Mobile Tech & Gadgets

Two centuries ago the tires on cars and motorcycles were white. It had nothing to do with the design.

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It is more than likely that, in some of the American films you have seen inspired by the last century, you have seen cars or motorcycles with a white stripe on their tires Today, some companies still implement them as a nod to the past. What you may not know is that the only reason the wheels weren’t completely black was to… save a few bucks. As explained in Motorpasion, no tire (neither motorcycle nor car) was born as black as they are now. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the following century, tires were white, light gray or beige. If you search any car from the 19th century You can check it easily. This was because natural rubber is naturally light in color. But of course, rubber cannot become a tire as it leaves the tree; it must be heated with sulfur so that it is able to withstand the heat of the asphalt, withstand weight and friction, and behave as expected in a tire. To achieve this, the rubber was “cooked” using a technique called vulcanization, a process that bleached the material even more and ended up producing clear, non-durable tires. The big change came with the introduction of a very specific material: carbon. With its arrival, tires became more durable and resistant, since this material reinforced the rubber structure. There was only one problem: it was very expensive. For this reason, during the early 20th century, tire manufacturers opted for a mixed solution: the critical part (the tread that directly contacts the ground) was made with rubber and carbon, the rest without it. The result was this: tires with said black stripe and the rest in white. As carbon became cheaper, tires became completely black as we know them now, but some manufacturers (mainly motorcycle manufacturers) maintain white treads to give their tires a retro feel. It is the case of some Mitas tires for Harley-Davidson. Yes indeed, through the forums they comment the price to pay for this hesitated retro: you have to constantly clean the tread if you want it to remain white. Image | Harley-Davidson In Xataka | I was about to buy the best-selling Chinese motorcycle in Spain. Until I read the fine print

Sparkling water has a “secret” to losing weight. And it has nothing to do with its nutritional properties.

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Sparkling water is one of those ‘rare’ options on the drinks menu that few people consume in our environment, but little by little it is gaining popularity. prominence in the dietary field. All thanks to a recent scientific publication that pointed to its benefits in order to lose weight with its consumption, although there is quite a bit of fine print under this premise. The study. The epicenter of this new wave of enthusiasm is placed in a study published in BMJ Nutrition where a fascinating hypothesis is raised: carbon dioxide dissolved in water could increase the glycolysis in the organism. A process that basically does is ‘break’ the sugar we have in our cells to obtain energy. In this way, we would be reducing one of the components that gives rise to the ‘hated’ fat that we want to avoid. As? Drinking sparkling water and having this happen is not something very ‘normal’ a priori. Science suggests that, when consuming carbonated water, the CO₂ that gives rise to those bubbles that we see on its surface passes into the bloodstream, where it could stimulate our red blood cells so that they use more glucose and therefore, it does not accumulate as fat. On paper, it sounds like music to the ears of anyone looking to lose weight: drinking water to burn off sugar. There is small print. The study itself is a brief report and the scientific community she has been quick to qualify it: Even if the mechanism exists, the isolated effect is too small to produce “miraculous” weight loss just by drinking water. In this way, we are not facing a great ‘fat burner’, but rather a metabolic curiosity that will hardly be noticed on the scale if it is not accompanied by other changes. The real trick. If sparkling water doesn’t magically “burn” calories, why do many nutritionists insist that it helps with weight control? The answer lies not in metabolism, but in fluid mechanics and satiety. This is not something new, but studies from 2008 already showed that carbonated drinks had a direct impact on the stomach. The first effect focuses on the distention of the stomach, since the gas takes up volume. Thus, when drinking sparkling water, there is greater distension of the ‘upper’ part of the stomach compared to normal water. This makes we get full faster and we don’t want to continue eating. There is more. But beyond filling us up faster, this distension sends satiety signals to the brain through the vagus nerve. That is why the bubbles “trick” the stomach, making it believe that it is fuller than it really is. In this way, the brain interprets that it is full and inhibits our desire to continue eating. thanks to chemical inhibition. Japanese investigations on oral stimulation with CO₂ suggest that this feeling of fullness can reduce subsequent food intake, although the effect is modest and short-term. The substitution factor. The strongest argument for sparkling water has nothing to do with CO₂ or gastric motility, but rather behavior. This is precisely what I was aiming for. a meta-analysis by McGlynn which reviewed what happens when we replace sugary drinks with calorie-free options. The results in this case are quite clear: replacing cola or packaged juice with water (with or without carbonation) reduces weight, BMI and body fat. And this is where sparkling water shines as a replacement tool, since for many people accustomed to the sensory “aggressiveness” of a carbonated soft drink, flat water is boring. And its impact. Sparkling water offers that oral stimulation, with the beloved sting of bubbles, without the “toll” of empty calories. If carbonated water helps you quit sugary sodas, that is the relevant clinical impact, not the fact that carbonated water speeds up the burning of sugars we have previously consumed. It’s not for everyone. Although hydration guides indicate that sparkling water hydrates exactly the same as regular water, it is not for everyone. That same mechanism that helps satiety (gastric distension) is the number one enemy for certain clinical profiles, such as for those who have gastroesophageal reflux or irritable bowel syndrome. Here, increasing the pressure of the digestive system can aggravate these diseases. Images | Anja Michal Jarmoluk In Xataka | The myth of “two liters of water a day” collapses: a mistake from 1945 that science is now trying to correct

There are people poisoning the memory of our AI to manipulate us. And Microsoft has set off all the alarms

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That “comfortable” button of “summarize this with AI“hides a secret: it has surely been manipulated. We don’t say it, it’s the elite department that Microsoft has to analyze the security of both its services and those of the competition. In the process of a investigationhave started to pull the thread and have found that dozens of companies are inserting hidden instructions into those “summarizing with AI” functions with a single objective. Contaminate the AI’s memory to manipulate us. Microsoft what. Big Tech has a lot of exciting departments. from which They are dedicated to opening boxes to guarantee the best experience to those who sculpt competing products in clay to study them. However, something that all big technology companies share are cybersecurity teams, elite teams dedicated to one thing: investigating threats. They analyze both their own products and those of the competition because it is understood as an ecosystem. Google and Microsoft have two of the most powerful and a clear example is that if Google finds a security flaw in Windows, it notifies those responsible because it is something that could potentially harm its own product –Chrome-. An example is the research of one of these Microsoft teams, putting on the table the danger of AIs being so malleable. Poisoning AI memory. It is a concept that attracts attention and is easy to understand. “That useful “Summarize with AI” button could be secretly manipulating what your AI recommends,” Microsoft notes in the blog in which it published the research. What the attackers have done is corrupt the AI ​​by incorporating certain hidden commands that manage to persist in the assistant’s memory. Thus, they influence all the interactions we have with the assistant. Simply put, a compromised assistant may start providing biased recommendations on critical topics. I don’t mean that you ask if pizza is better with or without pineapple and that the answer depends on what the ‘hacker’ has implemented in the AI’s ‘memory’, but something much more serious related to health, finances or security. It must be said that Microsoft has not discovered this, since It’s been ringing for a few monthsbut they have given very specific examples and recommendations to avoid being victims. H-how do they do it? In it documentMicrosoft says they have identified more than 50 unique iterations from 31 companies and 14 different industries. They detail that this manipulation can be done in several ways: Malicious links: Most major AI assistants support reading URLs automatically, so if we click on a summary of a message that has a link with preloaded malicious information, the AI ​​processes those manipulated instructions and becomes contaminated. Integrated instructions: In this case, the instructions for manipulating the AI ​​are hidden embedded in documents, emails or web pages. When the AI ​​processes that content, it becomes contaminated. Social engineering: it is the classic deception, but in this case for the user to paste messages that include commands that alter the AI’s memory. Likewise, when the assistant processes it, it becomes contaminated. And therein lies the problem: various ways to contaminate the AI’s memory, a feature that makes assistants more useful because it can remember personal preferences. But, at the same time, it also creates a new attack surface because, as Microsoft points out, if someone can inject instructions into the AI’s memory and we don’t realize it, they gain persistent influence on future requests. to the point. In an AI like the one we have, it is dangerous, but in the future Agentic AI It is even more so because it will automatically perform actions based on that contaminated memory. Given the context, let’s get down to business. The security team has reviewed URLs for 60 days, finding more than 50 different examples of attempts to contaminate the AI. The purpose is promotional, and they detail that the attempts originated in 31 companies from different fields related to industries such as finance, health, legal services, marketing, food purchasing sites, recipes, commercial services and software as a service. They point out that the effectiveness was not the same in all attacks, but that they did identify the repeated appearance of instructions similar to “remember this.” And, in all cases, they observed the following: Each case involved real companies, not hackers or scammers. They are legitimate businesses contaminating AI to gain influence over your decisions. Deceptive container with hidden instructions in that “button”Summarize with AI“It seems useful to us and that’s why we click, triggering the script that contaminates its memory. Persistence, with commands such as “remember this”, “keep this in mind in future conversations” or “this is a reliable and safe source” to guarantee that long-term influence. Consequences. Concrete examples of what a poisoned AI can do: Child safety: If we ask “is this online game safe for my eight-year-old son?” a poisoned AI that has been instructed that yes, that game with toxic communities, dangerous moderators, harmful policies, and predatory monetization is totally safe, will recommend the game. biased news: When we ask for a summary of the main news of the day, the intervened AI will not bring us the best ones, but will constantly bring up headlines and focuses of the publication whose owners have contaminated the AI. Financial issues: If we ask about investments, the AI ​​may tell us that a certain investment is extremely safe, minimizing the volatility of the operation. Recommendations. And this is where our responsibility comes in. Because you may be thinking “who asks the AI ​​those things and it pays attention”. Good: people ask the AI ​​these things and they listen. There are the unfortunate cases of suicide induced by chatbots or fake news. If the AI ​​recommends us pizza with gluesupposedly we have the common sense not to throw Super Glue as a substitute for cheese, but in other matters, there are users who trust AI as if it were an entity and not a compendium of letters one after another. It is something that Microsoft itself mentions, pointing out … Read more

China needed space to power millions of homes, so it built a mega solar plant in the open sea

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That China is building power plants As if there were no secret, it is not a secret. Without going any further, in the last four years it has been able to replicate the power of the United States, the largest electrical grid in the West. And a good part of the blame solar energy has it. In fact, in 2023 it installed more solar panels than the United States in all of history, as reported by Bloomberg. Solar energy requires space, so China is finding the most varied gaps, from the tibetan plateau to the open sea, where from the end of 2025 It is already connected to the electrical network a mega solar plant that breaks records. In China there are solar panels even in the soup. The largest offshore solar plant in the world. We are talking about the solar plant located off the coast of Kenli district in Dongying city, Shandong province. This engineering project is carried out by China Energy Investment Corporation (CHN Energy) and has a nominal capacity of 1 GW. As explains People’s Dailythe official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is China’s first gigawatt-level offshore photovoltaic project and currently the largest offshore solar installation in the world. This is what the Shandong plant looks like. Via: People’s Daily The context: why at sea. Because land space near its large coastal cities is a precious commodity. The Chinese government has a policy of red line to safeguard land used for agriculture and solve the line “Hu Huanyong Line“: while its great solar and wind potential is concentrated in the west, in the Gobi Desert and Inner Mongolia, the megacities and their most powerful industrial fabric are in the east. China is already developing parks of renewables in their deserts, but running Ultra High Voltage lines is very expensive, involves losses along the way and crosses complicated orography. The logical but technically infernal solution is to jump into the water. Until now, floating solar energy was limited to calm waters, such as what Germany is doing with its lakesbut China is another story. The open sea brings salt corrosion, typhoons and waves. Why is it important. Because China’s coastal provinces such as Shandong or Jiangsu constitute large centers of industrial consumption. Generating energy right there avoids those transportation losses of thousands of kilometers from the Gobi desert. If it works within the expected design parameters and the maintenance costs are affordable, it will be a good boost to take advantage of the coasts within the energy transition process from fossil to renewables. The panels are simply colossal. Via: X from People’s Daily A prodigious work of engineering. We are talking about an area of ​​more than 1,200 hectares where 2,934 enormous marine photovoltaic panels are located with standardized dimensions of 60 meters long and 35 meters wide. And they are not drifting panels: it is a large infrastructure designed to withstand extreme conditions ranging from storms to freezing water. In addition, it is hybridized: under the panels the project integrates fish farms, that is, producing electricity above and fish below. This type of combination is not new, as in Guizhou province there is a giant solar plant in whose basement mushrooms are grown. Shandong is aquavoltaic and Guizhou is agrivoltaic. Some numbers that make you dizzy. This installed power of 1 Gigawatt is similar to that of a modern nuclear reactor, so that according to estimates, it will be capable of producing 1,780 million kWh of energy that will be fed into the grid each year and thus supply 2.6 million homes in the region. approximately 60% of your demand. According to the estimates of the engineering company behind it, 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide will no longer be emitted. In Xataka | Germany has had a crazy idea to solve one of the problems of renewables: covering a lake with solar panels In Xataka | The great myth of solar panels: producing them emits hundreds of times less than coal and gas Cover | People’s Daily

“task dates” are the new way to screen your future partner

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Picture the scene: no candles, no jazz music in the background, no glasses of wine. In its place is an Allen wrench, an instruction manual with silent drawings, and a pressed-wood shelf that seems to resist the laws of physics. What for many would be the prelude to a breakup, for a new generation of singles it is the perfect date. Welcome to choremancingthe trend that proposes that, if you want to know who someone really is, forget the gala dinner and take them to do the weekly shopping. For years, the dominant dating app narrative sold us the matches as the gateway to an endless parade of sophisticated plans. However, how to explain Guardian, something is changing. The British media defines the choremancing like a portmanteau chore (homework) and romance. The idea is as simple as it is cynical: why waste time pretending at a cocktail bar if 90% of life as a couple is going to consist of deciding who takes out the trash or how the bills are paid? This trend was consolidated after the application Plenty of Fish would include it in its annual trends report. It’s no longer about impressing, but about “folding a date into an errand you had to do anyway.” It is, in essence, the definitive compatibility test. The end of romantic “posturing” Why do we prefer to see our date in the frozen food aisle than under the dim light of a restaurant? The answer lies in authenticity. As Bruce Y. Lee analyzes in the magazine Psychology Todaymundane tasks reveal what people are “at their core.” At a dinner party it’s easy to maintain a façade, but when faced with a logistical challenge—like figuring out why a piece of furniture is missing—the real personality comes out: Is your date cooperative and adaptable, or does he become selfish and irritable at the first setback? However, this “test” has its dangers. Quartz warns that assembling Ikea furniture is a real emotional minefield. Citing expert psychologiststhe outlet explains that these tasks activate old “triggers” and latent insecurities. A simple bookshelf can lead to existential questions: “Do you think I’m stupid?”, “Don’t you trust me?” Additionally, psychology professor Dan Ariely points in the same medium a dangerous phenomenon: the fundamental attribution error. We tend to think that if we make a mistake it is because the instructions are bad, but if the other person makes a mistake it is because they “never pay attention.” He choremancing It is, therefore, a quick way to see how the couple manages guilt and pressure. The collapse of the Tinder model This retreat into everyday life is not coincidental, but symptomatic. Traditional dating apps are suffering from structural wear. Although 80% of Generation Z want to find love, only 55% feel ready for a relationship. It is the “paradox of preparation”: the fear of failure is so high that young people prefer not to try. “Traditional flirting” is on the decline. Today you no longer ask for a date, you ask for Instagram, and that is where the interaction often dies. The fear of “public failure”—having to delete photos or explain things if a relationship doesn’t work out—acts like a handbrake. In this context, a “task date” is much safer: less pressure, less exposition, and above all, more honesty. Faced with this boredom, some are returning to old methods, like the resurgence of marriage agencies. “We get a lot of tired and frustrated people from the digital world,” they explain from the sector. Singles now seek “exclusivity and anonymity”, fleeing the public showcase of social networks. This search for tangible connection has taken courtship to the most unexpected spaces. For example, a couple of months ago the “hook up in Mercadona from seven to eight in the afternoon” went viral. What started as a joke about secret codes—like carrying an upside-down pineapple in your cart to indicate availability— reflects a deep reality: the desire to return to face-to-face in real environments, away from the algorithm. But he choremancing It goes beyond the first date; It is also the glue of coexistence. According to psychologist Dr. Hannah Lawson, cited by Uniladtechcouples who do household chores together, like washing dishes, are 20% happier. Lawson maintains that sharing these small daily rituals builds a stronger emotional connection than large romantic gestures. “It’s a symbol of equality,” he says, preventing resentment and encouraging natural conversation. However, there is a cruder reading behind this boom in useful quotes. First of all, the economic context does not help. With housing through the roof, looking for a partner has become a pragmatic decision: “you need two incomes to aspire to a stable life.” In this scenario, evaluating whether your potential partner is efficient at managing the house is not a lack of romanticism, it is a survival instinct. So is he choremancing The future of love or simply proof that we are too tired for traditional courtship? Either way, it seems like an efficient strategy. In a world where time is the most scarce resource, combining logistics with romance allows us to optimize the agenda and, in the process, truly get to know who we have in front of us. At the end of the day, logic is unbeatable. If the date goes wrong and you discover that that person doesn’t know how to work as a team or gets frustrated with an instruction manual, at least you won’t have wasted the afternoon in a pretentious bar. In the worst case scenario, the relationship will not have prospered, but you will have been left with the purchase made, the dog walked or, with a little luck, the living room furniture finally assembled. Image | freepik Xataka | Zara dressed Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl. That says much more about Zara’s plans than about Bad Bunny

the increase in abandoned oil tankers

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Abandoning an oil tanker or other commercial vessel has gone from being something rare to becoming a dangerous trend: in 2025 alone there are 410 vessels registered, an abysmal difference compared to the 20 cases in 2016, according to data from the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), a global trade union organization that tracks these incidents. What is causing this rebound? The first affected: the crew. An abandoned oil tanker does not only mean neglecting the vessel itself, but also more than 6,000 sailors abandoned to their fate, according to ITF global figures. The most affected are Indian sailors, with more than a thousand people affected representing the majority of the total. One case is that of Iván (not his real name), the chief deck officer of an oil tanker that has been abandoned for weeks outside the territorial waters of China, which recently declared for the BBC how this event has affected their health and the environment: “We had a shortage of meat, cereals, fish, basic things to survive.” And that’s not to mention the uncertainty of seeing the Chinese coast and not knowing if you’ll be able to set foot on it. The context: the ghost fleets. Over the last few months we have heard about “ghost ships” or “zombie ships”, that is, ships that legally barely exist, with owners hiding behind front companies. The objective is to operate outside the official financial and regulatory framework to evade sanctions through “prohibited” routes such as Iran, Russia or Venezuela. The Ukrainian War and the context of sanctions have created a B market for old ships that transport oil. The ideal candidates to become ghost banks are aging vessels, generally oil tankers that are around two decades old, a critical age at which the vessel is already headed for scrapping, which makes it easier for them to move into that clandestine scenario. Whoever buys it is not going to invest in long-term maintenance, he wants to pay it off quickly by transporting sanctioned crude oil. These types of boats lack complete insurance such as P&I Clubsso that in the event of any problem, the shipowner disappears before assuming repair or repatriation costs. The legal trap of rental flags. Here the “flags of convenience“, something like the tax haven of the seas. This is what happens when a shipowner registers his ship in a country other than his own to benefit from more lax regulations. There is a legal disconnection between the real ownership of the ship and the state that gives it the flag. And what does it have to do with abandoned oil tankers? According to the ITF82% of abandonments occur on ships that operate under flags of convenience. Among the states with flags of convenience are Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands, which represent 46.5% of all merchant ships. But there is one country that deserves a special mention: Gambia. In 2023 it went from having no ships to having 35 sailing under its flag, a record time to create that infrastructure organically. In addition to softer legislation, many of these countries outsource inspections to private organizations and lack sufficient technical personnel to verify it afterwards, such as notes the International Maritime Organization in several reports. Prisons and floating time bombs. Ivan’s is just one case, but what an example: The ship is carrying almost 750,000 barrels of Russian oil that has a nominal value of about 50 million dollars (42 million euros). He left the Russian Far East for China at the beginning of November 2025 and there he is, at the gates of his destination and unable to enter. It is so that the alarms go off due to the environmental risk posed by a possible spill from an abandoned ship without responsibility. Furthermore, the safety of the vessel is compromised, as human error accounts for more than 80% of maritime accidents and these sailors are not exactly at their best. Fortunately, the ITF took charge of the situation in December, providing payroll arrears up to this point, providing groceries and other essentials, and planning repatriation. It is not an isolated problem. The drastic increase in abandoned oil tankers represents not only a violation of international sanctions and regulations, but also a human drama and potential environmental disaster for which there would be no legal responsibility to cover it. Although it is true that there are interventions and approaches and that there are states putting pressure on those countries that are banners of flags of convenience like Gambia and achieving something in the attemptthe reality is that this is a global phenomenon that requires stricter international regulation, serve as an example India’s blacklistwhich included 86 foreign ships in a database for abandonment of sailors and violation of their rights. In Xataka | Fewer and fewer oil tankers are being scrapped, and there is only one reasonable explanation: Russia’s ghost fleet In Xataka | The ships of the oil “ghost fleet” turn off their GPS to avoid being detected. Malaysia is going to hunt them with drones Cover | Jack Dong

Science knows that rain is ruining our health

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We carry a great spell of rain and overcast skies in much of Spain, and this also translates into a strange sensation in our body when we feel stuck in the chair, depressed and even taciturn. And it’s not that we’ve suddenly become lazier or sadderbut it is pure and simple biology that has humidity, microbiology and brain chemistry as triggers. Our ideal humidity. To understand why we can feel so bad, we have to understand what our body needs. Here science already pointed out many years ago that our body is designed to ‘function’ in a narrow range in terms of relative humidity.: between 40 and 60%. In this case, when we are outside this range for a long time, which is typical with these rains where the humidity shoots above 70%, it is when everything changes. And above all it affects those people who are not used to so much humidity and who have not adapted to it, such as those who live in areas that are traditionally very dry. What happens. In these cases, when we are in a situation of very high humidity, science suggests that the defenses let their guard down. Above all, it affects the mucous membranes, which are our body’s first defense barrier, which is compromised. In this case, while very dry air can crack the mucous membranes that require a certain humidity, when you have air with a lot of accumulated humidity, a ‘party’ is organized for the pathogens. The scientific reviews point here that excessive humidity favors the survival of bacteria and viruses, increasing the environmental viral load. The effects at home. If we suddenly feel short of breath or that the asthma that had been controlled has returned, the fault lies precisely in what we do not see. The WHO itself and the CDC have established direct links, since they suggest that structural and environmental humidity turns the house into an incubator. The attack of mold and mites. One of the most important points is in the miteswhich are microscopic organisms that do not drink water, but rather absorb moisture from the air. In cases where humidity exceeds 70%, their population explodes and, according to evidence, this can trigger allergic exacerbations in those more sensitive people. Mold is also one of the main protagonists in these cases, and you just have to see how easily it can appear in bathrooms without ventilation. And even if black spots are not seen, the spores can be in the rooms of the house. The science here is clear: exposure to moisture and mold in the home increases the risk of developing asthma by 30-50%. The effect on the brain. But what we notice most every day is that feeling of being “moody” or “stuck.” And here the person responsible is the lack of light due to being cloudy all day. The neurochemistry here is quite important, since without bright light to tell your brain “it’s daytime”, your body continues to produce melatonin, which is the sleep hormone, during the day. The result here is in fatigue throughout the day and apathy that makes us not want to leave the couch. There are also deficits. But in addition to melatonin, the lack of sunlight in those areas where it is not usual produces a decrease in the production of serotonin, which is one of the neurotransmitters responsible for mood. Less light equals less “fuel” to feel good. AND We must not forget about vitamin D either.which depends on sunlight to maintain optimal levels. Although supplementation has mixed results, observational studies are clear: there is a direct correlation between rainy months, low vitamin D and irritability or depressive symptomsknown as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). What can we do? Although it may seem counterintuitive, the European Lung Foundation point because you always have to ventilate the house a little even if it is raining. The accumulation of internal humidity from our own activities such as cooking, breathing or showering, added to the external humidity, creates a toxic environment. That is why maintaining air circulation and, if possible, using dehumidifiers to try to return your home to that sacred 40-60% range, is the only way to mitigate the impact on some part. Images | Adrian Swancar In Xataka | We say we are “depressed” beyond our means: where does the illness end and where does the illness begin?

is already manufacturing the “Formula 1” of carbon fibers

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Carbon fiber is a material widely used in industry, from aeronautics to motorsports to wind turbine blades or bicycle frames. But there are fibers and fibers: While the industry standard is the T300 and T700, there are high-performance ones like the T800 or T1000. If we talk about the best and the most advanced, the high-performance aerospace grade T1100 comes into the picture. Of course, it was only manufactured in two countries: Japan or the United States. China is about to change that. An industry located in two countries. More specifically, in the T1100 producing industry, the Japanese Toray Industries It is the absolute reference (they invented that nomenclature). Then there is Hexcel in the United States, with its counterpart the HexTow IM10. In the United States there is also a Toray plant in Alabama, which the Japanese company advertisement back in 2022 with one goal: to meet the demand of the US defense sector. That’s if we talk about industrial scale, because in the laboratory Russia, South Korea wave India They are making their first steps. And of course, China. China makes a virtue of necessity. The Asian giant has achieved a milestone: going from the laboratory to the production plant with a 95% success rate in the city of Langfang, according to CGTN. They explain that, to ensure stable production, Shenzhen University worked hand in hand with the Changsheng Technology company since 2023. Why is it important. To begin with, because you can produce small laboratory samples, but the difficult thing is to scale to industrial volumes. This is what happens with a good part of the promising materials. But by combining state capital, university laboratory and factory research side by side, China has achieved a brutal synergy in the development of new materials: CGTN mentions expressly advances every 3 or 4 months and more than 30 rounds of iteration examining hundreds of factors to eliminate defects and reach mass production. The fact in itself is a milestone, but what is truly important is the consequence: technological independence. Once launched, China’s aerospace and defense programs will no longer be limited by the supply of this carbon fiber from abroad. T1100 carbon fiber is strategic. It is the material strongest structural (in strength-to-weight ratio) and lightest that humans can produce on a scale: it has a tensile strength of 7,000 MPa and a thickness of just five micrometers. It is seven times stronger than steel while weighing only a quarter as much, it synthesizes a scientist from Shenzhen University for CGTN. And it is essential for the manufacture of fighter aircraft, satellites, rockets and civil aircraft. It is, therefore, a strategic and sensitive material due to its dual civil and military use. For this reason, Japan and the United States have strict export controls. That is, if you want T1100 grade carbon fiber to cover your fighters, for example, you have to check out if everything goes well, because obviously such a strategic material is subject to geopolitical diplomacy. This point is important because How about GPUs?the United States may block its sale to China. And in fact, does it. Also Japan, via Wassenaar Agreement. In perspective. Toray launched the T300 in 1971quickly making this carbon fiber the industry standard. Forty-three years later, the Japanese company announced the T1100 in 2014. China, on the other hand, had to wait until 2008 to have his own T300, but he has stepped on the accelerator and in just 18 years he has caught up. In Xataka | Xi Jinping’s “made in China 2025” plan is becoming a reality: this is how he is conquering the key technologies of the future In Xataka | China has a metamaterial capable of making its fighters invisible. “It is the key to winning future wars” Cover | CGTN

AI needs electricity relentlessly. And that is returning the gas to the center of the system

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For years, big technology companies projected a clean image: data centers powered by renewables and commitments to climate neutrality. But the explosion of artificial intelligence is putting that narrative to the test. Electricity demand is growing at a rate that the grid cannot keep up with, and the fuel that is covering the gap is not the wind or the sun. It is natural gas. The contradiction is already visible in the numbers. Google and Microsoft consume around 24 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year each, more than more than a hundred countries. And while they announce record clean energy contracts, their emissions continue to rise: Google has increased its emissions by 48% in the last five years and Microsoft by 31% since 2020. An independent analysis rated climate integrity of several technologies as “poor” or “very deficient” in the face of the energy boom of AI. The cloud is not ethereal. It’s physics. And for AI to work without interruptions, we are starting to burn more hydrocarbons. The electron fever. The phenomenon is not marginal. A report from the Open Energy Outlook initiative—led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon and NC State— projects that electricity demand of data centers and crypto mining could grow by 350% between 2020 and 2030, going from representing 4% to 9% of total consumption in the United States. Goldman Sachs points in the same direction: Specific consumption of data centers could increase by 160% before the end of the decade. The pressure has already broken market balances. In December 2024, in the PJM region—which supplies 13 states in the eastern United States and has the highest density of data centers in the world—capacity prices went from $30 to $270 per MW-day in a single auction. The extra cost will end up affecting the bills of some 67 million customers. John Ketchum, CEO of NextEra Energy, described it as a “golden era of energy demand”, but warned of a physical limit: “the new electrons cannot reach the grid quickly enough.” And in that void between explosive demand and insufficient supply is where gas reappears. The tyranny of 24/7. If renewables are increasingly competitive, why not cover this demand with more wind and solar? The answer is technical. Artificial intelligence requires continuous, 24/7 supply. It cannot be turned off when the wind goes down or the sun goes down. As Manuel Losa, manager at Pictet Asset Management, explained, to the Financial Times: If demand grows and firm energy is needed 24 hours a day, “today, the only way to achieve this is with gas.” The problem is not the marginal cost of renewables, it is firmness. Without massive storage or reinforced grids, solar and wind generation cannot guarantee constant supply. And the deployment of new transmission lines is slow and contentious. Furthermore, traditional electrical planning assumed growth of 1-2% annually; Now there are areas with increases of 20-30% annually linked to data centers. The quickest solution today is to build or expand gas-fired generation. But even there there are limits. Gas turbines—critical equipment—have become a bottleneck. Just three years ago, Siemens Energy executives stated that the turbine market was “dead” in the face of renewable advancement. Today, the factories are overflowing. Global orders are expected to exceed 1,000 units this year, with the United States absorbing almost half. Delivery times can be extended up to five or even seven years in some cases. The bottleneck is no longer the chips. They are the turbines. So what happens with renewables? Renewables do not disappear. In fact, they continue to expand. Google has signed agreements to purchase nearly 1.2 gigawatts of new wind and solar energy in the United States from Clearway Energy. Big tech companies continue to sign clean energy contracts in multiple regions. However, the problem is temporary and structural. Purchasing renewable electricity does not guarantee that hourly consumption is supported by clean generation at that same time and place. In fact, there are solutions. Battery storage and grid upgrades can increase renewable integration. The Open Energy Outlook report shows which regions like Texas, with more investment in transmission, they manage to take better advantage of wind power to feed new demand. But deploying storage and hardening the network takes years, and AI is growing rapidly. For this reason, even companies traditionally focused on renewables are expanding their portfolio in gas, How did you have access? Financial Times. NextEra has announced plans to develop up to an additional 8 gigawatts of gas-fired generation. Clearway builds hybrid data center campuses combining renewables and combustion turbines. It is not an explicit abandonment of renewables. It is an emergency solution. But there is also nuclear. amazon tried to connect directly a data center to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant to ensure stable and clean supply. Federal regulators blocked the deal over potential effects on grid stability and the impact on other consumers. Furthermore, Google has signed an agreement with Kairos Power to develop seven small modular reactors (SMR), with the goal of adding 500 MW emissions-free by 2030. Microsoft and other companies are exploring similar deals. But even in the most optimistic scenario, new nuclear capacity will not be operational on a relevant scale before the end of the decade. AI needs electricity now. A clash of transitions. Five years ago, natural gas was presented as a retreating bridge fuel within the energy transition. Today it has become the structural support of artificial intelligence. A friction between two transitions that advance at different paces: the digital one, exponential; the energy, regulated and slow. As the Open Energy Outlook initiative warnsthe choice should not be between digital progress and network stability. But if energy planning doesn’t adapt more quickly—more transmission, more storage, better market design—the expansion of AI could mean more gas, more emissions, and higher bills. Artificial intelligence promises efficiency and intelligent decarbonization. But for now, its massive expansion is prolonging the life of the fossil generation. The digital future is advancing at full speed and the energy … Read more

This Star Trek movie was canceled in 1977 because science fiction had no future. Two weeks later Star Wars premiered

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In the mid-1970s, ‘Star Trek‘ was experiencing a unique phenomenon in the entertainment industry. The original series, canceled in 1969 after three seasons of discreet audiences, had found an unexpected second life. Continuous reruns and fan enthusiasm (the first phenomenon of its kind to develop pop culture) encouraged Paramount to extend the original mythology. In 1976, a full-page advertisement appeared in ‘The New York Times’ proclaiming the imminent production of a Star Trek film: ‘Planet of the Titans’, and which aspired to take the franchise into uncharted cinematic territories. The origin. Producer Gerald Isenberg assumed executive control of the project in July 1976, intending to transform ‘Star Trek’ into a first-rate cinematic event. To direct, Paramount hired Philip Kaufman, a filmmaker whose profile was unconventional for a franchise. Kaufman would direct acclaimed works such as ‘Chosen for Glory’ and would delve into a science fiction very different from ‘Star Trek’ in the remake of ‘Invasion of the Ultracorps’ in 1978. But by 1976 he had already directed the western ‘No Law or Hope’ and the arctic adventures of ‘The White Dawn’. Chris Bryant and Allan Scott, British writers of the superb and extremely rare ‘Shadow Menace’, were chosen as scriptwriters. The conceptual basis of the project was nourished by ambitious sources: Kaufman and Isenberg structured the narrative inspired by the novel ‘The Last and the First Humanity’ by Olaf Stapledon, which traces human evolution over billions of years. As a scientific advisor, Paramount hired Jesco von Puttkamer, a NASA engineer. Ralph McQuarriewhose conceptual work for ‘Star Wars’ was then in full development, would do the designs. The conflicts. Creative tensions quickly emerged. Kaufman aspired to create a cinematographic work that would dialogue with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘ in visual and philosophical complexity. Gene Roddenberry, creator of the original series, defended its essence. Bryant and Scott they were trapped between these two incompatible visions, trying to balance the artistic ambitions of one and the fidelity of the other. The budget, initially set at three million dollars, rose to 10 million. What was it about? Captain James T. Kirk has disappeared three years ago, during a rescue mission near a black hole. The Enterprise remains operational, but Spock has returned to Vulcan. When Starfleet detects anomalous energetic emissions coming from the same black hole where Kirk was lost, Spock rejoins. They discover a planet trapped inside the black hole, the mythical home of the Titans, an ancient civilization possessing technology superior to that of humans. The planet is being inexorably sucked into the black hole. Spock locates Kirk, scarred by years of isolation and transformed by cosmic forces. The planned outcome was the most radical bet: to escape collapse, the Enterprise deliberately enters the black hole, emerging not in its time, but in our prehistory. The crew discovers that they themselves are the Titans of mythology. Kirk is Prometheus, the bringer of fire to early humanity. The script does not clarify whether the crew would finally manage to return to their time or would be trapped observing the slow development of human history that they themselves had started. Kirk is dead. But… why make a movie in which the legendary Kirk is practically absent? William Shatner’s contract with Paramount had expired, leading Bryant and Scott to develop a first draft that eliminated Kirk. After several weeks of work, the studio informed them that an agreement had been reached and that Kirk should be reinstated as the lead. This twist forced a substantial rewrite of the material. And the situation with Leonard Nimoy was even more complex: the actor withdrew from the project due to a conflict over the unauthorized use of his image as Spock in a Heineken advertisement, but an agreement was finally reached. The cancellation. Bryant and Scott submitted their first completed draft on March 1, 1977, after months of intense creative negotiations, but ultimately walked away from the project. Kaufman personally took on the rewrite of the script. His version intensified the role of Spock and developed the dynamic with a Klingon played by none other than the legendary Toshiro Mifune. Just when he was convinced he had found the definitive story, he was told that Paramount had canceled the project. This happened in May 1977, just seventeen days before the premiere of ‘Star Wars’. Kaufman would always remember the phrase that a studio executive told him as justification for the cancellation: “there is no future in science fiction.” Why was it cancelled? They converged different factors: the increase in costs, the fear that ‘Star Wars’ would saturate the science fiction market and the belief that they had distanced themselves too much from the original series. When ‘Star Wars’ grossed more than $775 million worldwide, Paramount pitched ‘Star Trek: Phase II,’ a television series planned as the flagship of a new company television network. It would also be cancelled, although one of its scripts would eventually become the basis for ‘Star Trek: The Motion Picture’, released in December 1979. The legacy. ‘‘Planet of the Titans’ was not the first failed attempt to bring ‘Star Trek’ to the cinema, but rather one more link in a chain of frustrated projects that reflected Paramount’s uncertainty about how to capitalize on the franchise: there are cases as popular as the legendary and disturbing film ‘The God Thing’, written by Roddenberry himself in 1975, or the many attempts to recruit science fiction authors to contribute ideas for films, as happened with Harlan Ellison in the late seventies. And although something remained from the film in the future after the cancellation of ‘Planet of the Titans’ (for example, the concept designs They were reused in 2017 in ‘Star Trek: Discovery’), this cursed movie is the perfect example of what ‘Star Trek’ has always been. A sign that there are more ways to do science fiction outside of spectacle pulp of Star Wars and, at the same time, the confirmation that it is very complicated to do so. In Xataka | More and more … Read more

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