A superstructure of more than one billion light years

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Almost a third of all the galaxies that we can observe in the universe are grouped into five structures of an unimaginable scale. Astronomers have just discovered the greatest of all. With more than one billion light years in diameter, Quipu is the largest supplies ever discovered. A super -as -called Quipu. Quipu is A galactic supercumulus of 1.3 billion light years (more than 400 megapatscs) with an estimated mass of 2 × 10¹⁷ solar masses, about 200 four times more massive than the sun. The pantagruélica structure has been baptized as quipu in honor of the strings and knots system of the Incas. The Inca wove wool threads making knots in different ways to count or transcribe messages, such as those that scientists begin to decipher in the filaments and ramifications of these cosmic superstructures. The cosmic network of matter. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is part of the local group along with its neighbor Andromeda, the triangle galaxy and numerous satellite galaxies. The local group, in turn, is part of a large collection of clusters called the Galactic Super Cumulus of Virgo. At the same time, Virgo’s supercumulus is within a gigantic filamentous structure called Laniakea. Laniakea contains approximately 100,000 galaxies and extends over 520 million light years. Thus, as the scale increases, the matter of the universe is weaving a cosmic network that astronomers are trying to capture on a map. Five superstructures. An international astronomer team located in Germany, South Africa and Spain has made The first study at a global scale of the biggest structures of the universe. Using galaxies clusters observed in X -rays By the Classix Cluster Survey, the researchers identified five especially prominent superstructures. In addition to Quipu, they found Shaley, Serpens-Corona Borealis, Hercules and Sculptor-Pasus. These five superstructures group approximately 30% of the galaxies and 25% of the matter of the universe, occupying 13% of the total volume. Its small lateral ramifications visually evoke the knots of a quipu, which somehow encode crucial information on the formation and evolution of the cosmos. Quipu’s influence. Immense concentrations of mass such as Quipu are fundamental to understand how the network of matter is weaved in the cosmos and why there are discrepancies between the Hubble constant, which measures the expansion of the universe, and the speed at which the galaxies are separated. Quipu’s enormous mass exerts a significant impact. Its severity is so great that it can be inducing peculiar movements in the galaxies, as well as distortions in the microwave background radiation, a very weak electromagnetic echo from the Big Bang. Image | Max Planck Institute In Xataka | The Incas did not need writing to forge an empire. And we are closer to solving the key object in your organization

In full eruption of Etna, Italian emergency services have encountered an obstacle: tourists

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ETNA is more than one of the volcanoes more active and high from Europe. It is also a tourist claim. One that seems to work especially well when, as these days, it offers a fascinating show that mixes A lava river, snow, ashessteam and smoke columns. The power of his eruption has attracted hundreds of visitors And curious, leaving a flood of people who already supposes a headache for the authorities. The reason, simple: they have reached Block the tracks They need to operate rescue services. It is nature … and it is Tourist. The Etna volcano, under the spotlights. The Italians have been pending Etna for more than a week, the volcano located on the east coast of Sicily and one of The most active from Europe. His activity intensified days ago, with A fracture of the Crater of Bocca Nuova, and has left a succession of Explosions and lava flows They have spread through the mountain, forming an extensive lava river. Volcanic activity also affects communities. Yesterday the Catania airport, south of Italy, He informed that its air traffic was still altered. Click on the image to go to Tweet. A coveted show. The eruption of the Etna volcano can be overwhelming, but also leaves a Fascinating show in which snow and lava are combined. And as such it has not taken the interest of hikers who have approached the mountain to enjoy the landscape. It He reported yesterday ANSA, the main Italian news agency, which already presents Etna directly as the “new focus of encompassing” For a long time Italy. A tide of hikers. The agency speaks that about a thousand hikers have come to contemplate how it manages the lava from the crater of Bocca Nuova and media like Euronews either The Guardian They go further by pointing out the presence of “Miles” of curious who have approached Mount Sicilian to see the show in situ. Your presence can also be found in networks, with Videos and images of people approaching or even skiing near the lava river. The Italian Marco Bassot shared For example on Instagram a video in which it can apparently be seen sliding with a snowboard table next to the message “The craziest race of my whole life.” Civil Protection has already asked hikers to extreme caution and comply with the standards and remember that a minimum distance in front of the lava of Between 300 and 500 m. @accuweather WHERE LLAND MEETS SNOW 🌋❄️ SKIERS AND HUKERS WERE SPOTTED GETTING A CLOSE-UP View of Lavator and ROCKS SPURTING OUT FROM MOUT ETNA ONTO THE SNOW. #lava #Volcano #Fireandice #Mountetna #itly #mtetna #cool #Skiing #winter #Snow #News #accuweather ♬ Original Sound – Accuweather “Extremely dangerous”. The Regional Manager of Civil Protection, except cook “Of cars. Sunday warned On Facebook: “As night falls, the situation becomes extremely dangerous, with growing risks of falls and sinking in snow.” “I have seen many photos and videos of people who approach dangerously to the front, even skiing,” Recognize Carlo Caputomayor of neighboring BelPasso, to The Guardian. “Although it is visually shocking, it exposes them to serious risks, since it washes it, when it comes into contact with the snow, it can vaporize it instantly and, with the energy released, it can violently launch fragments or rocks.” A touch of attention. Visitors and curious are not the only ones who risk. ANSA He pointed out yesterday that the presence of hundreds of people attracted to the rash show was “blocking” the streets, which is an added risk. The reason? Kitchen points That people park their vehicles along narrow roads and prevent passing through Vetor, “making it impossible to pass rescue vehicles.” He has already warned local authorities. The Italian agency Precise that on Sunday Civil Protection came to mobilize even four units of Belassso, Ragalna, Nicolosi and Adrano to support the population and prevent tourists and hikers from arriving from sicily or other nearby points complicated traffic in the area, with the risk that It supposes. Click on the image to go to Tweet. “Combine” enjoy safely. Kitchen Recognize That many of the curious who come to the mountain are well equipped and in the company of guides or volcanologists, but warns of the risk of cars saturation and the block of the same streets through which emergency vehicles circulate. The key, he insists, is to “combine” the enjoyment of the volcano with security. “Yesterday afternoon there was a constant influx of one thousand people from Provincial Highway 92 and the Milia road, wild parking at the edges of narrow streets, traffic lock in Vetor piano and impossibility of passing emergency vehicles,” He insisted kitchen in Your message. Images | President of the Sicilian Region Dipartimento delLa Protezione Civile 1 and 2 (The photo of the eruption is extracted from a 2021 report) In Xataka | Venice invented an entry rate to stop mass tourism. It has come out so well that it will double the price

Without MOVES in sight, the electric car threatens to disappoint in Spain

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The electric car needs important financial aid to take off. Perhaps not in the future but if something has taught us the short trajectory of technology is that where it has triumphed it has done so with a sustained plan of purchase aids. In China, government subsidies They have accumulated one after another. First because popularize technology It has allowed them to create an industry that threatens to win a relevant role in the automotive, a market where they had gone unnoticed. And secondly, because Chinese economy itself needs to be dynamic And vehicle sales is a good tool for this, especially now that they need to place what threatens to be an overproduction. Norway, where the electric car represents almost 100% of saleshas also reached this situation with A sustained aid plan. Constant and also pointing to a tax reduction, the customer has ended up embraceing technology. Germany (even China) is a good example of what happens when You eliminate aid: Sales stop. It happened to the German country last year. In its first full year since the government was forced to withdraw aids to purchase, Electric sales collapsed 27.4%. Although there are still no concrete data, the perception is that Spain walks along the same path. Essential aid In the middle of last January, the refusal to approve the already famous Government’s Bus Decree made the Transport aids, To pensions And, among other things, The Moves III Plan. With a huge delay when delivering aid to purchase (so much that some brands advanced the amount delivered by the Government), the MOVES III PLAN It was still a value when placing an electric car compared to other technologies. With him, the buyer could be discounted up to 7,000 euros of the purchase, 70% of the charger installation In the house and up to 3,000 euros in the income statement. We talk about aid that could therefore overcome the 10,000 euros For those who, yes, It was mandatory to arm himself with patience. The latter led the government itself to promise that it would reform the Moves III Plan with the aim of expediting all the processes and came to slide that the aid would be delivered at the time of purchase. However, none of this ended up getting ahead. In fact, Two weeks before finishing 2024 And, with him, the Moves III Plan falls, nothing was known about the future of aid. In those last days ended up an extension which was active until the middle of January. Since then, the interest in getting an electric car has stopped, according to manufacturers. Paco Pérez Botello, president of Volkswagen Group Spain Distribution, says that “orders have stopped dry” since the Moves III Plan ends. “We will begin to notice it in March enrollments if there are no aid again,” he clarified in words collected by Five days. The atmosphere among the Germans is the same as reigns in other brands. During the presentation of Hyundai insertresponsible for the company confirmed that the visits to their dealers to be interested in the model had shot themselves as a result of starting the television ads campaign but that, just a few days later, It had collapsed When the aid had been removed. Although it has been slid that the aid will reach those who had requested the electric car In the first days of January And that the new aid program will also contemplate the sales of February, it has logic that the customer delay their purchase due to the lack of guarantees. Reactivate aid can be essential for the performance in Spain of the aforementioned companies that have recently put the insert and the Skoda Elorq But also for him Ford Capri or the Renault 5cars that also just land in the market. “We can reach a 10% electric market share in 2025, but it will depend on the incentives that there are,” said Pérez Botello. The perverse part of aid is the same as that of a Price war between companies. The client, aware that the aid can be approved before or after, delays the purchase waiting for a better price that, in this case, does not seem to finish arriving. In any case, we will see to what extent the rope is tense and when we will see a new program of aid that clients and manufacturers wait with open arms. Photo | Xataka In Xataka | Catalonia is determined to lead the conversion and sale of the electric car. His great objective is called Madrid

This is being destroyed one of the crown jewels of Spanish gastronomy

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Until the middle of the twentieth century, the most consumed banana variety in the world was The Gros Michel. There was a huge international market around this variety and the future seemed prosperous to all: farmers, merchants and consumers. In the 50s everything changed. The Panama disease He began to devastate Gros Michel plantations and, although the producers engaged in a race against the fungus, took less than a decade to end them around the world. Today, it is almost impossible to find on a commercial level. Well, that is just what is happening to the bomb rice. The fall of the ‘King of rice gastronomy’. And as with the Gross Michel, the cause of this debacle is perfectly located: the pyricularosis fungus. This plague has a wide pathogenic variety; But, in general terms, Inhibits rice tissues growth And the performance has sink. It also makes it very fast. The problem is that, little by little, it is becoming resistant to the available fungicides and the pump rice is much more sensitive than other varieties. The trigger. It is not innocent that, when he described the problem of resistances to fungicides, he added the word “available.” The trigger for this situation has been that European regulations The maximum waste limits have dropped of the only useful pesticide – Triciclazole – until it is unusable. In fact, Brussels Does not let cultivated rice import With that pesticide. And what happened? Well, what as Vicente Lladró explained in summerthe fungus “Campa at ease in the fields and reduces productions to non -profitable minimums.” That has led to the harvest to historical minimums, has triggered prices (up to 8 or 10 euros per kilo) and has raised fixed costs. In summary, the situation is diverting producers to other varieties that better tolerate the effects of the disease. We have Arrived at the point that “In many cases there is already a lack of quality grain to prepare future plantings.” Is the problem so big? Compared to 7-8,000 kilos of conventional round rice that produces one hectare in the Albufera Parkthe previous campaign the pump gave a yield of 1,000. As much as prices rise, profitability seems impossible. A dead end. Because the background problem is that the pump rice is something that is only grown in Spain and if the variety becomes unfeasible, it will become a museum piece. In fact, many producers They are already going to the Albufera variety What happens to be the most similar to the pump within which the disease resists better. But despite the protests of the farmers, the regulation is still alive (and it is not clear that it will be changed). This shows us another of the big problems that the Spanish field will go through in the coming years. Because we are seeing How inumerable “new” diseases arrive at the Peninsula And that also includes those that affect the plants we grow. And what do we do? Preparing for this, while the sanitary requirements of the food chain increase, is one of the great challenges of our century. Even more in an environment like the European, in which One of the main tools (the genetic edition) It is also blocked. However, in the next decades we play a good part of our agricultural heritage in something as apparently simple as learning to keep it in the new world towards which we head. Image | Salome Bielsa | Enrique Dans In Xataka | The Taliban of the Paella have been strong for years. More and more evidence takes them the opposite

The future of Murcia and Almería is to become great deserts. And that of much of Spain too

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The droughts arrive and pass by leaving behind greater or lower ravages. Also the drought that chronicly ravages Spain will have more or less intense moments, but perhaps the normality that is behind it is not like the previous one. The reason is the existence of a tendency towards long -term aridity, Aridification of the territory. A good part of the Peninsula is classified based on its aridity index as semi -arid areas, “one step” of this classification as a arid zone, according to the data of the EEENS itself. Where this process is going to advance. It is one of the points that have transcended ““B of the Higher Council for Scientific Research of the CSIC. Where do we come from. Almería, Murcia and the Canary Islands archipelago have traditionally been the areas where Spanish arid areas were concentrated. It is therefore not striking that the two provinces of the southeast peninsular are where the aridification process has had greater impact. At least until now. And it is that a good part of the Peninsula is classified based on its aridity index as semi -arid areas, “one step” of this classification as a arid zone, according to the data of the EENS itself. Potential for desertification. According to The Ministry for Ecological Transitionthe extension of these arid and semi -arid areas, to which the dry subhummedas should be added, delimits the area where the risk of desertification It must be seriously considered. According to the most recent data in the Ministry, areas with high or very high desertification risk, although they are distributed throughout the country, cover a more significant portion of the provinces of the Levant and the Southeast peninsular (In addition to the Canary Islands). The “very high” risk areas are particularly notable in provinces such as Almería, Murcia, Alicante, Granada and even Cuenca, and slightly less noticeable in some of the border provinces. Risk of desertification in Spain. Ministry for ecological transition and demographic challenge. A long -term trend. There are numerous factors that help explain why we are facing this situation. The first is the lack of rains. Beyond the current drought, the last decades have been relatively dry in Spain. Climate change is expected to aggravate this, with less rainfall on average, but more concentrated. Precedents. 2023 and 2024 were not only anomally dry: also especially warm. The increase in temperatures implies an increase in the evaporation of the water that comes to us, both from rivers and swamps and from the same soil: in spring this year the moisture of the soil was of about 0% In most of the Peninsula. Finally, water use should be mentioned. Population growth, tourism and an agriculture increasingly dependent on irrigation bring each time More pressure on reservoirs and aquifers. The latter In a limit situation. No solution to sight The combination of all these factors makes the solution difficult. Spain has a vast network of desalination plant, but the energy and ecological limitations they present prevent (at least for now) a use at sufficient scale. An example of this is the situation in Catalonia, where drought has not been able to be stopped with desalists working 100% of their abilities. Greater efficiency in water use could help complement these new sources, but here the limitations are also important: approximately three quarters of the water consumed in Spain are used by the agriculture and livestock sector according to Aquae data. The precarious situation of the sector and the recent protests do not invite to think that there is a margin of action on this front. In Xataka |The droughts are going to more. So some companies are trying to create water from the air In Xataka | Get drinking water with the brute force of the waves: the ambitious plan of the Canary Islands to face the drought Image | Andrea Imre *An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024

In China they decided to create a snowy destination for tourists with cottons. To anyone’s surprise, they did not go well

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If the snow does not go to the mountain, the mountain invents snow. Or try at least, like have done in Chengdua town in the province of Sichuan, in China. There those responsible Chengdu Snow Village believed that it was a good idea to promote among tourists as an idyllic winter destination, with their spine, roofs and trees filled with flakes and gardens with snow dolls. The problem is that the project worked halfway: visitors arrived, but not the snowfall. And of course, They had to improvise. The result has unleashed a delusional controversy. A barbaric idea. Chinese tourists like winter landscapes. Quite. Demonstrates it every year ZHONG GUO XUE XIANGa villa located in a forest in the province of Heilongjiang very popular among Chinese families precisely for their whitish landscapes. Thus, a while ago in Chengdu asked a question: why not do something similar there? What if they took advantage of the snow that falls in winter to create their own holiday people? The result was recently inaugurated: Chengdu Snow Village. Click on the image to go to Tweet. Perfect, right? Yes. And no. Their promoters managed to arouse the interest of tourists, but they failed the most important thing: snow. Chengdu Snow Village was published as a snow -destination (he says so in his own name), but those responsible for the project found that the weeks spent and the long -awaited flakes did not fall or at least not in the necessary amount to color the people the people . “Before it snowed all the winters. So we decided I explained recently One of the employees of the town, adds: “We expected the arrival of the snow, but unfortunately the time did not put on our part.” A for Plan B. The situation was complicated. The holidays of the Lunar New Yearat the end of January, and the weather in Chengdu Snow Village was not expected. Neither does its landscapes. It was more hot and the views had little to do with the whitish prints that visitors expected. What did your managers do? Activate a plan B. One that went to use cotton and water with soap. After all, he had not snowed, but … What prevented the town from creating its own flakes, in an artisanal way, without the need for very expensive cannons? “To recreate an ‘snow’ atmosphere, the tourist people checked cotton to recreate it,” Recognize Chengdu Snow Village. It is not necessary to pull imagination to get an idea of ​​the result. There is photos and Videos They show how the town was after covering its roofs and trees with cotton and soapy water. Click on the image to go to Tweet. Solved crisis? No. The visitors realized that what they saw stacked in the roofs of the cabins or scattered by the roads was not snow, but cotton, and soon shared their anger in networks. “I feel deceived. I think they have insulted my intelligence,” One lamented. Another agreed that he had directly left “speechless” to see that snow was false. And the controversy unleashed. From Chengdu Snow Village they admit that the cotton and the Jabonosa Ajuga did not go well either. “He did not achieve the expected effect, causing a very bad impression among the tourists who came to visit,” They confess. Its managers apologized, they explained that the snow had failed them, they offered to Return the money to their customers and dedicated themselves to cleaning cotton and soap. His apologies have not avoided that what happened in Chengdu has unleashed a considerable stir. Global Times assures That the Chinese authorities are already investigating whether a deceptive advertising case can be considered and the tourist town has announced that it will close its doors for reopening reforms. The case of course has been viralized and today can be read about the peculiar Chengdu experiment with a hit snow in websites of Half planet. A not so strange case. Chengdu is not the only destination that has seen how their expectations were frustrated by the lack of snow, something they have also experienced in their meats tracks ski stations France, Italy and Spain. There are some that have directly closed definitively. In China herself there is another peculiar case: in Harbin, a town known for its extreme invests and its popular ice festival, they have encountered The problem That, given climate warming, the icy layers that extract from the Songua River are thinner. “In previous years I was one meter thick, now it only has twenty to thirty centimeters,” confesses the founder of the festival. Question of imagination. Chengdu also remembers Another controversy Similar in the Chinese province of Henan, where those responsible for a natural park decided to lend a hand to nature to be more surprising. There, yes, there was no snow, cotton or water with soap. What the authorities did was install a pipe to ensure that the impressive stream of the Yuntai waterfall314 m high, have a good amount of water all year, regardless of droughts. When it was discovered with a drone it was generated A considerable stir. Images | W FF (Flickr) and Clayton Malquist (UNSPLASH) In Xataka | China wants to encourage tourism in its abrupt and amazing mountains of the interior. Solution: Mechanical stairs

Tesla had a contract of 400 million dollars from the United States government. They have had to reculate

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Elon Musk has become one of the strong men of the new Donald Trump government in the United States. Very involved in his electoral campaign, the owner of Tesla has also become the visible head of the government efficiency department (Doge) with which he aspires to reduce inefficiencies within state institutions. Since he took sides in the government, Musk has applied hard In the administration the same thing that has launched in its own companies: marathon days (including beds in the offices) and the elimination of all superfluous cost. To the point of withdraw the protection of career officialsthose who work for the State rule who governs. But at the same rate that Musk advances in reducing assumptions superfluous and expendable costs In state structures, questions about a possible conflict of interest have been repeated. Questions that have made sense following a controversial contract of 400 million dollars to get armored electric cars. Or should we say a controversial contract of 400 million dollars to get electric cars of Tesla armored? Tesla, the word that appears and disappears When talking about the possible conflict of interest between Elon Musk and its position within the United States government it has been to focus on the facilities that can be granted to accelerate tests with autonomous cars (in which Tesla has great hopes) or in the elimination of aid for the purchase of electric cars (which can prevent rivals from achieving sales of the Musk company). However, what was not thought of was directly on the purchase of Tesla electric vehicles for the United States administration itself. In an order of December 2024, the State Department contemplated a $ 400 million contract for the acquisition of armored vehicles as a part of the forecasts of ADisquisitions for the fiscal year of 2025. In that same document, the name of BMW whose BMW X5 and X7 armored uses the state administrations also appeared. They explain in Bloomberg that this contract has been modified to make the word Tesla disappear and, in this way, that a conflict of interest cannot be denounced when it comes to awarding it. What now appears in the drafting of the contract is the hiring worth 400 million dollars of “armored electric vehicles”. This situation, they point out from the American media, is just one of the possible conflicts of interest that can arise with the new Musk position within the country’s government. Spacex, its aerospace company, is responsible for providing rockets for the US army or launching NASA astronauts and has previously received contracts worth bills of dollars. For its part, Elon Musk has assured that it has no record that this has happened. In a message in xthe owner of Tesla has assured that he is completely sure that there is nothing approved about the possible purchase of these cars. What the American media highlights is to what extent Musk can exercise a neutral position in future contracts where their companies are involved. In this case, for example, although there were other brands involved the 400 million dollars item is the highest of the 320 items that appear in the purchase forecast for this year. In statements a ForbesState Department spokesmen say that last year Joe Biden’s government He requested that “the interest of private companies to produce armored electric vehicles” and that a single company showed interest in the contract. “It should have been a generic entry called ‘Electric Vehicle Manufacturer’” Without the mention of Tesla, they collect in the middle. Keep in mind that, if the contract is granted, the chosen electric car should be the cybertuck tesla of which precisely The company has presumed its resistanceeven before the bullets. The car began to sell at a good pace And the most expensive units were placed to get greater profitability but after the first months of commercialization, the huge electric pick-up It seems not being convinced to possible buyers. Photo | Maxim and The White House In Xataka | Tesla had no intention of selling Cybertruck in China. Is selling so few that it already rethinks it

What happens when its creator creates them biased

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Elon Musk has always defined itself as An “absolutist” of freedom of expression. Precisely one of the objectives when he bought Twitter was to turn it into a “public square” in which to talk about everything without tap. It seems that he is achieving it, but now he goes further. Now we want us to believe that Grok 3 will always tell us the truth. Politically incorrect. According to him, Grok 3 “is an AI that seeks the truth to the fullest, although sometimes that truth is at odds with the politically correct.” As they point out In TechCrunchhe said it yesterday during the presentation of this new family of AI models. Of censorship, little or nothing. Grok’s previous versions have already demonstrated a tendency to have a tone and “psychology” different from that of their competitors. The first version was especially striking for its sarcastic toneand with Grok 2 things got especially interesting In the field of censorship. Above all, because it did not exist, and for example it is possible Generate Deepfakes of famous characters Without any problem from any X. Grok 3 and the problem of meaning the truth. Musk’s promises in this regard are striking, but hardly realizable. The reason is simple: that the absolute truths exist is already the object of debate in itself, but there is a powerful argument against: the truths are usually relative and depend on the context or point of view. The facts are there, but their interpretation is absolutely variable and is subject to biases. Humans, yes, but afterwards, also from AI. A neutral AI? Grok 3 seems to want to aspire to become a neutral the AI ​​that gets to the facts and that tells us the truth. Here an element in favor of these models is that lately they cite the sources on which they are based to give their answers. For example, perplexity, and that helps we can contrast those answers. OpenAI is (a little) left. 2003 studies They detected that models of AI like chatgpt had certain biases and seemed to position themselves more towards those who support the protection of the environment, towards libertarian ideologies and towards political lefties. Gemini, Google’s model, was criticized for creating “woke” images of viking or black Nazis, for example. Grok 3 could “talk” like Donald Trump. That an AI is politically incorrect makes us wait for unique responses. Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for Ai Safety and director of Xai has raised How an AI model could respond as Donald Trump does. Direct, without ambiguity and without taking into account the politically correct. That can be irritating, but it would also allow unpopular opinions and controversial points of view. It was biases, for better and worse. Of course, theoretically without violating social norms and ethical principles, such as XAI explains in his “framework for risk management”. Partisan models. He Hendricks study He evaluated with what US politician models such as GPT-4O, Grok, or call 3.3 were more aligned, and according to their tests everyone seemed to be closer to Biden’s vision than Trump’s, Kamala Harris, or Bernie Sanders. It develops the idea of ​​what calls a “citizen assembly” in which EUU census data on political issues would be collected and then use those answers and modify the values ​​of a LLM Open Source. At this time that model would have values ​​that would be closer to those of Trump than to Biden, for example. But. The truth is that Grok had to be updated last August precisely not to say the truth. Five Secretaries of State in the US They warned that this chatbot was spreading misinformation when users asked about information about the then imminent elections. The change did not affect Grok’s ability to Generate Deepfakes Of the candidates, although in September 2023 x eliminated The capacity of some users to republicate electoral misinformation. Training is key. The AI ​​learns from those data that we provide in the training process, so the biases that an AI may have will have their origin in that data. If we train AI with data that profile your answers to a certain ideological current and criticize another, the theoretically replicate that position in your speech. No details have been given about how Grok 3 has trained and it is possible that we never know it, but if Xai wants us “Adjust” your perspectives and biases. In Xataka | X has been filled with very strange photos of celebrities. The culprit is Grok, which has no limits in its creation of images

They were nuclear weapons experts

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The Government Efficiency Department (Doge) led by Elon Musk does not supply say goodbye to all officials That, according to the greatest fortune of the planet, there are plenty of administration. In his last intervention, the Doge agents They fired about 350 officials of the Department of Energy. What they did not know is that they were sending specialists at home nuclear eyelet assembly and control of weapons and nuclear waste. Nuclear layoffs. According to published CBS News, Doge employees thought that last Thursday they were saying employees in the test period or simple administrative department of the Department of Energy, without stopping to ask what their work really was. However, hundreds of federal employees who work in the United States nuclear weapons programs also received their dismissal notification. According to sources of The Associated Press Near to the Department of Energy, up to 350 employees of the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) were dismissed unexpectedly. Some of them lost access to their email before being formally notified or could not access their job with their credentials. The NSA is the entity responsible for managing the country’s nuclear weapons, among other crucial responsibilities. Specialists in nuclear eyelets. One of the facilities most affected by Doge’s layoffs was the Pantex plant, near Yellow (Texas), which suffered a 30% template cut without prior notice. In this plant, employees are dedicated to the reensamblage of nuclear eyelets, a high specialization task that requires the highest levels of security authorization. The agency’s interim director, Teresa Robbins, sent a statement to the dismissed employees annuling the dismissal order, has caused enormous confusion throughout the agency. However, 28 officials were not readmitted. “This letter serves as a formal notification that the termination decision issued on February 13, 2025 has been terminated, with an immediate effect,” said the memorandum obtained by AP. Dismiss first, then ask. Given the nature of these dismissals, the discretion used by the department led by Elon Musk, when saying goodbye to officials without previously analyzing the scope of their work, has been revealed. That action pattern carries the Elon Musk’s unequivocal seal. He did it With the Development Department of the Tesla Supercores, and then hire them again because the service had been paralyzed. He did the same With the Twitter moderation department Chaos in a strategic department. “The people of Doge arrive without having the slightest idea of ​​what are the responsibilities of these departments. They do not seem to realize that, in reality, it is more about the department of nuclear weapons than the department of energy,” said Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. A senior NSA official, Rob Plonski, also expressed concern about dismissals in a LinkedIn publication: “This is a crucial moment. We must decide whether we are truly committed to leading on the world stage or if we content to undermine the same systems that ensure the future of our nation.” Plonski warned that “cutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions can be seen as reckless in the best and adversely opportunistic in the worst.” CONSEQUENCES FOR THE NUCTILE FORCE OF US. The layoffs and subsequent readmission of the employees of the Department of Energy have planted the seed of uncertainty among those officials, and some are rethinking whether to work back in the agency. “The main impact was a blow to the morals and trust of the employees who were dismissed,” assured to CNN A nearby source. Many of them have dedicated their entire career to nuclear programs, becoming a valuable asset of knowledge in this area. These layoffs have only come to aggravate the constant loss they had already suffered after a recent wave of retirement, which has already meant a loss of qualified talent in this department, just when the US is carrying out an important effort of Modernization of nuclear weapons of 750,000 million dollars. Edwin LymanDirector of Nuclear Energy Security of the Union of Concertned Scientists (UCS), explained to CBS News that layoffs could “alter the daily functioning of the agency and create a sense of instability about the nuclear program both in the US and abroad. That can only benefit the adversaries of this country.” In Xataka | A government “Extremely Hardcore”: Elon Musk is applying to the US the same recipe that has applied to all its companies Image | ThE White HouseUnited States Department of Defense

We have discovered (again) the secret of Roman concrete. Is less impressive than it seems

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It does not fail. It seems mathematical. From time to time, the world rediscovers the Roman concrete and hallucin with the durability of a material that allows the Pantheon of Agrippa to have 2,000 years standing (while modern concrete cracks within a few decades). Incidentally, almost with the same regularity, there is some scientist or engineer who claims to have found the key secret that this is. The last occasion He has touched the Massachusetts Technological Institute And, as usual, the story is not exactly what it seems. What does the study say? MIT researchers They have studied Small pieces of lime that are usually found in Roman concrete: the ‘calcium oxide’ clasts. These types of structures have been studied a lot in romas infrastructure located in maritime contexts and, for years, has been related to some “self -regime” capacity of the material. Understanding what it means. According to some scientiststhe water that would enter through the concrete cracks would drag the calcium ions of the Classos in a process that would end up calcitating and sealing the cracks. The work of the MIT of recent days, also studies those clasts in the terrestrial concrete and theorizes that they are the result of the Romans added living lime to the mixture of the concrete (instead of the dull lime – calcium hydroxide – key of the Puzolenic reactions). Beyond that, researchers They made several mixtures With living lime and verified that, according to their theory, in these new mixtures lime clasts were generated (and was calcited that repaired the cracks). As Brian Potter saysthe discovery is interesting at the historical level. But, despite the attempts to sell it as something revolutionary, it is potentially useless. Useless? Yes, useless. When talking about Roman concrete, a lot of mistakes are usually made, but there are two recurring: the first, As Manuel F. Herrador always reminds usStructural concrete professor at the University School of the University of Coruña, is “the survivor’s bias.” The idea of ​​the extraordinary quality of Roman concrete comes from studying, precisely, the best structures they did, which have best been preserved. On the other hand, most of what the Romans built has already disappeared completely and cannot be studied. The second error. We are comparing ‘churras with merinas’ at a functional level. For being clear, with the Roman concrete we could not make a tenth of the things we do with modern concrete. The clearest example is reinforced concrete (that is, the mixture of concrete with reinforcement steel). These materials allow us to solve many of the structural problems presented , We have to pay a cost. The most obvious: the structures run before. We make the concrete we want to do. This is perhaps the most important to consider when we talk about Roman concrete: we do not “concrete to the Roman” because we do not want; Because it is not worth what we want to get. The same potter It puts examples (the Hindu temples and Buddhists built to “last more than 1000 years”) that show that current science and technology allow authentic virguerías. The question is if we want to do them in a world that changes so quickly and not, no matter how much we like the Romans, we do not want. Luckily: that allows us to go much further. In Xataka | Glass is a more everyday material but its physics does not. We are not even clear if it is really a solid In Xataka | Cheaper, durable and ecological: a new material with the help of ruthenium wants to change the rules of green hydrogen Image | Renzo Vanden Bussche *An earlier version of this article was published in January 2023

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