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Modern tunneladoras are authentic monsters compared to those of 1950. The paradoxical is that they are equally slow

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

Each person has His own Roman Empire. This is those five minutes a day that we dedicate to what we are passionate about, and topics such as Megaestructures either absurdly large tractors They can be that personal “Roman Empire.” Speaking of huge machinery, we have the tunneladoras. They are every time bigger and have more technologybut they are not advancing to the rhythm that, perhaps, we would need to Transform cities. Because after a few meteoric years, its speed seems to have stagnated. And … makes sense. Desperately slow beginning. The history Of the tunneladoras it is relatively recent, since it is a machinery that depended on the technological advances in machinery. Inspired by the cranial shell of Los Teredos, which are mollusks with jaws capable of drilling the wood of the ships, the French engineer Marc Isambard Brunel patented in 1818 the Tunnelador shield. It was a revolution and, literally, a shield: it was a cast iron structure that protected the miners while they chopped. As they progressed, the finished section was reinforced with bricks and advanced the shield by huge cats. It was still a manual work, but going protected with that shield and not “discovered” allowed to undertake works as complex as that of Támesis tunnel. And the problem is that this prototumer advanced to the rhythm of the work of the workers: one meter a day, more or less. Brunel’s shield. On the right side we see the operators picing and advance the shield from the rear while, from behind, another group is responsible for placing the supports Electricity does not improve things. In the development of the tunneladoras there were three key moments. The first was the idea of the shield, the second the mechanization of the tool. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth, different engineers tried Improve the formula of Brunel adding cutting devices to the head of the shield. Several ideas such as drills and cutting discs were tested that were mounted in their arms or on a frontal rotating plate. This mechanization was achieved thanks to pneumatic systems, steamed and, subsequently, electricity. It was clear that they were safer for operators thanks to that automation, but the drilling rate, although it had bent with respect to the manual rhythm, remained slow. The cities were hungry for Tunnels for your rail networks and channels, but the advance of steam machines was one to two meters a day … and the electricity advanced between two and five meters a day. The height is that they had reliability problems and the operators had to hold the tunnel in a traditional way. Mid a century to all fuse. In addition to the technical problems, the tunneladoras continued to have problems with the hard rock. The operators needed to resort to blasting, which made everything slower and more dangerous, but in the 50s, the American James S. Robbins was occurred Something that revolutionized the panorama: a rotating head that mixed the previous advances. The tunnelador of the Oahe dam was the First modern tunnel and had a rotating head that equipped drag cutters and disc. The tandem allowed working on tougher land continuously and, in addition, supposed the culmination of Brunel’s idea: the head perforated and the shield protected the operators who were placing the tunnel lining as the set advanced. It was also safer for these operators and the advances gave way to maximum speeds of about 200 meters a week, according to the land. The head of the tunnelador of Oahe, the first modern tunnelador Stagnation. In half a century, the speed had multiplied by ten at best, but the advances of the 21st century were by other paths. The machines continued to evolve and perfect the idea of that hybrid robbins ‘morro’. They also became larger, efficient, safe and with automated systems when placing reinforcements. But despite all improvements, speed did not multiply as in past decades. He folded, but there is a problem: this speed is the theoretical one, not the real one. Jaws from the front of a double -shaped tunnelador ‘or’ The Boring Company arrives. There it enters Elon Musk on stage with his The Boring Company (An interesting game, since Boring Machine is “Boring Machine”, but it is also how the tunneladoras are known). The businessman had the Hyperloop project, which made sense to have a tunnel company company, and the objective was to drastically increase the excavation speed. Your goal? Get over The speed of 140 meters daily of a snail, 980 a week. PRUFROCK It is its great bet with, a promised speed of more than 1,600 meters per week and an objective of 80,000 meters per week. It is an objective that seems utopian, but its idea is that machines work without stopping to maintain or to install the coating. Instead of installing the traditional transport rails of coating segments, the machine is more autonomous and that rail installation time is eliminated to transport the segments of the tunnel coating. The idea of The Boring Machine is to release the tunnelador, to start excavating uninterruptedly and returns to the surface. It is good, but in urban land and unstable land, it is more utopian It is really not novel because there are other machines that do it, but on soft land, working without coating can be dangerous. In current projects, such as Line 2 of the Lima Metro, the speed round 15 meters a day and everything has to do because the land is complex and urban. There are many factors to consider when talking about the speed of these machines, go. The pruffrock What if the race is no longer the speed? Leaving aside the objectives of The Boring Company, the problem may want faster machines when progress are being made in a more important area: safety. Because, although machines are now more capable and their speed It has increased slightly, that apparent stagnation can respond to a change in objective. The speed of the … Read more

The ruins of a temple located in the Andes can rewrite the history of a forgotten pre -Hispanic civilization

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

It is possible that the name Tiwanaku does not sound too much. It is not among the great most famous pre -Hispanic civilizations such as the Incas, Aztecs or Maya. However, this missing society before Europeans arrived in the South American continent reached unique dominance of their surroundings. The last discovery is proof of this. More than 200 kilometers. A team of researchers has documented A temple built by the civilization of Tiwanaku. This temple was found about 210 kilometers south of the power center of this civilization which allows us to better understand the geographical extension of the domain of this pre -Columbian culture. The state of Tiwanaku. There is little we know today about Tiwanaku. This civilization would have emerged south of Lake Titicaca, in what is now Bolivia. Tiwanaku would have managed to be one of the most powerful civilizations on the continent, but disappeared around the year 1000 of our era,, giving rise to the arrival of the Incas that would dominate the region five centuries later. This civilization would have achieved, Explain the responsible team of the new discovery, an advanced social structure and left behind traces of its architecture in the form of pyramids, staggered temples and monoliths, distributed in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca. However, delimiting the area of influence of Tiwanaku is difficult among those who study this civilization. The last discovery can be helpful. The Palaspata temple. The site was baptized as the Palaspata temple in reference to the name by which the natives call in the area. As described, these ruins show a rectangular complex with 125 meters long and 145 wide. I would have had 15 quadrangular enclosures and an inner courtyard. The temple disposition would not have been random since it is aligned with the equinox. In the enclosure, fragments of Keru glasses were found, which were used for chicha consumption, a corn beer. Corn is not a local crop so The team considers that Palaspata’s environment would have been a commercial node in the Tiwanaku civilization. Combining techniques. To study the diffuse brands left by the old temple the team had to combine different satellite images, images that combined with those taken by drones with those who fly over the site. They also resorted to the photogrammetry technique, that is, three -dimensional reconstruction from multiple photographs. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Antiquity. Recycling the stones. Although we have just discovered the nature of this archaeological site, the environment was well known by local people. In fact, some of the stones and artifacts that constituted this temple had been “recycled” by local farmers in their own constructions. A triple border. Palaspata’s significance lies in its location as we indicated at the beginning, a “strategic” location for those responsible for the finding. This area, they explain, connected three of the main trade routes that communicated three valleys with two ecosystems: the high and fertile lands next to Lake Titicaca; The Andean Altiplano, livestock zone where the flames grew; and the Andean valleys east of Cochabamba, another agrarian region. In Xataka | We have found 21 human remains of 6,000 years ago in Colombia. They do not look like any current living population Image | José Capriles / Penn State

The parking ‘spine’

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

We are all angry at a shopping center and see that there is a car that is occupying two places. And sometimes, it is not the problem of drivers, but of cars themselves. They are getting biggerbut Parking squares do not change. But … Can’t you make larger places more efficiently? On a walk through Redditthere are those who have found the solution: German parking lots with 60% more space. It is not German efficiency, but the fish spine parking. The problem is that the miracle is relative. Fish spine parking. Battery parking is battery parking (also in reverse). The perpendicular is the perpendicular. There is no doubt there, but with the fish spina parking there is a problem: too many names and interpretations. It can be called ‘fish spine’ as a translation of ‘fishbone parking’, but it is also known as’ Angled Parking, ‘Geometric Parking’ or ‘Herringbone parking’. And there are also variants. The one in the image on these lines is the spine parking that they referred to in Reddit and it is easy to imagine the reason: it seems, indeed, the design of the fish thorns. In This parking lotthe vehicles are placed at an angle of 30º, 45º or 60º with respect to the circulation lane, in rows of two cars that coincide by the nose. Advantages. The maneuver when parking is very reduced, since you simply face the car at the right angle. That makes it much easier Occupy the exact point in the square, leaving a good distance with the cars to the sides. We have less maneuvers than in a 90º parking and space is much more optimized than in parallel parking. Another advantage is that it is safer. As is done in single -sense areas, we know where cars will come and, although we have to go back, low speeds in a parking should not be a security problem. The calculations seem contradictory. There are studies that They point That this angle parking is the best way to optimize the space and that the 60º is ideal. In 100 m², parking at 60º allows 5.2 seats. In 45, they are reduced to 4.9 places, in 30º it stays at 3.8 seats and in parallel the figure is 4.4 seats. At first glance, it may seem that the data contradicts themselves. While some studies indicate that the angle of 60º allows more cars per area, others suggest that perpendicular parking offers a similar capacity. The key is how the lines and the total available spaces are distributed. So? David Percy, a professor at the University of Salford, put himself Hands to work With mathematics and discovered that, if in a parking lot at 90º 500 cars entered, in a parking lot with lines drawn at 45º they fit 619. It represents an improvement of 23.8% that is far from the 60% that was stated in Reddit, but that evidently is an advance and contrasts with the previous data that 60º enter the same as 90º. And the key is that it depends on the size of the enclosure. The great advantage when using a fish spine system would be noticed in very large enclosures. It is in those in which the number of places is optimized because it is necessary less space for the car to make maneuvers and, therefore, the traffic lanes can be narrower. In smaller parking lots, the space wasted at the edges of the first and last bays would counteract that intended savings. Others studies In more content parking lots indicate that, with angle parking, 80 cars occupy 7% less than with the parking lot in 90º because this savings come for the lowest space necessary for maneuvers. It seems that the bigger the parking lot, the better it gets to opt for the fish spine parking. Practical use. Therefore, “in Germany they use this pattern that saves 60% space”, is very relative and, as we see, it all depends on the space available in the parking lot. It is easier to enter because you have to maneuver much less, but in great parking lots the priority is not so much that you have it easier (there you have to look for life) but to enter the more, the more. A very easy way to see where this type of parking is used is on Google Maps. And it is really not easy to find them. Where I have seen are in cars and factor concessionaires both in Germany as in other countries (in United KingdomFor example). Here we see that immense space that Percy spoke with the spike parking lot as the best solution, and it makes sense because what they need is to accumulate the more cars, the better. There are also plants such as Berlin Tesla Gigafactoría or BMW that have conventional parking. And others like the BMW of Oerctraubling in which they do what they want: But you don’t have to go to Germany to see a fish spine parking. This Parking of Ciudad Real is dwarf and it seems that when designed they asked “what parking model we applied.” And the answer was “yes.” We have in parallel, in 90º, in fish of fish and in another type of angle In the end, the conclusion is that there are Many types possible parking (some that I neither knew) and that implement one or the other depends on something obvious: the space you have. Images | Google Maps, m In Xataka | Reserve a parking space with the body is possible. And also that they mulitate us for it

The crochet was a quiet shelter away from stress and internet overinformation. Until the AI arrived

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

There is the way everywhere. The last viral success in networks is made with ia, we hear music made with iathe Wikipedia has been filled with the… despite the initiatives to label itwe constantly encounter content that It gets through Real, And this It is a problem. It is exactly what is happening in the crochet community, a small and harmless Internet corner where the patterns generated with AI are ruining everything. Patterns impossible to weave. Crochet fans or crochet They went to the Internet to find new patterns. Currently, platforms like Etsy are a mines field full of patterns made with ia. Dragons, unicorns, lions … all with complex designs and a suspiciously perfect appearance that, trying to recreate them, are impossible to weave. In other cases, what users receive is absolutely similar to the photos of the product and, when weaving them, they become the meme of “what you ask vs. what comes to you.” And the worst: many are sold. What you ask what comes to you (ETSY) The deception. It has not cost me anything to find several examples of crochet patterns made with ethsy. On the first results page there are a few and do not specify that they have been generated with AI; Rather, quite the opposite. For example, the pattern of This dragon It is sold for 3.40 euros and nowhere does nothing say. Nor do we see it in the seller pagewhere all your designs are clearly made with AI. In fact, in the description ensures that you design each pattern with love and with real photos. In the reviews, this dragon has an assessment of 4.3 out of 5, which is not bad. However, it is enough to dive a bit to realize that most reviews with five stars are from people who have not yet started. If we see the worst assessment, they are people complaining that what they have received is impossible to weave. Many ask for explanations to the creator and the answers continue to insist that the pattern is real and has even been “created by a true craftsman.” A full -fledged scam. Some user reviews that have fallen in this SCAM. A problem that comes from afar. In the crochet community They have been complaining years of the irruption of these false patterns. Two years ago It was already written about this problem And it was common to see images of crochet artificially generated On Instagram and other networks. There were even guides to help people differentiate a real pattern of one made with the. The thing has not improved. There are more and more examples made with AI and the tools have advanced so much that There are people who fall believing they were facing a real pattern. The garbage goes for your hobbies. Recently we talked about Phenomenon of ‘AI Slop’ that flooded the networks such as Instagram or Tiktok with videos of quite disturbing. With the case of crochet, we are seeing that garbage applied to a hobby, and is not the only one. Something similar happens with 3D impression, where more and more Suspiciously perfect models that when they print them, they seem rather little to the photos. Sewing fans too They denounce that ETSY has been filled with patterns AI. If you like the kitchen you are not safe, Facebook is full of recipes made with ia. Labeling the AI content is not enough. Although many fans are able to detect an image generated with a real one, it is enough to read the comments of many of these publications to see the enormous number of people who believe they are real. Platforms like Pinterest, Instagram either Tiktok They are labeling the AI content (although It is not infallible), but the problem of constant spameo or ‘slop’ . The volume of content generated is so large, that in some searches it costs to find images that are not made with AI (try to look for Haircut ideas on Pinterest). John Oliver said it in This great monologueand perhaps it is not disenchanted: “Not all the AI content is spam, but all spam is AI contained.” Cover image | ETSYedited In Xataka | A study has discovered a much more efficient activity for your brain than writing by hand or walking: sewing

His response was the largest underground nuclear base on the planet

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

Talking about the cold war is talking about espionage, secret bases, Advanced weapons to win the opponent in a potential armed conflict and, above all, the Atomic Arsenal Explosion And constant fear of Nuclear Apocalypse. And this implies talking about Russia and the US as protagonists, leaving us in the inkwell to other actors in the conflict. China was another proper name during the Cold War, getting fully into the nuclear race. And they did it big. With the world’s largest nuclear military plant, the mysterious nuclear military plant 816. Bad crumbs with the USSR. The cold war was a tremendously complicated conflict that was played three bands part of time. The US and the USSR were two of the legs, but China entered Liza when the Sino-Soviet conflict. Simplifying history, the Soviet Union And China competed for being the champions of communism and, at a time of 1969, the Soviet Union even considered bombing China with nuclear bombs, including Beijing. However, United States “intervened“, Turning the conflict and relations with China. The position of both approached the subsequent years, but before that, and with a China smelling that the USSR could threaten with its nuclear arsenal, began to build the Nuclear Military Plant 816. Great Nuclear Wall. Zhou enlaiChinese prime minister at that time, he responded to the Sino-Soviet rupture giving the Output gun to a military base in the Chongqing region that would be much more than a bunker: it would become the Nuclear underground installation most important in the country. The goal? Produce plutonium that could be installed in arms, creating nuclear missiles without Soviet help. The works began in 1966 and in process more than 60,000 soldiers of the popular liberation army participated. The objective of the installation was that he was armored against missile attacks, but also against earthquakes of magnitude 8. In addition, he had a great natural wall around him: the Jinzi mountain and his granite. Colossal. Secretism was a constant when building the complex. This is something common and logical in this type of facilities, reaching the extreme that the workers of the workers did not know what their relatives were working or where. In the official records it is indicated that 76 people died during some works that extended over 17 years, but there are sources They point out that the figure would be much greater. Apart, the nuclear military plant 816 has an area of more than 104,000 m² and is the largest tunnel system excavated by the human being. Its 130 galleries total more than 20 kilometers long over 18 United Artificial Cuevas, has more than 13 levels and the height to the deepest point is almost 80 meters, similar to a 25 -story building. In addition, to go from some sites to others inside the plant, cars that circulated on underground roads could be used. That is … it’s huge The control table The reactor room Reverse. During the years of construction, China made Advances in its nuclear program. Although it has been more recent when they officially reached The 500 headsthe first public nuclear test in the country was in 1964, but the complex of the 816 Pedish served little. The reason? After 17 years building that colossal cavernary system and with the advances at 85%, they decided to cancel it. The changes in international relations and the dimensioning tension of the cold war led to a brake on the project. The reactor was never operational and the program was classified in 1984. In 2002, however, it came to light and we could know all these details, even knowing that part of the plant was recycled to become In a fertilizer factory. Tourists, welcome. But with all that excavated, it would be nonsense to have it closed to lime and song. Something like that must have thought of authorities, since, in 2010, they decided open part of the base to the public. Thanks to this we can see photographs like those that accompany these lines and know How would the conditions of a base destined to manufacture nuclear missiles in China 60 years ago. And, in addition to serving as a museum, it is a memorial for the human sacrifices of those who participated in the project, they were official … or those that do not appear in the records. Images | 重庆轨交 18, Iswzo, Lastrik, Pierre Marshall In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: the US has restored the base of the Pacific that launched atomic bombardment over Japan

Classical music concerts are fashionable again because the important thing is not classical music: they are the candles

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

Pure Zeitgeist. In times when live music It can no longer be live music A type of concerts triumphs in which music is an absolutely secondary element, regardless of the really important: The aesthetic experience. They are the concerts in the light of the candles, and although they have become an international phenomenon, they have their origin in Spain. What are Candlelight concerts. His own name (“in the light of the candles”) makes it clear: they are Musical performances in small enclosures or emblematic spaces, illuminated only by the light of hundreds of candles, which generates An intimate and dreamlike atmosphere that wraps musicians and the public. It is a musical experience, almost always with classical music repertoires, which seeks to distance yourself from the great events With thousands of people and great scenarios: here the silences, quiet music and the atmosphere in gloom are essential. Candle fever. Candlelight concerts emerged in 2019 as an initiative of the Spanish Platform for the Promotion and Sale of Tickets Fver. Officiallywith the aim of democratizing access to classical music and bringing it closer to new audiences. But the truth is that in Fever they knew how to understand the need for alternatives in 2019 to increasingly massive live events. The idea was to connect with the atmosphere without electricity that was lived in an original classical music concert, and from its first editions it was raised with affordable prices, so that it was popular and accessible to all types of audiences. Made in Spain. The first Candlelight concert was held in Madrid, a city from which it extended to other European capitals such as Paris and London, and from there to the United States and more than 150 cities around the world. The initial success in Spain promoted the internationalization of the format, which today adds millions of assistants on a global scale. The official figures are 3 million viewers worldwide to date, which has led to the fact that The initial intention is extended to offer classical music concerts exclusively: Pop artists such as Queen, Abba, Coldplay or Bad Bunny were soon given way. The candles are not for everyone. Of course, Not everything is flowers For concerts, much less if the nucleus is a subject as controversial as the “elevation” of classical music through aesthetics, simplification and interpretation of great hits of the genre. Criticism They are abundantand they go from the music quality itself To the fact, something more expected, that the candles are not such, but LED lights. It is something that the organization warns from the beginning: it is not about real candles for a security issue. The reason for Candlelight’s success. It is clear: it makes a corner of the music that has been destined for elites during the last half century (do not remember, in that sense, the supposed and controversial “Democratization of creativity” that propose the IAS?), And does it with an aesthetic that reinforces that “elegant” ingredient of the proposal. But at the same time, we have a relatively affordable price, which popularizes the event. You could say that these concerts give way to the appetite of an audience that has always wanted to listen to classical music more popular without having to learn technicisms. It is normal, therefore, that Candlelight bumpes both immediate commercial success and an excéptic response from experts. It implies, in any case, a clear alternative to festivals and concerts in stadiums, although given the limitations of the proposal, perhaps we do not take too long to see how this flame weakens. Header | CandleLight Concerts

More cocaine is being manufactured and selling than ever around the world. The UN has a clear guilty: Colombia

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

If we go outside and take one hundred adults, it is likely that six have consumed some drugs recently. This reflects The last report The UN about narcotics, which slides an even more interesting idea: although cocaine is not the most popular narcotic or consumed its global market is beating records and its production has grown almost 34% in just one year. It is an alarming fact and focuses the focus In a specific country: Colombia. A fact: 316 million. United Nations wanted to celebrate International Day for the Fight against Drugs (June 26) with A report that updates consumption data. And they are not exactly good. According to the figures that the agency manages, in 2023 about 316 million people were drugged. It is bad fact for its enormous volume, but also because of the trend it reflects. That figure represents 6% of the adult world population, between 15 and 65 years. Only a decade ago that same percentage was barely exceeded 5%. A business in record figures. UN data also help to understand what people are “places”. The most appealed drug is cannabis, with 244 million of users, followed by opioids (61 million), amphetamines (30.7) and already cocaine in fourth place, which in 2023 consumed 25 million people. Although it is not the majority or the most widespread, the report pays special attention to this last narcotic for how its market evolves. “Production, seizures and consumption reached new maximums in 2023, becoming the greatest market growth with the highest market growth,” They warn from the United Nations Office against drugs and crime (UNODC) before moving on to the figures: in 2023 his illegal production shot at 3,708 tonsalmost 34% more than the previous year. That trend is a reflection of demand. If in 2013 they consumed 17 million people, in 2023 they were already 25. To hunt new markets. The UNODC Slide Another key idea. It is not just that illegal production has fired more than 30% in one year or consumption grows 47% throughout the last decade. To these handicaps it is added that drug traffickers are looking for new markets in which to grow. “They are finding new markets in Asia and Africa. Violence and competition that characterize the illegal scope of cocaine, previously confined to Latin America, is expanding to Western Europe as organized crime groups of Western Balkans increase their influence on the market,” insists. That trend has come accompanied by more seizures. In just a five years (2019-2023) they have shot 68% to mark a record of 2,275. Colombia, in the focus. How does that increase in cocaine in circulation explain? Where is it being cultivated and why? One of the keys is given by UNODC in Another report Published last October and focuses on a very specific production focus: Colombia. The reason? Their data shows that in 2023 the cultivation of the coca bush increased there by 10%, to around 253,000 ha with a potential cocaine production of 2,664 metric tons. A problem that grows … and expands. “This represents a potential increase of 53% in the production of cocaine compared to 2022 and marks the tenth consecutive year, since 2013, in which estimates of potential cocaine production have increased in the country,” Point out The international organization, which warns of another interesting phenomenon: coca grows … and expands. Unlike what happened during the 2021 and 2022, when the increase in production was concentrated in Putomayo, in 2023 the crops were strengthened in the vast majority (16 of a total of 19) of the Coca producing departments. Moreover, only Cauca and Nariño brought together about half of the new surface with plantations if we compare them with those of 2022. With that backdrop, Precise Infobaethe nation concentrates 67% of the crop of coca leaf. “Production increased”. The UN connectsBoth phenomena, the greatest global production and that more surface to the crop is allocated in Colombia, and launches a notice to navigators: “updated data on performance (…) gave rise to a production estimate for the country approximately 50% higher than the previous year. It also increased the concentration of coca leaf production and the manufacture of cocaine in high -performance areas.” The data of the UNODC collected by The country They find in any case that Colombia is not the only nation where coca leaf is cultivated. Not even the only one in which these plantations have gained weight. Although in Colombia they grew 9% between 2022 and 2023, until they reached 253,000 ha, in Peru they also increased slightly to touch the 93,800. In Bolivia they remain at 31,000. More cocaines, more raids. To understand the global panorama of cocaine, specifically in Colombia, it is necessary to handle some extra data. Although the cultivated area grows by police ‘courses to drug trafficking. The Colombian newspaper Time remember that in 2024 the national authorities seized 883 tons and that so far this year there are already 403. The fight against drug trafficking has also become A fundamental issue in it political debate of the country, with different positions. Price earrings. The Coca market has also experienced another phenomenon that can be seen in the streets of Spain: a deep price fluctuation. Some sources They point That in a matter of a few years the kilo has gone from costing more than 30,000 euros to get off the 15,000, a puncture that coincides with several factors, such as Colombia Stop eradicating crops sprinkling them with glyphosate, which would have influenced production. The herbicide was abandoned in 2015 for its harmful effects, but the authorities They already propose to resume it. Images | US Department of Defense Current Photos (Flickr) and UNODC 1 and 2 In Xataka | The consumption of amphetamines in Spain is concentrated in an autonomous community. And we know it with a “single” trick

China has won the data war without stealing any. We have given them to them

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

Despite the bodies that are usually tried to attribute in that sense, at least much more disproportionately than on the other side of the Pacific, China has not needed to steal secrets or technological secrets of the West. We have given them to them in a silver tray. Why is it important. There are several cases that do not mean much but united form a puzzle. For example, Apple and Its accumulated investment of 55,000 million dollars in China to “form” in advanced manufacturing. Or bytedance accumulating billions of hours of video labeling – and western– To train the most sophisticated recommendation algorithm we know. And now Apple can repeat the pattern with AI. The context. The dominant narrative points to Chinese industrial espionage as a cause of its technological boom. It is not so simple: Western companies have been the greatest facilitators of technological transfer in modern history, and did it voluntarily. The promise in return: margins. In the short term. The panoramic. Apple was one of the great responsible for China’s change, which went from manufacturer Low Cost A superpower of manufacturing in just two decades. Bytedance has converted western behavior data – hours and hours deciding what we like and what is not based on Scroll– In algorithmic supremacy for a five years. Tesla accelerated the Chinese ecosystem of electric vehicles and now he has turned against him. DJI dominated civil drones by processing Western Maps. The pattern is repeated: West delivers knowledge, China absorbs it and begins to overcome it. Terry Gou, founder of Foxconn, understood that it was better to sacrifice immediate margins in exchange for tie up a company like Apple to get free training by US engineers. Between the lines. China applied what we could call “reverse Trojan horse.” Instead of infiltrating, it attracted Western companies to come voluntarily. Apple’s is a paradigmatic case: for years he thought it was she who was conquering China, but the reality seen with perspective is that It has been China who has conquered Apple. Examples: The progressive assignments of sovereignty. Apple has accepted content restrictions or Mandatory storage on local serverssomething that led many hands to many heads at the time just for the EU to end up demanding something very similar. Logistics dependence without turning. There is no plan B, leaving China would be a slow, expensive movement that would require many years and many dollars. The massive transfer of knowledge. The aforementioned formations to millions of Chinese workers, the investments of more than 7,000 million in own equipment for foreign factories. China has absorbed that know-how. Yes, but. Apple generated thanks to this a company of 3 billion dollars. In 2000 it was around 4,000 million. Thousands of times less. That growth could not have happened investing elsewhere. Tesla would have taken much longer to master the electric car without Chinese industrial capacity. The problem is the aforementioned: there is no medium -term plan can not have it. Without China, Apple cannot manage its complex logistics, its millions of daily components. Nor access engineers to dominate them. And now… Apple is working with Alibaba to take Apple Intelligence to China for legal imperative. Is being more complicated than it seemed. And bytedance I would prefer to close Tiktok in the United States rather than sell its valuable algorithm. The employer is also repeated here: Western companies seek to access the Chinese market delivering their most valuable technology. The threat. China is increasingly dominating the massive adoption of AI with models mainly open source. Tencent has already integrated Depseek in Wechat For its more than one billion users. In China, AI is not a separate application, but is integrated into what is already widely used. Possibly the next generation of intelligent agents will repeat the pattern of Apple and Foxconn. But in the field of software. China is not winning the data career spying on the West. He is winning for having opened the door for the West to teach him everything he needed to know in exchange for greater quarterly benefits. Today the student has become a teacher and is the one who puts the standards. In Xataka | For Apple, the price of its iPhone was sacred. Until he started falling into a vacuum in China Outstanding image | Collabstr in Unspash

We are at the doors of the “shortest” day of our lives

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

If you feel that days are less, maybe it is because our planet has stepped on the accelerator. Since 2020, and for reasons that Astronomers are still investigatingthe Earth has been rotating on its axis at a speed slightly higher than usual, beating all records since we have atomic measurements. The next record could happen in a few days. The shortest documented day. According to predictions of astrophysicist Graham Jonesthere are three key dates in 2025 in which the Earth could register its fastest turn since there are records: July 9, on July 22 or August 5, 2025. In one of those three days there will be all the conditions for the Earth to approach or exceed the historical record so far, which is not very distant: on July 5, 2024. Other experts do not have it so clear and believe that the shortest day of this year could remain some milliseconds above the record last year. An anomaly of milliseconds. A solar day lasts 86,400 seconds; That is, 24 hours. However, the rotation of the earth is not perfect and has tiny variations. These fluctuations are translated into milliseconds above or below the reference figurethat we can measure thanks to the precision of atomic watches. Until 2020, the shortest day registered lacked 1.05 milliseconds for 24 hours. But since then, every year has overcome that threshold. In 2021, the shortest day was 24 hours – 1,47 ms; In 2022, it was 24 hours −1.59 ms; In 2023 it rose to 24 hours −1.31 ms and in 2024 he came down again, marking the current record. The shortest day ever documented was on July 5 of last year, which lasted 24 hours -1.66 ms. Why this summer. The dates planned for 2025 coincide with the moments in which the moon orbit places it at its furthest point from the Earth’s Ecuador. The lunar position influences the speed of rotation of our planet, although it is not the main factor of the current acceleration, which remains a mystery. The most fascinating thing about this acceleration is that it goes against the trend. For billions of years, The Moon has been braking the rotation of the Earth. About 4.5 billion years ago, one day on Earth it lasted between three and six hours. The gravitational attraction of the Moon generates the tides, and this constant friction of the oceans has been stealing angular momentum to the earth, which slows its speed. No one expected this acceleration. The models that scientists usually use take into account ocean currents and atmospheric movements, but fail to explain this sudden acceleration. The main hypothesis points to complex and still little understood processes In the core of our planet. The planet’s engine has “changed marching.” If this braking trend continued without interruption, in about 50,000 million years, the rotation of the earth would be synchronized with the orbit of the moon. The result would be a “tide blocking” where the earth would always show the same face to the moon, so that our satellite would only be visible from the middle of the planet. In any case, we will not be here. Within about 10,000 million years, the sun will become a white dwarf. Already by then, the earth will take time being uninhabitable. In Xataka | The second intersects seriously distort our time measurement. But we have no easy alternatives

In Brazil there is a fever for babies. The problem is that they are so real that people are confusing them

June 28, 2025 by usatoday24

The story began as a harmless content in Tiktok, one that quickly climbed to became a national issue in Brazil. A young woman He published a video In which he pretended to take his “baby” Bento to the hospital: he prepared his backpack, lying it in the car, weighed it, gave him the bottle and cleaned his cheek. More than 16 million people saw that scene, but few realized that he was not a baby, it was A Reborn doll. Political chaos. I told this week The Guardian. While Jair Bolsonaro faces a trial for I attempt at once of state and the current president Lula is going through The worst moment of popularity of his third term, the focus of wide sectors of the Brazilian public debate It has diverted Towards an unusual phenomenon: Reborn dolls. We talk about figures Baby hyperrealistscollected and made by thousands of people (mostly women) in Brazil for decades, who have suddenly become white of viral teasingviolent threats and an unusual legislative wave. Laws against dolls. According to The New York Timescurrently there are at least 30 legislative projects presented in Brazil to prevent Reborn dolls from accessing public services such as health or education. Legislators on the right, especially in the state of Amazonas, have even taken Dolls to Parliament claiming that some women are trying to obtain public benefits with them, (although there is no evidence to support it). In a turn of the events that approaches a dystopia, one of the drivers even asked if the next step would be to castrate “Reborn dolls” in veterinarians. Stigmatization As a mockery, the official account of the city of Curitiba warned To the “Mothers Reborn” that their dolls do not give the right to use yellow seats reserved for pregnant women on buses. In contrast, the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro proposed to establish On September 4 as the day of the storker Reborn to honor the artists who manufacture them, although the mayor He vetoed the measure on the argument that “this is not happening.” To put things in order, or almost, According to the UOL mediait has only been documented A real case of a woman with a psychiatric disorder who tried to enter a hospital with a doll, which shows that most bills are based on viral fictions. Vinyl body kit From Tiktok to Congress. As we said at the beginning, it all started with a series of virals in networks where a collector had called “Crazy” for taking his doll to a mall. Then, another clip showed a doll being Attended in a hospitalas part of a role -playing game. Although the author of the video clarified that it was A dramatizationthe content was replicated alarmistly as if it were real. From there, social networks exploded with teasing, threats and a torrent of indignation aimed at the so -called “mams reborn.” The controversy reached a disturbing point on June 6, when a man assaulted a real baby four months on public roads by confusing it with one of these dolls. The aggressor was released on bail and the baby is out of danger, but the fact illustrates the climate of hysteria unleashed. Disguised misogyny. What at first glance seems like a lower controversy over eccentric hobbies hides a darker background: the pathologization of female entertainment. It counted at the Guardian The sociologist and political scientist Isabela Kalil, professor at the FESPSP, who warns that while adult men can collect action figures or spend hours in front of video games without raising suspicions, women who interact with hyperrealistic dolls are quickly tildos of unbalanced. The artist Larissa Vedolinknown as Emily Reborn In networks, he has received death threats daily for sharing his creations. “They write to me from anonymous accounts who are looking forward to finding me on the street with a weapon,” He recounts. Vedolin, like many other creators and collectors, defends that the Reborn are not toys, but works of art. Some may take weeks to complete and reach prices of up to 3,000 eurosdepending on the level of detail, such as the width hair implant. Social reflection. He Youtuber Chico Barneywho recorded a collector event in São Paulo for Your documentary Reborn Babies Don’t Cry, He pointed out With surprise the normality of the meeting: “It was only a group of people sharing an interest, with nothing eccentric.” But that contrast between the reality of the phenomenon and the viral narrative highlights a frequent dynamic in contemporary digital culture: the constant search for a target for collective hatred. Kalil summarized it rarely: the fury is not based on real events, but on a need for channel social anxiety through symbolic objects. “This case has served to project contempt, mockery and aggression against women who deviate minimally from conventional expectations,” affirms. Ancient practice. The Times remembered that Reborn dolls exist Since the 90s and his interest is not limited to Brazil. In the United States, Dave Stack, founder of Reborns (an online sales platform) ensures that sales have grown up constantly: 10 dolls a day five years ago between 40 and 60 currently. Prices range Between 200 and 250 dollars For vinyl models, and up to more than 4,000 for limited editions of soft silicone. Among its buyers there are mothers who They have lost childrencenters for patients with dementia, lawyers who use them in judgments, creators for film and television, and mainly people who “simply love babies.” Some clients even take them to medical consultationsThey feed them with porridge or photograph them with Santa Claus. A hysteria as radiography. In summary, the Reborn phenomenon in Brazil has become the closest thing to A mirror of collective anxiety, normalized misogyny and the excessive influence of social networks in political discourse. What is essence is a form of artistic expression or an emotional refuge has been transformed in whitewashing, legislation and polarization. The episode reveals not only the ease with which a moral panic is generated, but … Read more

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