Mobile Tech & Gadgets

We’ve found the secret ingredient for using desert sand in construction: sawdust and a giant sandwich maker

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At a time when humans do not stop building and erecting large buildings, there is a problem that should concern us more and more: there is a lack of sand to make concrete. But here anyone can laugh, since we have great deserts on the planet where there is a huge amount of sand that we could use without any problem. But it’s not that easy. The problem. Today, traditional concrete is quite exquisite, since river sand is necessary to achieve a good result. And it has to be that way, because the desert sand is too round and fine to be able to “stick” well. But the truth is that we were running out of this sand so necessary to continue building. In Xataka The rain has transformed the driest desert on the planet into a sea of ​​flowers. It’s a sight to behold and a problem for experts We have a solution. The University of Tokyo and the University of Norway they have hit the key to turn the tables, and the solution is not only to use the desert sand that a priori we have left over, but rather it is to mix it with plant waste to create a material that has received the name Botanical Sandcrete. The recipe. The recently published study details a process that deviates from traditional cement setting, using a hot-pressing technique instead. And for this you only need two ingredients: Fine desert sand which, as we have said before, is useless for conventional concrete due to its morphology. Wood particles and plant additives that act as organic “glue.” All this, together with a temperature of 180 ºC and high pressure, means that the wood components help create a solid matrix that traps the grains of sand and transforms them into a handful of powder in a block that has great mechanical properties. {“videoId”:”x7znesx”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Self-consumption building THIS IS HOW THEY WORK – Solar panels in apartment blocks”, “tag”:”solar”, “duration”:”564″} What is it for? Here we should not be happy to find an alternative to a problem that we already had on our heads, since we are not going to be able to build skyscrapers with these tomorrow. Here the researchers point out that the material, as it is right now, is a non-structural alternative.  In this way, its use is mainly focused on pavements, urban tiles and enclosure blocks or outdoor furniture. Things that are ultimately not pillars for large buildings, but do allow us to save river sand. Your advantage. Having an alternative, although it cannot be used in everything, allows us to drastically reduce dependence on quarries and the transportation of river sand. An action that results in the destruction of river ecosystems around the world by removing a fundamental element. In addition to all this, using wood waste and plant additives means that it has a much smaller potential carbon footprint than concrete based on classic cement. In Xataka 30 years ago the US was the country that dominated rare earths. This graph shows how China devastated at dizzying speed Its importance. To date, most attempts to use desert sand involved expensive chemical treatments or mixing them in very low percentages with conventional sand. But the focus of these researchers involves the use of biomass, making us a perfect example of a circular economy. And if we see the full context of the situation, we are taking advantage of a resource that is very abundant but a priori useless like desert sand, along with a byproduct of the logging industry. But logically it still remains to be seen how it behaves over time and how well it endures adverse conditions. Although a priori we are facing great news. Images | Keith Hardy rawpixel.com In Xataka | A 29-year-old young man has invented a cement that makes magnetic walls: a solution to hang things without a drill or screws (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news We’ve found the secret ingredient for using desert sand in construction: sawdust and a giant sandwich maker was originally published in Xataka by José A. Lizana .

In 1953 Hollywood filmed a blockbuster in front of US nuclear tests. It was the most radioactive movie in history, literally

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Year 1953, during a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, several Las Vegas hotels offered their guests privileged views of the mushroom cloud at dawn as if it were a tourist attraction at Disneyland, with cocktails included and terraces full of spectators. The scene, which is difficult to imagine today, reflected the extent to which certain risks were perceived very differently in the midst of the nuclear age. Filming in the Cold War. In the mid-50s, The Conqueror It was born as a historical blockbuster that from the beginning involved decisions that were difficult to justify, such as choosing John Wayne to play Genghis Khan himself under the production of Howard Hughes. Filming moved to locations in Utah, an area that offered spectacular landscapes but was, at the time, close to areas where the United States was filming atmospheric nuclear tests. The context was not a secret, but its risks were not fully understood either, since public and scientific perception of radiation was much more limited than today. That combination of cinematic ambition and geopolitical moment left a scenario that, seen with perspective, is much more disturbing than what it seemed like then. The real environment. This perfectly documented that nuclear testing in the Nevada desert generated radioactive fallout that moved to populated areas, subsequently affecting known communities as “downwinders”. It is also proven that the filming team worked in one of those regions, and that part of the surrounding material was transferred to other sets, potentially expanding exposure. This context is neither a theory nor a subsequent reconstruction, but a historical fact recognized by investigations and official organizations that have studied the consequences of those tests. The passage of time and the uncomfortable statistics. What happened? That, over the years, a significant part of the cast and production team developed cancerincluding figures such as John Wayne himself (who died of the disease in 1979), Susan Hayward and Dick Powell. The most cited figure that gives an idea of ​​the possible impact speaks of more than 90 cases among about 220 people linked to the production, a fact that has fueled the fame of the filming as one of the most disturbing and cursed in the history of Hollywood. Even so, we must remember that this number comes from of informative accounts and not from controlled epidemiological studies, which requires treating it with some caution despite its impact. What is proven and what is not. The line between facts and story is key in history. It’s proven that there was exposure to a potentially contaminated environment and that several team members developed serious illnesses over time. What is not proven is a direct causal relationship between filming and these cancers, since factors such as personal habits (including smoking) and the lack of comparable clinical data, facts or causalities may enter, making any definitive conclusion difficult. Therefore, the case remains an ambiguous terrain: perfectly plausible in its approach, but not scientifically confirmed. From failure to modern myth. Upon its release, the film was received quite coldly and criticalremaining in the popular imagination as another failure within the industry. However, as the decades passed, his memory has changed completely, transforming into a story that combines Hollywood, Cold War and invisible risk. What at the time was simply a bad creative and logistical decision ended up being reinterpreted as an episode from the world of celluloid. loaded with symbolism about the limits of knowledge and (i)responsibility. The context changes everything. Because the story of The Conqueror lies not only in what happened during filming, but in how that same filming fits within an era in which exposure to nuclear risks formed part of the everyday landscape. There is no doubt, what seemed acceptable then is today perceived as true nonsense, and this radical change of perspective is what turns the case into something more than a movie anecdote. It wasn’t just a problematic shoot, but an example of how seemingly normal decisions can take on a completely different meaning. with the passage of time. Image | RKO In Xataka | The day a man dared to go further than anyone else: a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits In Xataka | One of the most iconic scenes from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ had an infallible trick: the pain you saw in the scene was not fiction

We have found the father of the Roman legion belts in a totally unexpected place: an Asturian cave

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The spectacular expansion of the Roman Empire (at its greatest splendor, Rome It covered three continents) was not based solely and exclusively on its numerical superiority and conquering hunger, but also on its ability to absorb and adapt technology. That is, as the legions advanced, Rome absorbed and perfected those military innovations that it found in the conquered peoples. This process of cultural transfer is what allowed the Roman army to evolve from a citizen militia to a professional, standardized war machine. An example of this assimilation phenomenon is found in the Iberian Peninsula. Within the framework of the Asturian-Cantabrian wars (29-19 BC), the last great conflict of the conquest of Hispania under the mandate of Augustus, is where the military complex found in the La Cerrosa-Lagaña cave (Asturias) acquires critical importance. The study, published in the Spal Magazineevidence that is more than an archaeological remains: it is the material proof of how a belt native to the plateau became the prototype of the iconic cingulum of the imperial legionnaire. The discovery. He found set It includes a dagger sheath with curved edges accompanied by an articulated bronze belt made up of sheets, a bronze omega fibula, a razor, a spear and human remains. There were also 807 animal remains belonging to 36 specimens of bovids, ovicaprines, equids, suids and canids, as if it were a ritual banquet or sacrifice. But let’s go to the star element: an articulated suspension belt made of bronze, composed of a buckle and four openwork plates of great technical complexity. This system of riveted plates allowed greater flexibility than leather straps and was not something random: it was a design designed to support the weight of a sheath (like the one found) and allow quick extraction of the weapon in combat. The sophistication of the plates suggests high-quality manufacturing, linked to workshops with a long tradition in iron and bronze metalwork. Hypothetical reconstruction of the belt and sheath assembly with curved edges found in the La Cerrosa-Lagaña cave. Spal Magazine Why is it important. This belt is something like the missing link in the evolution of military equipment: it demonstrates that pieces that we traditionally consider “purely Roman” actually have a foreign origin. Their discovery allows researchers to precisely trace the process of technological transfer, documenting how the functionality of Hispanic defensive equipment was absorbed, perfected and standardized by the Roman State to equip its legions throughout the Empire. Context. The discovery was not found in a military camp, but in a deep and difficult to access gallery in a cave. The context points to liturgical: the research team proposes that it was possibly a captured enemy who was the object of a sacrifice or ritual (possibly a captured Roman soldier), as an offering to the Cantabrian divinities in the face of the advancing Roman army. The dating places the human remains around the 1st century BC. This type of deposits in natural cavities reflects the religious practices of the people of the north and the Plateau, who considered the caves as thresholds to the underworld. The main hypothesis. The thesis supported by the research team is: Technological hybridization, insofar as the belt was not manufactured in Roman workshops, but in Vaccean and Celtiberian workshops (pre-Roman peoples of the Plateau). It later became the standard belt of the Roman legions, the cingulumto address the need for more flexible and durable equipment. The evolution. There is evidence that the belt plates resemble others found in Roman military camps such as Numancia and Renieblas, what it suggests that local artisans developed prototypes that Rome adopted and standardized. Yes, but. Beyond the doubt of the ethnic identity of the buried soldier, since it is unknown whether he was a Roman soldier who had adopted the local uniform for its greater efficiency or a native warrior who served as an auxiliary to the Roman topas, the key lies in the origin of the cingulum. The main thesis points out that the model was the father of the Roman belt par excellence, but more findings are missing from other parts of Europe to confirm that this evolution occurred exclusively in Hispania and was not a parallel process on other borders of the Empire. In Xataka | A cargo sunk in a Swiss lake 2,000 years ago confirms it: the Roman legions did not deprive themselves of anything In Xataka | We have been arguing for years about the origin of writing. Now an Asturian cave can settle the debate Cover | Jametlene Reskp and Spal (Study of a ritual deposit from the Asturian-Cantabrian wars: the set of the curved-edged dagger from the La Cerrosa-Lagaña cave (Suarias, Asturias, Spain) as a link between the indigenous dagger belts and the Roman cingulum)

It took Shenzhen 20 years to have a subway. And 20 others have the best metro in the world

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The first time I traveled to Shenzhen, what was repeated to me most when I looked at its impressive skyscrapers was that until recently it was a small fishing village. And although it is true that this fact is a bit exaggerated and simplified because well, 330,000 inhabitants is not exactly a village and there was more activity than fishing, the reality is that its growth and transformation into the most technological city in the world it has been brilliant: today they live there more than 17 million people and has seen the birth of colossi such as Huawei, Tencent, DJI or BYD. And of course, the most technological city in the world has one meter at its height, which of course has grown at breakneck speed. Because the history of the transportation network goes hand in hand with the city. But what makes the shenzhen subway It is not so much its size or how quickly it has expanded, but the combination of the previous two with a third variable that rarely appears in the equation: design ambition. While in the West, with rare exceptions, we opt for functional projects that are contained in price and budget, Shenzhen presents entire lines in a few years with stations that seem taken from the cinema. From science fiction cinema. Shenzhen subway today. Shenzhen subway has 635 kilometers long, 441 stations and 17 operating lines, leading the country in network density (0.30 km/km²) and intensity of use (15,000 trips/km/day). And in this tangle, semi-automatic lines coexist with other fully automated and driverless lines. like Line 20 or very fast as Line 11which reaches 120 km/h. As a curiosity, the Shenzhen metro network It is operated by two different companies: Shenzhen Metro Group manages the majority of lines and MTR Corporation of Hong Kong operates Line 4 and the recent Line 13. This is something unusual that adds difficulty to the matter in terms of interoperability. Why is it important. The Shenzhen metro may be unique in its kind, but it is the best argument to demonstrate that speed of execution and quality of design are not incompatible. The third variable in the equation is cost and surprisingly, comparatively it is cheaper: China build for around $250 million per kilometer in purchasing power parity terms, between two and eight times less than Western equivalents like Paris or New York. On the other hand, the Shenzhen metro acts as an urban catalyst: the stations were planned following the TOD modelthat is, promoting urban development around transport stations. That is to say, they serve the city but also make the city. On a global scale, this network is a methodological reference: it is no longer just a matter of engineering, but also about experience, design and territorial strategy. The Eye of Shenzhen, the centerpiece of Gangxia North Station, one of its most iconic elements. Unsplash Context. First of all, a clarification: that fishing village reference usually emphasizes about 30,000 inhabitants in the late 70s, but that figure corresponds to Bao’an County and not the 30,000 of Shenzhen Town, which constituted the original urban core (today Luohu district). The growth is in any case exponential and shows a dispersed demographic base that required territorial reorganization and explains the aggressive growth of the metro network. But if we have mentioned that figure of 330,000 inhabitants that explains the China Global Television Network is because it was that entire area that was designated as Special Economic Zonea plan that provides advantageous conditions to promote economic development (usually economic laws for a free market economy). In short, the laboratory of Chinese capitalism. Wow it worked. Metro planning began in the 1980s, construction in 1998, and the first line opened in December 2004. The beginnings were not quick or easy. The subsoil where the Shenzhen metro is integrated did not help at all: weathered granite, high water table and proximity to the Pearl River Delta, which forced the intensive use of specialized tunnel boring machines, jet grouting and even freeze the ground. Neither is the climate: 35 °C with 90% humidity in summer and recurring typhoons that require oversized drainage systems and watertight gates. The idea of ​​the subway was born before the megacity it is today: in 1983, Mayor Liang Xiang visited Singapore and On his return he made it clear: around Shennan Avenue I would leave a green belt of 30 meters on each side and reserve 16 meters in the center to build it. In 1988 there was a formal light rail proposal. Shenzhen Metro Group was established in July 1998 and construction began that same year. Six years later, on December 28, 2004, he opened the Line 1 with 17.4 kilometers and 15 stations. It was a modest system: four-car trains, 15-minute frequencies and limited coverage to the central corridor on two lines. How have they done it. Building an average of 30 kilometers a year is simply an unthinkable pace in Europe. The secret is in a large scale prefabrication which allows them to be made in the factory and assembled on site like Lego XXL and meticulous planning from design to maintenance. The avant-garde design of the stations is not accidental but has every intention: for Shenzhen, its subway is its showcase of the identity it wants to project to the world. An example: the Shenzhen eyea spectacular skylight following the Fermat Spiral or the ceiling that simulates an origami of Universiade or maritime integration of the station Sea World between Lines 2 and 12. The business model is Rail + Property imported from Hong Kong and is equally interesting because it has allowed it to grow without depending on waiting for state/municipal budgets: the operator builds the subway and in exchange receives the right to develop the land around the stations: apartments, offices, shopping centers. Those real estate income are what pay for the railway investment. Tap to go to the post What’s to come. As if the Shenzhen metro itself were … Read more

One piece of information perfectly summarizes the book bubble in Spain: 95% of those published do not recover costs

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The Spanish publishing sector closed 2025 with historic figures: 76 million printed books sold and a turnover that was close to 1,250 million euros. A record. The cold water came a few weeks later, at the annual booksellers’ conference, where it was certified that almost half of the titles available on the shelves had sold absolutely nothing. Who says so. The data was presented by CEGAL, the Spanish Confederation of Guilds and Associations of Booksellers, in theXXVII Congress of Bookstores held in Valencia in February 2026and has been extracted from LibriRed, the confederation’s own tool, which monitors in real time the final sales in more than 1,000 independent bookstores and chains throughout the country. The figure includes novels, essays and comics, both new releases and catalog contents, but (importantly, we are talking about physical bookstores) Amazon and school textbooks are excluded. The specific data. They are that revealing: 13.2% of the titles sell a copy throughout the year. 19.4% do not exceed ten. Only 4.5% of the books that reach bookstores reach 100 copies sold, a threshold that often does not even cover the costs of a launch. In other words, 95.5% of the books available in Spanish bookstores do not have the slightest economic impact on the publishing industry, not to mention that they are directly deficient. In Xataka If you hate justified text, we have good news: you’re most likely right You bill more, you sell the same. This is the paradox that the CgK consultancy put on the table with its Book Market Data 2025 report: The sector reached close to €1,250 million in turnover in 2025, 4% more than the previous year, which represents a historical record. However, total units sold rose just 0.2%, and novelty units sold on average 2% less per title than in 2024. Further analysis of the report They spoke of a statistical illusion typical of inflationary markets, because what has actually grown is the average price of the book. And this benefits the large groups, with catalogs in high rotation. Why is this happening? In its analysis of the Cedal report, El País collected statements from editors such as Enrique Redel, from Impedimenta, who affirms that there are titles that are not published to sell, but to take up space on the shelves, especially by large groups. The strategy is to publish many titles assuming that most will fail, hoping that one or two best sellers compensate for the losses of the rest. More than 90,000 books are published each year in Spain, about 240 newspapers, and theReturn rates range between 30% and 40%. It is a feverish cycle of full-speed rotation, paradoxically inconsistent with the calmest of cultural activities. {“videoId”:”x7zmsee”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”11 WEBSITES to DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOKS for your KINDLE Xataka TV”, “tag”:”Kindle”, “duration”:”321″} Who can afford it. The two large publishing groups, Penguin Random House and Planeta, in whose shadow it has been for decades the Spanish industry, and which account for more than 40% of the copies sold in bookstores. Fleeing this suffocating single direction are independent bookstores, which offer more than twice the variety of titles than the large chains: more than 525,000 titles compared to 229,633. In this way, visibility is concentrated in a few titles that rotate for a longer period of time, while the rest are buried in excessive catalogs. Some reasons. When looking for factors that exacerbate this situation (the two large groups can suffocate the market with their continuous rotation, but there must be more compelling reasons for so few sales of so many titles), CEGAL points to self-publishing: publishing has been democratized, but the reader’s attention has not. A book without a publisher behind it, without distribution, without promotion and without prior prescription is born practically invisible to the market, and it is normal that many of these launches do not sell anything. ¿AI provides tools to multiply these throws effortlessly? The percentages skyrocket exponentially. In Xataka They are not your imagination: the best-selling books are increasingly simpler and contain less elaborate sentences The difference with other cultural media is in the abundance of second chances. A film that does not perform in theaters can recover the investment in streaming, where consumption already rivals that of theaters. The book that does not sell in its first weeks on the shelf returns to the publisher, returns to bookstores in negligible quantities and is often physically destroyed after months languishing in warehouses. Perhaps finding new ways of dissemination and renewed lives for books would be the solution to this veritable overdose of books without readers. Header | Photo ofBree AnneinUnsplash (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news One piece of information perfectly summarizes the book bubble in Spain: 95% of those published do not recover costs was originally published in Xataka by John Tones .

Ukraine has turned Russia into a fearsome air force

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In 1991, during the Gulf War, the United States discovered something uncomfortable: despite its total air superiority, it could not prevent Iraq from continuing to launch scud missiles from mobile platforms that appeared and disappeared in the desert. That frustration left a clear lesson For military strategists: in modern warfare, it is not enough to dominate the air, you must constantly adapt to an enemy that also learns. From questioned strength to real threat. During the first stages of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian aviation was perceived like a disappointment unable to achieve air superiority, which led many Western analysts to perhaps hastily underestimate it. However, with the passage of time, that vision has started to change disturbingly, especially in Europe, where aviation security experts have focused on something that is no longer an intuition: that the conflict has not weakened Russia, but rather the has forced to learn. Accumulated experience, system improvements and tactical adaptation have transformed a force that seemed limited into a much more dangerous and credible actor than it was before 2022. War as a laboratory. They remembered on Insider that, far from collapsing, Russian aviation has used Ukraine as a real training environment where pilots and crews have gained experience in high-intensity combat. Although it has lost aircraft, it has retained a large part of its qualified personnel and has compensated for those losses with sustained production of new aircraft, which has allowed it to maintain and even expand its fleet. This process has corrected one of its greatest historical weaknesses, the lack of flight hours, turning its pilots into more prepared fighters for complex scenarios. More reach, less risk. One of the most significant changes has been the evolution of his attack capacitywhich now increasingly relies on long-range weapons and systems that allow you to hit without directly exposing yourself. We are talking about advanced missiles, gliding bombs and remote attacks that have reduced the need to penetrate defended airspace, greatly complicating the enemy response. This way of fighting has not only proven to be effective in Ukraine, but also poses a worrying scenario. for future conflictswhere control of the air no longer depends solely on physically dominating it. Constant pressure from the air. They counted on ukrainian media that, in parallel, Russia has intensified its air campaign with massive and increasingly sophisticated use of drones and missiles, launching thousands of devices and perfecting saturation tactics to overwhelm defenses. Coordinated attacks, changes in flight patterns and the combination of different types of weapons have made it possible to maintain continuous pressure on infrastructure and the civilian population, generating not only material but also psychological wear. This strategy turns air into space permanent threatwhere the defense can never relax. A more complex threat. If you will, the result is a Russian air force that, although it still has structural limitations and does not match NATO in a direct confrontation, has become much scariest and most difficult to counteract. The combination of strengthened air defense, better coordination between systems and a more adaptive doctrine presents a scenario for its enemies in which achieving air superiority will be much more expensive and risky. In other words, a paradox has developed and is beginning to take hold, one where Ukraine has not only resisted Russian aviation, but, by forcing it to evolve, has contributed to turning it into a more sophisticated and persistent threat to the European military balance. Image | Alan Wilsonparfaits In Xataka | If fog was deadly in Ukraine’s winter, spring is offering Russia a key advantage: greenery In Xataka | Ukraine is close to what no one has achieved in a war: shooting down missiles for less than a million dollars

Ford has been slow to adapt to the electric car, so it is going to start manufacturing batteries for… data centers

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Ford has decided to convert its electric vehicle battery manufacturing capacity into a large-scale energy storage business. The move has its own name: Ford Energy, a new division with $2 billion in investment planned for the next two years and the stated objective of supplying batteries to data centers, electricity companies and large industrial consumers. Because now. The starting point is not exactly ideal for the company. Ford’s electric division accumulated net losses of 11.1 billion dollars only in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Reuters. For this year, the company expects to continue losing between 4,000 and 4,500 million additional dollars in its electrical and software division. “I think the customer has already spoken,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told investors. With battery factories operating at low capacity and the electric vehicle market in the United States in free fall, especially after the elimination of the $7,500 aid last September, Ford has chosen not to dismantle that infrastructure, but to redirect it. What is Ford Energy and how it will work. The bet is articulated around the Glendale, Kentucky, plant, which will be converted to manufacture energy storage systems at network scale. According to counted Ford late last year, the facility will produce LFP (lithium ferrophosphate) cells and storage modules. The cell technology used is licensed by the Chinese firm CATL, with whom Ford already had agreements on its line of electric vehicles. The plan, according to the company itself, is to have initial operational capacity within 18 months and reach at least 20 GWh of annual production by the end of 2027. In parallel, the BlueOval Battery Park Michigan plant, in Marshall, will continue with its production of LFP cells for Ford’s upcoming midsize electric truck, but will also make lower amperage cells aimed at residential storage. Lisa Drake, the board of directors who heads Ford Energy, explained that the “predominant” business opportunity will be in commercial electric grid customers, with data centers as the second priority and the residential segment as the third leg. Drake also noted that when going out to market to explore demand, it became clear that the technology preferred by customers was precisely the containerized prismatic LFP system, something that Ford could easily manufacture thanks to its licenses. For his part, John Lawler, vice president of Ford, counted In the statement, Ford Energy’s core purpose is to “capture the growing demand for reliable energy storage that reinforces the stability and resilience of the electric grid for utilities and large consumers.” The market you want to conquer. The explosion of artificial intelligence electricity consumption in data centers is skyrocketing on a global scale. The International Energy Agency places the demand for these centers around 945 TWh by 2030approximately 3% of global electricity consumption, with a projected growth of 15% annually. In the United States alone, according to the Battery Council International, this consumption could double to between 400 and 600 TWh on the same date. In that scenario, large-scale energy storage becomes critical infrastructure and Ford, like many other converted manufacturersthey see a great business opportunity. Ford is late, but he is not alone. The problem is that Tesla has a decade of advantage. Its energy storage business deployed 46.7 GWh in 2025 alone, 48% more than the previous year according to TechCrunchand was also more profitable than its own electric car division, with gross margins close to 30% compared to 15% for the automobile. General Motors has also made a move: its joint venture with LG Energy Solution has just invested $70 million to convert its Tennessee plant, south of Nashville, into the production of batteries for storage. The transition, however, is neither easy nor cheap. Switching a factory from nickel chemistry, common in electric car batteries, to LFP can take up to 18 months and cost several hundred million dollars, according to share from Reuters. Added to this is technological dependence on China, which dominates the LFP supply chain, and 35% US tariffs on cathode and anode materials of Chinese origin. What this means in the long term. Just like they count From the middle, although the demand for energy storage in North America is expected to almost double in five years, going from 76 to 125 GWh, that is not enough to absorb the more than 275 GWh of productive capacity that the automobile industry has installed with electric in mind. Storage alleviates the problem, but does not completely solve it. Even so, this same reorientation is what many other car manufacturers have opted for in order to take advantage of their infrastructure and contain losses due to their electric cars, especially in the United States, which is where things are much weaker. Cover image | Hans and ford In Xataka | Australia has a straight highway of 150 kilometers. And to prevent you from falling asleep he has put hobbies on the posters

the plan to send infinite energy to Earth

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In the global energy transition there are countries and countries. There are some that are more advanced and others that are not so advanced. And although the ease of access to classic fossil fuels works as an anchor to resist change, the fact that you have not been dealt the best cards in terms of natural resources does not help either. Japan is one of those countries where change is almost a matter of survival: little land available, it matters about 90% of its primary energy and if we talk about resources, is testing the wavesbut the wave drive It’s a tough nut to crack. So Japan has decided to look at the energy transition from a spatial perspective, that is, capturing radiation outside of Earth, where it is more constant and powerful. We already saw it with his Ohisama satellite and now with his Moon Ring for, like says Beyonceput a ring on the moon in the shape of a solar plant. The idea. The proposal consists of installing a continuous belt of photovoltaic cells along the equator of the Moon covering a circumference of 11,000 kilometers, thus ensuring that a part of the structure is always exposed to direct sunlight, that is, 24/7 energy generation. From there, the electricity is converted into microwaves and high-density laser beams to be sent directly to receiving stations on Earth. What you propose Shimizu Corporation It is not so much a closed project with a specific date, but a long-term engineering vision to guide its line of research in space energy and this private company is not alone: ​​it has institutional support in the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, which He’s been researching it for decades.. Shimizu Corporation Operating Diagram Why is it important. Because global energy demand continues to grow and terrestrial solar energy has important limitations in the form of the day and night cycle, clouds or the atmosphere itself, which reduce its performance. A plant at the equator of the moon would solve all three in one fell swoop: continuous solar energy, without the atmospheric filter or the risk of a cloudy sky. This is simply impossible on Earth. The European Space Agency has already recognized the strategic potential of space solar energy in your Solaris program. The eventual materialization of this project represents another step in the “Hydrogen society“, the vision of an economic ecosystem where hydrogen replaces fossil fuels as the main energy vector, arising from Japan’s need to overcome its extreme dependence on energy imports. In context. The idea is not new by any means: back in 1968 it already occurred to the American aerospace engineer Peter Glaser, who published an article on the subject in Science magazine. Much has happened since then and numerous governments and space agencies have also studied its feasibility: NASA did it in ’79, the British government has been exploring the idea since 2021 and China plans a demonstration in low orbit in 2028 followed by a test in geostationary orbit by 2030. Shimizu takes it a step further: he has moved it from Earth orbit to the moon, which brings certain geometric advantages, but also increases logistical complexity. In detail. Bring materials from Earth to space It’s not exactly easy or cheap.so their idea is to build the solar panels mainly with resources extracted from the lunar soil itself, using autonomous robots operated remotely. The solar ring would cover the lunar equator with a width of up to four hundred kilometers. The energy would be transmitted to Earth via a microwave antenna twenty kilometers in diameter, guided by a ground beacon for precise pointing. The concept of wireless power transmission is not science fiction: California Institute of Technology performed in 2023 a demonstration in orbit. Yes, but. We are facing an engineering project on a scale unprecedented in the history of humanity and the cost of launching cargo into space is the least of the problems (it is being reduced thanks to operators like SpaceX): so would building an infrastructure of these characteristics in situ. And even if it could be done, cosmic radiation and micrometeorite bombardment on the lunar surface would constitute a serious risk to the integrity of the panels, which implies a challenge in terms of useful life and maintenance. NASA itself points out these barriers in evaluating the space solar energy concept. In Xataka | Japan has lost a five-ton satellite in the most unusual way imaginable: “it fell” during launch In Xataka | Japan has just made a monumental bet on perovskite solar panels: they are its best chance against China Cover | Shimizu Corporation

We had always believed that evolution had been arrested for thousands of years. The redheads were telling us the opposite

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Evolution has been one of the great allies that has made us get to where we are right now, but there is also an idea that haunts the minds of some people when they point out that comforts, agriculture or the best technologies have made this natural selection stagnates in humans. But… Is this true? A myth. The answer is no. And to demonstrate it, a group of researchers has recently published a new article in the magazine Nature, breaking this myth, pointing out that evolution has not only stopped, but that the invention of agriculture made it step on the accelerator. Here the research team has achieved what until recently seemed impossible, namely tracing the footprint of natural selection over the millennia. How it has been done. It’s not easy to look back into such a long past, but here researchers have used a new method baptized as AGESwhere they have ‘only’ had to process 16,000 ancient genomes from Western Eurasia. In this way, the results have shown that there are 479 genetic variants that have experienced great selective pressure, which is why our biological adaptation has accelerated following the advances that have made humanity as it is now. Some examples. That there have been changes in our genetics is phenomenal, but sometimes we want clear examples of why this is the case. One of these points out that when the populations of Eurasia abandoned nomadism to settle, cultivate the land and domesticate animals, their diets, exposure to sunlight and social dynamics changed radically. This translated, for example, into an increase in genetic variants associated with light skin or red hair, the latter being something linked to mutations in the MC1R gene. And its meaning lies in the need to adapt the body to absorb enough vitamin D in climates with little sunlight, although it is also suggested that these genes could share different very relevant adaptation functions. And also aesthetic. Far from how functional it may be to have a greater absorption of vitamin D, the studies also provide curious data about our evolutionary aesthetics by pointing out that natural selection favored the reduction of baldness in these populations. Here the discussion is served, since it can be thought that it is related to sexual selection or even that it is the consequence of other changes in genetics that opened the door to fewer cases of baldness and also rheumatoid arthritis. Images | Johannes Plenio Gabriel Silverio In Xataka | We have just discovered that 20% of our DNA comes from an unknown hominid population: Population B

China has understood better than anyone where the space launch bottleneck is. Your solution: the sea

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On April 18, China will launch a space rocket from open waters for the first time. The Dong Fang Hang Tian Gang vessel has been modified to function as a launch platform, minimizing many of the problems that terrestrial platforms currently represent. The facts. This aquatic launch platform is a vessel that measures 162 meters long and 40 meters wide. The Jielong-3 rocket will be on board31 meters, designed by the Chinese Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology for commercial flights. It will be launched from the South China Sea, marking the first time a launch has been carried out from open waters. If all goes well, China’s goal is to make it far from the last time. A huge waiting list. China has decided to launch rockets from the sea to address various problems. The first, without a doubt, is the saturation to which conventional launch platforms are currently exposed. The rise of the satellite industry, both for telecommunications as with other crazier purposeshas led to more and more launches scheduled on all launch platforms around the world. As a result, each new release must go onto a long waiting list, which can get complicated when you consider that there is usually only a few days’ release window available. It’s cheaper. Another advantage of aquatic launch pads is that they are very easy to build. To build one on dry land it is necessary to acquire a large amount of land and install all the necessary infrastructure. The result is not only complex. It is also very expensive. In the sea, on the other hand, a platform adapted to the immensity of the ocean is enough. Also safer. On the other hand, these types of offshore launch platforms are much safer than land-based ones for several reasons. To begin with, methane is increasingly being used as fuel. It is very powerful, but also very explosive. Therefore, large safety zones must be established around the launch pad. This is vital in case of an accidental explosion. In the ocean, however, it is not necessary. On the other hand, space launches cause great noise pollution for surrounding populations. If we add to all this that they could suffer the risk of falling parts, the truth is that living near a launch pad is not almost anyone’s dream. All of them are problems that are solved by launching rockets in the middle of the ocean. If there are accidents, the pieces must be removed to avoid contamination, but at least there are no populated areas that are at risk. The rocket to be launched will be a Jielong 3 Proximity to the equator. As a bonus, the ability to move barges wherever needed makes it easier for the Chinese Academy of Sciences to take its launches closer to the equator than land enclaves allow. This is very advantageous, since at this point the benefit of the Earth’s rotation can be maximized, giving greater momentum during launch. It’s not the first time, but there is a nuance. Actually, China has already launched rockets from water platforms in the past. A good example of this is Ceres-1S, which even used the same boat. Gravity-1 was also launched from a cliff. However, there is a difference. While Jielong-3 will be launched from open waters, Ceres-1 and Gravity-1 were launched near the coast, with logistics controlled from land and some of the same drawbacks that a land launch would have. A launch from open water, far from the coast, is another step forward. China continues to advance. In recent years, China has been positioning itself as a major space power. Just look at the progress it has made in lunar exploration. His plan to take humans to the Moon advanceswhile that of NASA does not stop finding impediments. Furthermore, its space station, Tiangong, continues receiving astronauts at a good pace, robotic exploration of Mars It is quite advanced and even They have found in Europe a great partner to explore solar inclemencies. Having an aquatic platform that gives agility to your throws can be another big step forward. Images | Freepik | China News Service In Xataka | China has the Moon between its eyebrows: it has now created the first chemical map of the hidden face

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