Mobile Tech & Gadgets

After gasoline, the war in Iran is about to skyrocket the price of something just as painful: your Zara clothes

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During the oil crisis In 1973, several industries that seemed completely unrelated to energy, such as plastics or fertilizers, suddenly discovered that Your costs could skyrocket in a matter of weeks for decisions made thousands of miles away, altering prices and supply chains in sectors where no one looked at the barrel of crude oil. From oil to the closet. I counted the weekend Reuters that the rise in energy prices after the war in Iran is beginning to filter down a lot beyond gasoline or transportation, reaching a less obvious field: the clothes that reach the stores. The link is direct, because a good part of the textile industry depends on petroleum derivatives, and any tension in that market is quickly transmitted to the materials that support global garment production. The key piece. Polyester dominates the global textile industry with a massive presence in almost all types of clothing, from sportswear to everyday dresses. The problem is that its manufacture depends of compounds such as PTA and MEGwhose cost has skyrocketedabout 30% due to the rise in crude oil, the increase in from Asian suppliers and disruptions in the Middle East. This pressure turns the polyester into the entry point of the energy crisis in fashion, transferring the impact from the energy markets to the fabric of the industry itself. The chain that begins to break. Reuters remembered that the blow is being felt with special intensity in India and Bangladeshtwo pillars of global clothing production. Factories that were previously operating at full capacity have drastically reduced their activity, with looms stopped, production cut by less than half and difficulties in fulfilling international orders. Added to this is the labor shortage in some textile centers, caused by basic energy problems such as the lack of gas, which adds another layer of tension to a system already on the limit. Gain time without escape. Big names emerge here, where companies like Inditex or H&M They are not yet immediately transferring the impact to the consumer thanks to advance purchases and inventory planning, which has allowed them to mitigate and cushion the blow in the short term. Even so, suppliers already they are announcing increases of prices and the absorption margin has a very clear limit. Plus: The use of recycled polyester offers some relief, although its weight remains low within the overall total, limiting its ability to offset current pressure. Costs rise, demand trembles. Thus, the price increase starts to move to threads, dyes, transportation and essential components, generating a chain effect that can end up affecting the volume of orders. For their part, manufacturers warn that, if the situation continues, production will fall and consumers will reduce purchases due to higher prices. The phenomenon, known as demand destructionintroduces an added risk: a simultaneous drop in supply and consumption that affects the entire industry. It’s not just the Zara shirt, but also the shoes. Yes, because the impact of oil aims to spread as well to the footwear sectorwhere derived materials such as foams, adhesives or synthetic soles also depend on petrochemical products. In other words, this means that the pressure on costs will not be limited to t-shirts or pants, but will reach a wide range of products, complicating the price planning and market stability. The crisis where no one was looking. In short, what began as a rise in energy prices It is becoming a structural problem for the fashion industry. In essence, the dependence on oil for key materials turns any conflict into a direct variable. about the final price of the garments. And as pressure builds up in the supply chain, the impact is no longer invisible or minimal, but is slowly but inexorably approaching. consumer pocketsignaling a profound change in how geopolitics can end up being reflected in something as everyday as the shirt that until now you bought for 20 euros. Image | POT, Leitonmahillo In Xataka | If the war resumes again, the US runs a risk unprecedented in the history of war: that the only one with missiles will be Iran. In Xataka | If the question is why the US attacked an Iranian ship with a weapon unprecedented in 40 years, we already know the answer: a “gift from China”

Chile has one of the most valuable skies on Earth. Renewables are putting it on the ropes

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Chile has a diamond of 105,000 km². The Atacama Desert is one of the most important in the world due to its extreme aridity. That is why it is key to study the adaptability of fauna and flora to very harsh conditions of drought and salinity, but it is also a gem for space observation and renewable energies. But there are mixtures that do not work, and Atacama is the example of how one of the best natural laboratories for the energy transition and one of the best places to look at the universe They don’t combine well. Spoiler: the astronomers have won. For now. The Atacama battery. It is not the first time that two disciplines collide in the Atacama Desert. Due to its conditions, this desert has become in the country’s renewable battery. Not only solar energy projects are triumphing, but also wind turbine parks. And as important as this: one of its salt flats hides one of the most important lithium reserves in the world. This is vital to build batteries for the energy transition of cars, for example, but the price is being too high: we are destroying biodiversity. In parallel to this battle, another has been fought: that of a huge renewable energy project to create green hydrogen that came into conflict with one of the most important observatories in the world: the Paranal Observatory of the European Astral Observatory. The threat of INNA. The American AES Corporation, together with the Chilean subsidiary AES Andes, was preparing the construction of a photovoltaic park of more than 3,000 hectares, wind turbines and refining facilities to produce green hydrogen and ammonia. He green hydrogen It is one of the pending energy accounts and it is positive, but there was a problem: it would be only 10 kilometers from the observatory. Astronomers shouted in the sky pointing that the microvibrations of the installation, the dust and, above all, the light pollution would disturb the daily work in facilities that are located in a privileged location, precisely because they are in the middle of nowhere. This facility is of global importance because it houses the Very Large Telescope (one of the most powerful in the world) and will have both the Extremely Large Telescope such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory. The thing about telescope names is one thing. Scientists working at the observatory They agreed to sign an open letter in which they pointed out that the construction of the facilities would seriously endanger the missions that were carried out there, describing the program as “an imminent threat” to humanity’s ability to investigate the cosmos. Victory. After months of fighting, the astronomers won. It was at the beginning of this year when AES Andes advertisement that he would abandon the project, noting that he would focus on other facilities, but mentioning that INNA was “fully compatible with the activities of the region.” It was no longer a fight just for the Paranal Observatory due because there are about 30 astronomical sites in the area, many of them internationaland its importance is what it is because, apart from zero light pollution, it is estimated that there are more than 300 nights each year without rain or clouds that interfere with scientific work. Yes, but. The problem is that one thing is the interests of astronomers and researchers of the universe and another is the priority of energy companies… and even of the country itself. Researchers point out that there is increasing pressure to convert the Atacama Desert into that aforementioned ‘stack’ of Chile, and INNA has not been the only threat that the observatories have experienced. In 1955, a major solar station operated by the Smithsonian Institution of the United States was forced to close due to mining expansion in the area. Unda-Sanzana, director of the Astronomy Center at the University of Antofagasta, points out that “we have had 70 years to learn from history and avoid repeating those same mistakes,” lamenting how close they have come to reliving the situation. And the problem is that things they haven’t changed too much. This victory has been suffered, but astronomers point out that Chilean sky preservation laws remain lax and outdated, so this should be remedied instead of fighting each battle individually. Image | G. Hüdepohl/ESO In Xataka | The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on the planet. And right there a bunch of “crazies” are trying to get water out of the fog.

This is an ordinary Thursday in Shenzhen

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It’s hard to believe that just four decades ago Shenzhen was a fishing villageespecially when you look at its enormous avenues riding in an autonomous taxi. It’s even more incredible when you hear the drone of the drone coming to deliver the bubble tea you just ordered. This, which may sound like a futuristic dystopia, is an ordinary Thursday in the technological capital of China. I was in China for the launch of OPPO Find X9 Ultra and my first stop was Shenzhen. A few months ago I wrote an article about what the Chinese government calls the “low-altitude economy”which encompasses different commercial uses of drones in cities, one of them is food delivery. I knew that this service existed in Shenzhen, so the first thing I did upon arriving was to find out how I could place an order. To top off this technological afternoon, I took the opportunity to try an autonomous taxi. This was my experience. An autonomous taxi ride through Shenzhen Drone delivery is available in various parts of the city in a type of kiosk or ‘locker’, so the first thing I had to do was go to one of these points. And what better than to do it in an autonomous taxi. Robotaxis operating in the city of Shenzhen They are from the company Pony.ai and they offer level 4 autonomous driving, that is, they work completely without a driver. The first obstacle I encountered was that I needed a Chinese phone number To be able to request it, thank goodness a person from the travel agency had the PonyPilot+ app and offered to help me. The robotaxi took just five minutes to arrive and had a 30-minute journey ahead of it. So that no one interferes with driving, the driver’s seat is protected by a transparent screen. Of course, the screens cannot be missing, one on the front and one on the back, nor the cameras inside. With the doors closed and the seat belt fastened, I pressed ‘start ride’ and the journey began. I had never been in a self-driving car, so I didn’t know if I would feel uncomfortable or strange. The driving is very smooth, precise and feels completely integrated into the dense traffic of Shenzhen, So shortly after starting the trip any doubts I might have dissipated. The main difference with a human taxi driver, in addition to that precise driving, is speed. Without being excessively slow, the robotaxi moves at a safe speedscrupulously respecting the speed limit and safety distance. The other difference is that if a car suddenly cuts you off (which happened), you don’t hear a horn or an insult towards the offender. He simply slows down, lets him pass, and goes about his business. If we don’t touch anything, we see the detection of the environment on the screen while the car is driving. From here we can also see the general view of the journey and control various aspects of the vehicle, such as the air conditioning, music or even move the passenger seat if we want to go wider. When I arrived at the destination, the car looked for a space in which to stop and a warning appeared on the screen indicating to go down on the right. In addition, there is a button that allows you to move the position of the car if for example has left us next to a puddle and we don’t want to get wet. It usually rains in Shenzhen and in fact it rained that day, so it is an interesting detail. The flying bubble tea As I said, my destination was one of the drone delivery kiosks from Meituan, the most popular delivery app in China. Since it was raining I had doubts about whether the service would be operational, but as soon as I got off the robotaxi I saw a drone flying over the park carrying a yellow box. From what I was told, rain is not a problem, but wind does usually cause service interruptions. Next to the delivery kiosk we had a sign with the QR to place the order and the restaurants associated with this service (because no, you can’t order just anything). A Chinese phone number was also needed here, so I needed help like with the taxi. In this case we manage everything through WeChat, so I didn’t see how he placed the order, but I can tell you that From Meituan you can order literally everythingfrom food to making an appointment with the dentist. The first thing that caught my attention was that there was a queue. I had about five people in front of me waiting for their orders and they all looked like they were curious people who, like me, wanted to put this drone delivery thing to the test. Delivery is made with millimeter precision and there was not a single incident in the orders that arrived. The drone arrives and is positioned just above the kiosk, which opens the top to receive the package, and descends in a perfect straight line to deposit it inside. After a few seconds, the screen asks us for a four-digit pin and the door opens so we can collect our order. All orders arrive in the same packaging; a square yellow and white box made of hard plastic and whose closure is velcro. Once we have removed the order from inside, we must dismantle the box and flatten it to be able to place it in the container next to the kiosk. Orders take 25 minutes to arrive at that location, so between one thing and another, I had a good time there. There were only five people in front of me and it was a rainy day, but they told me that on days with better weather the lines are much longer and, although the time starts counting from the moment you place the order, there was a moment when two deliveries came together … Read more

Now you have an omnipotent model that reads, sees and listens. Everything at once

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Eight years ago, when Nvidia was still a company that made graphics for video games, the company pointed out to something that is starting to enter the conversation: physical robotics. They are the robots with artificial intelligence integrated to behave autonomously. Like a ChatGPT with arms, ears and eyes. It has rained a lot since then and It’s now when we’re starting to enter that future. However, Nvidia has continued to experiment with that way of making the physical and digital worlds converge, and its latest product is the Nemotron 3 Nano Omni. An AI model that sees, hears and reads the physical world. Omni Models. These models are multimodalbut in a much stricter sense. While the models we use every day require separate channels to process and generate audio, text, image and video, an omni model is designed to be inherently multimodal. This implies that they use a unique neural network architecture trained end-to-end so that the interaction between models and stimuli is more natural, faster and capable of recognizing more nuances. An example is an AI that can “see” what a camera captures, analyze the entire situation and give feedback to the user more quickly than one that can do the same, but whose text model has to ask the video model what it has seen and then generate the content. In even fewer words: it better imitates the way humans perceive and respond to the stimuli of the world. Integration. And that’s what Nvidia affirms What Nemotron 3 Nano Omni can do. In the same architecture, it is a model that integrates vision, audio and language capabilities to eliminate the fragmented workflow of current AI agents. According to the company, it is built on a hybrid architecture of mixing experts (AIs trained in various subjects) with 30 billion parameters, of which 3 billion are for inference. It has been designed as a model that is nine times faster than separate models and has three times the performance of other open omni models, consuming 2.75 times less computing power in tasks such as reasoning from a video. Okay, but why?. That is the key question, beyond the numbers and the raw capabilities of this technology. The use cases detailed by the company are the following: Agents: power those agents that navigate graphical user interfaces, reasoning based on the content on the screen and understanding what they are seeing in real time and persistently. The native input resolution is 1920 x 1080 for that HD visual understanding. Documents– Interprets graphs, tables, documents, screenshots, and mixed media inputs. Comprehension audio and video: is able to understand what he sees and hears to maintain consistency in his interpretation instead of reasoning based on disconnected models. For professionals. What is clear is that Nemotron 3 Nano Omni is not something that is launched with the goal of being something for the masses like other AI models that we see every day. Nvidia focuses it on something business, a tool that can be accessed through platforms like Hugging Face and to be deployed on local systems such as DGX Spack or Jetson. That is, it is not something available to everyone. The interesting thing is that it is a technology that is strongly pushing the narrative of agents as omnipotent entities, and it fits with the speech latest from Jensen Huang, CEO of the company, that AI will not come to take away our jobs, but to ‘micromanage’ us. Image | Nvidia In Xataka | There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk

California wants to preserve mountain lion DNA, so it spent $100 million on a highway bridge

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While for humanity roads are essential means of communication, for animals it is the opposite: a barrier that can be lethal. In fact, every year millions of animals die trying to cross roads that cut their habitats in half: we see the same thing in Iran with the Asiatic cheetah that in the India, where elephants are run over (although yes, with trains) is one of the big problems of its railway system. One of the solutions proposed by conservation biology are wildlife steps: an infrastructure, whether a bridge, tunnel or walkway, that allows animals to move safely through their domain by crossing roads or railway tracks. California just took this idea to another level with the largest structure of its kind ever built. The megastep for California pumas. It is about the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossinga colossal plant bridge about 64 meters wide that crosses the US-101 highway as it passes through Agoura Hills, in Los Angeles. The structure has more than 11.8 million kilos of concrete, 82 bridge beams and more than 6,000 cubic meters of living soil to house more than 50 species of plants native to the region. The idea is to faithfully recreate the coastal sage scrub or coastal sage scrub, aromatic shrubs that are abundant in the area, but on one of the busiest highways. The project is a public-private collaboration that started formally on Earth Day 2022 and has cost $114 million. Its inauguration is scheduled for autumn of this year, thus becoming the largest wildlife crossing in the world. California Government Why is it important. The United States National Park Service has spent decades documenting that mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains are genetically isolated by roads and urbanization. And an isolated population is doomed: it does not have genetic exchange with other groups, there is endogamy, genetic variability is lost and the species loses its capacity to adapt. That is to say, the passage of US-101 not only kills animals by being run over, but it is also an evolutionary trap. That said, the bridge is not an infrastructure that will benefit exclusively the puma: it is also designed for red lynxes, foxes, coyotes, reptiles and a long chain of species whose mobility is essential for the ecosystem. Finally, the structure is framed within the California 30×30 objectivewhich aims to conserve 30% of the state’s coastal lands and waters before 2030, in this case connecting the protected spaces of the Santa Monica Mountains with the environment. Context. Wildlife passages are not something new: the first were built in the 50s of the 20th century, in France. In fact, Europe has been developing this technology for more than 70 years and has a long list of structures of this type. What is unique about this project is not so much the structure itself, but its scale and location: it is in a huge city and crosses a 10-lane highway where More than 300,000 vehicles pass through each daynot on a secondary road in deep America. However, there are already promising precedents such as the recently inaugurated Colorado’s Greenland Wildlife Overpass on I-25, connecting approximately 15,800 hectares (39,000 acres) of habitat for deer, elk, mountain lions and bears. Scientific literature also supports the bet: after analyzing 89 fauna passages in Europe, North America and Australia, this study published in Biological Conservation concluded that they are highly effective and that they reduce animal mortality due to roadkill by up to 90% compared to unprotected stretches. Other wildlife passes. Although the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing will be the largest in the world, there are other wildlife crossings (mainly in Europe) equally ambitious: Natuurbrug Zanderij Crailooin the Netherlands. At 800 meters long and 50 meters wide, it is the longest ecoduct in the world. Doñana National Park It has a network of wildlife crossings and ecoducts built specifically for the Iberian lynx, whose 80% of deaths occur due to being run over. On the A4 highway in the Lower Silesian Forest in Poland there are 15 ecoducts and wildlife crossings. It has been monitored for three years its use by wolves, ungulates and other carnivores. Veluwe ecoduct network in the Netherlands. Nine ecoducts in a natural area of ​​1,000 square kilometers, with almost 5,000 deer and wild boar crossings documented in a single year. Ecoduct on the Türkiye – Central Europe highway. It was built after multiple attacks by brown bears, achieving reduce collisions to zero. Yes, but. Despite its potential ecological value, the project has faced criticism for its high cost: It started with a budget of 92 million and in addition to being delayed, it will end up costing approximately $114 million. In addition, there are those who wonder whether a single structure is enough to save an entire population, suggesting that it is more necessary to implement smaller-scale but more numerous interventions rather than a single megaproject. From a strictly scientific point of view, the effectiveness of these steps is neither automatic nor guaranteed. A paper published in the Journal of Applied Ecology cautions that most available studies measure the number of crossings but not the actual impact on population viability, and that population-level effects remain difficult to quantify. Furthermore, design matters: those structures less than 20 meters wide are used noticeably less by animals. And if it has a bad location it can end up being useless. We will have to wait years of monitoring the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing to determine its effect. In Xataka | There are only 27 left in the wild and the war in Iran is their sentence: the drama of the rarest and rarest feline on the planet In Xataka | We have a serious problem with the extinction of bees. The United Kingdom wants to solve it with bricks Cover | California Government and Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦

This is how the ‘twin’ car scam works

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The second-hand vehicle market does not stop growing. They don’t do it either the traps that lie in wait. Among all of them, there is one that stands out for its sophistication and the consequences it can have for those who fall for it: the twin car scam. And this fraud is not only limited to making those who fall for it lose money, but it can also leave them without a car, with an active debt and, in some cases, with criminal charges. What exactly is a twin car. With the word “twin” one can imagine what it could be about. Basically it refers to a stolen vehicle which has been assigned the identity of another car completely legal. Criminals locate a vehicle in circulation (of the same model, color and year as the one they have stolen) and copy its chassis number, the VIN. With that information, they create a false license plate, falsify the documentation and put the stolen car up for sale as if it were their legal twin. The result is a vehicle with a new identity that, in the eyes of any bona fide person who is only looking to buy a second-hand car, appears to be in order. In this way, the buyer, unknowingly, acquires a stolen car that has the same number as another one that circulates perfectly on the street. Two cars with the same chassis number. The VIN, which is the 17-digit number that we see under the windshield, stamped on the chassis, or on the driver’s door frame, uniquely identifies each vehicle manufactured in the world. This number contains the manufacturer, the technical specifications, the year of production and is used to track the complete history of the car, from license plates and warranties to theft and claims to insurance companies. As it could not be otherwise, its manipulation is expressly prohibited by law in all countries. In Spain, the Penal Code classifies the falsification of this type of document as a crime with penalties of up to six months in prison. The problem is that when cloning is done well, it is extremely difficult to detect with the naked eye. How it operatesn the scammers. The sale of twin vehicles is usually carried out by organized networks that are responsible for the theft, counterfeiting and sale of the car. First they steal the vehicle, usually without an active alarm or tracker. Then they “cool it” (they hide it for a few days so that it does not appear on radars) while they look for an identical car to copy the VIN from. Then they create false documentation, They advertise at a striking price on online platforms and disappear as soon as they get paid. According to Marco ArbanDirector of Business Development in Europe at CARFAX, “fraud in the used car market is increasingly complex and difficult to detect, often hidden behind seemingly normal behavior.” Cases. The FBI document a case in Tampa, Florida, in which more than 1,000 cloned cars were sold to buyers spread across twenty states and several countries, with estimated losses of more than $27 million among consumers, insurers and other victims. In Argentina, where the figure of the “twin car” has been established for years, the NGOs Defendamos Buenos Aires and Defendamos la República Argentina estimate that there are circulating more than 80,000 vehicles with modified documentation, and that approximately 80% are trucks, SUVs and pick-ups. In Europe, the phenomenon is growing as the second-hand market expands at a rapid pace, favored above all by the increase in the cost of new cars. What can happen to someone who buys one. If authorities discover that the vehicle is stolen, they can confiscate it immediately. The insurer can cancel the policy upon detecting fraud. And the buyer could even inherit outstanding debts associated with the legitimate VIN that was cloned. But there’s more: the buyer could face charges of possession of stolen goods, even if they had no knowledge of the fraud. And the owner of the car with the stolen identity does not come out unscathed either: he may receive traffic fines that do not correspond to him or, in extreme cases, be linked to criminal investigations for activities he has never committed. Many of these vehicles usually start out as scrap or total wrecks, which means that their safety systems (airbags, brakes, steering) may have been modified or assembled incorrectly, also increasing the risk of serious accidents. Warning signs. The good news is that, with a little attention, there are signs that can give away a twin car before it is too late. The first thing to do is check the VIN in all the points where it appears on the vehicle: on the dashboard next to the windshield, on the driver’s door frame, in the engine compartment and on the documentation. If there are numbers with different fonts, new rivets, sanding marks, recent welds or repainted areas around the engraving, there may be tampering. It is also a good idea to look at the price: if it is well below the market, if the seller is in a hurry to close without a contract, it is better to walk away. What to do before closing any purchase. The most effective tool available to anyone in Spain is the DGT report. The General Directorate of Traffic offers several types of report on any vehicle registered in Spain: from a free one with basic data to a complete one, for about 9 euros, which includes the ITV history, the recorded mileage, the number of previous owners, possible charges or seizures and the legal status of the vehicle. If the VIN that appears in that report does not exactly match the one that appears on the car, there is a serious problem. For vehicles with international history, services such as CARFAX or carVertical expand the query to databases from dozens of countries. And if you have a trusted mechanic on hand who can take … Read more

As children we were taught that Jupiter revolved around the Sun. Technically we were deceived

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If you are over 30 years old, you probably learned in school that there are nine planets that revolve around the Sun. Then you found out that there were eight, because suddenly Pluto lost its planet category and became a dwarf planet. As if all that were not enough, now I am here to tell you that Jupiter does not revolve around the Sun. Sometimes not even the Earth does. We have been deceived or, rather, we have been told everything quite simplified. It is not the center, but the barycenter. There is a lot of talk about the gravitational attraction that large objects exert on smaller ones. The Sun on the Earth, the Earth on the Moon, the Earth on the people who walk on it… However, smaller objects also exert a certain gravitational pull on larger ones. It is tiny, sometimes imperceptible, but it is there. Therefore, although it is the Sun that dominates the planets of the Solar Systemeach one of them also pulls a little bit of it. This means that the center around which they all rotate is not in the center of the Sun, but at a point slightly separated from it, known as the barycenter. To understand it better. All objects have a center of mass. Broadly speaking, it is the point where we assume that all its mass is concentrated. It does not mean that all the mass is there, but for practical purposes, when doing calculations, it is considered that that is where it is concentrated. Because of how external forces interact with the object, it is right at the center of mass where it is best kept in balance. For example, with an elongated object of homogeneous mass, such as a ruler, the center of mass will be its actual center. If we try to hold the ruler on a finger, the easiest thing to do is to place the finger right under its center. There it stays better in balance. On the other hand, in a hammer, where the heaviest thing is its end, its center of mass is there. In the case of the Solar System, the barycenter is the point where the mass of the system is concentrated. Logically, it is very close to the Sun, since 99.86% of the mass of the system corresponds only to the king star. However, there is influence from other masses, so it is a little far from the solar center. The case of Jupiter. If the Sun is 99.86% of the masses of the Solar System, Jupiter accounts for 70% of the remaining mass. Therefore, individually it is the one that deviates the center of gravity the most. This means that the barycenter around which both Jupiter and the Sun itself move is outside the solar surface. Jupiter does not revolve around the Sun, but around a point that does not even cross the sun. The case of the Earth and the Moon. In the case of the Earth and the Moon there is also a barycenter. The Earth is much larger than the Moon, but the Moon also has mass and exerts some power over it. For this reason, the barycenter is not right at the center of the Earth, but 5,000 kilometers from it. It is still within our planet, but not as centered as we usually think. Jupiter and the Sun are a more extreme case, which is why the center of gravity is completely outside the Sun. The Earth does revolve around the Sun…sometimes. The Earth is much smaller than the Sun. If they were alone in the Solar System, the center of gravity would be practically in the center of the Sun. But of course, they are not alone. All planets act on the point where that center of mass is located. And the thing is, it’s a center of mass that moves as these planets move. Something similar happens to what happens when all the sailors on a ship move around the deck. The ship’s center of mass can change. In the case of the Solar Systemthe most influential sailors are the gas giants. That is, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. When these align, they pull the center of gravity outward and the Earth does not rotate around the Sun. In short, no, the planets do not rotate exactly around the Sun. But we are not going to get fancy explaining it at school either. Don’t feel like you’ve been fooled, they’ve just simplified it for you. Image | NASA | Martin Jediny (Wikimedia Commons) In Xataka | A planet has just disappeared: NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a violent cosmic event that changes everything

Real Madrid, Premier League and the final of the Mutua Madrid Open. Everything in Movistar Plus+

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We have just started May, a month in which many sports competitions are decided. There we can include LaLiga, the Premier League or the Euroleague basketballjust to cite a few examples. If you like all this, you have a lot to see in Movistar Plus+: a platform that you can subscribe to regardless of which operator you are and what it costs 9.99 euros per month. Monthly subscription to Movistar Plus+ The price could vary. We earn commission from these links The last Clásico of the season can be seen on Movistar Plus+ Have you ever thought about trying this streaming platform? Any time is good, but if you like sports in general (and football in particular), now is a good time. Also, since it has no permanence, you can try it for a month and, if it doesn’t convince you, unsubscribe whenever you want. That’s also what your ‘Free Plan‘, although this is more limited in content. Now let’s go to the sports agenda (about premieres, we’ll talk a little further down). This weekend there are quite interesting things, especially on sunday: Espanyol-Real Madrid, Manchester United-Liverpool and the men’s final of the Mutua Madrid Open tennis. If that’s not enough, next week things are going to be intense with Bayern Munich-PSG and the Clásico. And movies? We have a huge catalog on the platform with several Oscar winners, such as ‘Sentimental Value‘ either ‘Weapons. Others will also arrive like ‘Gladiator 2‘ in the coming days, although we cannot lose sight of the Movistar Plus+ series. There are own productions on the platform that are very worthwhilelike the recently released ‘Yo siempre sometimes’ or others that have been around for longer but are hilarious, like ‘Poquita fe’. If you are planning to take a getaway these days, Movistar Plus+ could be very good for you. You can download whatever you want from the platform to watch it on the plane or train. In addition, it supports two simultaneous playbacks, so you can watch what you want wherever you are while someone at home continues enjoying the platform. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Movistar Plus+ In Xataka | Movistar Plus+ for non-Movistar customers: what it is, how much it costs, channels, additional services and how to contract it In Xataka | Movistar Plus+ activates its Free Plan with complete programs and a lot of content, regardless of which operator you are

The science behind the “sixth vital sign”

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If we observe the traffic on a street, it is easy to see that each person has a speed when walking very different. This is something that may seem like a fact without much relevance, except that going slower can annoy someone who is behind or cause them to let’s lose less fat. But the reality is that science found a correlation between walking speed in middle age and the state of the brain. It has been investigated. Here is a great study published in JAMA in 2019 changed our perspective on how and when we begin to age neurologically. To look for this relationship, the researchers focused on New Zealand, where the development of 904 participants from his childhood until reaching the age of 45. Just when they reached middle age, the researchers measured the subjects’ walking speed at a normal pace, performing a simultaneous cognitive task and maximum speed. And from here all that was left was to cross-check the information. The results. Here it could be seen that the participants who walked slower at age 45 presented accelerated biological aging, evidencing deterioration in multiple organic systems. In addition, these slower walkers also showed worse brain integrity, causing them to have a smaller volume, as if they had aged much earlier. The link with childhood. Surprisingly, neurocognitive dysfunction detected when participants were just 3 years old already predicted slower walking speed in their midlife. In fact, a difference of between 12 and 16 points of IQ between the group of the slowest walkers and that of the fastest. A deterioration sensor. All of this strongly supports the idea of ​​the brain-body nexus, since the relationship between worse cognitive function in childhood and a slow gait at age 45 suggests that the brain acts as an early “sensor” organ for systemic decline driven by genetics, aging, and environmental factors. In this way, walking speed in middle age is no longer seen only as a symptom of old age frailty, but as a true “summary index” of cumulative aging and brain health over a lifetime. It has implications for the future. The preventive potential here is incredible, since an extraordinarily simple evaluation such as timing how long it takes a patient to walk 4 to 6 meters could become a standard tool in medical consultations to assess the patient’s cognitive status. Something that can also be standardized with the use of smartwatches, which today make very precise measurements of the movement we do daily. This would allow specialists to identify people at risk of experiencing accelerated aging and cognitive decline long before reaching old age or meeting the criteria for classic frailty. And having this information is essential to anticipate, for example, the onset of dementia. Images | Drazen Zigic in Magnific rawpixel.com on Magnific In Xataka | Dementia is devastating largely because it arrives without warning: some researchers already predict it seven years in the future

For the CEO of Ford, the reference for the electric car is no longer Tesla, it is China

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The head of Ford has been studying Chinese manufacturers in depth for months and is clear about one thing: that to understand where the electric car is going, we must pay close attention to China. For some years now the country is leading a historic transition in the automobile, and the perfect proof of this reality is the fixation that brands as historic as Ford have with the Chinese electric car. And for Jim Farley, CEO of the company, Tesla is no longer the benchmark. China, not Tesla. The automobile industry has been at a crossroads for some time. Electric sales are not growing at the expected rate in the West, large manufacturers have had to rethink their strategies and convert their factories (energy storage for data centers), and in the United States the elimination of federal tax incentive It has made the purchase of a new electric car even more expensive. In this context, Ford CEO Jim Farley explained in the Rapid Response podcast that Tesla is no longer the benchmark, and that it is now China. Change of sight. In the interview, Farley explained why he has been testing a Xiaomi SU7 instead of an American vehicle. “If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla, they’re doing well, but they don’t really have an up-to-date vehicle,” he said. And his reference for Ford is not Elon Musk, but BYD: “The best thing in the business for us in cost, supply chain, manufacturing experience and innovation is BYD,” Farley said. in the same podcast. Concerning. BYD was born in 1995 as a battery manufacturer and today is the largest electric car manufacturer in the world by volume. having surpassed Tesla in global sales in 2025. In 2022 it was the first manufacturer to completely abandon pure gasoline cars. For Farley, what is relevant is not the market capitalization of each company, but rather who is defining what the consumer will want to buy in the next decade. TOGod to the expensive electric ones. Ford has learned its lesson through million-dollar losses. The company became the second brand that sold the most electric cars in the US after Tesla, but its models were, according to Farley himself, “designed in the wrong way.” In December 2025, Ford took over a $19.5 billion correction having to reformulate its entire electric strategy. He F-150 Lightningwhich was presented as the flagship of its electrical commitment, is converted into an EREV vehicle (with a small combustion engine that acts as a generator) because, as admitted Farley himself in December, “the $70,000 electric cars were not selling.” The new roadmap involves launching an electric pickup at $30,000 before 2027. The key is in the second-hand market. Farley has an unconventional way of reading the market. And it is that prefer look at the sales of used cars before those of new ones, because “the second-hand market is twice that of new ones, and since they are all sold at lower prices, they are a better predictor of consumer behavior.” And of course, in this market, affordable electric and hybrid vehicles are the ones that move the most compared to those in the premium segment. China is not just price. Farley recognize that each Chinese car incorporates about 4,000 or 5,000 dollars in government subsidies, direct and indirect. He is also aware that these vehicles incorporate up to ten cameras and advanced connectivity systems that, in his opinion, “should be reviewed by the US Department of Defense for reasons of national security.” However, Farley concludes that the correct response is not to ignore them, but to learn from them. “That is the gift that China has given us: that we are respectful enough of its progress not to settle for business as usual,” he said in the interview. Cover image | Hans and Rapid Response In Xataka | The longest straight road in the world is a mental challenge: 240 km without curves, in the middle of the desert and with truck traffic

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