929. Max Keith was a German manager who had assumed control of the subsidiary and built a giant infrastructure from scratch with bottling plants and distribution networks. He had even managed to produce on his own seven of the nine secret ingredients. But the concentrated syrup traveled to Germany from Atlanta, headquarters of Coca-Cola. When the embargo cut off that supply, the plants ground to a halt. The alternative was closure, but Keith did not give in. The remains. What he did was look for substitutes in what he had at hand, waste from other food industries. How did I count? expert Mark Pendergrast“what was left of what was left”: whey, a byproduct of cheese making; leftover apple pulp from cider presses; fruit peels; beet sugar, because cane sugar was a luxury… the resulting liquid was a brownish yellow, much less sweet than any modern soft drink, and its flavor changed from batch to batch depending on what ingredients were available. A name. Keith gathered his team to name the drink. He asked them to use their imagination, Fantasy. And from there the name came directly, with the advantage that it worked in almost any language without the need for translation or phonetic adaptation. It was an immediate success: in 1943 Coca-Cola sold approximately three million cases of Fanta in Germany. AND although the soft drink never had a direct connection with the NazisKeith did manage to integrate his advertising into the regime’s events, including the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In fact, he could have registered Fanta in his own name, but he did not do so. A success. Fanta was not drunk solely as a soft drink. Sugar rationing was so severe in wartime Germany that in many German homes it was used for sweeten soups and stews. Keith had obtained a partial exemption from sugar rationing in 1941, making it not only a soft drink, but also an accessible sweetener. It was not an isolated case. Fanta was not a rarity. The World War II food industry reformulated several products forced by embargoes and rationing. Nescafé, launched in 1938arose from the need to dispose of surplus Brazilian coffee at a time of commercial crisis: its soluble format allowed it to be distributed under difficult logistical conditions, and it became a standard supply for the American army. Margarine was a substitute for butter in times of Napoleonic shortages, and experienced a second massive expansion in Europe in the 1940s because butter was rationed. Post-war. When Coca-Cola relaunched Fanta in Naples in April 1955 with an orange formula made from local citrus, the name was the only thing connecting it to post-war Germany. The Italian company SNIBEG had developed the recipe on its own and Coca-Cola bought itgiving it the name of the one who already had the intellectual property. From there it grew: it arrived in the United States in 1958 and expanded globally throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Conflictive spot. However, the drink’s German past loomed large over the brand in 2015, when Coca-Cola launched a special edition in Germany for Fanta’s 75th anniversary. It was a reissue of the original recipe, with 30% whey and apple extract, distributed in glass bottles that evoked the design of the 1940s. He video campaign was especially inappropriatesince he only talked about ingenuity in times of scarcity and ignored the reason for that ingenuity: war embargoes against Nazi Germany. He concluded by inviting viewers to recover “the feeling of the good old days.” The video was removed after frontal rejection by the public and press. It was inevitable then to remember brands like Volkswagenwhose name directly alludes to the Nazi regime’s automotive program and whose plants used forced labor during the war; or like Hugo Bosswhich made military uniforms for the SS and Wehrmacht; or as the German subsidiary of IBM, Dehomagwhich provided the regime with punch card technology that allowed entire populations to be censused, classified, and tracked with a speed that manual methods made impossible. Origins that are sometimes murky due to the context, but that leave a few questions in the air about the inhumane role of any industry. Which includes the sparks of life. Header | Wikipedia

The new fighter that Sweden is preparing is a “plane of airplanes”

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Swedish intelligence is clear: The conflict between Ukraine and Russia will expand across the old continent next year. Given this scenario, Sweden just signed a contract to renew its latest generation fighter for a totally different concept: a key “plane of airplanes” in the first line of defense of a Europe that still He is not very clear how to defend himself. Because Ukraine is not the only front: the threat of United States annexation of Greenland is still in the air. The contract. The Nordic country has hired Saab for 282 million dollars to develop the program Koncept för Framtida Stridsflyg (KFS, Concept for Future Combat Aviation) called to rejuvenate its fleet: KFS will be the basis of the roadmap to rejuvenate its air combat capabilities in the long term. The project started in March 2024 as Vägval Stridsflyg and after financing, it is in the development and first demo phase. Context. Within the old continent, Sweden is a particular case in air defense due to its location: despite be neutral in the Cold Warthe threat of the USSR was just around the corner, in the Baltic. Since then, maintaining strategic sovereignty has been a national priority for the Nordic country. In fact, and although it participated in the Team Tempest program led by the United Kingdom, got off the boat when this evolved into the Global Combat Aviation Program (GCAP) that integrates the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan to go it alone. Because Sweden has been building its own fighters for decades, Draken to the current Gripen E passing through Viggen. After years of service and development behind them, Gripen is already looking for a replacement for 2040. Why is it important. The implications it brings are relevant, both from a technological and geopolitical point of view at the state and continental level: Because it is not a new aircraft, it is a new concept that could redefine the standard of combat aviation. The security context is urgent, as indicated by the information from the Swedish intelligence services and the recent entry of the Nordic country into NATO. For Sweden, it would consolidate its aeronautical defense industry in the long term, reinforcing its commitment to military technological sovereignty. For Europe, if consolidated it would be the continent’s third new generation fighter program along with the FCAS (France-Germany-Spain) and the GCAP (UK-Italy-Japan). Three different projects and the question of interoperability. How this “plane of airplanes” works. What Sweden wants to replace the Gripen is a distributed combat concept. Thus, the fighter’s function is fragmented into different specialized platforms coordinated in real time by artificial intelligence. Although in a simplified and accessible way we have referred to it as “plane of airplanes”, in reality it is sixth generation “system of systems” with a different architecture: This is a manned aircraft that governs a constellation of specialized drones under a centralized AI. Risks and weaknesses. The challenge is enormous for Saab, which has already tried Helsing’s Centaur AI (German) on a real flight with the Gripen E to manage tactical decisions in combat. Of course, the Nordic company has never built a stealth fighter life-size: its background is two small research drones the size of a car, the SHARC and the FILURdating back to the 2000s. On the other hand, although Centaur’s first tests are promising, they are far from validating the use of AI in combat in real conditions. Finally, the project is so ambitious in technical and economic terms and the time window is so long that a medium-sized country like Sweden facing it alone runs the risk of being overwhelmed. In Xataka | “It’s not what we need”: Germany has just put the finishing touches on Spain’s great military dream, the European anti-F-35 is disappearing In Xataka | Europe’s great Achilles heel is not its armies, it is its plugs: NATO’s warning to shield our electrical network Cover | saab

We have been talking about “day 996” in Chinese companies for years. The reality is more complex: “day 323”

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In China there are more than 1.4 billion people and nearly a quarter of its active population works in the public sector, a work universe so enormous that any generalization usually falls short. Thus, between global topics and everyday realities, the distance may be greater than it seems. The myth exported from 996. It we have counted on more than one occasion, but just because something is repeated many times does not mean that it is the norm. We have been hearing for so long that China applies infamous day 996 (working from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, six days a week), that the concept itself has ended up becoming a symbol of a supposed superhuman work ethic, although in its origin it was a criticism to an abusive model within the technology sector and never a general rule. On paper, Chinese law sets weeks five days and 40 hoursalthough its application is irregular and the official unions lack real power, and although there are sectors such as migrant work or the platform economy where the hours are hard and the scarce rights. In any case, they said in a Foreign Policy report that 996 has prospered in the West because fits the fear It calls for China to “work harder” and surpass its rivals, but that narrative simplifies to the point of dehumanizing those 1.4 billion people. Furthermore, it hides a much more diverse reality. The inheritance of work as ideology. The truth is that Chinese work culture was not born with the technologies of Shenzhen, but with a tradition marked by Maoism and heritage. of Soviet Stakhanovismone where productive sacrifice was glorified and consolidated the social weight of the danwei or work unit. In that sense, he remembered the analyst James Palmer that was not until 1995 when the two-day weekend was formalized, and for decades employment was not only a source of income, but also the core of identity, housing and social network. that past explains the coexistence of intense practices with other deeply bureaucratic ones, where political obedience and compliance with quotas weigh as much as real efficiency. The silent reality of 323. As we said at the beginning, beyond from the myth of 996a significant part of Chinese employment (around 23% of the active population) is concentrated in the public sector, where an informal pattern predominates summarize as 323: three hours of work in the morning, a break of two or even three hours to eat and napand another three hours in the afternoon. That long interruption is, in fact, almost sacred and has withstood reform attemptswith offices that dim lights or enable spaces to rest, in a routine that surprises those who expect constant hyperproductivity. The pace can be lax in quiet times and frenetic at the end of the year to meet administrative objectives, often accompanied by creative accounting adjustments. Bureaucracy, patronage and ghost jobs. They recalled in FP that 323 coexists with less visible practices such as fictitious jobs granted by patronage, from positions where hardly any work is done to positions “without presence” that serve to reward loyalty or avoid formal requirements. In that environment, flexibility and frustration coexist: an office may close during a long break, but also show leniency in the face of formal delays. And when the political leadership hardens the toneas happened with the anti-corruption campaign started in 2013 or with extraordinary demands such as imposed on teachers to register vaccinations in 2022, the intensity increases and many of the amenities temporarily disappear. Mandatory socialization and discipline. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that official work life includes banquets, toast and collective meetings that reinforce hierarchies and informal networks, rituals that can become a burden rather than a privilege and that were briefly contents by disciplinary campaigns before eventually returning. That sway between everyday laxity and political pressure explains why 323 makes sense within the system: it does not respond to an ethic of leisure, but to an administration that alternates phases of low demand with bursts of mobilization. Put clearly: in front of the story simplistic 996reality is more contradictory and less hyperbolic, a fragmented work culture where the working day depends as much on the sector and the political climate as on individual will. Image | International Labor Organization ILO In Xataka | China promised them very happy with day 996. Until they realized that it was a shot in the foot In Xataka | China became famous for its eternal work hours. The solution has been to throw the employees out on time.

monitor disasters in real time

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There are natural disasters such as strong storms that cause floods, maritime storms or uncontrolled fires in which observing the evolution is providential both when it comes to sizing the mishap and to draw up a strategy for solutions on the ground. In this scenario, satellites are real lifesavers. So Spain and Portugal are going to launch a “atlantic constellation” of satellites that observe the Iberian Peninsula from space to protect it. The context. It is not difficult to find catastrophes that have hit the peninsula in recent years, as an example is the train of storms with which we began 2026 and whose effect can be seen from space or the DANA that destroyed Valencia. Currently, the reference satellites for forest management, fires and emergencies in Europe are ESA’s Copernicus / Sentinel, which generate images of the Iberian Peninsula every two or three days. What is the Atlantic Constellation. It is a set of 16 small satellites, eight launched by each country, which will orbit less than 700 kilometers from Earth, coordinating to generate images of the territory every two or three hours. It is a complement and not a replacement for the European Copernicus Sentinel. Why is it important. The implementation of the Atlantic Constellation brings an obvious improvement when it comes to evaluating progress and planning solutions to disasters: going from having information every 2 – 3 days to doing it every 2 – 3 hours, practically in real time for this type of disasters. On the other hand and as explained for El Periódico Nicolás Martín, director of Users, Services and Applications of the Spanish Space Agency, this is a project “very relevant for the Spanish aerospace sector and for our strategic autonomy.” And although its main mission is emergencies and natural disasters, it also has applications for other sectors and entities, such as agriculture. How are they going to do it? Spain has awarded their part to the Catalan Open Cosmos through a contest. The company will be in charge of designing and manufacturing the state’s eight satellites, while the ICE-CSIC will develop one of the four payloads of each satellite and the geophysical data extraction algorithms. On the Portugal side, it will be GeoSat who leads the project. The ESA will be the one who supervises everything. On each satellite there will be four instruments: high-resolution multispectral optical cameras to analyze vegetation and terrain, GNSS reflectometry sensors to measure soil moisture or sea state, IoT connectivity and a system to identify and track vessels. The roadmap. The first demonstration satellite will be called Pathfinder and according to the project schedule, it will be ready by the end of this year. It will be launched in the first half of 2027, thus serving to validate the integrated technologies before manufacturing the rest of the units. However, the full deployment of the entire satellite fleet will take place in the following years. In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons Cover | Photo of SpaceX

what do you need to achieve sovereignty

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The policy of vetoes, tariffs and sanctions applied by the United States to China regarding chips It has been a real catalyst for the Asian giant, which is transforming its semiconductor industry in record time with one goal: achieving technological sovereignty. And with China there is a shocking paradox: despite being the largest producer in terms of number of chips manufactured with 484,000 million units in 2024, it continues to depend technologically on the outside for the most strategic ones. The context. Semiconductors need no introduction: they are essential for most industrial activities, including some as strategic as AI. Any country that wants to compete in technological leadership and national security knows that it must have sufficient and sufficiently advanced chips to develop all these areas. The United States has designed export controls precisely to maintain that advantage, subjecting other countries to dependence and also so that China does not catch up. But with China it has had the opposite effect: it is no longer just that it has created a solid and growing national fabric, it is that with DeepSeek it has shown that it is capable of innovating even with hardware inferior to the competition. Because It’s important. Beyond a history of brilliant industrialization, the relevance lies in what it would mean if China achieved technological sovereignty in chips: the balance of power in the global supply chain would change, both at the state and business levels. Today it depends on players like TSMC, Samsung, SK Hynix and ASML, but sooner or later they will lose their strategic advantage against Chinese competitors. And not only that: they will also lose the China market. Some astronomical figures. What China is doing with its industry is technologically brutal and best of all, it is doing it against the clock: The milestones that have been achieved. In addition to confirming how the industry is evolving quantitatively, there are also qualitative advances resulting from strong state investment, its great internal demand and external geopolitical pressure: They are moving away from depending on a single foreign supplier to build their own ecosystem, with Huawei in processors, Biren and Moore Threads in AI chips. Moore Threads, the “Chinese NVIDIA”, presented its Huashan AI chip at the end of 2024. According to the firmhas superior performance to NVIDIA’s Hopper architecture and is close to the Blackwell family. Changxin Memory Technology (CXMT) presented in November 2024 its advanced DDR5 DRAM memory, with speeds of up to 8,000 megabits per second and capacity of up to 24 gigabits per die, placing it on par with Samsung, SK Hynix or Micron. Yes, but. All of the above is not enough: China still has bottlenecks and pending issues: Without a lithography machine to have your own EUVthere is no capacity to produce chips below seven nanometers in an efficient and scalable way. ASML remains irreplaceable in the short term. The Chinese EUV prototype is in the oven in a high-security laboratory in Shenzhen. It has been developed by a team of former engineers from the Dutch semiconductor company using reverse engineering. We will have to wait until 2028 (in the most optimistic scenario) to see it. While CXMT is going to start mass production of HBM3 high bandwidth memory this year, SK Hynix is ​​already going for the next generationHBM4. China is running, but its rivals are not standing still either. Not only machines are needed, but an entire ecosystem: chip design software, specialized materials, ultra-precision optics and engineering talent. Closing that gap is more difficult and slower than setting up a factory. What’s coming now?. China does not step on the brakes: its 15th Five Year Plan for the period 2026-2030 explicitly calls for the adoption of “extraordinary” measures to encourage advances throughout the supply chain, including integrated circuits and high-end equipment, with the aim of achieving “decisive advances.” And it is doing so with an unprecedented economic injection and promoting supplier diversification. In Xataka | Just four years ago, China was a marginal player in the chip industry. It now has three manufacturers in the top 20 In Xataka | The biggest obstacle preventing China from winning the chip race is called ASML. So they’re trying to copy it Cover | YesCarrier and Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra

We had been searching for the genetic inheritance of Chernobyl for almost 40 years. A new study has just found it

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For decades, one of the great unknowns of science after nuclear accidents like Chernobyl has been whether prolonged exposure to radiation leaves a genetic mark that can be passed on to offspring. And although until now I had not found anything relevant, advances in different genomics have begun to shed light on the fact that it is not as harmless as we thought for the different generations that are passing. New evidence. This is precisely what a team from the University of Bonn has pointed out when publishing an article in which they point out that they have found evidence of a “mutational signature” that passes between different generations in the children of men exposed to radiation after the Chernobyl disaster. How it was done. To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed the complete genomes of different groups to search for genetic material. Here, sequencing data from 130 children of Chernobyl liquidators, who received radiation exposure of up to 4080 mGy, were reanalyzed. Additionally, 110 children of former German military radar operators exposed to radiation up to 353 mGy were recruited. In order to compare the data, the control was a group of 1,275 children from families that did not have exposure to ionizing radiation. What was wanted? The easy thing here could be to look for generic mutations that are ‘common’, but the team focused on the mutations de novo grouped. These are nothing more than multiple new mutations in a very short segment of DNA, specifically within a range of 20 base pairs. The results. What they found here was that the rate of these clustered mutations is significantly higher in children of parents who have been exposed to radiation. Specifically, in the group of people from Chernobyl a rate of 2.65 mutations per offspring was observed and in the group of radar operators (who received less radiation) the average drops to 1.48 grouped mutations. In the control group, that is, those people who had not received any radiation, these mutations were 0.88, which serves as a basis to begin comparing and drawing conclusions. Interpretation. With all this data, the researchers point out that the number of these mutations increased proportionally to the radiation dose to which the father had been exposed. And to know why, we have to look at the reactive oxygen species (ROS) that are generated due to this radiation and that induce breaks in the DNA chain of humans. This is fundamental, because when this damage affects the germ cells in the sperm and the repair mechanisms are activated, different errors occur that accumulate mutations that end up being transmitted to the next generation. Its consequences. The fact of having a mutation in your DNA due to radiation does not mean that you will have offspring with three eyes, and here science indicates that the probability of these alterations triggering a genetic disease in your children is minimal. In fact, science points to a much more everyday risk factor such as the father’s age, since paternal aging naturally adds between 1 and 2 mutations. de novo isolated for each year of age at conception. Images | Jorge Fernandez Salas Dasha Urvachova In Xataka | We have been searching for radioactive “monsters” for decades. What we have found is a rapid evolution

While half the world is worried about aging, one industry is rubbing its hands: the elevator industry

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The world ages. And at a good pace too. If the World Health Organization (WHO) hits the nail on the headin 2050 the percentage of people over 60 years of age will double that of 2015. From representing 12% it will become close to 22%. Beyond the percentages, this aging translates into challenges in economic, health and social matters. Also in juicy business opportunities, like the one that he thinks he has before him the elevator industry. In their case, an older world will be a world with more work. What has happened? That TK Elevator has shaken the elevator sector by openly recognizing that the gradual aging of the planet (very visible already in Europe or countries like Japan either Korea) represents a lucrative business opportunity. The reason is simple: the more elderly, the greater the need for elevators in buildings. Especially since these and their services are also aging. “A growing trend”. If TK’s words have generated so much expectation, it is because it is not just any company. The firm, based in Düsseldorf, is a heavy weight within the sector, where it is responsible for both manufacturing machinery and maintaining it. Their models can be found in emblematic skyscrapers in New York, although the bulk of their business comes from much more modest buildings occupied by homes, offices or shops. His prediction about the future of the sector in an increasingly aging world has not been made anywhere either. has shared it with one of the most influential newspapers in the US, Financial Times. “As the population ages there is a need to install elevators. We see this becoming a growing trend,” recognize the firm’s executive director, Uday Yadavl. The example of Japan. During his interview, Yadaval cited a specific case: Japan, perhaps one of the countries that is most clearly suffering from the winds of demographic winter. Although all your attempts to reactivate its population engine (and there have been many), the birth rate continues at levels historically low while on the streets it is increasingly easier to find elderly people. According to Our World in Datathe country has the highest “old-age dependency ratio” (the ratio between people over 64 and people of working age) in the world: in 2021 it exceeded 50%, which means that there are only two people of working age for every elderly person. And since then demographic indicators have not exactly improved. It is estimated that about 30% of the country’s population is 65 or older, which is equivalent to tens of millions of people. A widespread phenomenon. Japan is not the only nation facing an aging population, a problem with which Europe fights and other countries, such as South Korea either China. In general the WHO has warned that the trend seems to be accelerating globally and remember that in 2020 the number of people aged 60 or over exceeded that of children under five. “In 2030, one in six people in the world will be 60 years old or older,” insists the WHO, recalling that by then the world population over 60 years old will total 1.4 billion people, well above the 1,000 in 2020. Demographics (and more). It’s not just that more and more older people live in cities and need elevators to get to their homes, it’s that the buildings themselves need renovations. At the end of the day, we age… and the blocks in which we reside. Yadav estimates There are about 22 million elevators worldwide, of which a third (30%) are more than two decades old. In practice, this translates into an immense number of facilities that probably need improvements and tune-ups, a demand that, assures the manager from TK Elevator, is already “growing in a meaningful way.” “More than remarkable”. Although his weight in the sector gives him special relevance, Yadav is not the first to have publicly recognized the good forecasts that the elevator industry has. Last summer Roland Berger published a report in which he provided several insights into the global elevator market, valued according to his calculations at 107 billion dollars. After “several ups and downs” in recent years, marked by COVID-19 or the real estate crisis in China, companies now face a “more than notable growth panorama.” A trend that connects the sector with the flourishing silver economythe economy driven precisely by aging. Images | Zhuojun Yu (Unsplash) In Xataka | In Japan there is no doubt that they live worse than 30 years ago. Houses are literally getting smaller.

450 kilometers above Earth

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The idea of ​​​​harvesting solar energy from space may sound like science fiction and, furthermore, it would make all the sense in the world for it to do so: Isaac Asimov already wrote about it in his story “Reason” of 1941. However, the scientific community has been ruminating on it since 1968, when American aerospace engineer Peter Glaser published the first technical article on this concept in Science magazine. Since then, entities such as NASA, the California Institute of Technology or the Japanese Japan Space Systems have explored the possibility. However, Japan is the closest to achieving what no one has yet achieved: generating electricity in space and sending it directly to Earth. Context. To begin with, the cost of launching rockets has become enormously cheaper since the idea began to be glimpsed. On the other hand, we are in the midst of global energy transition from mobile fuels towards renewable sources where there is one that stands out: solar energy. But solar energy requires space to deploy parks with photovoltaic panels, which is why China is choosing to assemble them in the open sea, Germany explores with lakes and Japan… Japan is an island with little space. On the other hand, solar energy has another important limitation: it only works when there is sun. However, in space there are no clouds or night and the sun shines without stopping. Why is it important. Because the business models that J-spacesystems is developing They are designed to generate about one gigawatt of constant power. To better understand the dimensions of that figure, it is the energy necessary to cover 10% of the consumption of a megacity like Tokyo and is also equivalent to the power of a standard nuclear reactor. We are facing a paradigm shift in energy density: a solar plant in space capable of ‘redirecting’ its energy beam towards different receiving antennas according to demand, whether within the country itself or the world. This opens the doors to sending energy to areas in emergency situations or meeting consumption peaks, something that is not possible with the current infrastructure. Japan Space Systems Scheme What is Ohisama. Ohisama is sun in Japanese and it is also the name of a Japanese satellite of 180 kg that has an integrated solar panel approximately the size of a door (70 cm x 2 m) is to orbit at 450 km altitude, where it will be able to generate 720 watts of electricity that it will then convert into microwaves. It will then launch those microwaves up to a 64-meter antenna in Nagano. If the energy arrives, it will be converted into electricity. The ultimate goal: light an LED. Yes, all this to light a light bulb. In reality, the important thing is not so much the power transmitted in the test (which is very small) but rather being able to validate that the transmission works through the ionosphere. It is the test of truth: in 2024 Japan has already tried it successfully from a plane seven kilometers high, but this is already a jump to a real orbit that will allow everything to be scaled (if it goes well). When and where. From now on, literally: The window for the third attempt began on February 25, with a backup date until March 25. The launch site will be the Kii Spaceport in the city of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, the first private rocket launch site in Japan. What comes next. If the experiment goes well, Japan would go on to implement those commercial models, which consist of 2.5 square kilometer solar panel arrays in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km with 4 km diameter receiving antennas on the ground. The estimated date for its commercialization is from 2040 and in addition to supply on land, Japan has in mind to use the system for energy supply in lunar exploration missions. Why is it so difficult. The first immediate risk inherent to the project is Kairos 5 of Space Onethe private Japanese company in charge of putting Ohisama into orbit: the two previous launches failed. Third time lucky? The possibility of another company from outside doing it is not an option (at the moment). As explains Yanagawa of J-spacesystems: “Although overseas rockets were an option, we selected Kairos following the national policy of supporting Japan’s private sector launch capabilities.” But even if the launch were successful, the big problem will be microwave diffraction: transmission over thousands of kilometers risks scattering, requiring huge transmitting antennas and very precise phase control. Japan has been working to solve this bottleneck for decades. In Xataka | Japan has just made a monumental bet on perovskite solar panels: they are its best chance against China Cover | Hunini CC BY-SA 4.0 and Nuno Marques

We believed that Generation Z was returning en masse to the Church. An error in a survey is to blame for the mirage

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Stadiums vibrating with thousands of twenty-somethings raising their arms, eyes closed, singing to god. International pop stars posing in nun’s habits on the covers of their most anticipated albums. And, as a backdrop, an incessant barrage of headlines announcing the unthinkable: the massive return of the youth to the church pews. Over the past few months, the world seemed to witness a fascinating twist in the script. Generation Z, the most secular and secularized demographic cohort in history, was re-embracing Christianity. However, when you scratch the surface of this apparent spiritual awakening, what emerges is not a collective epiphany, but a trap. A gigantic demoscopic mirage. What they sold us as the great rebirth of faith is, in reality, a monumental miscalculation where the armies of artificial intelligence, the mischief of paid online surveys and the desire to believe in a revival have completely distorted the true—and much more complex—religious transformation of young people. We believed that faith was returning to the streets, but the fault was in the method. The spark that ignited the narrative of the great Christian revival jumped in the United Kingdom with the publication of the report The Quiet Revivalcommissioned by the Bible Society. Based on survey data YouGov, The study showed a spectacular figure: monthly church attendance among English and Welsh young people aged 18 to 24 had quadrupled, going from a marginal 4% in 2018 to a resounding 16% in 2024. The news spread like wildfire. Entire dioceses held conferences to “turn up the volume” on this revival, and politicians in the British Parliament used the report as proof that “Christianity is neither oppressed nor decayed,” as reported by BBC. However, demographic experts were quick to raise alarm bells. Surveys considered the “gold standard” of sociology for using random probability samples—such as the British Social Attitudes wave Labor Force Survey— showed a diametrically opposite film. According to these rigorous metersthe percentage of practicing Christians between 18 and 34 years old had not only not risen, but had fallen from 8% in 2018 to 6% in 2024. The danger of surveys opt-in If young people are not filling the churches, where do the miracle figures come from? The answer lies in the architecture of the internet itself. The report of the Bible Society was based on surveys opt-inthat is, panels where users voluntarily register in exchange for financial rewards or points. Demographer Conrad Hackett warns that this format suffers an “existential threat.” Those who respond to these surveys usually seek to maximize your profits filling out questionnaires at full speed, lying about their age to access more surveys, or using Virtual Private Networks (VPN) from other countries to get paid in hard currency. Worse still, Artificial Intelligence has come into play. The researchers have detected armies of chatbots programmed to imitate humans and fill out surveys en masse. The fake young people in these polls are so unreliable that, in similar studies carried out in the USA12% of those surveyed opt-in under 30 years old even stated that he had a license to pilot a nuclear submarine. The “great awakening” was largely an algorithmic hallucination. The situation in our land In Spain, the optical illusion is similar. Phenomena like Hakuna Group Music They managed to bring together 12,000 young people at the Vistalegre Palace, while events such as Calls They gathered 6,000 people at the Movistar Arena. Both are betting on Contemporary Worship Music (CWM), an evangelization format of Protestant and evangelical heritage, full of giant screens, pop-rock and raw emotions. But the noise of the stadiums clashes head-on with the silence of the parishes. The comparison of the official reports of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) is devastating. If we analyze the transition from the previous exercises to the most recent data, the fall of the sacraments is an undeniable constant: Baptisms: They fell from 152,426 registered in 2023 at 146,370 in 2024which represents a year-on-year decrease of 3.97%. The magnitude of the collapse is better understood if we look in the rearview mirror: in 2007the Church celebrated no less than 325,271 baptisms annually. Communions and weddings: Inertia drags the rest of the life cycle. First communions fell by almost 5% (standing at 154,677), and Catholic marriages fell by 6%, remaining at a reduced 31,462 ecclesiastical unions. Institutional collapse has other profound social consequences. Given the collapse of baptismal prayers, more than 150 Spanish town councils now offer “civil baptisms” or lay welcome ceremonies to celebrate the arrival of newborns. At the same time, the bleeding of vocations has left Spain with only 15,285 priests, whose average age is around a worrying 65 years. The problem It’s so pressing that has forced bishoprics like that of Tui-Vigo to make lay women official to lead “Celebrations of the Word” in the villages in the face of the total lack of priests. The only discordant note—the small statistical lifeline to which the Church clings—is the baptism of children over 7 years of age. This figure experienced a reboundrising from 11,835 in 2023 to 13,323 in 2024. A figure that suggests a paradigm shift in Spanish Catholicism: conversions that are much more thoughtful, personal and less conditioned by “cultural” inertia. The great gap between Spirituality and Religion To understand Generation Z in Spain, two concepts must be drastically separated: the Catholic institution and the search for the transcendent. Here comes into play what my partner in Xataka defined as: “The 29-59% paradox.” According to the Barometer on Religion and Beliefs in Spain (BREC) of 202561% of young people between 18 and 24 years old declare themselves indifferent, agnostic or atheist. Only 29% define themselves as Catholic, a figure much lower than the 46% national average. However, just because they don’t set foot in a church doesn’t mean they are pure materialists. That same report reveals that 59% of young people firmly believe in the existence of the soul and 45% in “energies.” As the sociologist Mar Griera explainswe are not facing a return to dogma, … Read more

underwater drone swarms are ready

by

During the Cold War, hundreds of nuclear submarines simultaneously patrolled the oceans, turning the seabed into the quietest and most strategic setting on the planet. Today, unlike air or land space, the underwater domain remains one of the least mapped and harder to monitor: Communications travel slower, signals are distorted and visibility is practically zero. In that opaque territory is getting rid a new career strategic. The Russian submarine challenge. They remembered this week on Insider that, while the war in Ukraine hits Russian soldiers and material at a pace that is difficult to sustain, Moscow seeks to compensate for its conventional inferiority compared to the 32 members of NATO by strengthening asymmetric capabilities. With a fleet of more than 60 submarinesseveral capable of carrying ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, and the development of experimental systems such as the Poseidon autonomous torpedo or the missile Burevestnik nuclear cruiserRussia is committed to mastering the underwater domain as a space where it can hide and strike without needing to match the allied surface power. For controls as Norwegian Vice Admiral Rune Andersenthe bottom of the sea is the last place where a great power can still hide, and that is why NATO has redoubled its attention to that invisible area. The European essay. In this context, the European Defense Agency has completed the Sabuvis II project after four years of joint work between Poland, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia. The objective was not to develop a simple underwater drone, but everything a coordinated swarm of autonomous vehicles capable of operating as a coherent system, sharing data, adjusting formations and adapting missions in real time in an environment where there is no GPS, limited bandwidth and high latency. Tests in real settings showed that these groups can keep self-configurable acoustic communications, integrate platforms from different manufacturers using common standards and continue the mission even if a unit fails, transforming individual vulnerability into collective resilience. A special command against asymmetry. If you will, Europe has also successfully tested a kind of special command against the greatest challenge that Russia presents. Faced with Moscow’s fleet that relies on the opacity of the ocean and second response weapons of almost unlimited range, the swarm logic introduces a new layer of surveillance and control in the marine subsoil. Furthermore, it is not a single hunter submarine, but rather multiple distributed nodes capable of monitoring critical infrastructures, ports and strategic routes, carrying out intelligence and reconnaissance, and reacting in a coordinated manner to threats. Interoperability between countries and manufacturers also demonstrates that the European response is not fragmented, but integrateda key requirement in a theater where early detection can make all the difference. From the invisible submarine to the monitored ocean. One thing is clear: Russia may not match Allied conventional strength, but its commitment to submarine and nuclear asymmetry forces NATO to strengthen control of the underwater domain. With 14 allied countries operating their own submarines and growing investment in anti-submarine warfare, the objective is to prevent May the sea once again be an impenetrable sanctuary. Those autonomous swarms They add a technological dimension that, a priori, multiplies the presence without increasing crew costs or exposing manned platforms. In a scenario where Moscow trusts hide underwater to compensate for its wear and tear on land, Europe responds by filling that space cooperative sensors capable of bridging the gap between invisibility and detection. Image | Royal Navy In Xataka | Europe faces a question it can no longer avoid: how to respond to a war that is rarely declared In Xataka | In the midst of rearmament, Spain has just surprised Europe: 5,000 million for 34 warships and four submarines

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