We have just discovered that 20% of our DNA comes from an unknown hominid population: population B

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Perhaps at this point on remembering that human evolution is more like the branched structure of trees than to the linear image that we often use to illustrate it, that image in which our ancestors are irrigating and pertrechating tools. However, the bifurcations of these tree branches fail to illustrate some evolutionary changes. Because sometimes species not only diverge, they also converge. A recent genetic study has detected The trail in the human DNA of an old population that separated from our main lineage approximately 1.5 million years ago to converge some time later. The study has estimated that the genetic legacy of this second population (or population b) represents approximately 20% of our DNA today. The study responsible for the study also raises the possibility that this legacy has been positive for our species. According to the hypothesis raised, these genes would have been contributed to improve our cognitive capacity. “The question about where we come is one of those that has fascinated humans for centuries,” explained in a press release Trevor Cousins, co -author of the study. “For a long time, it had been assumed that we evolved from An ancestral continuous lineagebut the exact details of our origins are uncertain. “ The separation of these two evolutionary branches would have given rise to an evolution in parallel of the Populations A and B. The evolution of the population to correspond approximately what we already know, although the new work allows us to know in more detail its evolutionary history. As explained by the team responsible for the study, after the separation of the two populations, the population A would have suffered a “Bottleneck”: While the population B prospered, the A had to cross a period in which its numbers were very scarce, a situation that also implied a drastic reduction in genetic diversity. From the population A would have emerged the main human species of the past, including not only our species but also the “bifurcation” that would give rise to the arrival of Neanderthals and Denisovanosanother human species (or subspecies) that would have inhabited Central Asia hundreds of thousands of years ago. Reunion between species The history of population B is still enigmatic. The study has not recorded events such as population bottlenecks. We know that the core of this population disappeared but that at some point their roads crossed with the population A, giving rise to genetic exchange. He “Reunion” between populations It would have given more than one million years after separation, about 300,000 years ago, according to the estimates of the study responsible for the study. After this reunion, population B would fade without leaving another trace. The genetic inheritance that each population would have left in modern humans would be unequal. While we should about 80% From our genetic material, to population B we could owe the remaining 20%. The study detected that these genes of population B would concentrate sections of the population’s own genes A. Scheme that represents the evolution of the two populations and their relationship with Neanderthals, Denisovanos and ‘Homo Sapiens’ contemporaries. Cousins, Aylwyn Scally & Richard Durbin (2025). This suggests, explains the team, that both populations would have been little compatible. The uncompatibilities would have been purified over the years through the process known as purification selection, a process in which natural selection is eliminating harmful mutations. On this legacy, the team also indicates that these are genes closely linked to the functioning of the brain and the Information processing. This could imply that this small genetic inheritance could have had a great impact on the evolution of human intelligence and in the Evolution of our species. The analysis focused on the study of contemporary humans and not on the bone remains of prehistoric populations. The team resorted to the 1000 Genomes Project initiative, thanks to which it had a large genetic database with information about inhabitants of Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Nature Genetics. The history of evolutionary convergence is long. Perhaps the best known case is that of the Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis). This already extinct species occupied Europe and Asia tens of thousands of years before our species left Africa but, once they found themselves They coexisted in various areas of Eurasia. Thanks to its genetic legacy (which varies according to populations but usually around 1% or 2% among non -Afro -descendant), we know that the coexistence of sapiens and Neanderthals gave a lot of: The union of these species engendered hybrids whose lineages ended up merging with those who gave rise to contemporary humanity. In Xataka | North Africa was outside the bronze age map. A metallic waste has been put in the center of history Image | Pixabay / Pxhere

The United States exempts from reciprocal tariffs on key consumption electronics and strategic components

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The Donald Trump tariff war against the world has a new episode, one in which the main American technology manufacturers breathe relieved … for the moment, because with the Republican president he never knows. The administration of the president of the United States has released reciprocal tariffs at electronic devices such as mobiles, computers and other components. Also to the 125% tax applied to China imports. The strip and loosen of tariffs is resulting Critic for large North American companies in this democated global economy. Apple is the most obvious example: after making the ‘old’ tariff of 104% of the United States to China effective, It ceased to be the most valuable company. Faced with such a critical situation, drastic decisions: Chop an airplane full of iPhone From India. But Apple is just the tip of the iceberg And the reality is that until this ‘truce’, they paint with other large ones such as NVIDIA and more generic, to the bulk of the industry, where the final cost of those products in whose manufacture are used semiconductors, chips or SSD unitsthey would support dramatic increases. Consumer electronics is the great beneficiary The United States Customs and Border Protection Office of the United States He published a statement Friday night detailing that certain electronic devices and components 10% global tariff are left out That the United States applies to most countries, such as much higher tax applied to Chinese imports. What devices? Among the exemption list are mobile phones, computers, hard drives, processors, memory chips, semiconductors, memory cards or solar cells. Two of the great direct beneficiaries are Apple and Nvidia, who manufacture in China, but the stage remains uncertain: Trump is volatile and it is not known how China will respond to this gesture. This decision of the Trump administration comes after the hardware Big Tech showed their concern against the inevitable and imminent price escalation, since Most of these devices are manufactured in China. After giving A 90 -day pause Last Wednesday for countries, except for China, they will adapt to the new tariffs, Trump loosen. These exemptions are retroactive as of April 5 (as if this week had not happened) and as detailed by the White House Secretary and CNBC is echoedaims give margin to US companies to transfer their production to the United States. But his message is blunt: ‘President Trump has made it clear that the United States cannot depend on China to make critical technologies such as semiconductors, chips, smartphones and laptops‘. In Xataka | China responds again to US tariffs and rises to 125%: from here it would be a “joke” to keep climbing Cover | Xataka

We have just found a 1,700 -year -old Mayan treasure. The problem is that it should be 1,000 kilometers from there

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July 2024. A group of archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology (INHA) announced One of those findings that change history books. With the help of Lidar they had found an amazing treasure. Everyone knows Teotihuacán, but it turns out that in another inhospitable area of ​​Mexico There were hidden pyramids. Now, in a twist that few could expect, they have found another relic of Teotihuacan … 1,000 kilometers where it should. An painted altar that changes everything. A limestone altar found in the center of an old Mayan residence in Tikal (Guatemala) has revealed an unexpected presence of Mesoamerican history: direct influences of The city of Teotihuacanlocated more than 1,000 kilometers away. Datted towards the end of the fourth century DC, the altar presents murals in red, yellow and black that represent a figure associated with the “god of the storm”, a characteristic of the Teotihuacan art. Its location, style and function (a domestic altar dedicated to deities, instead of rulers, as was a Mayan custom) indicate that it was the work of an artist formed in the tradition of Teotihuacan, and not of a place. The finding was made in The 6D-XV groupa residential area that, According to archaeologists, It was inhabited by individuals from Teotihuacan or closely linked to that culture, who led not only their architectural and funeral practices, but also the freedom to express their cultural identity in Mayan territory. A foreign elite. Tikalfounded in the year 850 BC, became a great dynasty towards 100 AD and established links with other Mesoamerican cities, including Teotihuacanwhich for the year 100 AD was already one of the largest cities on the planet. Relationships between both cities would have begun as commercial exchanges, but According to the researchersover time they became more complex and possibly conflicting. Assumptions. The found altar is part of an architectural sequence that includes a first constructive phase between LOS YEARS 300 AND 400 DCfollowed by an expansion of the sanctuary between 400 and 450 DCreflecting a prolonged and organized presence. The anthropomorphic figures found in the residence, adorned with those reddish tassels, reinforce the Mexican cultural imprint in this portion of the city. No doubt, the finding allows us to assume that rich and powerful Teotihuacan leaders They once resided In Tikal and imposed their own ritual structures, perhaps as part of a control or direct influence strategy on local power. Cultural tensions and buried memory. Although Tikal was a city built on a constant renewal logic (burying structures and building on top), what happened with this complex was different. At some point after the year 450 AD, the altar and its buildings were deliberately covered with land and debris, without reusing the space. Archaeologists interpret this as a symbolic gesture: a rejection or distancing of what happened there, probably linked to the decline of the Teotihuacan power already ambivalent feelings of the Maya towards that stage of foreign domain. Far from being a simple military occupation, the presence of Teotihuacan in Tikal seems to be deep, structured and, in the end, object of ritual oblivion. The altar Closing. As The researchers explain From Brown University that led the study, the site was treated almost as a “radioactive zone”, a place that should be completely closed, perhaps to exorcise an influence that was once dominant but that over time became uncomfortable and politically toxic to Mayan identity. Foreign power According to inscriptions found decades ago, in 378 AD a foreign military intervention in Tikal known as the entrance displaced the local monarch and replaced it with a ruler linked to Teotihuacan. From that moment, the material traces of the Mexican presence multiplied: from real and ceramic burials to hybrid architectural sets. The altar discovered was recently installed shortly after this blow, and the space that housed it worked as family ritual patiosimilar to those found in Teotihuacan. There were burials such as an adult in a tomb and that of a seated child, a more common custom in central Mexico than in the Mayan area. Foreign ritual. The construction of the wine accompanied by a series of extremely symbolic mortuary rituals: Three babies were buried Under the corners of the altar, with offerings instead of the fourth body, a pattern identical to the documented in Teotihuacan residential complexes. The altar, in addition, not only had a devotional, but also political function: it was the material expression of the Teotihuacano installed In the conquered city. Its proximity with a local replica of the Temple of the feathered snake (One of the architectural icons of classic Mexico) reinforces the idea that Tikal housed an entire neighborhood dedicated to replicating the ceremonial structures of the foreign empire. Image | TG Garrison / H. Hurst In Xataka | A public database reveals a lost Mayan city full of pyramids and squares. I was hidden with the naked eye under a jungle in Mexico In Xataka | How to make an appointment at the IMSS online in Mexico

Spain has been leading the Mediterranean avocado for years, but now there is someone who disputes the throne: Morocco

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There are always avocados in supermarkets. And no, it is not a miracle. It is globalization: Right now, the Spanish avocado season, Portuguese Moroccan is over. There is still some Israeli avocado in the market, but it is a matter of time that the shelves of the supermarkets are filled with Peruvian, Brazilian, South African or Kenyan avocados. It is the world turning without stopping. It is time to analyze that these months have passed. And there are surprises. Or maybe the word is not ‘surprises’. “They want to cry when you see this”, José Linares said just over a year agoPresident of Trops, the great Malaga producer of avocados and mangoes. It was not for less. This 2023, the subtropical coast of Granada lost almost 90% of mango and avocado crops. For its part, almost half of the billing has been lost in Malaga. 2024 did not seem to solve the situation. Above all, because one of the first relays of Spanish avocado, the Peruvian, was going to suffer in a very intense way the effects of El Niño. And then Morocco arrived. While in Spain the trees dried, Morocco had almost perfect weather conditions: dry and warm minimum winds, absence of storms and water. That, added to the increase in the cultivated area and the maturation of the trees, made Production will increase by 30,000 tons50% more than the previous campaign. That collapsed the price and hit national producers hard. Therefore, the big question is what will happen now. Above all, because there is some tranquility (even euphoria) among Spanish farmers when seeing so full swamps. However, as with the oil, everyone assumes that there are part of the consumers who will not return. How will that international balance look? In this sense, As Freshplaza collectedFrançois Bellivier de Capexo is clear. “Morocco has been very popular this year, with a very good quality campaign and products of very good quality. If Moroccan production continues on this path, and if important weather catastrophes are not produced, this origin should be done with a large part of the market in the coming years.” The Moroccan unknown. Bellivier’s conditional is not free. It is true that agriculture is A vital sector for Morocco’s economybut inevitably faces the same challenges as in Spain: shortage of water, climate change and environmental degradation. So while the Alauita country The European market floods with its productsinternal tensions They keep growing (Invisibilized by a political system unable to faithfully represent the interests of its population). Therefore, the great unknown is how long it will be able to contain the socioecological problems in the medium-long term. Something that, in full crisis of tariffs, is even more critical. Image | Gil Ndjouwou | After Moiz In Xataka | Morocco has given Israel 34,000 km² of the Atlantic for gas exploitation. The problem: they are waters in conflict with Spain

With Gemini he is doing practically everything good

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I may not seem like it, but Google is winning The artificial intelligence career. At least when it comes to the performance of their models, which do not stop winning battles in the most grenades. Its most recent model, Gemini 2.5 pro experimental, is the one that takes the most score so much in the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index as in LMARENA. Both combine the results of various specific benchmarks (mathematics, programming, scientific issues) to show how Gemini’s model is ahead of its competitors. Source: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. But winning in the benchmarks does not seem so important. Especially when one thing is what the benchmarks say and what is the perception of the conventional user. For those who use various models regularly, the feeling is that They are all really good In many scenarios. And yet, that perception also seems to be favoring Gemini 2.5 Prothat in the last days has received many Praise in social networks. The model not only behaves well: Is faster that your rivals in tokens generation per second Is One of the cheapest And has a context window of one million tokens only surpassed by the recent launch of Call 4 Google also has another cartridge in the bedroom: Gemini 2.5 Flash is not so powerful in benchmarks, but it is even faster and much cheaper than its older brother. The price of Gemini 2.5 Pro experimental is really low if we compare it with that of its main rivals. Source: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Is even cheaper that Deepseek V3 and R1, which were the traditional referents in that section. This version also has a small size, which makes it especially interesting to finish in our mobiles. And if we talk about Open Source modelsGoogle also has good proposals. Gemma 3 appeared A month ago to prove it and the Internal analysis From Google seemed to show that it is so good or better that calls 3.3. Comparative analysis is not so promising nevertheless, But Google is flooding the world of generative tools. Have Lyria For music, Image 3 For images, I see 2 for video and Chirp 3 For voice, all available via your platform VERTEX AI. It is true that there are higher platforms in these areas, and we have a good example in the model Imagen of OpenAiwhat has conquered the world With the images with Ghibli style. The thing also promises in the field of AI agents. Have Deep Researchas OpenAi, and it is possible to use it for free On the official Gemini website. Projects like Astra (assistant with augmented reality) and Mariner (autonomous browser control) also show a promising future. Demis Hassabis I confirmed these days What MCP (Model Contex protocol, driven by Anthropic) will be adopted by Google, which these days announced Something similar with agent2agent protocol (A2A) to facilitate communication between AI agents. Revolutions have been This colossal deployment of AI solutions is being accompanied by a gradual but absolute integration of technology in the services and platforms with which the world has conquered. The GEMINI presence In Android it is a good example that extends to new functions both on Gemini’s website as In Gmail or your office suite, Google Workspace. And for programmers that model is not only one of the most remarkable: they have just made an integral part of Firebase Studiowho wants to compete With cursor and other agricultural platforms dedicated to programming. Notebooklm is another of the magical tools of the firm –One of our favorites– But there is an even more special integration. What is, how not, that of AI in searches. Google knows well that your traditional search engine It is in danger. Perplexity or Chatgpt Search have shown the way, but for Google to adopt this technology it is Much more complex And his first steps They were erratic. Now things seem to be changing, and little by little that transformation of the Google search engine is consolidating, as demonstrated by the recent announcement of its “AI” mode. That is a sign of an expected and forced metamorphosis. One that goes slowly, but that little by little is crystallizing. Despite this colossal deployment of resources, who leads this segment in popularity is OpenAi. Today for a lot of people Use the equivalent to using chatgptand weakening that position will be difficult. Google, however, has powerful resources to achieve it. The competition may be absolutely fierce, but all these steps seem directed in a good direction. In Xataka | Google has the best researchers in the world. Now you will stop spreading your findings for competition

We do not know what the Benchmarks of Ia measure. So we have talked to the Spanish who created one of the most difficult

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Gemini 2.5 Pro is the best model in history. The smartest. At least, right now. I don’t say it, he says The Chatbot Arena classificationa platform in which they run various tests or benchmarks to try to measure the global capacity of modern AI models. According to these evidence, at this time Gemini 2.5 pro experimental, launched On March 25, it has a score of 1,440 points, well above GPT-4O (1,406), Grok 3 (1,404), GPT-4.5 (1,398) and of course an Depseek R1 that despite its fame is in seventh place with a score of 1,359 points. In current Ranking of Chatbot Arena, it places Gemini Pro 2.5 experimental as the most capable model of AI at the moment. That (probably) does not last long. Google herself presumed the capacity of Gemini 2.5 Pro experimental in the official announcement. As usually happens in these ads, companies show a table in which they compare their performance with that of other comparable models in different tests. In almost all of them Google crushed their rivals in well -known tests in this segment. Is for example the Humanity’s last exam (general knowledge and reasoning), GPQA Diamond (science), Aime 2025 (math), Livecodebench V5 and Swe-Bench Verified (programming) or Mmmu (visual reasoning). All these benchmarks try to measure the ability of these models in more or less specific fields, and all help to demonstrate that models, indeed, are improving. And yet none of them answer the fundamental question: Is the AI so intelligent Like the human being? There is the really complicated, because the definition of intelligence is not entirely clear either. There are different types of intelligence, in fact, and measuring them in humans is not simple or even possible either. And comparing the ability of an AI with the ability of human intelligence is usually not easy. Some experts wonder if IA laboratories will not be cheating with the benchmarks There are in fact who argues that the progress of AI models is misleading. It recently Dean Valentine, from the Startup Zeroopath. He and his team created an AI system that analyzes large code projects in search of security problems. With Claude 3.5 Sonnet They noticed a great leap, but from there the subsequent versions have seemed much less striking. In fact, this expert pointed out that today many of the companies that launch these models focus too much on going well on the photo of the existing and most popular benchmarks and “sound intelligent” in conversations with human beings. Wonders if the laboratories of AIs are cheating and lying: For him the evolution shown by Benchmarks does not correspond to the real benefits when using them. Frontiermath and the challenge of solving problems that (almost) nobody has solved But there are attempts to answer that question. One of them comes from the team that develops THE ARC-AGI 2 PROJECTa set of evidence derived from the Moravec paradox: They are relatively easy for human being, but very difficult for AI models. Jaime Sevilla, CEO of Epoch Ai. These tests measure the ability to generalize and abstract reasoning with visual puzzles, and are undoubtedly an interesting part of that effort to value how far we have arrived at every moment with the AI ​​models. Another of the most striking tests of recent times is Frontiermath. This benchmark created by the company COPHAI It consists of about 300 mathematical problems of different level. They have been designed by a team of more than 60 mathematicians among which Terence Tao, winner of the Fields Medal. Although there are some more affordable problems, 25% of them are qualified as especially complex. In fact, only the best experts could solve them, and It would take even days In doing so. This set of tests is also special for another aspect: these are unpublished problems and therefore have not been part of the training sets of any AI model. To solve them the machines need to be able to show a special “mathematical intelligence.” One that It helps precisely to something increasingly difficult: Assess the evolution of these models. In Xataka we have been able to talk to Jaime Sevilla (@Jsevillamol), which is precisely the CEO of COPHAI and has a very clear and personal vision on how the tests should be to measure the ability of an AI model. To begin with, he points out, “you need to have a way of measuring how the AI ​​is advancing. Interacting with it can give you perspective, but you do not have a rigorous impression of where it will arrive and in what domains it is most expert.” That, he explains, makes it necessary to have standardized test batteries that allow us to form an idea of ​​their skills. For this expert the Benchmark Arc-AGI is more representative of that other vision, making an easy benchmark for humans but difficult for AI. The models are improving in Arc-Agi, but for him that was obvious and that had to happen. With yours the tests are difficult for each other, and that the models advance and are increasingly better when solving these problems is not so obvious. Thus, with FrontierMath they wanted to “try to measure if AI can solve genuinely difficult problems.” Until now the mathematical problems that were subjected to the AI ​​models were relatively easy, so the models “saturated the benchmarks”, that is, they soon managed to overcome all these tests and achieve a 100% score. “It will be a challenge to saturate this benchmark“He stressed. Here I set an example with OPENAI’s O3-mini model, which already solves 10% of FrontierMath. It is not much, but it is brutal, he says, and has already surpassed expert mathematicians like himself. However, he says, “That the AI ​​overcomes certain benchmarks does not mean that it can operate as a human expert. You have to adjust them because they are adjusted to very specific scenarios. We are measuring those limits of that AI, and that will be a continuous process.” For Seville … Read more

The United States of Kailasa have appropriated indigenous lands in Latin America. And who are they? Well nobody knows

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At some point in 2023, a man approached several enclaves of Ecuador and Paraguay with An irrevious offer. The guy ended up signing symbolic agreements of “sister cities” even in Newark, United States. Did it in the name of the Kailasa nationand its last appropriation occurred in Amazonian lands of Bolivia. There was only a small “but”: neither man nor Kailasa existed as such. Invent. He self -proclaimed “Sovereign State of the United States of Kailasa”, led by the controversial Indian Guru Swami Nithyanandahe has returned to the headlines, this time for A scandal of international proportions. Although Kailasa does not exist as a recognized entity, it has been presented by its followers as the first nation for Hindu in the world, with its own “cosmic” constitution, passports, sacred coin in gold and even an alleged central bank. However, this fantasy construction has given Bruces with reality when Bolivia’s authorities recently arrested 20 people linked to Kailasaaccusing them of “land traffic” after having negotiated lease contracts with Amazonian indigenous communities for a thousand years. Reinventing sovereignty. Nithyananda, whose real name is Arunachalam Rajasekaran, is a Hindu exmonje that built A spiritual empire From India to multiple cities on the planet. After being accused of rapeChild Torture and Abuse, fled from India in 2019 and reappeared proclaiming the foundation of Kaillasa, a “resurrection” of ancestral Hindu kingdoms. In his speeches, the man claims to have supernatural powers How to open the “third eye”, delay dawn or guide the reincarnation of billionaires such as Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, assuring them that rich will be born again if they deposit their fortune in a background managed by him. Its logic is clear: if you manage to convince the rich that you need eternal immunity, then the creation of a fictional state can become useful. A nation as an immunity strategy. Based on an unidentified region of South America or the Caribbean, Nithyananda argues that he chose his exile for the Advantages of diplomatic immunity that would allow him his role as head of state. In fact, Kailasa has tried to consolidate as a real nation: its envoys have posed with high profile politicians, including Mayor of Newark and American congressmen, and have even intervened in UN forums. However, these appearances have caused Political crises and resignationsas happened in Paraguay and the United States, discovering that it was a assembly without legal or territorial legitimacy. Attempt for appropriation. In Bolivia, the Kilasians entered as tourists and infiltrated official events, achieving even photograph With President Luis Arce. Was The newspaper El Due Who uncovered the case: Kailasa’s followers negotiated with the Baure community, an Amazon Ethnicity, offering help after the latest forest fires. The conversations resulted in an agreement that initially seemed to be a lease for 25 years and an annual payment of almost 200,000 dollars. However, the contract delivered (in English and more than a thousand years) included the exploitation of natural resources and the use of airspace. Despite the warnings, indigenous leaders signed. Today, one of them He has admitted to the media that: “We made the mistake of listening to them.” Spiritual manipulation. Indigenous leaders have denounced Feel deceived. In subsequent statements, they said that Kaillase representatives offered humanitarian and environmental aid after forest fires, but ended up demanding the signing of documents that did not understand at all and never imagined that they would imply the assignment of their ancestral lands. The organization Multi -ethnic indigenous territory IIwhich represents the peoples That exjasaid that some of its members were manipulated and pressured To sign, under the promise of easy benefits. In a sharp statement, they made it clear that: “Our territory is not sold, does not rent and is not subject to any type of negotiation. It is the legacy of generations that defended it with blood and resistance.” Legal and diplomatic consequences. The Bolivian government declared The null agreementsarrested those involved and deported them to their countries of origin: India, the United States, Sweden and China. The Foreign Ministry clarified that Bolivia does not recognize diplomatic relations with any entity called ‘Kailasa’, and denounced the facts as a scam. False documents and environmental conservation promises were part of the deception, and although there is no evidence that Nithyananda was physically in Bolivia, it is thought that its emissary network operated as a parallel diplomacy for illegitimate purposes. Religious dystopia. Be that as it may, the Kailasa case It highlights a sophisticated form of colonialism disguised as spiritual diplomacy, where the religious symbol becomes a legal weapon to strip indigenous communities of its territorial heritage. Beyond the apparent absurdity, what happened in Bolivia, and before in Ecuador and Paraguay (or even the United States), was a systematic attempt to install fictitious sovereignty on real territories, and all this with legal, political and cultural implications. In a dystopian crossing between the unusual and the alarming, magical realism does not seem to be in the contracts, but in the fact that they almost worked. Image | Kailasa, Nithyananda Dhyanapetam In Xataka | Christian sects: there are more (and more geeks) than you could imagine In Xataka | The peculiar utopia of Auroville, the city without money, political parties or religion

Put solar panels in space has never been profitable, but there is something that motivates the current interest: its military use

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The old idea of ​​collecting energy from the sun from space to transmit it uninterrupted to Earth has always collided with the huge costs and technological barriers that have prevented their deployment. Until now. A global interest. Governments and companies around the world seem to have a renewed interest in space solar energy. The drastic drop in launch costs, thanks to the emergence of reusable rockets such as Spacex, could have cleared the main economic obstacle from the equation. The necessary technology has also matured in parallel: solar panels are lighter and more efficient, and wireless energy transmission (microwave or laser) is more advanced. The same with robotics, which will be necessary to assemble the stations in orbit. The military factor. As with any renewable project, the energy transition and emission commitments are the engine of this new effort. But behind the recent interests of the Chinese government or the pentagon there is something else: the military potential of space solar energy. “The military utility of transmitting energy to land, aerial or maritime units is obvious,” He said to Spacenews Darpa’s tactical technology project manager Paul Jaffe. Transporting fuel to remote places with tank airplanes can be a usual practice, but “it is not a practical way to bring energy where we need it for defense purposes.” In addition to DARPA, who has conversations with space solar energy startups and invests in the development of long -distance wireless energy transmission, the United States Air Force and Navy are also in garlic. Pentagon projects. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFR) actively develops space solar technology through its “Space Solar Incremental Demonstrations and Research” program. Its flagship mission “Arachne” will prove in orbit a sandwich panel that converts sunlight into radiofrequency energy to transmit it to a terrestrial receptor. Led by Northrop Grumman, it is scheduled for this year with the explicit objective of providing energy to the forces and reducing the dependence of fuel convoys, which are more vulnerable. For its part, the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) integrated a module called PRAM into the X-37B secret space plane to prove the conversion of solar energy to microwave. Now the project is part of the space force. What can we expect. Military interest is an important catalyst, and possibly one of the motivations behind the gigantic project of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology (CASC), which will display its first satellites in low orbit by 2028 and in geostationary orbit for 2030. But in the coming years we will also see all kinds of commercial and space agencies, including the European Space Agency with its Solaris initiative, which focuses on viability studies. Despite these progress, the challenges are still considerable. The two major doubts are profitability, in the case of commercial efforts, which will compete with the renewable energies deployed on land, increasingly profitable despite their intermittency. And security, which depends on the fact that you are issued at distances of hundreds or tens of thousands of kilometers are very precise. Maybe let’s see some “fried” birds along the way.

‘The White Lotus’ has shown how a group of millionaires veraneanding on your coasts is a magnet for tourism

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In addition to catching millions of viewers, Successful television series They have proven to have an unexpected power: become fashion tourist destination Your locations. Beyond their plots or characters, the landscapes that appear in them become one more actor and an object of desire to Millions of anxious tourists for living the same experiences as the protagonists of the series. The last to exploit this phenomenon has been “The White Lotus” in which, for more signs, a group of millionaires enjoy some vacation in a luxury resort. The tourist claim is served. The “The White Lotus” effect is very real In the same way as each stop on the Taylor Swift tour affected the economy Local for the singer’s convocation power, every season of “The White Lotus” has had in response an increase in visitors in the locations in which it has been filmed. In the BBC They analyzed the phenomenonwho have not hesitated to qualify as “White Lotus effect“ The White Lotus series, which tells the vacations of a group of Millionaires in a luxury resort which gives name to the series, but in real life it is hotels of the Four Seasons chain. For the first season, Mike White, made the whole plot happen at the facilities of the Four Seasons Resort Maui in Waileain Hawaii. According to data published by the BBC, the hotel registered an annual increase of 425% in the number of visitors to its website and 386% in availability consultations after the broadcast of the first season. Four years after the broadcast of the first season of the series in Hawaii, there is still no availability for the “pineapple suite” that appears in the series. The hotel chain has not let the occasion escape and has taken advantage of the pull of the series to offer one of its “premium experiences” emulating the protagonists From the series on a 20 -day jet in private jet to the three hotels that have served as a location for “The White Lotus”. Its price: since 188,000 per adult. The tourism of “The White Lotus” in figures According to published data by The Wrapthe impact on Hawaii’s local economy Tourism attracted by the series In the first season it was 12.89 million dollars for local economic activity. That provided 3.86 million dollars in salaries to the workers of the island and attracted an investment of 7 million in local companies and suppliers. All this in his first season, when his success still did not reach current popularity quotas, where Variety He reportedan audience of 4.2 million viewers in episode 6 of the third season. For the second season of the series, the group of millionaires moved to the facilities of the FOUR SEASONS SAN DOMENICO PALACE In Taormina, Sicily, and with them They dragged a legion of followers. In the case of Sicily, the series was already coming from a very successful first season, so its figures quadrupled. The local tourism economy It received an impact of 40.1 million dollars after the broadcast of the second season, which generated 18.7 million dollars in salaries for local workers and an investment of 21.4 million dollars for local companies and suppliers. The numbers suggest that the third season of the series, set in the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samuiin Thailand, they will also be a tourist ball that has already generated a benefit of 36.9 million dollars in tourist activities. According to published The New York Timesthe reserves in the Four Seasons in which the third season has already registered a 40% increase in its reserves. Those responsible for local airlines They assuredto Bloomberg They expected a record of 2.7 million visitors this year, attracted by the The White Lotus effect. Set-Jetting: Choose destination according to your favorite series The tourist success of The White Lotus is not an isolated case result of the aspirational desire to achieve some luxury vacation like those enjoyed by the wealthy protagonists of the HBO series. Choose how Vacation destination The locations of the series most popular of the moment has become a trend called “Set-Jetting“ According to The UNPACK´24 report Expedia, 66% of travelers have considered traveling to a destination after watching it in a series or film, and 39% have ended up spending their vacation in one of these film locations. Game of Thrones left an even deeper mark on his recording scenarios, such as Dubrovnik. From the premiere of the series, the city, which served as the scenario for landing of the King, experienced a 40% increase in the influx of international tourists. That generated immediate economic benefits, such as a 60% growth in local income related to tourism. However, series impact also brought some inconveniences For the inhabitants of the Croatian city. According to a studybetween 2012 and 2018, housing prices in Dubrovnik fired 28%, promoted in part by international investments and the arrival of foreigners who sought to acquire properties in the now famous destination. In Xataka | The last trend among millionaires is not to buy a yacht. Is to share a luxury minicrucero Image | Max

We have created 200 sorghum varieties. It looks like an anecdote but it has the potential to change world food

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The sorghum It is not one of the best known crops for the Mediterranean diet but there are those who predict a brilliant future to this cereal. One of his strengths is not in what he has except what he lacks: gluten. Another feature that could bring this food closer to our dishes is in its resistance. Or that’s what some researchers are looking for. To hunt varieties. Researchers such as Melinda Yerka, from the University of Nevada in Reno, responsible for the development of 200 variants of this seed. The objective is to create drought more resistant varieties capable of rooting and producing livestock and people in a changing climate context. Fifth in discord. Sorghum is not a regular of our dishes but it is one of cereal crops most important worldwide after the “great three” (rice, wheat and corn) and barley. FAO (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) esteem that in 2022 there were about 58 million tons of this grain, being the largest producers Nigeria, Sudan and the United States. In the US, the sorghum is mainly used to feed cattle, but this grain can be and is widely used as food. Sorghum is a known gluten -free cereal of the gastronomies of several countries in Asia and Africa, the latter continent from which it is originally. This cereal can even be used fermented as wheat and barley to Create beers or in the preparation of biofuels. Great tolerance. Beyond the uses to which this grain can be dedicated, if something highlights the Yerka team is the resistance of the new variants created. The preliminary studies of the team highlighted their great tolerance against drought although some variants with high levels of protein and digestible starch also highlighted. Based on these first analyzes, the team estimates that the seeds achieve optimal development when they receive between 50.8 and 63.5 centimeters of annual water, considerably less than what crops such as alfalfa require. Prepared for semi-aridity. The new varieties have been created thinking about the semi-aridity conditions of the west of the United States but their developers believe that they could serve farmers from other areas with similar climates worldwide to have at their disposal a new food alternative for their cattle. An alternative with the advantage of requiring lower water use. “Many foods devised for the dairy industry in the US face a fall or variable productions due to late frosts, floods, heat and droughts associated with climate change, which underlines the need for more resilient alternatives that can prosper in conditions of change in the climate,” he explained In a press release Yerka herself. Market the advance. The Yerka Laboratory at Nevada University has been operating Since 2017 But since 2023 it has its own project for the marketing of the fruits of its work, Yerka Seeds. In Xataka | 100 years ago a geneticist toured the world in search of cereals. Today is a “gold mine” for the future of agriculture Image | Melinda Yerka / Mustapha Damilola

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