If your hard drives disconnect on their own, an underpowered USB Hub may be to blame. With these you won’t have that problem

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If you usually use a hub to connect hard drives, mice, keyboards and other accessories or peripherals, perhaps at some point it has happened to you that they disconnect randomly. That’s especially worrying with hard drives, because you can lose data. Today we are going to tell you why the problem is not the hard drive, but surely the hub USB you have. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links How does a hub Hub without external power. The hubSpeaking of models that do not require external power, they are accessories that generally have fairly low prices, although it depends a lot on the brand. They act like port multipliersince connecting them to a single port on the computer (generally USB-A or USB-C) allows us to connect two or more devices to the hub. They are usually quite cheap, small and there is a wide variety to choose from, with different formats (elongated, square and even round). To use them you only have to connect them to a USB port on your computer, without the need to also connect them to a power outlet. AND here is its main limitation. The energy required to use it comes directly from the computer, so the power will be limited to what the port offers. Furthermore, the maximum power is always divided by the hub (so that it can work) and the number of devices that we connect. To give you an idea, a standard USB 3.0 gives 900 mA. A mechanical hard drive can require almost all of that to boot. If you add a keyboard with lights, the system collapses. How does a hub with external power Hub with external power. The hub with external power they are less frequent, more expensive and often larger. Here we can identify the hub assets, which are usually cheaper, and Docking Stationwhich are larger and come with more ports, including some video ones. With this type of hub We are not so limited to the power that the computer’s USB port can offer. In practice, this means that in many cases the power does not have to be divided when connecting two or more devices, although there are exceptions: some USB ports of the hub Active devices require so much energy that they prioritize these ports, something that we can see in those USB-C (Power Delivery) that are aimed at charging devices such as mobile phones compatible with fast charging. It is worth mentioning that the hubs assets come with a USB-C PD (Power Delivery) port. They don’t come with a transformer, but if you connect the laptop charger to them, they become “powered.” And… what are they for? Both the hub assets like Docking Station They are ideal if you are looking to connect devices that require high power, such as mobile phones, monitors or hard drives and SSD drives. By way of differentiation: It’s a hub passive if: It just has a short cable coming out of it and nothing else. It’s a hub active if: It has an extra port that says “DC 5V” or “USB-C Power Delivery (PD).” It is a Docking Station if: It is large, heavy, has its own power brick (like that of a laptop) and has video connectors such as DisplayPort or several HDMIs. The good and the bad of both options, face to face Hub without external power hub with external power THE GOOD 🟢 They are cheaper, more compact and lighter. They offer better stability when connecting many devices and usually have a greater number and variety of ports. THE BAD 🔴 The power is limited to what the computer’s USB port offers, so you may experience power outages in certain cases. They are more expensive and tend to be larger and heavier. Ideal for: Keyboards, mice, microphones or flash drives (pendrive). Mobile phones with fast charging, hard drives and SSD drives and monitors. We do the math to see which one can compensate you more. Both options have their positive and negative points, so the choice lies in how we are going to use them. If it is still not completely clear to you, let’s see it with an example. If you want to use a hub sporadically because you are not going to connect many devices at the same time, it may be worth it to buy a hub without external power. Actual use: Let’s say you want to connect two low-power devices. The accounts: You save between 70 and 80 (or more) euros between the cost of a hub without external power and another with external power. Also, if you chose this second option, you would not be squeezing it, since you are going to connect low-power devices. So? If you want to connect a mouse and keyboard (because they are wired or because you want to recharge them) and you still have a free USB port on your computer to connect a hard drive, this type of hub It can serve you very well. However, if what you want is to connect several devices, low or high power, and you do not have any more free USB ports on the computer or they are in an area that is not easily accessible to use them, it will be more useful for you to go for a hub with external power. Actual use: Let’s say you want to connect many devices to the hubsome need more and others less power. The accounts: You pay more for this type of hubbut it allows you to connect practically any device. So? You can have a greater number of connected devices (depending on the hub), and it will give you “the same” what to connect, whether it is a keyboard or a hard drive because it will offer a stable connection. Also, as a utility, if you have the computer under the desk or in some area that is difficult to access, you will not have to bend down to … Read more

a ship moves at the speed of a bicycle

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The war in Iran was supposed to blow up the world economy. However, as analyst Max Fisher points out in his recent explanatory videoIf we look out the window today, we do not see an apocalyptic landscape worthy of Mad Max. What we see is, simply, a somewhat battered economy. Were the catastrophic forecasts wrong? At all. The light we see through the window is “a mirage.” The war detonated like a distant bomb: we have seen the flash, but the shock wave has not yet reached us. To understand the reason for this delay, you have to look at the sea. A supertanker is a steel giant that measures four football fields long, carries millions of barrels and weighs more than a skyscraper. Due to its colossal dimensions, it travels at about 10 or 15 knots. That is, at the speed of a bicycle. Our global supply lines travel at the pace of a cycling peloton. When the conflict broke out and the tap was turned off in the Persian Gulf, There was still a huge amount of crude oil pedaling slowly and silently across the oceans towards Europe, Asia and America. This logistical inertia is what has created the false sense of normality that we experience today. A monumental traffic jam According to data from Bloombergthere are more than 800 vessels stuck in the Gulf, 70% of them loaded with crude oil and fuel. Guardian raises the number to 2,000 if we add freighters and cruise ships, with some 20,000 sailors on board trapped for almost a month and a half. The real impact on the numbers is scary. An investigation of Al Jazeera based on data from Kpler reveals that in just 40 days of conflict 206 million barrels have disappeared from the market. To give us an idea, that amount would fill 103 supertankers (VLCC), marine beasts that, when standing, would equal the height of the Eiffel Tower. Exports from Iraq have plummeted by 82%, and those from Kuwait and Qatar by more than 70%. So why are there no massive blackouts in the West? As Max Fisher explainsWestern governments, through the International Energy Agency (IEA)have released millions of barrels from their emergency reserves. This, added to financial speculators betting on peace, has kept prices artificially low. But these measures are “punctual tricks”, patches that will run out just when the last ships that left before the war reach their destinations. The ceasefire deception The announcement of a “two-week ceasefire” has given a small respite to the markets, but the reality is rather stubborn. In statements to Reutersthe director of the IEA, Fatih Birol, was blunt: the current crisis is “more serious than those of 1973, 1979 and 2022 combined.” Analysts agree that it is not enough to sign a piece of paper to get the machinery back on track. The column lex of Financial Times warns that the world has lost about 600 million barrels. Even producing an extra million barrels a day, it will take almost two years to recover pre-conflict inventories. Added to this is physical destruction. Iran and its adversaries have damaged vital infrastructure. As we have explained in XatakaQatar has lost 17% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity and could take three to five years to repair. The imminent result will be what economists call “demand destruction”which Fisher starkly illustrates: things won’t disappear, but there will be a lot fewer of them. We will see airlines canceling flights due to the prohibitive price of fuel, less fertilizers (which will make food more expensive), factories stopped and construction materials through the roof. Great collateral damage: debt This crisis does not only affect gasoline pumps. An analysis of Foreign Affairs alert of an invisible global threat: the debt. With energy prices rising, inflation will skyrocket, forcing the United States to raise interest rates. This could trigger a wave of massive defaults in developing countries, a tragic echo of the debt crisis of the 1980s. Unlike past crises, today rich countries also have no lifeline. Ruchir Sharma, in his opinion column for Financial Timespoints out that G7 governments carry debt levels greater than 100% of their GDP. They have literally “run out of political ammunition” to subsidize fuel for their citizens. So why not extract oil from somewhere else? Because, as the geologist interviewed by explains The Conversationthe Persian Gulf is a unique whim of nature. It concentrates half of the world’s oil and 40% of the gas in just 3% of the earth’s surface. It is irreplaceable in the short term. The Tehran toll: the lesser evil Faced with this impasse, a proposal that is as controversial as it is pragmatic has emerged: that Iran control the Strait and charge a toll of about 2 million dollars per ship. According to a report from think tank European BruegelAlthough this violates international law, it would make economic sense. The study shows that 85% of this toll would be absorbed by the Gulf producing countries themselves. For the average European or Asian consumer, it would only mean a few cents more per barrel. A lesser evil compared to a total blockade that enriches Russia with the rise in crude oil. The spring mirage in which we live has an expiration date. During these hot months, Europe and Asia should be filling their strategic reserves in the face of the cold. Instead, they are emptying them. As Max Fisher warns, when hundreds of millions of people turn on the heat in December and January, the real oil crisis will hit with full force. In the long term, we can see only one real way out: avoiding oil altogether. This war will make it clear to world leaders that depending on such a volatile region is an unaffordable risk, forcing a drastic acceleration towards electric vehicles and renewable energy. In the meantime, we will continue waiting. Because the hyperconnected and technological economy of the 21st century has just discovered, the hard way, that its heart … Read more

The entire global electricity grid, in an impressive interactive map that shows the evolution of the energy transition

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There are few infrastructures as complex and essential to living in the world as we know it as the electrical grid, which in practice for most mortals is reduced to touching a switch or connecting a plug to the socket and it works. Behind the world’s electrical infrastructure there is a huge conglomerate of equipment, careful planning and uses that are changing (among other things, due to the now so famous data centers). It is not the only thing that is being transformed: the energy transition is making it possible for those resources that once supplied the electrical grid to give way to renewable energies. But not all countries in the world have the same density of electrical networks or the same sources, because in fact there are real black holes in this very complete world map of the electrical network. Is called OpenGridWorks and is an interactive map of the entire world’s electrical infrastructure, from a small solar plant to the great lines that cross continents. And we already told you that it attracts attention not only for the beauty of the chromatic compositions, but also for practical purposes: from planning an engineering project to analyzing energy policy. Opengridworks This map is actually a web platform for geospatial visualization of electrical infrastructure. All its data comes from OpenStreetMap, the world’s largest open, collaborative geographic database, maintained by volunteers and experts on an ongoing basis. This guarantees global coverage, constant updating and completely free access. But for network and infrastructure data it uses information from Global Energy Monitor or the United States Energy Information Administration, among others. Its purpose is to show, in a clear and interactive way, where electricity is generated, how it travels through the grid and where consumption is concentrated. It is worth stopping at the layers and all the information it shows because as we warned you before it is very complete, so if you leave all the options activated you will find yourself in a mess. If you move on the map and get closer, you will be able to see information such as: What technology provides the energy in the form of a colored bubble: blue for hydroelectric, red for thermal, yellow for solar, green for wind and purple for nuclear. The size of each bubble represents the installed capacity in MW Transmission lines are drawn thicker the higher their voltage (from 100 kV to 765 kV) and substations appear as nodes where these lines converge. Data centers also appear in the shape of a white diamond as they are points of intensive consumption. On the other hand, easement strips (ROW) appear as shaded areas around lines and facilities. Opengridworks But you will also be able to see additional information when you hover the pointer over any of the points. An example: when touching the Montes de Cierzo wind farm in Tudela, we will see that it is in operation and the energy it provides. What the global electrical map reveals about the energy transition Playing with the zoom and scrolling you quickly discover that there are areas of saturation and others that are a desert of infrastructure. From an engineering point of view, the map allows you to search for the closest interconnection point for a new project or detect nodes whose failure would leave regions without supply. Beyond engineering, it is an energy policy tool: it highlights the electrification gaps in developing countries, shows the real progress of renewables compared to fossil fuels, and allows the resilience of different national networks to be compared. AND abysmal differences are observed. Opengridworks The densest networks They are concentrated in the United States, central Europe and China, while sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia show very poor coverage that reveals an electrical blackout. In South America, the areas with the most infrastructure are on the Atlantic coast, although there are also some timid points on the Pacific coast. However, inside we barely find more than a fade to black. The colors of energy sources also change on the map, still dominated by thermal generation, although in Western Europe and China the advance of solar and wind power is a reality already perfectly visible. This map also reveals curiosities such as that nuclear plants always appear next to rivers or coasts due to cooling needs and hydroelectric plants are concentrated in the large river systems of the world. The data centers are also not placed at random, but are clustered near large transmission nodes to ensure supply. In Xataka | How much electricity each country on the map produces with renewable energy, displayed on a graph In Xataka | The amount of nuclear energy generated by each country, detailed in this interactive map Cover | OpenGrid Works

a “free city” in the heart of Copenhagen

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In September it will be 55 years since the birth of Christianiaa place as peculiar as it is unknown to so many people. I myself admit that I had never heard of this “social experiment”, as they called themselves at least initially, until I visited Copenhagen. And what is Christiania? Well, a neighborhood located right in the heart of the Danish capital, and at the same time separated from the world. A self-governed and independent neighborhood, where more than a thousand people live together in peace and oblivious to social norms. Getting there is shocking. You walk through a normal and ordinary city, and suddenly you stand in front of a door, or rather a sign, that delimits the entrance. And when you cross it, you immerse yourself in a completely different place than where you came from. Going through that door is like entering a time machine. Suddenly you don’t hear the traffic or the noise of the crowd. Only calm, the passing of bicycles, calm voices, guitars, songs and even the chirping of birds. Formerly the Christiania lands belonged to the army, but they abandoned it back in 1971. It was then when a group of young people met and “took” those lands and their corresponding barracks to found a free community that still endures today, despite the multitude of battles they have had to fight with politicians and law enforcement. Many of these battles come caused by drug sales inside Christiania. At first they were allowed, but that ended up getting out of hand and “legality” was limited to soft drugs. On Pusher Street you can find marijuana plants everywhere, and even stands selling hashish. (Unsplash) Surely this is the main reason why taking photos there is frowned upon, and not what they argue that a photo does not reflect the spirit of the neighborhood. But when it comes to hard drugs, you won’t find anything. In fact, to avoid problems with the police, it is the residents of Christiania themselves who are first interested in ensuring that they do not appear on their streets. The idyllic corner of Copenhagen Christiania has a beautiful lake surrounded by paths where the homes of its inhabitants are located. The houses are each more unique and striking, with the most peculiar shapes and colors. In them, you can find people of all kinds. Without going any further, I met an old man who was building a boat. And they don’t bother to close their houses. They don’t believe in private property. In Christiania sharing is a way of life. Recycling is a norm, and they take advantage of all kinds of seemingly useless things. So you can find benches, chairs, or sculptures built with scrap metal and the like. But although it may sound poor, the workmanship of these artists turns them into the most homely and valuable objects. Christiania is famous for its “Cristianiabikes”, bicycles that they themselves invented with a kind of box in the front, which has spread throughout Copenhagen with the aim of transporting the little ones in the house on it. (Unsplash) They also have their own mail systemits restaurants (vegetarian), exhibition halls, daycare, shops and even concerts. Without going any further, characters and groups of the stature of Bob Dylan, Alanis Morissete, Blur, Portishead, Green Day, Rage Against The Machine and Eric Clapton have performed in Christiania. If you go to Copenhagen, don’t miss the opportunity to visit a magical place. A small neighborhood that flees from social norms and impositions, to live in its own style. You will feel welcomed and at peace. You can get lost in its paths surrounding the lake, fall in love with its houses, listen to the silence in the heart of Copenhagen. And when the time comes to leave and you cross that kind of door, or frame, again, you will be able to read its characteristic message: “You are now entering the EU” (You are entering the European Union.) They consider themselves a world apart. They are. In Xataka | Schrödinger’s tourists: Japan both wants and does not want more visitors to come to the country In Xataka | Americans are the only way for Spain to reach 100 million tourists. And something is going wrong

They promised us that 20 minutes of sparking was equivalent to 4 hours in the gym. Science says it’s more complicated

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Since humans became aware of the existence of electric current, they have tried to apply that power to their own body. As detailed in a report by The Wall Street Journalthis fascination goes back a long way: from the ancient Roman belief in the healing impact of torpedo fish, to the famous vibrating belt machines that promised to sculpt silhouettes in the 1950s. Today, the industry fitness has taken it a step further with whole body muscle electrostimulation (WB-EMS). The concept itself seems straight out of a science fiction movie: users don a wet suit covered in electrodes that delivers simultaneous shocks to major muscle groups for about 20 minutes. The marketing hook is irresistible, as these strength and bodyweight training sessions are sold as the ultimate shortcut to replacing hours of sweat in the gym. On social networks, dozens of influencers They upload videos doing squats and arm lifts while wearing this bionic suit. But, beyond the aesthetics and the promise of a toned body with little effort, what is true in all this? From the clinic to global fashion The technology behind electrostimulation is not a recent invention nor was it born in a trendy gym. Initially, it was used in hospitals and rehabilitation settings for a strictly medical purpose: to relieve pain, prevent muscle atrophy in bedridden patients, and improve circulation. However, in recent years, it has experienced explosive growth as a business model. fitness. The data is there. On the ClassPass platform, the number of centers offering EMS training worldwide increased more than 16% between 2023 and 2025. International franchises such as the French Iron Bodyfit plan to open more than 50 studios in the United States in the next three years, while the Californian company Body20 has gone from 46 to 67 locations nationwide since 2023. All this despite the fact that it is not an economic activity: classes cost between $40 and $100 per session. To understand the phenomenon, you have to understand how the experience works. The wet suit—water is necessary to conduct electricity effectively—sends electrical impulses directly to the muscle. This forces a greater percentage of muscle fibers to contract simultaneously involuntarily. As described by journalist Ellen Gamerman in The Wall Street Journalthe physical sensation is similar to that of receiving a call on a mobile phone in vibrate mode, with the difference that, in this case, “you are the phone.” Combined with core exercises, the level of muscle contraction makes the effort feel as intense as a high-intensity interval (HIIT) class. If you extend one arm without bending it slightly, the current can cause it to lock up completely until the trainer lowers the intensity of the machine. But who is attracted to this technology? Helge Guetzlaff, business development director of the German brand Miha Bodytec, joked in the American newspaper claiming that it attracts “a lot of lazy people.” However, Sabine Padar, owner of the exclusive Body Alchemist NYC studio, points out that she often has to convince her clients that spending more hours in the gym is not the only way to gain muscle. She insists that EMS sessions aren’t necessarily easier than traditional training, they’re just faster. The user profile is varied: from women concerned about losing strength during menopause to fashion professionals, such as Max Auth, a director of the Wolford brand who confesses to spending about $300 a month on these sessions to maintain his figure with a minimal investment of time. The reality bath Faced with marketing claims that “20 minutes are equivalent to 4 hours in the gym”, the scientific community has decided to take action on the matter. Cedric X. Bryant, executive director of the American Council on Exercise, points in WSJ that these claims are hyperbolic and that what one should expect from these workouts is being greatly exaggerated, while acknowledging that they may offer mild to moderate improvements. To shed light on the matter, various studies have analyzed the real impact of WB-EMS on different population groups: In older and sedentary adults: A research published in Clinical Interventions in Aging demonstrated the effectiveness of this technology in sedentary and thin older women, at risk of sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass) and abdominal obesity. After subjecting a group of 23 women to 18 minutes of WB-EMS (three sessions every 14 days) for 12 months, the results showed significant and positive differences in appendicular muscle mass and a reduction in abdominal fat mass compared to the control group. The study concluded that, given the good acceptance of the technology, WB-EMS is a valid and less daunting alternative for subjects who do not want or cannot do conventional exercise. In recreational athletes: Another essay published in Frontiers in Physiology analyzed the effects of WB-EMS in male recreational runners. For 6 weeks, participants reduced their running training to a single day per week and added a weekly WB-EMS session. The results indicated that the electrostimulation group improved their maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max), their ventilatory thresholds, their running economy and their vertical jump. This suggests that WB-EMS may be an effective stimulus to maintain and even improve performance in periods where resistance training volume is reduced. The definitive comparison (The WB-EMS is not a miracle): To check whether electrostimulation is really superior to classic sweating, the FIT-AGEING project evaluated 89 sedentary middle-aged adults. A rigorous study also published in Frontiers in Physiology divided the subjects into three 12-week programs: traditional concurrent training (recommended by WHO), high intensity interval training (HIIT), and HIIT added to WB-EMS. Finally, all types of exercise induced similar increases in cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength. In fact, the scientists explicitly concluded that the changes observed in the WB-EMS group were not superior to those of the other conventional exercise programs. The suit does not provide any extra decisive advantage compared to sweating the shirt in a traditional way. The silent danger of overexertion Despite the obvious benefits, WB-EMS is not a toy and carries risks if not properly supervised. As he … Read more

a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits

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In the 60s, in the United States they were already operating dozens of schools of martial arts open to the public, something unthinkable just two decades before outside of Asia. In that same period, some real combats between practitioners of different styles were resolved in private spaces and without official regulation, far from any sporting format. In fact, it would not be until the 90s when competitions like the Ultimate Fighting Championship They would begin to systematize these types of confrontations between different disciplines. A local rivalry turned into legend. In California in 1964, long before Bruce Lee became a global icon, he had already earned an uncomfortable reputation within the Chinese martial arts community. He was young, brilliant, provocative and increasingly convinced that many traditional styles were full of beautiful forms and great plasticity, but of little use when it came to a real fight. Plus: his speech, his public demonstrations and his decision to teach anyone, regardless of race or origin, placed him at the center of a tension that went far beyond personal ego. In that climate of tension with the character, a guy named Wong Jack Mananother young master, but with a diametrically opposite profile, quieter, more classic and more linked to a disciplined and traditional idea of ​​kung fu. The clash between the two would soon take the inevitable form of a reckoning. A real fight with the myth. The decisive thing about that upcoming fight was not only who was going to hit first or exactly how long it lasted, but the simple fact that anyone would even accept face Lee in the most uncomfortable conditions possible: a private, tense confrontation with practically no rules, where both understood that it was not a simple exhibition, but of knock down the rival no matter what. As in every battle of the past of which we only have the words, they say that Wong wanted to introduce certain elementary limitsbut the most repeated version maintains that Bruce imposed his idea of total fighting, a real test, without concessions, without a safety net and without the protection of spectacle. There was the true magnitude of the episode: it was not a tournament, nor a choreography, nor a public demonstration to impress students or onlookers, but a physical clash. between two conceptions of combat, two temperaments and two ways of understanding martial arts. That someone decided to stand up to Bruce Lee in that context explains why the episode has survived decades as one of the most fascinating (and most difficult) stories of the Lee myth to fix. Wong Jack Man Two opposite styles. The popular image invites us to imagine an almost cinematic scene, two masters launching perfect techniques in a solemn duel, but the stories agree on something much more earthly: That was a messy, abrupt, exhausting combat and very far from the romantic ideal of kung fu. Most accounts agree with a beginning where Bruce dated overwhelming aggressionseeking to close the distance, chain straight blows and give no respite. Wong, however, chose to movedodge, defend and try to contain the gale without fully deploying his most dangerous arsenal, especially his long-range kicks. It was not, in any case, a “nice” fight, but an awkward collision between the iconic speed of Lee and Wong’s evasive resistance. That is precisely why the confrontation has mattered so much: because it stripped martial arts of much of its theatricality and revealed something more raw and revealing. Bruce Lee in a still from Enter The Dragon The great dispute impossible to close. What exactly happened inside that room remains one of the controversies most persistent in the history of Bruce Lee and martial arts. The version of his wifeLinda Lee, maintains that Bruce ran over Wong within minutes, chased him when he started to back away, and ended up forcing him to surrender on the ground. Wong Jack Man defended just the opposite: that Bruce attacked like a wild bull, that the fight lasted more than twenty minutes and that there was no clear victory, but rather exhaustion and a confusing ending. A third testimony, that of the teacher William Chenmoves in an intermediate zone and talks about a long, even and no clean ending. This disparity has fueled the myth for decades, but it also reveals a fundamental truth: The actual fights rarely resemble the later heroic tales, let alone Lee’s own films. Each side remembers what happened according to its pride, its memory and the need to protect a reputation that was already at stake. Frame from Game of Death More than a fight. If you like, that fight not only pitted two men against each other, but to two paradigms. Bruce Lee had long denounced what he considered a “classic disorder” of rigid postures, showy movements and techniques that were impractical for the street. Faced with that defended an almost revolutionary idea for the time: that what was important was not the purity of style, but real effectiveness. Wong represented, at least symbolically, the other pole: the elegance of tradition, the authority of lineage, the discipline of established systems. That is why that night in Oakland has ended up being read as a kind of dress rehearsal for what would become decades later. the central debate of mixed martial arts. More than a fight about personal honor, it was a brutal test of which parts of kung fu survived when ritual and rhetoric were eliminated. Lee’s pride. Possibly also, this was the most important consequence of all. Even accepting the version more favorable to Bruce Leethe fight did not develop as he expected. It does not seem that he obtained a clean, quick and overwhelming victory, but a rather dirty fight which left him exhausted, frustrated and feeling like his system still had serious limitations. According to your own wordschasing his rival and hitting him without finishing him as he wanted made him understand that the modality of Wing Chun It wasn’t enough for him. That … Read more

We have been sending pregnant women to bed for decades as a precaution. Science has just proven that it is a big mistake

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In the face of a potentially risky pregnancy, the prescription that was administered was very clear: absolute bed rest to avoid any fall or inappropriate movement that could cause an abortion. But this is something that today is no longer the norm, since staying still during pregnancy not only does not prevent the premature birth of a baby, but it can be very harmful. You have to move. Here, institutions as important as the Mayo Clinic are quite blunt in their guidelines by noting that there is no evidence that bed rest is effective in treating preterm labor. To reach this conclusion, they logically resort to different clinical studies inside the Cochrane Library In this case, they point out, for example, that in singleton pregnancies, routine bed rest does not prevent premature births and, in fact, the adverse effects of being immobilized outweigh the supposed benefits. In the situation of being in a multiple pregnancy, hospitalization and strict rest do not reduce perinatal risks and, ironically, an increased risk of spontaneous birth has been observed. What dangers does it have? Lying in bed may be something that a priori is seen as completely harmless, but the reality is that science advises against it for different reasons. The first of them is that immobility increases the risk of venous thromboembolism if one is not properly anticoagulated. In addition, it causes bone demineralization, where an estimated loss of bone mass is 2% to 3% per month, muscle atrophy and weakness, orthostatic hypotension, and is also associated with low neonatal birth weight and a higher rate of cesarean sections. Beyond the physical. Having complete rest isolates the pregnant woman in a bed watching television all day, and this only causes increased emotional stress, anxiety, and can lead to depression. In studies, this is something that currently affects 20% of pregnant women subjected to this isolation in countries like the United States. What is recommended. The objective of the different international guidelines to treat these pregnant women has taken a great turn in recent years. The SEGO guide of Spain, for example, recommends these women with aerobic activity for 3-5 days a week, avoiding routine rest. If we cross the ocean, in the United States it is recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week, also to reduce the rate of cesarean sections and gestational diabetes. There are exceptions. Generalizations are never good, and that is why you cannot ask all pregnant women for absolute rest, but neither for a lot of activity. Here the most current guidelines establish that there are very specific and documented cases, such as premature rupture of membranes, where this rest is necessary. But these cases are very few. What we must stay with here is that immobility during pregnancy is not the best, and we must stay active as much as possible with activities logically adapted to the pregnancy situation. Images | Anna Hecker In Xataka | There are couples who couldn’t have children. Now AI has managed to give them hope

In China, 470 series made with AI are produced per day. 99.9% of them do not reach anyone

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In January 2026, the platforms streaming Chinese companies recorded the launch of more than 14,600 short series generated with artificial intelligence. There are 470 new titles a day, all ready to be distributed through applications like Douyin or Hongguo. The fact that is not widely disseminated is where almost all of that content went. Long live the microdramatic. The microdramas (either duanju) They are mobile series with episodes of between two and five minutes, usually adaptations of novels previously published in web format, and which are disseminated on pages financed not with subscriptions, but through micropayments and algorithmic advertising. The narrative of these series is extremely formulaic, despite the fact that on paper it seems very varied: the rich also cry, time travel, sentimental revenge, melodramas concentrated in a few minutes, all designed (circular and repetitive plots, characters that enunciate what is happening) to consume between subway stops. The irresistible growth of duanju. The format had been flourishing for years before AI will arrive. The Chinese microdrama market lost revenue from 500 million dollars in 2021 to 7,000 million in 2024surpassing the national film box office that year for the first time. In 2025, the sector was already close to 9.4 billion. It is estimated that more than 830 million users consumed the format, and about 60% of them pay or make transactions on platforms that offer a few free episodes to hook viewers. As in so many other industrial aspects, China has built, without attracting the attention of the rest of the world, the largest serialized entertainment market in terms of volume on the planet. AI Invasion. A live-action microdrama cost more than one million yuan to produce in 2024. With AI tools like Kling or Seedancethe same project It costs between 50,000 and 100,000 yuan (between 6,000 and 12,000 euros). In the cheapest production studios, the figure drops to 30,000 or 40,000 yuan per complete series. The cost per minute of content fell from between 3,000 and 5,000 yuan at the beginning of 2024 to between 200 and 1,000 today. Everything changes. This fall has transformed the structure of the microdrama industry, and has boosted companies specialized in the AI ​​variant of the genre such as Jiangyou Culture, which with the support of China Literature (the publishing group affiliated with Tencent), grew to a thousand employees and has a turnover of around 1 billion yuan annually with net margins of between 20% and 30%. Judian, another production company, generates around a hundred microdramas photorealistic films per month and between one thousand and two thousand audiodramas with synthesized voice. 99.88%. Of the 127,800 AI series in circulation in February 2026, the proportion that crossed the 100 million views threshold was 0.117%. In 2025, the specialized app Douyin launched 60,000 series generated with AI, and only ninety-six reached that same number. That 0.16% success rate has been dropping as production volume has risen. But there are also differences with live-action microdramas: the most watched AI series accumulated about one billion views, and the most successful live-action series, 4.4 billion. Viewers detect the synthetic quality and the uncanny valley the emotional commitment is burdened, which leads, according to experts, to a significant abyss: the viewer does not want to pay for it. Advertising spending. The dominant business model in this million-dollar sector is known as “traffic arbitrage”: produce cheaply with AI, invest aggressively in advertising within the platforms to generate visits and pray to survive on the margin. In March 2026, daily advertising spending on AI microdramas on Douyin exceeded 70 million yuan, surpassing that of live-action productions for the first time. That is to say: the loop can be financially sustained even if the audiences do not attend. The actors suffer. Actor Li Wenhao entered the microdrama industry in 2023 and worked 50 consecutive days. In March 2026, only six worked, according to Hello China Tech. Castings are increasingly rare, microdrama production companies they hire fewer and fewer humans: For example, Chengdu Zhongdu, a medium-sized studio, announced in March that it was abandoning production live-actionconverting its entire workforce to AI. Actress Hao Lei, one of the most respected figures in Chinese dramatic cinema, has said that AI will replace 90% of actors, adding that in certain records it already surpasses the human equivalent. Stolen faces. The displacement of professional actors was foreseeable, but the massive and unauthorized appropriation of real faces was not so predictable. In early 2026, a 72-episode AI-generated historical drama appeared in Hongguo and gained widespread popularity before a blogger specialized in traditional Chinese clothing discovered that one of the characters had her face. The same thing was detected by another content creator, and neither of them was compensated or informed, Hello China Tech also says. And of course, professional actors have also been victims of this type of practice: Yi Yangqianxi (Jackson Yee), Xiao Zhan and Dilraba Dilmurat are some of them. But the cases of semi-anonymous people, like these content creators, are much more bloody: they discovered the theft of their face almost by chance, so anyone who has uploaded enough content to the internet to train an AI may find themselves in a similar situation. Header | pandaily

China has just launched its first undersea data center with total energy autonomy. The idea makes more sense than it seems

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In the AI ​​race, having a robust data center infrastructure to power it is essential, but first you need energy to power it all. The United States may lead the chip industry (at least, the strategic ones), but China follows closely at an unstoppable pace and furthermore, has the energy. And he is already beginning to connect the dots, showing off his technical power and ingenuity: already It has the largest data center in the worldis also a pioneer to submerge them under the sea. Now it has taken a twist with the first underwater data center that ‘drinks’ directly from the wind that just opened. This project represents the perfect union of two of China’s strategic priorities: digital sovereignty and carbon neutrality. By placing computing infrastructure on the seabed and powering it directly with clean energy on siteChina is solving one of the great current technological problems: the insatiable energy consumption of AI and Big Data. The project. About 10 kilometers off the coast of Shanghai, at the bottom of the East China Sea, a steel cylinder receives electricity directly from wind turbines and is cooled with sea water. It is the Lingang Subsea Data Centeran ambitious project promoted by Shanghai Hailan Cloud Technology (HiCloud) and built by CCCC Third Harbor Engineering. It consists of a series of data storage and processing modules encapsulated in watertight and submerged containers, which are connected via two 35 kV submarine cables to offshore wind turbines operating off the coast of Shanghai. With a planned capacity of 24 MW in two phases, the first is already operational: it has a capacity of 2.3 megawatts and includes a ground control center, a vertical data module installed under the sea and two main 35 kilovolt submarine cables. Why it is important. In addition to the fact that it does not occupy land, in cities as crowded as Shanghai it represents a valuable saving in land and that it can be installed close to where it is needed (if there is a coast, obviously), because it solves at the same time three structural problems of the sector: Refrigeration. Seawater acts as a constant and free heat sink, eliminating the need for industrial air conditioning systems that consume 40 to 50% of electricity. The metric that measures the energy efficiency of a data center by comparing the total energy consumed versus that used purely by the servers is the PUE, which for a standard data center on land is an average slightly higher than 1.5. The project promises to lower it to a figure not greater than 1.15. Without consumption of fresh water. Traditional data centers evaporate millions of liters of water to cool their servers, but this uses thermal exchange with the ocean, so it does not consume water resources. Take advantage of the surplus from wind power. One of the handicaps of wind energy is that generation depends on the wind and not on demand, so if you do not have a battery, the energy that is not consumed is wasted. Thanks to this direct connection, the data center absorbs wind production in real time, functioning as a constant consumer that reduces the waste of renewable energy due to lack of destination, In figures. The magnitude of the project, with some official numbers: The budget is 1.6 billion yuan, about 200 million euros. Total planned operational capacity of 24 MW (2.3 MW in the first phase). The design PUE is less than 1.15. More than 95 percent of electricity comes from renewable sources. Context. The name of HiCloud is not new because in fact it is an old acquaintance: it is the person behind the underwater prototype in front of Hainan which began to install in 2021. However, the international reference is the Natick project from Microsoft (2013–2024), which demonstrated the potential of underwater centers: only 8 of the 864 servers failed, a much lower mortality rate than that of any conventional data center in the same period and also got a very low PUE of only 1.07. Despite this, Microsoft shelved the matter: viability in terms of costs and maintenance is another story. However, the Lingang project has top-level institutional support: is present on the List of Green and Low Carbon Technology Demonstration Projects of the NDRC, China’s top economic planning body. How they have done it. Servers are placed in pressurized steel cabins filled with inert gases to prevent corrosion and fire with a design that maximizes interior space and minimizes the impact of waves. Heat is dissipated by pumping seawater through radiators located behind the racks. The most complicated operation was raising the cabin in the open sea: the separation between the legs of the support structure and the steel piles on the seabed was only 0.18 meters and the maximum allowable deviation was 10 centimeters, so GPS and the Sanhang Fengfan crane vessel were helped. Roadmap. The project follows a staggered progression that leaves certain unknowns. First was the prototype in Hainan (2021-2024). In 2025 the project began in Shanghai, whose phase 1 concluded in October of that year and it has just been launched a few weeks ago. The key phase that will take capacity up to 24 MW has no official public date. Of course, the consortium of companies made up of HiCloud, Shenergy Group, China Telecom Shanghai, INESA and CCCC Third Harbor Engineering signed a cooperation agreement in October 2025 to scale to 500 MW linked to offshore wind, although where and when is unknown. Yes, but. That 2.3 MW of phase 1 is practically a demonstration, not commercial infrastructure as a large conventional data center operates between 50 and 500 MW. And in addition, it has to resolve the issues that Microsoft’s Project Natick left unresolved, such as underwater maintenance: HiCloud has not published protocols or long-term repair costs. And scalability to 500 MW is at the moment more of an intention than a project In Xataka | Where you see a mountain, China sees a … Read more

Germany has found a source of perovskite for solar panels in an unusual place: bullets from the 17th century

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Solar energy is, with the permission of wind energy, the renewable energy that has stood out the most and best in the energy transition on a global scale. There are already solar parks everywhere: from fields that They fill the emptied Spain to deserts passing through the tibetan plateau and also in high seas either in lakes. And although the most common technology is crystalline silicon, perovskite is the great promise. There is a compelling reason to bet on perovskite: a record efficiency certified in a laboratory. up to 26%. However, a large-scale deployment of perovskite solar cells requires a large-scale, sustainable supply of high-purity lead iodide. We have come across lead: a toxic element whose mining is not exactly sustainable. On the not-so-good side, recycling it to the required purity levels is a technical challenge that a German research team at the Helmholtz Institute in Erlangen-Nuremberg has just solved. And in what way: have achieved converting 17th century musket balls into high-performance solar cells. The idea. It consists of a process of upcycling (upcycling) in two stages: first a non-aqueous electrochemical route and then purification through the crystallization of single crystals, quite different from traditional methods based on strong acids and large volumes of water. To demonstrate the robustness of their method, the team used lead bullets from the 16th and 17th centuries as raw material, a truly complicated material in that it contains carbon residues, metallic inclusions and oxidation patina. If the process can clean up this type of historical residue, it can handle virtually anything you throw at it (obviously any lead residue). Recycling bullets into solar cells transforms lead waste into a clean energy source. Why is it important. Perovskite solar cells require extraordinarily pure lead iodide, and achieving that level of purity from contaminated waste was until now a challenge without a practical solution that this research has solved: the team manufactured solar cells with their recycled material and obtained 21% efficiency, practically identical to the 22% of devices manufactured from industrial synthesis. Beyond the technical result, the process solves two problems at the same time: it offers a way to supply the enormous demand for lead iodide that will be generated by the take-off of perovskite solar cells without resorting to new mining and at the same time eliminates a toxic pollutant whose current management is expensive and environmentally problematic. Context. As we mentioned above, lead is an abundant waste: it comes from used car batteries, electronic scrap, construction materials or ammunition, among others. Lead recycling is dominated by car batteries, which have very high recovery rates in developed countries. The problem is in the rest: In 2018, only 48% of the world’s residual lead at the end of its useful life was recovered and in more dispersed flows such as electronics or construction, the recovery is even lower. Conventional recycling returns metallurgical-grade lead, useful for batteries and alloys, but far from what the solar industry requires. In addition, they are slow processes that generate toxic gases such as nitrogen oxides and large quantities of contaminated wastewater, up to 70 liters per kilogram of lead iodide produced. Traditional high-temperature purification methods are expensive and complex. More robust, adaptable and cleaner extraction and purification methods are needed for perovskite technology to truly scale. How they do it. The bullets are cleaned with dilute nitric acid, melted and molded into rods that act as electrodes in an electrochemical cell with acetonitrile and dissolved iodine. When current is applied, lead reacts directly with iodine and precipitates as lead iodide with 94% efficiency. Doing it this way, in a non-aqueous medium, is a deliberate decision to avoid introducing impurities that would accelerate the degradation of the perovskite. The resulting lead iodide still contains metallic impurities, so it is not suitable for solar cells. That is why it is subjected to a second purification stage through crystallization at a controlled temperature for about 70 hours. The process is exceptionally selective: as the crystal grows, it expels contaminating metals such as silver or copper, raising the purity of the material to levels comparable to or even higher than the highest quality commercial standard. Yes, but. The process works and the results are solid, but scale matters: at the laboratory level, productivity is just 0.05 grams per hour and each purification cycle lasts about 70 hours. The leap to an industrial scale requires solving the recovery of organic solvents, controlling the passivation of the electrodes and substantially improving the productivity of the process. The research team does not hide it: the chemistry is proven, but the distance from the laboratory to a real production plant is long and will determine whether we end up seeing perovskite panels made with recycled lead or if this remains like a shiny piece of paper in a drawer. In Xataka | Germany has had a crazy idea to solve one of the problems of renewables: covering a lake with solar panels In Xataka | 800 meters deep in a 175 million year old rock: Germany’s solution to nuclear waste Cover | By Branch and Soren H

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