Mobile Tech & Gadgets

now you can use their photos to write your name with rivers and craters

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Since they were launched in 1972, NASA’s Landsat satellites have continually taken images of the earth’s surfaceproviding an uninterrupted data archive that helps managers, planners and policy makers make more informed decisions about natural resources and the environment. But there is also a playful part. 50 years goes a long way. Enough to form a complete alphabet with which you can write your name, thanks to a tool designed by NASA for Earth Day. Your name in landscapes. The tool in question It’s very simple. You simply have to write your name or the word you want to transform into Landsat images. Then, after pressing enter, an image appears on the screen for each letter of your name. You can download the full image or place your cursor over each letter to see the exact coordinates and a brief description of the place that appears in them. For example, a tangled river could form the first letter of your name, while the last letter could be a path of volcanic lava surrounded by mountains. The complete alphabet. In case you are curious, you can visit the complete alphabet and check all the possible photographs that NASA has for a particular letter. Some, like A, have many options. On the other hand, others that are somewhat rarer, such as the G, have only one landscape available that evokes their specific shape. LILY An appointed date. This tool was made public on April 22, when Earth Day is celebrated. It is an anniversary created to raise awareness among the population about the problems facing our planet at an environmental level. The images taken by Landsat are very useful both for raising public awareness and for providing useful data to scientists. More about Landsat. According to NASAresearchers have used the Landsat archive, for example, to study how cities, coastlines, crop cycles, and forests have grown. This is a program in which scientific quality instruments and data are prioritized, so that it can be known with certainty that changes in subsequent Landsat images reflect real changes on Earth. And the best thing is that all the information is free and open access, so that anyone, scientist or not, can access them. After all, the Earth belongs to all of us. Just as any human being must be responsible and avoid destroying it, we also have the right to be participants in what is done to take care of it. Even if it is writing our name with rivers, boulevards or lava paths. Images | NASA tool In Xataka | So much ice has melted in Greenland that plankton has grown by 40%. It’s not good news

Are we the bad guys in the movie?

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In the ‘Lord of the Rings’ universe, a palantir is the seer stone that Saruman uses to communicate with Sauron. The fact of having chosen this name for a company that is dedicated to mass surveillance It was already a declaration of intentions. After years of doing ethically questionable work, some employees are now beginning to wonder if they are the bad guys in the movie. Friends, realize. What is happening. They tell it in Wired. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, Palantir has become a key player in the government’s anti-immigration policy. The company has signed contracts with ICE and its technology makes it possible to identify and deport immigrants in an irregular situation. In addition, it has been used in military operations such as the Iran war, in which a bombing that killed more than 100 children. This has caused an internal crisis, with some current and former employees concerned that the company has gone from “preventing abuse” to directly encouraging it. Why it is important. Palantir was founded after the 9/11 attacks, a context in which citizen surveillance was justified under the narrative of antiterrorism. Now, Palantir’s technology is being used to surveil its own citizens and is key in attacks that have resulted in fatalities. It’s not that they were little sisters of charity before, but lines are being crossed that are too red even for those who defended them. lin response to the company. Employee criticism began after the murder of Alex Pretti at the beginning of the year. Within a Slack channel, some employees began to question the company’s relationship with ICE. “In my opinion, ICE are the bad guys. I’m not proud that the company I enjoy working for so much is part of this,” one of them commented. Palantir responded by deleting the messages several days later, supposedly to prevent leaks. At the same time, the company began to organize question and answer sessions to address any doubts that may arise, as well as the possibility of learning more details under confidentiality contracts. For many employees this was an attempt to silence criticism rather than address it. The ideological turn. Alex Karp, CEO and co-founder of Palantir, He used to define himself as a socialist and defended Democratic candidates like Joe Biden. However, since 2024 he has become a key ally of Trump and his speech defends authoritarian policies. A few days ago he published a 22 point manifesto in X which has unleashed a wave of criticism for its nationalist and militarized ideas. This text also sparked a conversation on Slack, in which several employees were embarrassed that it had been published using the company’s official account and that several acquaintances had asked them about it. It will be yes. It is the short answer to the question that employees ask themselves and there are many indications that they are, indeed, the bad guys. They count in The Country that the company accumulates many accusations for not respecting human rights. Already in 2020 I warned him Amnesty International and the consulting firm MSCI gave it a score of 2 out of 10 in civil liberties. Peter Thiel, its founder, says openly who does not believe that “freedom and democracy are compatible.” What is striking is that, knowing the history of the company and the authoritarian ideas of its leaders, there are employees who still have doubts. In Xataka | Wall Street’s riskiest bet has its own name: Palantir, a castle in the air supported by AI promises

The Supreme Court has declared the rule illegal, but the money is not going to return

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The Low Emission Zones of Madrid operated for years with regulations that the courts ended up declaring it illegal. During all that time, many fines were imposed and processed that thousands of drivers paid, and the City Council is clear about one thing: that there will be no refunds. What exactly happened. The Supreme Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) annulled part of the ordinance that regulated ZBEs in Madrid in December 2024, following an appeal presented by the Vox municipal group. The court considered that the economic impact report was insufficient, since it had not been correctly assessed how much it would cost citizens and small businesses to adapt to the movement restrictions, nor had less restrictive measures with equivalent effects been explored. As the ruling was not final at the time, the City Council continued to apply sanctions while appealing to the Supreme Court. However, the TSJM rejected the appeal on April 15with a sentence of 2,000 euros to the City Council for the expenses of the judicial process. Why there will be no refund. Vice Mayor Inma Sanz counted that current jurisprudence prevents giving retroactive effects to sentences when the sanctioned rule was in force at the time the fines were imposed. Along the same lines, the delegate of Urban Planning, Mobility and Environment, Borja Carabante, defended that the sanctions were placed under a regulatory framework that was valid at the time. The point that remains in the air. The City Council’s position is not completely uniform. Municipal legal services are still studying what to do with the fines imposed in the ZBEs of Plaza Elíptica and Centro (the two special protection zones) during the period between the TSJM ruling (December 2024) and the entry into force of the new ordinance (March 2026). It has been more than two years in which fines have continued to be imposed with a regulation that a court had already declared null. Carabante acknowledges that “whether or not” these specific sanctions are being assessed. The new ordinance as a shield. The Town Hall approved last month a new Sustainable Mobility Ordinance, correcting the previous one based on the indications indicated by the TSJM and keeps all ZBEs operational. The Consistory argues that this new ordinance leaves the sentence without practical effect, since it provides a solution to everything that the TSJM had requested. Among its novelties is that the vehicles of registered residents without an environmental label can circulate in Madrid as long as European pollution limits are respected. Opinion division. The Associated European Motorists (AEA) organization has publicly demanded to Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida the annulment of all sanctions imposed until the publication of the new ordinance in the official gazette, on April 6. According to data from the AEA itselfbetween September 2021 and November 2025, the City Council imposed more than 3.3 million fines related to ZBEs for a value of more than 650 million euros. Its president, Mario Arnaldo, consider that “hundreds of thousands of drivers” have been sanctioned with fines of “dubious legality” through a strategy designed to continue collecting while the judicial process lasted. What those affected can do. The Supreme Court’s decision does not automatically annul any fine, but it reinforces the options of those who want to appeal them. According to the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), the situation varies according to each file. And those who appealed at the time and still have the procedure open have a better chance of recovering the money. However, the organization says that those who paid without appeal face a more complicated path, having to go through requesting full nullity. The OCU ask to the City Council to cancel the non-firm sanctions ex officio and return the amounts already collected in files still open, without transferring to the citizen “the burden of legal uncertainty created by an annulled ordinance.” Cover image | Madrid City Council In Xataka | 400 cameras and an ambitious goal: the first metro driven 100% autonomously in the Community of Madrid

How the nutrition revolution has allowed human beings to lose two hours in the marathon

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“Today I had two slices of bread, honey and tea for breakfast” This was Sabastian Sawe’s brief response to the journalist who had answered what he had had for breakfast that morning. It wasn’t an elevator conversation. It was not pure curiosity among office colleagues before facing a day in front of the computer. Although the answer could very well have been the same. Sawe is not just anyone. Sawe is the fastest man on the planet when it comes to covering 42,195 meters. Sawe is, as of yesterday, the winner of the London Marathon, the recordman of distance and the first person to break down the mythical barrier of two hours in distance. A barrier that was considered unattainable just a handful of years ago. But to round off the accumulation of impossible things that were experienced yesterday in London, Sawe is not the only human to run at a sustained pace of 2’49″/km, repeating the effort up to 42 times and an agonizing and endless 195 metres. Yomif Kejelcha entered just 11 seconds later. Of course, he will have the more than deserved consolation of being the fastest debutant in the history of the distance. Jacob Kiplimo must have been astonished when he realized that the 120 minutes and 28 seconds it took him to cover that same distance had only been enough for him to be third when just two hours earlier they would have made him the new world record holder. All of them are the pure embodiment of a sport that has experienced a revolution in a handful of years. “Yomif didn’t have breakfast on race day,” Alfonso Beltrá, CEO of Holy mother. Beltrá is the founder of a Spanish sports nutrition company, which grew up in cycling but has pivoted to athletics. A few weeks ago, Beltrá himself defended on the Find Your Everest podcast that they were sure that they could be the ones to break the mythical barrier. High competition is the result of research and results that put the athlete in front of a challenge that ends up being decided by details. The differences are minimal and nutrition is what has ended up tipping the balance. A revolution to make the impossible possible Although neither Sawe nor Kejelcha ate a copious breakfast as the most undocumented logic dictates, neither of them stood at the starting line empty. Their stomachs were, but the important thing was that their glycogen stores were bursting with energy. “He doesn’t have breakfast at all on race day, we have a specific drink with 100 grams of carbohydrates that he finishes two hours before the race and another product that we will launch in three months. Then he warms up and six or seven minutes before leaving he drinks a gel with caffeine and 45 grams of carbohydrates,” Beltrán tells us about the Ethiopian athlete who ate 145 grams of carbohydrates before departure. “That’s why we skipped the kilometer five aid station, we couldn’t put in more,” he emphasizes. A very similar amount would have been handled by Sawe’s team. The Kenyan athlete took, in addition to the two slices of bread with honey, a Drink Mix 320 by Maurtena company that has revolutionized sports nutrition in recent years. This is equivalent to 80 grams of carbohydrates and added a Gel 100 that provides another 25 grams of carbohydrates. The total sum between energy drinks, gel and breakfast adds up to about 140-150 grams like Kejelcha. It is a figure similar to taking 200 grams of pasta before running. And then, the performance began. Kejelcha uses Santamadre gels diluted in the appropriate proportion of water to take them with bottles and facilitate ingestion. Sawe, for her part, opted for Maurten’s Drink Mix 160 drink at the first three aid stations (kilometers 5, 10 and 15). In the fourth (km 20) take a little less drink, about 130 ml, but take a gel with caffeine. And from here, at kilometers 25, 30, 35 and 40, 130 ml is prescribed but of the Drink Mix 320, which has a greater carbohydrate load. It is believed, however, that a drum fell. In total, Sawe’s intake remained at about 115 g/h of carbohydrates. Sabastian Sawe race protocol. Click on the image to go to the original post. The figure is very high and unthinkable just a few years ago. And, despite this, it pales in comparison to what was planned for Kejelcha. From Santamadre they explain to us that the final objective was to move around 140 gr/h of carbohydrates in this case. “It’s about keeping your deposits full for as long as possible, being aware that you will always be in deficit, losing more than you earn,” says Beltrá. In this case, they do confirm that the athlete had problems at kilometers 25 and 35, where he lost the bottles. “That coincides with the decline that they experienced at kilometer 41″, laments the CEO of Santamadre who, he emphasizes, for them a debut like this shows that “we don’t know their ceiling. When he arrived he was upset for losing the race, he asked us for forgiveness for losing the two bottles… he wasn’t aware of what he had done, nor did he know it when he hugged me at the finish line.” In this case, Kejelcha used Santamadre gels diluted in water. The limit is set, according to the Spanish company, by the athlete’s own stomach. “The protocol has to be personalized. We have controlled all the variables since we started working together, all meals, rest, body temperature, glycemic peaks… the nutritional strategy was studied to take into account the glycemic index of each moment,” Beltrá explains to us. Kejelcha was, in fact, the only athlete among the first finishers to use a different brand than Maurten. This brand revolutionized athletics with the sponsorship of Eliud Kipchoge and has been the leader in recent years thanks to its famous Hydrogel. With this gel, the brand managed to encapsulate … Read more

We already knew that we ate plastic. Now science has discovered the exact chaos it causes in our intestines

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We have long realized that we are surrounded by microplastics, both in the water which we take as in food or even the air that we breathe, causing them to appear even in the human placenta. However, there are still many questions about the consequences of having these microplastics in the body, although science continues to take steps to give us an answer about them. how it can alter our general healthand the last thing we know is related to the effect on our digestive system. Ground zero. Something that is already known by almost everyone is that the intestine is full of billions of microorganisms which are essential for our immunity and also for metabolism, making its alteration related even to issues in the central nervous system. But now, science suggests that microplastics can drastically alter the composition and diversity of this ecosystem by destroying some of the bacteria that we harbor inside us to create a completely different environment that can affect our digestion, but also other parts of the body. How it has been seen. To understand how this happens in real time, CSIC researchers developed a sophisticated patented digestion simulation system known as SIMGI. This is mainly based on introducing artificial particles formed by the typical plastic of water bottles into the stomach and colon and observing how it affected bacterial diversity. From here, different investigations have seen that families of beneficial bacteriaas Lachnospiraceae, Oscillospiraceae and Ruminococcaceaeplummet, while the growth of groups that can generate disease is favored. And we must understand that ‘good’ bacteria occupy a space in our intestine so that nothing else can ‘germinate’ there. But logically, if they disappear, they leave their ‘hole’ for other bacteria to pass through. It goes further. But beyond a bacterial imbalance, there is different research that already points to how microplastics destroy the physical barrier we have in our intestine. In this way, scientists have detected that these tiny fragments cause the generation of oxidative stress and, therefore, the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, which only generates great damage to the tissues. But this chemical attack also adds to mechanical damage, which some experts categorize as ‘sandpaper’, since together they manage to reduce the expression of proteins that are key to maintaining the union structure that characterizes the cells that exist in our intestinal wall. The result. If we destroy the scaffolding that maintains the ‘walls’ of our digestive system, the only thing that will be achieved is that increase intestinal permeabilityso any toxin or bacterial molecule will be able to pass from the intestine to the bloodstream, since there is no ‘wall’ that blocks the access of agents that are not wanted in our body. Logically, the passage of toxins without the control of this intestinal barrier activates our immune system defenses, which results in inflammation maintained over time that favors the destruction of tissues and also progresses in important chronic diseases. There is more. As if that were not enough, it is known that microplastics are excellent transport vehicles, since when they come into contact with our biological fluids they become covered with a “protein crown”. This is something really important, since this layer literally camouflages the microplastic and makes it easier for it to adhere to our living cells. But added to all this, we also see that they can act as the perfect support for bacteria and form what is known as biofilms. In this way, microplastic can be seen as a vehicle for external and potentially dangerous microbial communities directly to our tissues. Where are they going? If microplastics alter our barriers, logically the plastic has a free way and that is why it is capable of traveling to different organs such as, for example, the liver, kidneys or brain. And once here, research already indicates that its accumulation is related to DNA damage, deregulation of the immune system or alterations in our entire hormonal system that can lead to chronic diseases. Images | rimufilms on Freepik In Xataka | Researchers analyzed 280 samples of bottled water. Only one of the brands was free of microplastics

The debate about whether the biggest pop star can be canceled is settled with a box office of 217 million in one weekend

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97 million dollars in its first weekend in the United States. 217 million worldwide. ‘Michael’, the biopic of Michael Jackson that has taken years to reach theaters between lawsuits, reshoots millionaires and a third act rewritten from scratch, has just broken all records for musical biographical cinema. Critics destroy it with 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the public fills the theaters. Which, alone, says more about the state of popular culture than any analysis. Unexpected record. The initial projections The domestic opening grosses for ‘Michael’ were around $50-60 million, which would have already been a record in the profitable genre of biopics of pop artists. The final result (97 million in the United States and 217 globally) has far surpassed it. The previous record belonged to ‘Straight Outta Compton’, the biopic of rappers NWA, which opened with 60.2 million in its first week in the US. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ premiered with 51 million, although it reached 900 globally. Criticism no. Something that had greatly dampened these expectations was the low critical ratingbut the CinemaScore score (the actual audience satisfaction index in the theater) was A-, very notable. The difference between critical opinion and commercial results reflects a reality we have already talked about and that has had another very recent example-type, ‘Super Mario Galaxy’. And like that one, this ‘Michael’ has a very clear type of audience in mind: the fans. A long way. ‘Michael’ has had one of the most complicated productions in recent Hollywood. With a budget of $200 million, making it one of the most expensive biopics in history, the film had a third act depicting Jackson’s 2005 sexual abuse trial and subsequent acquittal. Lawyers for Jackson’s estate discovered a clause in the 1993 agreement with Jordan Chandler, one of the children whose father sued the singer, that expressly prohibited his on-screen representation in any form. Production was halted and went through an additional 22 days of filming, which added $15 million to the budget. This is what causes the film to end abruptly on the 1988 ‘Bad’ tour, suggesting that the singer’s story will continue in a subsequent film. The question is how the producers will manage to tell the most problematic part of Jackson’s life. Who watches over the watchers. It is not the first time that Jackson’s heirs (who are not his living relatives, but a trust administered by executors that is currently considered one of the estates most profitable in history, above Elvis or Prince, and which functions for practical purposes as a company that exploits the “Michael Jackson” brand) is fighting a legal battle to control the story. The most revealing case is that of ‘Leaving Neverland’the documentary released on HBO in 2019 that collected the detailed testimony of those who claimed to have suffered sexual abuse by the singer when they were children. He estate sued HBO, alleging that the documentary violated a non-defamation clause included in a contract signed by the platform in 1992 for the broadcast of a Jackson concert in Bucharest. The litigation dragged on for years, until in October 2024 both parties they reached an agreement which included the removal of the documentary from all media platforms. streaming officials in the United States. As of today, ‘Leaving Neverland’ is not legally available on any streaming service. streaming North American (in Spain it can be seen on Movistar Plus+). The image of the star. Anyone might think that the fame that Jackson projects with all these legal conflicts is not the most appropriate for a biopic that also wants to safeguard a non-conflictive image. But fans should not be underestimated when they move en bloc: in 2019, when ‘Leaving Neverland’ aired, there were reactions that then seemed signs of a turning point in Jackson’s fame: stations around the world stopped broadcasting his music, Pepsi canceled licensing agreements, sales and streaming of his catalog fell 4%. However, seven years later, all is forgiven or, at the very least, forgotten: his catalog is worth $1.5 billion (Sony Music paid 750 million dollars for half of it in 2024). And at the time of his death in 2009 his heirs, the aforementioned estatereceived 500 million dollars in debts. Now the exploitation and image rights of the singer are valued at 2,000 million. History repeats itself. It’s a pattern we already know with other biopics: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ avoided the most controversial aspects of Freddie Mercury’s life, including his hedonistic way of dealing with his sexuality. Elton John’s ‘Rocketman’ was a bit tougher and didn’t do as well at the box office, but it was still a considerable success, especially among critics. ‘Elvis’ avoided the many chiaroscuros in Presley’s life and triumphed in awards and the box office. The formula of the heir- or family-approved musical biopic, focused on music and celebratory versions of the artists’ lives, has proven to be more profitable than more cumbersome alternatives. Moral: there are cancellations… and cancellations. The figures of streaming of Jackson’s catalog fell for months after ‘Leaving Neverland’, but made a full recovery in 2020 and has been on an upward trajectory for years. ‘MJ the Musical’ has been on Broadway since 2021 earning more than a million dollars weeklywith imminent adaptations around the world. The Las Vegas show signed by Cirque du Soleil about Jackson has just extend your contract until 2030. The truth is that for an artist of this scale, cancellation operates in a different dimension. The cultural debate exists (and will continue to exist, with real accusers whose trial starts in November) but runs in parallel, without interfering with the economy of the phenomenon. It’s not that fans have forgotten about the controversy: it’s that there is a chasm between it and the market. In Xataka | The archive of disturbing paintings that Michael Jackson commissioned of himself

In the 13th century, some monks destroyed a valuable manuscript of the Bible. We just recovered 42 of your pages

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The one of ‘Codex H’ It’s an ironic story. Despite its enormous value, in the 13th century the monks of the Great Laura Monastery (Greece) They decided to dismantle it to reuse their materials in other works. Parchment was scarce and it was time to recycle, even if it was at the cost of destroying a manuscript that was already more than 400 years old at that time. Historians have always considered its content lost. Now, with the help of science, they have rescued more than 40 pages. And they are a real treasure. What is the ‘H Code’? A 6th century manuscript especially valuable for its content. Beyond its age, its heritage value or as a curiosity, the work is interesting because it offers us a copy of the Letters of Saint Paul made only a few centuries after the apostle himself wrote them. That is, the codex was written in Greek a few centuries after (VI) Paul of Tarsus wrote his epistles in the 1st AD. It may seem like a long time, but to scholars who study the New Testament it offers a valuable treasure: a clue to how those epistles were organized in the Early Middle Ages. The ‘Codex H’ also has another peculiarity: it is the oldest sample of the known as “Euthalian Apparatus”a system of divisions and annotations of the New Testament. And what happened to him? That the work ended up dismantled. Literally. In the 13th century, parchment was a scarce commodity, so in the Monastery of the Great Laura, on Mount Athos (Greece), they decided to sacrifice the manuscript to take advantage of your materials. Their idea was to use parchment to bind and create endpapers for other works, so they inked their pages again. This explains why researchers have found fragments of the work scattered throughout libraries in Italy, Greece, Russia, Ukraine and France. Other pages never appeared and were considered lost forever. And it wasn’t like that? Not quite. The monks of the 13th century may have recycled the parchment to make endpapers and bind other manuscripts, but that does not mean that the original pages (and their content) had been lost. Not at least when examined with the help of science of the 21st century. “We knew that, at some point, the manuscript was re-inked. The chemicals in the new ink caused ‘shift’ damage to the facing pages, creating a mirror image of the text on the opposite sheet, sometimes leaving traces of several pages, barely visible, but very clear with the help of the latest imaging techniques,” explains Garrick Allenprofessor at the University of Glasgow and one of the experts who have studied the codex. What exactly have they done? With the collaboration of the Electronic Library of Ancient Manuscripts (EMEL), the researchers used multispectral imaging and processed the preserved pages in search of “ghost” texts. The term may sound strange, but it basically allows experts to get the most out of a folio, looking for traces that allow them to reconstruct other pages that are no longer physically preserved. To guarantee historical accuracy, the team led by Professor Allen collaborated with experts from Paris who, thanks to radiocarbon dating, confirmed that the material they were working with was parchment from the 6th century. What did they find? Neither more nor less than 42 pages lost (so far) from ‘Codex H’. And that is much more important than it may seem at first glance. The recovered texts are fragments of the Letters of Saint Paul, writings that were already known and do not represent any historical novelty in themselves. What is really interesting is not so much his sentences but everything that surrounds them. What does that mean? That those 42 pages provide an enormous amount of information to researchers on issues such as the way the scribes worked, how they related to Paul’s work, how they organized them and (of course) how they reused the materials when the codices aged. Does it give you that much information? The University of Glasgow stands out especially how the 42 pages of the codex help us better understand the changes that the New Testament has undergone. “They offer a unique perspective on how it has evolved and been interpreted over the centuries,” notes the institution before stopping specifically at the “list of chapters.” “These pages contain the oldest known examples of chapter lists from Paul’s Letters, which differ drastically from how we divide these letters today,” they need in Glasgow. The Greek codex also provides information about how 6th-century scribes corrected, annotated, and interacted with the epistles of Saint Paul with whom they worked. Images | University of Glasgow In Xataka | The Bible has always been the most sacred book. Young Christians are filling it with post-its, underlines and cute covers

from manufacturing cars to 1,000 police robots that are, really, a seed of the future

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Today has been a completely different day from the others. Because frankly, the last thing I expected to see at a car show was a nearly three-hour presentation on a humanoid police robotbut here we are. The robot, however, is the least important thing, as we will see later. The clues that the robot would play a leading role were there, to be honest. After all, this same humanoid robot was on display at the Chery stand during the Beijing Motor Showbut of course, from seeing a robot displayed on a stand to understanding its purpose there is one step. Anyway, let’s go in parts. Just a few days ago, on April 17, Chery Group announced an agreement with AiMOGA Robotics to turn robotics into its new avenue for growth. The idea is simple: AiMOGA puts the expertise in robotics and Chery puts the manufacturing capacity, its experience with cars and the savoir faire in the international arena. The AiMOGA robot in the Chery showroom | Image: Xataka In April of last year, AiMOGA managed to ship the first 220 robots to more than 30 countries. These robots have their own name, by the way: Mornine M1. Today we have witnessed the signing of a commitment by different Chinese cities to deploy 1,000, which says a lot about how clear the government (which was present) is that there is a new field to dominate here. These robots are, let’s say, oriented to specific scenarios. Mornine is not a robot designed to make us a French omelet on a Tuesday night, but to control traffic, help with health care, etc. For now, at least. Detail of Mornine’s face | Image: Xataka The robot from behind | Image: Xataka If anyone is interested, they can buy their own Morine M1 robot at JD, the Chinese Amazon. Its price is 285,800 yuan, around 40,000 euros. If that seems like a lot of money to you, another option is his companion, the Argos robotic dog, which costs 15,800 yuan (around 2,000 euros at the exchange rate). Image | Xataka What is the robot like? It is a humanoid that is found at the most extreme point of the uncanny valley. The robot, feminine in appearance, is 1.67 cm tall, weighs 70 kilos, is capable of walking at one meter per second, pivoting 40 degrees and carrying up to 1.5 kilos of weight. It talks, sees (LiDAR, cameras and ultrasonic radar), moves its arms and has a goal: work. Mornine, as I said, has been developed with specific scenarios in mind. The most obvious is that of assistant and we have the clearest proof of it in the train stations and shopping centers of Wuhu, where it is already officially present. Today Chery has gone a step further, signing a commitment with several Chinese cities to deploy 1,000 robots on the roads. Robots dressed as police | Image: Xataka Because yes, Mornine is going to work as a traffic officer. As explained by Chery, Mornine will be able to detect violations, apply and explain the lawmanage vehicle flows, interact with drivers, etc. In fact, in a presentation they have suggested that it could be integrated with government systems to, for example, record violations as soon as they are detected. On paper and in the sample videos it sounds great, but honestly, I would like to see this robot in the middle of one of the main arteries of Beijing talking and interacting with the helmetless motorcyclists, the drivers who cross paths and the general chaos that prevails on Chinese roads. Beyond warning, the robot has no punitive capacity (or does not seem to have it), so it will be necessary to see if its practical application goes beyond the anecdotal. Ah, the irony | Image: Xataka In any case, there is something poetic about seeing human police officers stand next to these robots, which are dressed alike and mounted on a mobile base. Chery maintains that they seek to offer an alternative to professions for which there are no candidates, such as the aforementioned traffic agents, but what I see is different. It’s a robot taking a first step that, in 20 or 30 years, we will remember as the germ of something bigger. Because in this robot, whose movements are orthopedic and depend on a human operator to control them, I see something else. I see a China preparing for the future. I see a country that already anticipated the electric car and is now doing so with robotics. It also plays, yes | Image: Xataka A country with 5,000 years of history has all the patience in the world. Domestic robots will not reach society today, tomorrow or the next day. They probably won’t do it in this decade, but they will. Sooner or later, and being aware that this is a very techno-optimistic thought, domestic robotics will be a reality, and when it is, While the rest of the world takes its first steps, China will already know how to run. Literally. Xpeng is another local brand that has made its first steps in robotics, like Unitree or AgiBot. Tesla, with his Optimus, too. In fact, Chery has put Elon Musk and his goals with Optimus as an example to follow and beat. Hyundai, Honda have robotics projects. But China has something that the others don’t: total and absolute control of the supply chain. China is winning the electric car racethat is no secret, and it is sowing the seeds of victory for robotics. Today they are crude, somewhat clumsy designs, but a country that was able to invest 2,000 years and several dynasties in building a wall is in no hurry. They have all the time in the world to improve their robots, and not only that, but they are fast at iterating. Image | Xataka They are very patient, but they also react in the moment. They are slow and fast at the same time. That is something that … Read more

the study that reveals its birth in an isolated corner of the galaxy

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2025 was the year of 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar visitor that telescopes have been able to capture prowling the Earth. From the beginning it was considered that it could possibly be much older than the other two, Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov. However, there were many unknowns about its origin. Now, thanks to a recently published study by scientists at the University of Michigan, we have much more data on the matter. A visitor from a cold and distant place. According to observations made from the ALMA Observatoryin the Atacama Desert (Chile), 3I/ATLAS formed in a cold and isolated corner of our galaxy, before definitively integrating into its own solar system. The key is in deuterium. The observations that led to this recent study were made between October and December 2025. Several telescopes focused their attention on our interstellar visitor to observe the water on its surface and observed something striking: it had very high levels of deuterium. This is an isotope of hydrogen, somewhat heavier than the most abundant on Earth. In astronomy the deuterium/hydrogen ratio is used to estimate the age of objectssince it has been observed that the more primitive they are, the more deuterium they have. But this proportion also helps to know the temperature at which they were formed. A reaction without turning back. In the cold gas clouds in which stars form, the most abundant molecules They are hydrogen, followed by carbon monoxide (CO). Hydrogen participates in something known as deuteron-proton exchange reactions, where hydrogen protons and deuterium isotopes react with each other, forming something known as deuterated hydrogen. This is the reaction: H3+​+HD⇌H2​D++H2​ CO can compete with this reaction, making it less efficient. However, when it is very cold, the CO freezes into dust grains and cannot react. On the other hand, the deuteration reaction can occur in both directions (hence the two arrows), but if it is cold there is not enough energy to produce it backwards. All the hydrogen with deuterium that is formed accumulates. a lonely star. The fact that 3I/ATLAS occurred in such a cold environment may indicate that it possibly originated around a solitary star. If there had been other stars forming around it, it would be much hotter. Very far away now. Today, that interstellar visitor is near Jupiter, preparing to leave our solar system. It can only be observed with a few instruments. Luckily, he came to our neighborhood long enough to give us a lot of valuable information. Why is it useful information?. We already have a lot of data about 3I/ATLAS. For example, its core measures between 440 meters and 5.6 kilometers. Also that it moves at 220,000 km/h. Now, in addition, we know that it originated in an extremely cold environment, about 11,000 million years ago. This helps us understand the conditions of primitive planetary formation much better. As they always say, to know where we are going, it is very important to understand where we come from. There’s nothing like a visitor from a place far, far away to give us the pieces we need to understand it. Image |NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M.Weiss In Xataka | A Harvard astronomer has accused NASA of hiding 3I/ATLAS images. has an explanation

orders to undo the purchase of Manus for 2,000 million in the middle of the race for AI

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The purchase of Manus seemed like a move already resolved for Meta. The American company had closed an operation valued at more than 2 billion dollars by an artificial intelligence startup founded by Chinese engineers focused on one of the most disputed fields of the moment: AI agents. Now, China has ordered the operation to be undone. The decision turns an acquisition that seemed on track into a much broader notice, with a central mystery: how to cancel a purchase that has already been completed and with part of the team already working from Meta offices in Singapore. Here is one of the keys to the case: Manus was not a typical Chinese startup when Meta bought it. The company had closed its offices in China in July 2025 and had moved its operations to Singapore, a more favorable place to access foreign capital and Western models. But Reuters gives us a very important clueAccording to their sources, this transfer was made without Chinese regulatory approval. Beijing’s decision may have many readings, but possibly the Asian giant is seeking to prevent American companies from acquire talentintellectual property and key AI capabilities linked to its technological ecosystem. It is a movement that fits into a broader context: as Washington tries to limit Chinese technology companies’ access to advanced chipsBeijing would be seeking to protect its own strategic assets. A week ago we found out that the operation passed into the hands of several Chinese agencies, including the NDRC, the Ministry of Commerce and the antitrust regulator, with tools ranging from foreign investment to export controls. Finally, the NDRC has taken the most forceful step: prohibiting foreign investment in Manus and requiring the parties to withdraw the transaction, although the official statement did not name Meta. To understand why Meta was willing to close a deal worth more than $2 billion for Manus, you have to leave the regulatory field and look at the product. Meta spends around 70,000 million of dollars annually in AI infrastructure without having managed to achieve Meta AI’s success as a consumer product. The problem was not so much having more powerful models as turning them into something useful and salable. Manus fit right in there: he didn’t train his own modelsbut it had developed a layer capable of orchestrating them, executing complex tasks and delivering results. Behind all this is a warning that goes beyond Meta and Manus. The relocation of Chinese technology companies to Singapore had become a way to operate with more flexibility in an increasingly tense environment. However, Reuters reports that Beijing is toughening its approach and no longer limits its analysis to where the company is registered. Factors such as the origin of the equipment, the location of the research or data flows become determining factors. And that changes the rules for anyone trying to go down that path. Now, Beijing’s decision leaves more questions than immediate answers. At the moment It is not clear how the annulment will be carried out of an operation that had already materialized and that involves a company structured outside of China. What does seem defined is the framework: artificial intelligence has become a strategic terrain where the control of talent and technology weighs as much as the business. And on that board, movements like Meta’s may be exposed to much broader regulatory reviews than companies had calculated. Images | Manus, Xataka with Mockuuups Studio | Mariia Shalabaieva | aboodi vesakaran In Xataka | China has banned another AI startup from exporting talent and research: little by little, it is “nationalizing” AI

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