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If you live in Madrid or Barcelona, ​​it is possible that a Latin American bookstore has opened next to your house

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The indomitableopened four months ago in the Madrid neighborhood of Prosperidad and directed by a Mexican. A few meters from Retiro Park, the now classic The Retreat of Lettersowned by two Colombians. In Arganzuela, the Argentine bookstore Mandolin It inaugurated its first Madrid branch a year ago. It is not an isolated or spontaneous phenomenon. It responds to an accumulation of demographic, editorial and economic factors that go beyond the folklore chronicle. From rookies to veterans. In this panorama, the most recent projects coexist with initiatives that have been established for a few years. The Mistral It opened in 2021 in the hall of the old Arenal Theater, two minutes from Puerta del Sol, by the Argentine Andrea Stefanoni, and was considered the most beautiful bookstore in the world by National Geographic that same year. His fame allowed him to organize a short story contest that received 150 manuscripts from different countries. Closer in time, in 2020, a couple of Venezuelans inaugurated The little beings also in Madrid, where they sell new and used books with special attention to Venezuelan and Latin American production. Olavidefounded by two Argentine journalists, combines book sales with cultural activities. AND Late Space It simultaneously functions as a bookstore, cafeteria and headquarters of Late, an Ibero-American network of narrative journalism founded as a cooperative by professionals from Colombia, Spain and Cuba. Repeating pattern. Although they are founded by Latin Americans, these bookstores do not operate exclusively with the diaspora as clientele. They are neighborhood bookstores in the most classic sense: children’s collection, independent labels and a personal relationship between bookseller and customer. They organize workshops and reading clubs. Sometimes they even serve cuisine from their places of origin. As a reflection of this phenomenon, the Madrid Book Fair of 2025 dedicated a table of its Meeting of Independent Ibero-American Bookstores to the phenomenon. The figures behind the phenomenon. The most recent breakdown by Latin American origin available, the analysis of the Elcano Royal Institute Based on INE data as of January 1, 2024, there were 4.25 million people born in Latin America residing in Spain (9% of the total population and 48% of all immigrants). The trend behind that figure has not slowed down: during 2024, the largest increases in the foreign population were once again concentrated in Colombians (+98,057), Venezuelans (+52,555) and Moroccans (+48,306), according to the INE. in December 2025. The accumulated result is that as of January 1, 2026, Spain has exceeded the 10 million inhabitants born abroad. A community of that magnitude, concentrated in large cities, generates cultural demand. But… why is this demand channeled towards the opening of own bookstores and not only towards consumption in establishments that already exist? The distribution obstacle. Part of the answer lies in how the transatlantic publishing market works. That Spain and Latin America share a language does not mean that they share a catalog: for example, El Retiro de las Letras imports directly from publishers in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina to make authors visible that do not reach Spain through conventional distribution channels. Combed Cana bookstore specialized in Latin American fiction with offices in Barcelona and Madrid, recognizes that half of its titles are not distributed in Spain and that These copies cannot be returned if they do not sell.. It is a risk of excess stock that large chains are not willing to assume. The bookstore Juan Rulfoproperty of the Economic Culture Fund of Spain, and the Ibero-American Bookstoreopen in Madrid’s Barrio de las Letras since 2004, have been covering that specialized niche for decades. To those establishments have been added in recent years dozens of projects promoted by immigrants that multiply the offer, from bookstores specialized 100% in Latin American narrative to hybrid spaces with a focus on culture. Relief in the sector. The context of the book sector in Spain is not immune to this phenomenon. There are 2,754 independent bookstores active in Spainand although it is a figure in permanent declinethe business going well in economic terms: In 2024, the Spanish publishing sector had a turnover of 3,037 million euros, 6.3% more than in 2023, in its eleventh consecutive year of growth and with the highest figure since 2008. How do you explain that establishments fall while turnover rises? 85% of closures are caused by the retirement of the bookseller. Latin American booksellers are occupying a space where replacements are scarce, in residential neighborhoods of large cities where the traditional bookstore has closed. The limits of the phenomenon. It is advisable not to exaggerate the scope of the phenomenon. A few dozen bookstores founded by Latin American immigrants in Madrid and Barcelona do not reconfigure the Spanish publishing ecosystem. Spanish book exports in 2024 reached 381 million euros, aimed mainly at Ibero-American countrieswhich indicates that the flow of books between Spain and Latin America continues to be mostly in the opposite direction. What these bookstores do represent is a symptom: that of an immigrant community with sufficient cultural roots to invest in a business with fair profitability and that demands a very high vocation. A sector where the main problem is that retirements are multiplying and where there is a Latin American catalog with four million potential readers who continue to need intermediaries willing to cross the Atlantic. In Xataka | The 24 most beautiful bookstores in the world

The company that abandoned gamers in the SSD crisis is looking to redeem itself. It’s not going to be easy

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If you have ever built a PC, it is very likely that you have purchased some component from the Crucial brand, owned by Micron. The RAM ‘pills’ or SSDs were of quality, but Crucial ceased to exist at the time when Micron decided that the segment of the artificial intelligence It was the priority. They focused on creating high-bandwidth memory for the platforms of the data centersbut now they have just announced their new generation of GDDR7 chips for gaming GPUs. And it is an example of how far behind they have fallen compared to the South Koreans. In short. In a post on his blogMicron has confirmed that it is starting mass production of 3 GB GDDR7 chips with a density of 24 Gb. They have done so with pride, as they complete an objective for which they have been fighting for months: to get on par with Samsung and SK Hynix, the leaders of the DRAM market. GDDR7 with asterisk. As detailed tomshardwarethese new Micron chips are 12.5% ​​faster than the first GDDR7 chips that hit the market. They have a bandwidth of 36 Gbps compared to the 32 Gbps from those original modules. However, although the density is the same as its competitors, the bandwidth is noticeably lower. Samsung chips have a bandwidth that can reach 42.5 Gbps and SK Hynix is ​​on par with its 40 Gbps modules… and is already working on 48 Gbps ones. To put it bluntly, the more memory a GPU has, the more textures it can hold, but bandwidth is the amount of simultaneous data it handles, which directly impacts performance in games. The third in contention. The more bandwidth the memory has, the better also for calculations in artificial intelligence applications, something that is becoming essential in video games with techniques such as Nvidia DLSS. And here we have to clarify something: although Micron’s is slower than its competitors, it doesn’t really matter that much in video games because even the most powerful cards from Nvidia and AMD move below 40 Gbps of bandwidth. However, and here comes another asterisk, the fact that Micron is announcing this now shows that it is months behind the two South Korean companies. This is something that is important because we are seeing that, especially in this AI race, whoever comes first is the one who takes the lead, a cat called Nvidia. It already happened a few weeks ago with Samsungbeing the first with the capacity to deliver Mass HBM4 memory to Nvidia for its new Vera Rubin platform and, precisely, being the one chosen by the AI ​​giant over SK and Micron. Nvidia always wins. But hey, here is a win-win. Micron is already in line with its competitors, at least as far as 3 GB GDDR7 memory production is concerned. And Nvidia manages to have a third manufacturer that can deliver those 3 GB chips for its GPUs. With a complicated market due to scarcityand with a gaming segment that remains important, having three memory manufacturers working on your platform can help unclog the GPU market. If Nvidia launches new products this year, what remains to be seen. That, speaking of Nvidia and the three big memory manufacturers, both the South Korean companies and Micron are already mass creating the aforementioned HBM4 for Vera Rubin. In Xataka | The US is investing a fortune in creating its own sovereign chips. Behind it is a South Korean company: Samsung

There are so few bees that there is a law in the United Kingdom that requires new houses to have “rooms” for them.

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On a global scale, humanity is facing a natural disaster that we have not yet come to terms with: the “insect apocalypse.” Science takes years showing its decline and although without careful thought the first impression may be “how nice to get rid of mosquitoes”, that loss threatens ecosystems essential for human life. In this collapse there is a most critical and weakest link if possible: pollinators. Its disappearance not only affects the flora, but also the food. Faced with progressive urbanization and the loss of its natural habitats, current architecture in the United Kingdom has begun to integrate microconservation solutions into the buildings themselves: the Bee Bricka brick that, in addition to supporting walls, houses bees. What began as a sustainable design project has become an urban policy phenomenon that is spreading around the world. bee bricks. As you can see below these lines, a bee brick looks quite similar to a normal brick, but with one particularity: on its front face it has 18 cavities of different diameters. The back is solid, which prevents insects from entering the interior of the building. It is made from precast and largely recycled concrete (75% granite waste from the Cornish kaolin industry and 25% granite aggregate and cementitious material as a binder). Behind the choice of design and materials used are years of testing and research not only by engineering professionals, but also by biology, such as collect research log from Falmouth University. This Bee brick can be integrated directly into the masonry of a new building, replace an existing brick in a renovation or placed independently in a garden or orchard. As a presentation, the British company Green&Blue came up with the idea and the first brick hit the market in 2014. This is what a brick for abjeas looks like. green and blue Why it is important. Because bees are one of the main engines of pollination of terrestrial ecosystems. According to the IPBES Thematic Assessment on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Productionmore than three quarters of the world’s major crops benefit from animal pollination and approximately one third of the global volume of food produced depends on it directly. That same report indicates that 87.5% of the planet’s flowering plants are pollinated by insects or other animals. And although in the collective imagination we associate this function with honey bees (Apis mellifera), this is actually an exception: they are a social species, domesticated and exploited by humans. In short: they are an overwhelming minority. Most bees do not produce honey, do not have a queen, and do not form colonies. Of course, they are first-class pollinators and some are specialized in specific species. Their decline has no substitute: if they disappear, there will be plants that will be left without a pollinator. Context. In the UK there are approximately 270 species of bees and 90% of them are solitary, such as collects the British National Bee Unit. And it is not an isolated case: on the European red list of bees of the IUCN are also the majority and on a global scale the Journal of Applied Ecology establishes that more than 75% of the more than 20,000 described species of bees are solitary. In other words, it is not an isolated case of the islands. And the problem of British bees is not exclusive either: they are losing their nesting habitat at stratospheric speed. Historically, they made their nests in cavities provided by construction, such as dead wood, cracks in the mortar in old buildings, gaps between stones and also in slopes of unpaved earth, in gaps between stones… spaces that with modern construction, so homogeneous and sealed (compared to the previous ones), have disappeared. The large-scale use of pesticides, the disappearance of grasslands or the effects of climate change, which are pushing species adapted to lower temperatures to the margins, do not help either. And that this study from Anglia Ruskin University evidence that solitary ground bees nest in a wider range of habitats than previously believed. Rooms for bees by law. The southern English coastal city Brighton & Hove was the first to turn the Bee Bricks into a legal requirement for new buildings. From January 2022 all new buildings over five meters high must include both Bee Bricks as nest boxes for swifts. Out there, Cornwall adopted in 2018 an official planning guide that includes bee bricks as a prescriptive biodiversity measure and several construction companies in the south of England they integrate them voluntarily in their projects for more than a decade. And do they work? Trials in Cornwall between 2019 and 2021 demonstrate modest results: occupancy rates were low, although nesting activity was recorded in bricks of all colors and in both urban and rural environments. The species that used them the most were the red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) and leaf cutters of the genus Megachile. He Conservation evidence from the University of Cambridge systematizes the available studies on artificial habitats for bees and concludes that nest boxes and cavity systems are used by solitary bees, as long as they are well designed and located. To work, the bricks need to face south, more than a meter off the ground and near flowering plants. Without those conditions, the probability of a bee colonizing them drops dramatically. Yes, but. In addition to the modest results precisely due to unsuitable designs and arrangements, there are experts such as Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex and one of the most renowned bee researchers in the United Kingdom, warns for The Guardian that the holes in the Bee Bricks are too small and shallow for most solitary bee species and that the initiative risks being greenwashing for the real estate sector: “We are kidding ourselves if we think that having one of these in every house is going to make a real difference to biodiversity. Much more substantial action is needed.” On the other hand, other ecology professionals they point out … Read more

For decades we believed that extreme nausea during pregnancy was caused by “hormones.” A large study found the real culprit

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The beginning of pregnancy for many is associated with horrible nausea and vomiting that have become almost an inevitable and deeply annoying toll in pregnancy and that many women fear. And the reality is that, for a percentage of these women, nausea becomes a big problem and evolves into a very serious form called hyperemesis gravidarum. What was believed. At first, the most classic reviews They pointed squarely at the ‘hormonal dance’ that pregnant women experience while the placenta is forming. Here the peaks of human chorionic gonadotropin (which is the hormone that pregnancy tests detect), along with estrogens and progesterone, were the main responsible for this discomfort. However, in clinical practice, the exact cause remained uncertain, since it was not understood why some women only felt mild morning sickness and others ended up hospitalized due to the severe dehydration caused by vomiting. And the answer was in the DNA. A great study. Here science has dotted the i’s with an article published in Nature which has analyzed the data of almost 11,000 cases of hyperemesis gravidarum and contrasted it with more than 420,000 women who did not have this problem. The result. He targeted ten genes associated with this severe form of extreme nausea, but among all of them the GDF15 gene emerged as the main culprit. And here the different experts point out that the developing fetus and the placenta produce the hormone GDF15, which is produced from the gene that we mentioned before and sends it directly to the blood, causing this nausea. Although the key is not just how much hormone is produced, but the degree of prior exposure the mother had to this hormone before pregnancy. In this way, women who had low levels of GDF15 before becoming pregnant turn out to be much more sensitive to the sudden surge of this hormone from the fetus, which triggers the most severe symptoms of nausea and vomiting. A discovery with evidence. Despite the forcefulness that accompanies this evidence, the study suggests that the gene GDF15 It is the main cause, but not the only one. The fact that there are other genes involved demonstrates that hyperemesis gravidarum is a multifactorial condition so calling it the “sole cause” would be scientifically inaccurate, but classifying it as the most determining genetic factor is, today, a fact supported by the best peer-reviewed literature. What does it mean? Identifying GDF15 as the main biological switch of this problem is undoubtedly the first step to be able to apply a treatment that can help these future mothers who suffer from significant vomiting during pregnancy, and especially in the first trimester. Although it is true that this does not explain many other symptoms of pregnancy, such as heartburn or that some things begin to feel bad ‘just because’. Although there is still a lot of research ahead to discover them. Images | tirachardz on Freepik In Xataka | We have been sending pregnant women to bed for decades as a precaution. Science has just proven that it is a big mistake

It is not enough to have liquid water, you must have enough

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We all know that so that a planet can be suitable for life It must hold water. However, this necessary condition may not be sufficient. To begin with, not just any amount of water will do. In fact, according to a recently published studythe minimum amount of this precious liquid for a planet to be a solid candidate for the search for life is much greater than we thought. It looks habitable, but it is not.. Through a series of highly refined computer simulations, scientists at the University of Washington have shown that a planet needs to have at least 20% to 50% of the water in Earth’s oceans so that the natural cycle that sustains life can occur normally. Geological carbon cycle. For a planet to host life it is important that it have an atmosphere, but be careful with the content of that atmosphere. Normally, volcanic activity Planetary releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into it. If this accumulates in excess, the planet becomes inhospitable to life. Luckily, there are some mechanisms that follow one another like a row of dominoes to keep carbon at appropriate levels. In the atmosphere, some of that carbon dioxide dissolves into small water droplets and returns to the surface as rain. There, it accumulates on the rocks. Once again the rain arrives, eroding the rocks, so that carbon dioxide accumulates in the runoff waters, reaching the oceans, where it is buried at the bottom. Then, plate tectonic movements can cause carbon dioxide to rise again to the surface with the formation of mountains. It is a process that takes millions of years to occur. Without water, everything goes to waste.. We have seen that water is an important piece of this succession. Therefore, if there is not enough on the planet, the relocation of carbon dioxide may not be enough compared to the gas that accumulates due to volcanic activity. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means higher temperaturesbecause of the greenhouse effect. As a result, what little water there is evaporates and the situation gets worse and worse. Redefining the goldilocks zone. In astronomy, it is known as the habitable zone, or goldilocksthe region around a star that is neither too close nor too far from it. It is the ideal distance for water to remain in a liquid state. The problem is that we now see that habitability does not depend only on liquid water. There also needs to be enough water. More refined models. In reality, models had already been created to analyze the geological cycle of carbon on planets capable of harboring life. However, the driest planets had never been taken into account, nor had as many parameters been introduced as in these more recent models, which include more forgotten parameters, such as wind. With all this in mind, we see that it is not enough for a planet to be rocky, similar to Earth and located at the exact point of its star to have liquid water. It must have enough water. If not, everything else doesn’t matter. Image | M. Mizera / PTA / IAU100 In Xataka | The Zoo Hypothesis: Why Aliens Likely Know About Us and Don’t Want to Contact Us

A Cuban mechanic has converted his car to run on charcoal because gasoline is no longer an option

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Juan Carlos Pino, 56, has left his neighbors speechless after convert your small Fiat Polski 1980 in a vehicle that runs on charcoal to operate. He has done it from his workshop in Aguacate, Cuba, a town of about 5,000 inhabitants 70 kilometers east of Havana, and the news has gone around the world. Shortage. Cuba passes through one of its worst energy crises in decades. Since January, when the Trump administration blocked fuel supplies to the island, gasoline has become a practically inaccessible commodity for most Cubans. On the black market, a liter costs eight dollars (about six times the official price), and power outages are now a constant. Added to this scenario is the closing of Venezuela’s oil tap, which historically had acted as an energy cushion for Havana. As if that were not enough, the global context is also worrying with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the war conflict in the Middle East. The barrels that Russia has supplied to Cuba has given some relief to the country, but as reported its Minister of Energy and Mining, Vicente de la O Levy, the supply is scheduled for “the end of April”, and at the moment there is no confirmation on when the next shipment could arrive. Hence, some have opted for such creative measures to boost the engines of their vehicles. How the invention works. Pino built the propulsion system entirely from salvaged parts and scrap materials. The charcoal is burned inside a converted propane cylinder, sealed with the lid of an electrical transformer. The hot gases pass through a filter made from a stainless steel milk can filled with old clothes, and from there they reach the carburetor to replace gasoline. The whole set (a 60 liter tank welded to the rear of the car) It took two months to build.. Starting up, however, requires patience, since you have to light the charcoal with alcohol and wait about thirty minutes before you can leave. “It’s not a car for someone who’s in a hurry,” he joked. The inspiration came from the internet. Pino did not start from scratch. According to what he said, he spent hours watching videos of Edmundo Ramos, an Argentine engineer who has been perfecting biomass-powered car technology. According to explained Ramos himself told Reuters, since the crisis in Cuba began, he has received calls from several Cubans asking for help, from an ice manufacturer that could not produce, to an ice cream maker or shopkeepers. Ramos maintains that practically any engine can adapt to this system, as long as hot gas can be introduced into the carburetor instead of gasoline. Atracloc tionto the. Pino started his car for the first time at the beginning of last month. The Polski completed a journey of 85 kilometers and reached a top speed of 70 km/h, according to collected Reuters. In Aguacate, the vehicle has become the newest, as neighbors come to take photos, and some ask out of curiosity if the mechanic can build one for them. “This is Cuba. A salad made of everything,” summed up one of the neighbors in the middle. Distress. This very creative invention is nothing more than the symptom of an economy on the limit. In Cuba, scarcity has generated an entire culture of improvisation that Cubans themselves call “creole inventions”. Blackouts of up to nineteen hours, neighborhoods without water for weeks, families cooking with firewood or collecting rainwater in soda bottles. Just like shared El País, the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts, registered more than 1,200 protests in the last month, mainly due to supply cuts. What comes next. Pino already has the following project in mind: adapt a tractor with the same system. “We need mobility, we need to be able to farm,” he declared to the media. To his neighbors, he has become more than just a handyman. “They tell me I’m a magician,” he says proudly. Images | Reuters, The Country In Xataka | Someone dumped 167,000 tons of rubble and asbestos in Malaga. And now Malaga has a serious problem

donations from parents to children have skyrocketed

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In the offices of Valencian notaries there is a procedure that has been gaining weight in recent years, and at an astonishing speed: the donations from parents to children who want to have their own home. Since 2019, the region’s members have confirmed a “boom” both money deliveries (they have almost quadrupled in just over five years), and home transfers, an operation that has also multiplied. The objective is always the same: to help young people get their head into a market increasingly expensive…and inaccessible. It makes sense if we take into account if we see who buys in the region. What has happened? That the Notarial College of Valencia wanted to accompany the presentation of its new statistical portal (a tool valid for the entire country) of a series of data on the residential market in the region. Among all of them there are three especially interesting ones that are connected to each other. The first is the gradual rise in housing prices, the second is the negligible weight that young people have in the buying and selling market and the third is the boom in donations from parents to children, both of houses themselves and of sums of money. How much is donated? Increasingly, this shows that family support has become a key ‘key’ for young people to open the doors of the market and make the leap from tenants to owners. The data is clear. And they leave little room for doubt. According to Valencian referees, home donations from parents to children have doubled between 2019 and 2025: from 3,015 they have gone to 7,776. In short, they have skyrocketed 158% in five years. That’s if we’re talking about properties themselves. If we look at monetary donations, those that are based on money and that facilitate the payment of deposits or the signing of mortgage loans, the increase has been even more pronounced. How much have they increased? Those kinds of donations have almost quadrupled. If in 2019 Valencian notaries managed just under 3,000 operations in which parents gave money to their children to facilitate the purchase of a residential property, last year that figure had already climbed to almost 11,100 operations. 279% more in just five years. This boom was registered in all provinces. In Valencia it went from 1,647 to 5,370; in Alicante, from 844 to 4,012; and in Castellón from 432 to 1,712. Regarding the average amount of donations, in 2025 they exceeded 75,000 euros. Does it only occur in that region? No. In fact, the data from the General Council reflect that it is a fairly widespread trend in Spain. In 2025 the group processed more than 225,300 donations throughout the country, a data that can be analyzed from several angles. To begin with, it is the highest indicator since at least 2011 and far exceeds the 85,300 operations a decade ago. If that were not enough, it marks a clear upward trend: between 2023 and 2024 donations registered an increase of 15.2%, a drift that was consolidated with another 13% in 2025. At the end of 2025 the General Council I already warned that donations and inheritances were “consolidating themselves as instruments of access to housing”, a phenomenon that connects with an even larger trend: the Great Wealth Transfer. His statistics were again incontestable. Home donations went from 32,623 in 2017 to 54,735 in 2024. Residential property inheritances also drew a similar curve: from 335,888 they rose to 403,854. What is the reason? To answer that question we must recover the two keys that we pointed out at the beginning of the article: the increase in housing prices and how this increase has been closing the doors of real estate agencies to young people. Again according to the data managed by notaries, the cost of residential m2 (both in new and second-hand homes) has skyrocketed in the last decade in the Valencian Community. In 2025 it stood at 1,676 euros, 69.1% more than in 2013, when that same indicator reached minimum levels dragged down by the brick crisis. If we look at the specific case of Valencia, per m2 is even more expensive: 2,489 euros. In Alicante it has climbed to 1,889 and in Castellón to 1,297. How does that affect young people? More expensive prices require a greater capacity for savings and debt, something that is not always within the reach of young people. Especially if they are tenants before making the leap to owners. In 2024, a study by Infojobs concluded that Spaniards spend on average 47% of your salary gross payment of the rent for your home, which far exceeds the spending threshold recommended by experts and strangles the ability to save. With this backdrop it is explained that donations and inheritances have come to play a key role as a springboard to make the leap to owner. Who buys? The ‘photograph’ provided by the notaries is once again quite clear. In 2007, young people between 18 and 30 years old they accounted for 21.58% of home purchases in the region. Now that percentage has plummeted to 8.39%, even below the national averagewhich is around 9.6%. As a reference, foreign buyers represent 36.9% of the total, although their weight is not the same throughout the territory. In the province of Valencia it represents 21.97% of the total buyers, while in Alicante it accounts for 51%. Images | Northleg Official (Unsplash) and Giuseppe Buccola (Unsplash) In Xataka | If the question is “why doesn’t Spain build more houses”, the brick industry has the answer: it is not profitable

NASA wants to head to Mars in December 2028. To achieve this, it is going to use something: nuclear reactors

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Virtually all major space companies They agree that the future of space exploration involves feeding ships with nuclear energy. For this reason, NASA has already set a date for its first interplanetary trip with nuclear-electric propulsion. It will be possible thanks to Space Reactor-1 (SR-1) Freedom, which will be launched in December 2028 heading to Mars. Destination: the red planet. NASA has long shown interest in carrying out this launch in 2028. Now, the company has assured that everything is going at a good pace and that, if it continues like this, the date could be closed around the last month of this year. In order to meet deadlines, technologies previously tested by NASA are being used. Some, for example, come from the Lunar Gateway Station, whose development is currently paralyzed. With these technologies, together with a new nuclear reactor system, a trio of helicopters similar to Ingenuity, baptized as Skyfall, will be taken to Mars. The classic and the new. The SR-1 actually runs on a closed Brayton system, which is very common for power. Normally, in these types of systems A combustion reaction takes place, which produces energy in the form of heat. This is used to heat a gas, which expands and drives a turbine. The result is mechanical energy that can be used, for example, to obtain electricity. Then, when the gas cools, a new cycle begins, which is why it is said to be a closed cycle. In the case of the SR-1, everything is almost identical. The only difference is that, instead of a fuel, a nuclear fission reaction is used to obtain the heat. Thus it is not necessary to transport large quantities of fuel into space. Just a chain reaction like those used in nuclear power plants. electric motors. The electricity obtained in this closed cycle is used to power electric motors in a process that is activated 48 hours after launch. Afterwards, you can stay active during the entire year of the trip to Mars. On the other hand, this same electricity can also be used for other purposes, such as communications with Earth. Also on the Moon. The main application of nuclear energy in space will be in very long-distance travel, where the ships are so far from the Sun that solar panels are no longer useful. However, it can also be useful at much shorter distances. If this trip to Mars goes well, NASA plans to be able to use these technologies at a lunar base installed in Shackleton Crater. Strategically it is a good locationbut it has the disadvantage of being continually in shadow, so solar energy cannot be used. Nuclear fission could be much more useful. 60 years of research. In reality, the SR-1 is the result of 60 years of research, with an investment of 20 billion dollars. Although it may seem like something new, there is a lot of work behind it. Still, if NASA’s projects go as planned, they will be time and money well spent. Image | POT In Xataka | The West stopped building nuclear power plants because they were too expensive: China is teaching it a lesson

In 2004 Madrid decided to build its own Guggenheim. Now it has a monster that not even Richard Gere wants as a Buddhist center

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Many cities have pursued the idea that a single building could change everything, attract tourism and redefine their identity almost overnight. The obsession has a very specific origin: the impact it had the Guggenheim Museum in the economy and image of Bilbao, converted into a global case study. In 1997, its inauguration marked a before and after and fueled an urban fever that led to replicate that model in places where the context did not always accompany. A Guggenheim in the suburbs. At the beginning of the 2000s, in the midst of a real estate boom and with the Bilbao effect still resonating, Alcorcón decided to aspire to his own cultural icona complex that was to place the city on the international art map. The idea was ambitious to the point of excess: a macrocenter cwith nine interconnected buildings which included an auditorium, conservatory, conference center and even a permanent circus, all conceived as a kind of Madrid Guggenheim. The problem here was not a lack of imagination, of course, but the scale of a project designed for an economic reality that was about to disappear. A half giant. The works They started in 2007 with budgets that were already high, but soon they began to chain modifications, cost overruns and difficult decisions to justify, such as the demolition of a practically new library or the incorporation of such peculiar facilities as, attention, stables for animals. When the 2008 crisis hit squarely, the project was stopped with around 70% executed and more than 100 million of euros invested, leaving behind a huge structure, partially completed and without a clear function. What should have been a cultural emblem became an empty mass, one too big to abandon completely and too expensive to finish. The hidden cost of an impossible project. Beyond the initial investment, CREAA had profound economic consequences for the municipality. The reason? It had been financed through a public company that ended up accumulating a gigantic debt. The estimates spoke of tens of millions additional costs to complete it and several million annually just to keep it running, which turned it into a structural problem rather than an opportunity. In fact, even its design played against: a complex so integrated that turning on a single zone meant activating practically the entire system, skyrocketing costs and making any reasonable partial use unfeasible. Nobody wants the “Guggenheim” of Alcorcón. Over the years, the building became a kind of failed promise that was passed from hand to hand without finding real lace. Projects of all types and colors were considered, from an NBA campus to a sports university, passing through a large Buddhist center promoted by Richard Gerebut none came to fruition and most of those interested declined the opportunity. Even more recent initiatives, such as the creation of a great audiovisual hubhave ended up running aground when faced with the real costs of adapting facilities designed for a completely different context. The idea that that complex could become an international benchmark has been diluted with each failed attempt. From cultural icon to symbol of excess. Over time, CREAA has gone from being an emblematic project to becoming another example of that appellant excessive planning in Spain, a construction that aspired to change the identity of a city, but ended up conditioning its public narrative. The image of that large iron and concrete structure, partially finished and unused for years, has weighed more than any original intention, fueling the debate about the limits of public spending on large-scale cultural projects. A partial ending to an unfinished story. However, in recent years, some spaces have begun to find usefulnesssuch as the installation of a state victim care center or the partial reopening of certain areas, but the whole is still far from fulfilling the vision with which it was conceived. More than a decade later, the complex begins to reactivate in a fragmented way, adapting to much more pragmatic needs than those from which it was born. The result, as in other phantom “moles” of the Peninsula, is a persistent reminder of a time when it was thought that it was enough to build big to transform a city, without foreseeing that the real challenge would really come later. Image | Juan Lupión, Zarateman In Xataka | The biggest disaster in sports history dates back to the Roman Empire: the tragedy of the Fidenae “VIP boxes” In Xataka | In 1995, South Korea suffered one of the great architectural disasters of the century. The culprit: the air conditioning

China already knows how to keep a fleet of drones in the air indefinitely. The problem is that there are too many problems

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Wireless charging in everyday devices It is a resource that provides comfort. In other areas, wireless and remote charging implies a much more powerful advantage: supremacy over a rival. That is precisely what China is testing, how to maintain a drone fleet flying almost indefinitely thanks to a microwave charge injected from a ground system. And they are not the only ones. In short. A few days ago, Chinese scientists from Xidian University published a peer-reviewed article in the journal Aeronautical Science & Technology in which they presented a system microwave emitter that could send energy to an array of antennas installed on the top of a drone to charge the vehicle’s battery in mid-flight. The most important thing is that it works while the ground vehicle and the drone are moving, which eliminates the need for a stationary charge that would make no sense from a strategic point of view. Image of Xidian University How it works. For the system to work, and as we read in SCMPthe researchers integrated a GPS positioning system that allowed a drone and a ground vehicle to be aligned. On the ground there is the microwave emitter and the drone has a series of antennas at the bottom that collect the energy. In tests, the system kept fixed-wing drones in the air for up to 3.1 hours at an altitude of 15 meters. The great challenge was maintaining the alignment between the drone and the ground vehicle to maximize the load, but once the obstacle with the GPS system was overcome, the drone can stay in the air depending only on the vehicle’s fuel. On the other hand, we are approaching it from the point of view of indefinite autonomy, but such a system would also allow drones to have less battery (which, in the end, adds weight) and have more carrying capacity. The BIG asterisk. Defense analysts liken it to a “land-based aircraft carrier” in which an armored vehicle on the ground is both the command and power node, monitoring, charging and providing logistical support to the drones in a manner similar to that of a aircraft carrier It is the lifeline of manned fighters. However, the system has a huge problem: it is extremely inefficient. The Xidian team estimates that the efficiency of the microwave ‘cannon’ is between 3 and 5%. It’s… ridiculous, which means that the vast majority of the energy emitted is simply wasted. Why not a laser? It’s the big question. A laser system is more precise and has a longer range, which opens the doors to other types of missions. However, being a beam of light and not directly the energy that we launch, the laser is very sensitive to interference such as fog and dust. Also, think of the laser as a precision rifle and the microwave as a shotgun: any turbulence or bump in the road would affect the beam, but microwave energy has a wider range of action. China is not alone. Chinese analysts point out that it is a promising concept, but also something that is very far from being able to be applied to satisfy an immediate operational need. What it is, is one more step to find that way to get those drones that are appearing to be a very valuable element on the battlefield, as the wars in Ukraine and Iran, unfortunately, are demonstrating. The advance is important because Xidian has time working in the theoretical framework of the technology, but it is now that they have carried out a successful field test. Now, they are not alone, since the American agency DARPA is experimenting with radio frequency and laser to charge drones remotely, and in Germany, Rheinmetall is also developing wireless charging platforms for unmanned ground vehicles, although in this case, the drones are perched on a platform. In Xataka | Sending electricity without cables seemed like a thing of the future. DARPA has done it again, and the test has turned out better than expected

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