achieved

what has he achieved and at what price

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SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp) is the semiconductor manufacturer most important in China. It currently has a slightly greater than 5%which puts it close to Samsung, which has a share of 7.2%and in third overall position ahead of Intel, GlobalFoundries or UMC. In September 2023, this company was placed in the spotlight by making official that it had been able to make a 7nm chipthe Kirin 9000S SoC for Huawei, using ASML’s deep ultraviolet (UVP) lithography equipment. This milestone, as could be expected, put SMIC in the crosshairs of the US Government. And it did so because the US Administration did not expect that a Chinese integrated circuit manufacturer would be able to produce advanced chips without having access to manufacturing machines. extreme ultraviolet photolithography (VVE) of ASML. US and Netherlands sanctions They prevent this Dutch company from delivering its most sophisticated equipment to its Chinese clients, so SMIC has been forced to use ingenuity to produce its semiconductors. Its 7nm integrated circuits are the result of a technique well known to chip manufacturers: multiple patterning. Its strategy consists, broadly speaking, of transferring the pattern to the wafer in several passes with the purpose of increasing the resolution of the lithographic process. It has an upward impact on the cost of chips and a downward impact on production capacity, but it works. In fact, SMIC already has China’s most advanced integration technology, the N+3 node, ready and is using it to manufacture the SoC HiSilicon Kirin 9030 for Huawei. SMIC has reached the logical density of TSMC’s N6 node SMIC has gone further than we could have anticipated in 2023, when it began manufacturing the Kirin 9000S SoC. SemiAnalysis has published the first public report prepared by its new reverse engineering laboratory STEEL, based in Oregon (USA), after having dismantled the HiSilicon Kirin 9030 SoC integrated into the smartphone Mate 80 Pro from Huawei. Their conclusions are very interesting because they clearly reflect how far the SMIC N+3 node has come, and also what its limitations are. This Chinese company has achieved something that seemed unlikely just three years ago: reaching the logical density of TSMC’s N6 node without access to EUV lithography. He has achieved this thanks to the combination of a multiple patterning Extremely aggressive UVP and design and technology optimization taken to the limit. That combination allows N+3 technology to achieve a transistor density of 113.4 MTr/mm², slightly above the 107.7 MTr/mm² of TSMC’s N6 node, which does use UVE lithography. It’s a genuine engineering achievement achieved with tools from a previous generation. N+3 technology has reached a transistor density of 113.4 MTr/mm², slightly above the 107.7 MTr/mm² of TSMC’s N6 node The cross-section images (they are microscopic cuts of the chip that allow its internal structures to be measured) reveal how far SMIC has come in squeezing UVP lithography. The N+3 node’s transistors have taller, narrower ends than those in TSMC’s N6 node: an aspect ratio of 9.5:1 versus 7.8:1, with sharper and less rounded top edges. And, in addition, the logic cells are also 5% lower. The ends (endsin English) are the vertical, ultra-thin sheets of silicon that constitute the body of the transistor in FinFET designs. To achieve this, SMIC has applied three optimization techniques: it has eliminated the excess ends where they are not necessary, it has directly connected the contacts on the active gate, and, finally, it has cut the diffusions in a surgical way. Combined with the quadruple patterning UVP, these techniques allow SMIC get closer to what achieve UVE lithography with fewer steps and a greater margin of process, but through a much more laborious path. Export controls have not stopped China; They have changed the problem you have to solve. SMIC has reached the density of the N6 node without UVE lithography, but at higher cost, lower process maturity and lower energy efficiency. And Huawei, for its part, has managed to compensate with architecture, advanced packaging and optimizations for the inability to access cutting-edge lithographic nodes. As a consequence of everything we have just seen, knowledge is being distributed. And the Chinese Government is forcing SMIC to license its N+2 and N+3 processes to Hua Hong Semiconductor, which transforms an advantage concentrated in a single manufacturer into an asset of the semiconductor ecosystem. Sanctions designed to isolate SMIC have become less effective as knowledge about manufacturing processes has spread to other chipmakers and semiconductor designers. Image | SMIC More information | SemiAnalysis In Xataka | TSMC is on the ropes and its biggest problem is not competition: it is water

In 1950, a millionaire got into a Bentley and achieved one of the greatest feats of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: completing them alone

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June 11, 1955, the La Sarthe circuit signs the blackest day in its history. Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn dispute the lead of the race. A few hours have passed since the start when Hawthorn, who has just lapped Lance Macklin’s Austin, notices that his mechanics are signaling him to stop in the pits. Hawthorn, traveling at maximum speed, hits the brakes with all his might to make his stop. In those days, the pits and the straight were not physically separated, so try to maneuver at the last moment. Macklin, who is not expecting the maneuver, avoids Hawthorn’s Jaguar as best he can. But to his left, Pierre Levegh (also doubled) arrives launched. Fangio follows behind, both with a Mercedes. The first of them collides violently with Macklin’s Austin with the misfortune that British car becomes a take-off ramp that throws him against the audience of the crowded main stand. Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators die, although the race continues. That day, however, was a point in the history of Le Mans. The 1955 accident began constant improvements in the safety of the circuit and the race itself. Although Le Mans has been a race in constant evolution and other accidents have forced safety criteria to be modernized, something changed that year. Because, until then, Le Mans was a wild race. 3,200 kilometers alone Le Mans is a fascinating competition. It is one of the few strongholds of motorsports where the elite of world motorsports compete with amateur drivers. Right now, a person with enough money can set up a team and participate in the competition but it is necessary to have the necessary licenses in force. The FIA ​​divides drivers based on their driving experience and milestones achieved. Depending on the category in which the team is entered, federative requirements are different. It’s what’s left of those gentleman drivers as james deanrich people who were fond of motorsports who participated in official competitions, setting up their own team to face the squads supported by the manufacturers themselves. A formula that has survived over time but whose participants have been reduced to the point of exception. Those gentleman drivers They were by no means a rarity in the first half of the 20th century, so no one was surprised to see Eddie Hall on board a 4¼ Bentley. What was surprising is that no one took over from Hall. And until after the 1955 accident, at Le Mans it was not mandatory to change drivers and until well into the 80s it was not mandatory to have three drivers who, in addition, were revealed to have a maximum and minimum number of hours competed. They count in MotorSport Magazine that Eddie Hall was born into a wealthy family with a textile business in his hands. He was born in 1900 and before he reached his thirties he was already participating in official motorsport competitions. In fact, his passion for speed led him to participate in the Olympic Games in bobsleighthe sport invented by the Swiss in which four members of the same team launch themselves in a sled through an ice circuit. Fueled by a hunger for speed, Hall contacted Rolls-Royce to participate with one of its sports cars in the Mille Miglia, a historic Italian race that was practiced in open traffic. At that time, Rolls-Royce manufactured Bentley cars (the company had already won Le Mans before being purchased), the latter focused more on competition and the former on great trips. Bentley maintained competitive fame under the umbrella of Rolls-Royce and Eddie Hall ended up buying one of them to participate in the Italian race and it was the one that he would later use in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1950. It was a Bentley 4¼ and by then, that unit was already 16 years old and in the report of MotorSport Magazine They wonder if this sports car was not the oldest to complete the endurance test. With it he stood on the finish line of the La Sarthe Circuit, Eddie Hall would take the start since the car was his and, basically, he had put up the money to get there. Waiting for him in the pits was Tom Clarke, an Aston Martin driver who had been assigned as a teammate because at that time the teams had only two drivers. But although Clarke appears in the official race statisticsEverything indicates that he did not get into the car at any time. The reason was simple, Eddie Hall didn’t like sharing his cars and, after all, that was his car. In fact, they say that Hall’s own wife had to console her increasingly depressed companion when she became convinced that he was not going to travel a single meter that day aboard that Bentley 4¼. How did Eddie Hall do it? In Road & Track They only understand that the feat was possible by using drugs. In those years, Amphetamines were frequently used in all types of sports and it seems the most likely recipe for understanding how a man could stay awake and have enough reflexes to drive all night… and get his Bentley to the finish line in eighth place after covering more than 3,000 kilometers. The use of all types of drugs was known in the competition world. In Motorsport.comStirling Moss confessed to having used amphetamines, benzedrine or dexedrine. Coffee, alcohol and drugs was a more than usual cocktail for those who squeezed the most out of their bodies. A year later, Eddie Hall again participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans aboard a Ferrari but this time he had to abandon mid-competition. No one has repeated the feat and no one will do it again since since 1985 the teams must have three drivers and none of them can drive more than four hours in a row in blocks of six hours, nor can they accumulate more than 14 hours throughout the entire competition day. Photo … Read more

The James Webb has just done something we have never achieved with an interstellar visitor: read its chemical composition

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Every time an interstellar visitor approaches the vicinity of Earth, a great stir is generated in all kinds of more or less specialized sectors. There are those who see it as a golden opportunity to learn a little more about our neighboring planetary systems and also those who fear them, considering them as a possible extraterrestrial technology. We saw it in 2017 with Oumuamua, in 2019 with 2I/Borisov and last year with comet 3I/ATLAS. We don’t talk so much about the first and the second, but about the third studies continue to be published. For example, one that has recently been made known, in which, thanks to James Webb, has been achieved for the first time analyze the chemical fingerprint of an interstellar object. Very rare gases for our solar system. Thanks to the MIRI spectrograph, the James Webb’s specialized mid-infrared instrument, it has been possible to analyze the chemical composition of 3I/ATLAS. This is because different chemicals reflect light differently. By analyzing the resulting spectrum, different gases can be identified. In this case, water vapor was detected beyond the nucleus, possibly due to the melting of ice grains present in the comet. In addition, both methane and carbon dioxide were identified very close to the core. It is the first time that methane has been identified in an interstellar visitor. The proportion of these last two gases in relation to water is very high. Too much for what is normal for comets in the solar system, which is why the idea that this visitor came from some other very remote place continues to be supported. MIRI shows the interstellar comet in three different wavelengths of light and illustrates where the different gases were located at the time the comet was observed. Two key dates. The measurements with the James Webb Space Telescope were carried out on two different dates. On the one hand, between December 15 and 16, 2025 and secondly on December 27 of that same year. At that time, our star visitor began his return journey after going around the Sun. The Sun is essential. Attempts had been made to identify the gases of this comet before. However, the methane remained hidden until this point. The authors of the study believe that this is because it had remained hidden in its depths, under the ice, and that it took the Sun to melt part of that ice for it to emerge to the surface. The search continues. When 3I/ATLAS approached our planet, many instruments took the opportunity to land on it and try to obtain as much data as possible. A good example of this is the JUICE probe, of the European Space Agency. While the initial goal of this mission is to study Jupiter’s icy moons, it was in the right place at the right time when we welcomed our mysterious visitor. The ESA calculation which would be their closest ship at the time of the approach, so they used it to take information about the comet in November 2025. This was sent to Earth in February 2026, so since then there have been scientists working on its analysis. The study that has now been published is possibly just the first of many. And 3I/ATLAS has already left, but the interest in knowing everything possible about it stayed with us. Image | International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Bolin | NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Belyakov (Caltech), I. Wong (STScI), Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI) In Xataka | Avi Loeb believed he had found aliens. Does anyone have a simpler explanation: pollution?

They learned cinema on YouTube, they have raised 300 million with their films and they have achieved something: defeating Star Wars

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Three horror movies. Budgets ranging from a ridiculous million dollars for one to ten million for another. Directors of 26, 34 and 20 years old trained on YouTube, not in schools for children of. So far in 2026, those three films have grossed more than $300 million in the North American market. Franchise cinema is not dead, of course, and we are going to prove it this year with the premiere of ‘Doomsday‘ (although, for once, surprises are no longer ruled out). But there are issues that seem to be changing in another sense. The ‘Backrooms’ explosion. Last weekend,’Backrooms‘ (directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons) collection 81.4 million dollars in North America and 118 million worldwide in its first weekend (and it does not arrive in countries like Spain until the end of June), with a budget of only ten million. It is the biggest premiere in the history of A24surpassing the previous record held by ‘Civil War‘by Alex Garland. Parsons also becomes the youngest director to top the US domestic box office, taking that record from Josh Trank, who was 27 years old when ‘Chronicle’ topped the charts in 2012. Unstoppable obsession. At the same time, ‘Obsession’ (by Curry Barker, 26 years old) added 26.4 million in its third weekend, 54% more than the previous week, starting from a budget of one million dollars. Its domestic total already exceeds 104 million. Meanwhile, ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘, with a budget of 165 million, fell 69% compared to its opening week and was third on the list of box office receipts that week. We will see ‘Obsession’ this weekend in Spain. The precedent. January had already given the first sign. ‘Iron Lung’ (written, directed, starring and self-distributed by Mark Fischbach, Markiplier on YouTube, 34 years old), debuted with 17.8 million domestic dollars and reached 52 million at the global box office from a budget of three. Fischbach didn’t even go through a study: he self-financed and distributed the film himselfpocketing half of the world gross. Young audience. It is obvious where these collections come from: 86% of the opening audience for ‘Backrooms’ was under 35 years old, and 44% under 21. ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’, not to get away from Disney’s setback with a financially similar debut the previous week, had a share of those under 25 years of age of 27%, although on paper, it should have attracted more viewers of that age (which corroborates that at this point ‘Star Wars’ is entirely a franchise for kids over forty.) These directors who came from YouTube did not summon a new audience, but rather the one they already brought from the internet. Warner Bros. Motion Pictures co-head Michael De Luca summed it up in a conference in which said that these directors “They are in dialogue with their audience from the first moment.” By the time movies like these hit theaters, he added, “they’ve already had a billion screenings.” Three directors, a common pattern. In 2022, Kane Parsons uploaded a nine-minute short film to YouTube titled ‘The Backrooms (Found Footage)’shot from his bedroom with the help of the 3D graphics software Blender. Over the next few years, episodes of the series They accumulated more than 197 million views. Curry Barker, on the other hand, came from the sketch comedy channel ‘That’s a Bad Idea’ which currently has over 700 million cumulative views across platforms. In 2024 he filmed ‘Milk & Serial’, a found footage horror with $800 budget, almost all of it spent on the camera. He spent a year trying to get mainstream distribution without success. He uploaded it for free to YouTube and accumulated 1.6 million views. Mark Fischbach, for his part, has been on YouTube since 2012. He had experimented with the film format in two of his own productions for YouTube (‘A Heist with Markiplier’ and ‘In Space with Markiplier’) before adapting ‘Iron Lung’, David Szymanski’s indie horror video game published in 2022. Why the terror. American terror has exceeded 800 million dollars worldwide so far this year, and these three films directed by YouTube creators account for a third of that figure. But… why this devotion to the genre, which goes hand in hand with the good state of health that enjoy in recent years? Horror operates well with low budgets, and the young audience that grew up with creepypasta and found footages on YouTube has a particular relationship with that aesthetic space. Testing ground. The video clips of the nineties were the laboratory where authors such as David Fincher or Michel Gondry developed their visual grammar before jumping into cinema. Now, YouTube serves as a testing ground for the new generation of filmmakers. That’s why studios and agents now scour YouTube for new names. Now what. Barker has already filmed his next film, a horror comedy titled ‘Anything but Ghosts’, and A24 has hired him for a remake of ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. Parsons wants to expand the ‘Backrooms’ universe, possibly in television format. Fischbach, for his part, has already made it clear that he would like to collaborate with a large studio on future projects, without giving up creative control. It is possibly the one with the most traditional discovery profile in the underground and jump to the big leagues. For now, ‘Backrooms’ could end its box office career between $140 and $160 million in the United States alone, which would make the film one of the biggest hits of the year. Not bad for an idea that started as just another meme on 4chan. In Xataka | Cinema can only survive by competing in the “experience” market. That’s why Madrid already has its 70 mm projector

Anthropic has just left behind Claude’s biggest burden. He has achieved this after sealing an alliance with Elon Musk’s SpaceX

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There are few things more frustrating than finding a tool that fits almost exactly what we need and discovering, just as we’re starting to get the most out of it, that we can’t keep using it at the same rate. Claude It has earned a prominent place among those who use artificial intelligence to program, analyze documents or work with demanding tasks, but it has also drawn a very specific complaint: its limits of use. We are not talking about a minor annoyance, but rather a friction capable of breaking the workflow. Anthropic has decided to attack the problem. The company led by Dario Amodei announced a rise of the limits of Claude Code and the Claude API, relying on a new alliance with SpaceXAI. The pact will give it access to Colossus 1, an infrastructure that Anthropic presents as a way to directly improve the experience of its most intensive users. The promise, for now, is clear: more room to use Claude without demand taking its toll so quickly. The tension with limits. The adjustment that helps understand this news came a few weeks earlier. Anthropic recently modified their time limits to better manage demand during peak hours. In practice, this meant that five-hour sessions could be consumed before those actual five hours had passed if the use occurred during peak periods. The change especially affected those who made more intense use of Claude. More room to use Claude. Anthropic specifies the improvement in three changes that, according to the company, take effect immediately. The first is the doubling of Claude Code’s five-hour limits for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans per seat. The second is the removal of the peak limit reduction for Claude Code on Pro and Max accounts. The third affects the API: Anthropic says it has considerably raised the usage limits for Claude Opus models, although the exact scope depends on the limits table published by the company itself. Colossus muscle 1. The agreement with SpaceXAI is the most striking piece of the announcement because Anthropic ensures that it will be able to use all the computing capacity of the Colossus 1 data center. According to the company, that means more than 300 megawatts of new capacity and more than 220,000 NVIDIA GPUs that will be available within a month. SpaceXAI also details that the cluster includes deployments of H100, H200 and GB200 accelerators. The transformation continues. SpaceXAI does not appear in this agreement as simply a new label within the SpaceX ecosystem. The context, Elon Musk noted that “xAI will be dissolved as an independent company” and that its artificial intelligence products will be integrated under SpaceXAI. The phrase helps understand why Anthropic is talking about this brand when explaining its new access to computing power. Of course, to avoid confusion, what Anthropic announced is not a purchase or a merger, but rather an agreement to use AI infrastructure. It is not an isolated agreement. Anthropic also wanted to frame the alliance with SpaceXAI within a much broader capability strategy. The company recalls an agreement of up to 5 GW with Amazon, which includes almost 1 GW of new capacity by the end of 2026, and another 5 GW pact with Google and Broadcom that will begin to come into operation in 2027. To this it adds a strategic alliance with Microsoft and NVIDIA, with $30 billion of capacity in Azure, and an investment of $50 billion in AI infrastructure in the United States with Fluidstack. The most futuristic part. The agreement also includes a much more speculative derivative. Anthropic says that as part of the pact, it has expressed interest in collaborating with SpaceXAI to develop several gigawatts of orbital computing capacity. SpaceXAI presents it as a possible answer to the pressure that AI is putting on energy, land and cooling on the ground, but for now we are far from something tangible. Of course, this route would only make sense if important engineering challenges are overcome first. The real challenge. Anthropic has put on the table a direct answer to one of the big complaints surrounding Claude, although the most important part is still missing: checking how it feels in real use. SpaceXAI’s new limits and additional capacity seem to point in the right direction for those who work intensively with these services. The improvement, therefore, opens a new phase: that of checking if Claude can offer more margin without its users encountering the same wall again too soon. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | The “token economy” is broken: flat AI programming fees are mathematically unsustainable

Vinted is already worth 8 billion and has achieved it without AI. Just selling your neighbors’ used clothes

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Vinted, the Lithuanian second-hand platform, has closed a secondary sale of shares of 880 million euros led by EQT which increases its valuation to 8,000 million. It has not raised new capital. It has let investors and employees out, and brought in new shareholders (BlackRock, Schroders, Teachers’ Venture Growth) who can hold out both privately and on the stock market. This IPO does not even have a date yet, but the company says that already operates internally as if it were listed. Why is it important. The technology ecosystem in 2026 has been obsessed with AI for some time, so Vinted is a nice anomaly: it has built a profitable business, with more than €1 billion in revenue and €62 million in net profit in 2025, without mentioning AI anywhere. Its value proposition is different, and its story is not that of a startup that has found a shortcut but rather that of a market that has taken fifteen years to mature and that is now changing consumer habits on a continental scale. The context. Vinted was born in 2008 in Vilnius as a way for neighbors to exchange clothes. It has taken almost two decades to become what it is today: a second-hand trading infrastructure with its own logistics, integrated payments and presence throughout Europe. In 2024, TPG capital entered at a valuation of 5,000 million. In just over a year, that figure has risen 60%. In figures: 10.8 billion euros in gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2025, 47% more than the previous year. 1.1 billion euros in revenue (2025). 62 million euros of net profit (2025). 8,000 million euros of valuation after the operation, compared to 5,000 million in 2024. Yes, but. The profitability is there, but it is modest for that valuation: 62 million profit on 1,100 million income is a margin of 5.6%. Only 1.2 points above that of Mercadonafor comparison. Far below that of any technology. To justify 8 billion, Vinted needs to demonstrate that it can scale that margin and not just volume. The online second-hand market is quite competitive: eBay paid $1.2 billion two months ago to buy back Depop from Etsy and strengthen its position in second-hand fashion. Wallapop It has a generalist profile that also takes away its share in countries like Spain. And in the United States, the large market that Vinted has not yet conquered, the company recognizes which is in the testing phase, not expansion. Between the lines. The entry of EQT as an anchor investor in this round has more meaning than it seems. EQT is the Swedish fund that also controls Idealista and Magnific (before Freepik). Its commitment to Vinted reinforces the thesis that large European private equity funds are building positions in second-generation digital platforms: businesses with real network effects, their own infrastructure and proven traction in Europe, before they are listed. When the time comes to go public, they will be caught in it. The big question. Can Vinted replicate in the United States what it has done in Europe? The company has started allowing buyers from London and New York to trade with each otherbut the American market has its own dynamics, its own consolidated platforms and a different second-hand culture. The answer to that question will determine whether Vinted is an $8 billion company or has the potential to become an $80 billion company. In Xataka | There are too many clothes in the world and there is a company earning billions of euros thanks to it: Vinted Featured image | Xataka with Mockuuups Studio

Predicting a drought six months in advance was a utopia. The UPV has achieved this with a system that uses AI

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In recent years drought episodes have intensified in some regions and fear of a global drought flies over the environment. In this scenario, a team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Valencia have created a system that can predict whether there will be a drought six months in advance. The system. The work has been carried out by the team from the Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (IIAMA) of the UPV and has been published in the journal Earth Systems and Environment. The method integrates predictions from four reference climate systems (ECMWF-SEAS5, Météo-France System8, DWD-GCF2.1 and CMCC-SPSv3.5) and are processed using artificial intelligence techniques. From this data, the team calculated two of the most important international drought indices (the Standardized Precipitation Index and the Standardized Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index), using data windows of 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. The method has been applied in the Júcar River basin, which usually goes through stages of recurrent and quite intense droughts. Why is it important. The novelty of this system is that it is not limited to using a single climate model or index, but rather it merges three pieces that are usually used separately and adds AI processing to correct biases and adapt the models to a regional scale. This allows the prediction to be more reliable since it does not depend on a single model. Furthermore, all of this has been integrated into an operational web toolintended to be used in water management and not only as an academic exercise. Results. The system is correct with a reliability of 90% when the prediction is made for that same month. If they want to obtain predictions three months in advance, the reliability is 60%, while for longer periods (12, 18 and 24 months) they do not give a percentage, but they affirm that the model is still useful for predicting what will happen up to six months in advance. Héctor Macián, co-author of the study, states that “The results confirm that the system is especially effective in reinforcing early warning of droughts, a fundamental aspect to anticipate management measures, reduce socioeconomic impacts and increase resilience to climate change.” Action window. As we said, the methodology has been developed in the Júcar river basin, which is a semi-arid area with long, dry and very hot summers, although researchers highlight that it is transferable to other drought-prone areas. Being able to foresee these episodes with up to six months of margin opens a window to implement the drought management plans much more in advance and thus be able to mitigate the effects. Image | UPV In Xataka | The remains of an ancient Mayan city leave us lessons for the future: an amazing system against drought

He has achieved it by combining James Webb and Hubble

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There are images that do not need context to impose themselves. Saturn is one of them. It is enough to see it to understand why it continues to be one of the great protagonists of the solar system: for its shape, for its rings and for that mixture of apparent simplicity and complexity that it hides. The same thing happens to many of us, we stop at any new photograph as if it were the first. And that is somewhat logical, because we do not always have the opportunity to observe it with a such a rich comparison between visible and infrared light nor to get closer, even through an image, to what really happens in its atmosphere. On this occasion, what NASA has shown It is not simply a new photograph, but a different way of observing the same planet. In a single comparative image (Click to download the image in high definition), the agency has put together an observation from Hubble taken on August 22, 2024 and another from James Webb captured on November 29 of the same year, 14 weeks apart. The result is a double view that seeks not so much to impress as to explain how what we see changes when we observe at different wavelengths. What are we really seeing in this image? If we stop at the image, the difference is obvious from the first moment. On the left, the James Webb shows a Saturn with darker, more contrasting tones, where the rings shine brightly because they are made of highly reflective water ice. On the right, Hubble offers a view much closer to how we would perceive it with the naked eye, with soft colors and more subtle bands. According to NASA, both telescopes are observing sunlight reflected by the clouds and mists of the planetbut each one does so in different ranges, which radically changes the information they provide. On the left, the image of Saturn captured by the James Webb Space Telescope; On the right, the one obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope: two views that reveal its active atmosphere, its moons and its bright rings Beyond the visual contrast, this comparison allows us to peek into what happens inside Saturn’s atmosphere. The agency explains that by combining both observations, scientists can study the planet at different altitudes, from the deepest clouds to the highest and most diffuse regions. In the Webb image, for example, a long-lasting jet stream known as a “ribbon wave” appears and also a persistent remnant of the great spring storm of 2010 to 2012. Hubble, for its part, provides continuity in monitoring the bands and the general evolution of the planet. At this point, it is worth clarifying something important: we are not looking at two photographs that reproduce Saturn in the same way. The difference is in how the light is collected and interpreted. Hubble works in the visible spectrum, the same one our eyes perceive, which is why its image is more familiar. James Webb, in this case, observes in the infrared, a radiation invisible to us which allows detecting clouds and compounds at different depths in the atmosphere. In order to display this data, scientists translate these signals into visible colors, and from there come the unnatural tones that appear in your image. If we move all this to a closer scene, the most reliable reference would be the Hubble image. That is the closest thing to how we would perceive Saturn, with soft tones, not very marked bands and bright but natural rings. But the interesting thing is not to choose between one or the other, but to understand what each look contributes. Webb’s allows us to go beyond the visible and detect processes that would otherwise remain hidden. And it is precisely in that combination where this image gains all its meaning. Images | POT In Xataka | Artemis II will take NASA to the Moon half a century later. He will do it with the help of the University of Seville

The massive flight of investors and millionaires suggests that he has achieved it

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For years, Dubai has been the promised land for millionaires from all over the planet who saw the United Arab Emirates as a idyllic place to live without paying taxes. The Iranian attacks with missiles and drones on different infrastructures in Dubai in recent weeks have changed that perception and the financial elite, especially Asian millionaires, are putting their feet (and fortunes) on the run. The city that seduced more than 81,000 millionaires Since 2014, it is now facing an unprecedented flight of capital and talent. The prestige that took decades to build is being tested in a matter of days. ​Explosions in the heart of the city. The last few weeks have left us images that few would have imagined in February. The Fairmont The Palm hotel, located in one of the artificial islands off the coast of Dubai, was hit for an explosion. Days later the remains of an Iranian drone demolished set fire to the iconic Burj Al Arab, the international airport has suffered damage from drone attacks and the american consulate has been the target of another drone attack. The city that boasted of being the safest in the world, in a matter of weeks, has become a scene of war. “The US-Israel war against Iran is undermining that crucial sense of security in Dubai. Dubai’s economic model relies on expatriate residents providing talent, muscle and investment capital. Stability and security are needed to attract skilled foreigners.”, assured to CNBC Jim Krane, researcher at the Baker Institute at Rice University. ​Asian money in retreat. However, the most visible impact is being felt among Asian investors, who had become one of the pillars of Dubai’s financial growth. According to data by Henley & Partners, Dubai is currently home to 237 centimillionaires (people with wealth of $100 million or more) and at least 20 billionaires Asia accounted for 47% of all multinational companies attracted to Dubai International Chamber in 2025, and around a quarter of the more than 2,270 foundations created in the Emirates have Asian ownership, according to data from the consulting firm BSA Law. Bloomberg published that the United Arab Emirates had attracted some 700 billion dollars from millionaires around the world, especially Asians. Singapore and Hong Kong, new chosen destinations. Grace Tang, CEO of Phillip Private Equity, pointed out to Reuters that between 10 and 20 of their customers, mostly Asian, are asking about how transfer your assets to Singapore to protect the value of its assets. Hong Kong also emerges as an alternative. For his part, Felix Lai, from the consulting firm JMS Group, counted to Bloomberg who had organized a private jet flight to transport 15 clients from Oman to Hong Kong at a cost of approximately $300,000. “They didn’t even care about the price,” Lai explained. “They just wanted to leave.” An advisor in Singapore who declined to be identified added that more than half of his 13 clients in the Emirates are seriously considering moving their assets: “Flying back and forth will be complicated even if the conflict ends tomorrow. It’s about trust.” Dubai’s economic model faces its biggest test. Dubai does not depend as directly on the oil industry as its neighbors, but its economy is based on its ability to attract expatriates, your investments and his talent. At the beginning of the year, the Dubai International Finance Center housed 1,289 entities linked to family offices (61% more than the previous year), and the 120 main families in the center jointly managed more than 1.2 billion dollars, according to CNBC. Although stock markets around the world have felt the earthquake resulting from the attacks in an area of ​​strategic resources for trade and energy, the impact of the conflict with Iran has been much more severe and direct for the Gulf markets. The Dubai Stock Exchange (DFM) has fallen more than 16.6% since the start of the war between the US and Israel against Iran. Fitch Ratings had already predicted before the war a real estate correction of up to 15% in 2025 and 2026. Everything indicates that they have fallen short the worst estimates of the financial consequences. Passing panic or structural change? Not all actors in the sector believe that this will lead to a permanent mass flight. Dhruba Jyoti Sengupta, CEO of Wrise Private Middle East in Dubai, pointed out to Reuters that his firm had not observed “serious conversations about capital flight” as its clients remain confident in the country’s long-term resilience. ​Nirbhay Handa, CEO of migration agency for millionaires Multipolitanpointed in Bloomberg “If uncertainty lasts a few weeks, some companies may pause their expansion, but stability will likely return quickly to Dubai as the situation improves.” What does seem clear is that the city will have to rebuild something much more difficult to build than its skyscrapers for millionaires: trust of those who chose it as a home for their money. In Xataka | A company wants to build a €4 billion megacasino in Dubai. The problem is that Dubai prohibits gambling Image | Unsplash (Wael Hneini)

Predicting dementia seven years in advance seemed impossible. An AI with Spanish participation has just achieved it

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The diagnosis of the neurodegenerative diseases You face a problem at the time the diagnosis is made, since in many cases it is diagnosed when the symptoms are already evident and this makes the brain damage irreversible. But… What if we could peer into the future of the brain years before the disease shows its face? This is precisely what a Spanish team has done with a new biomarker. The study. The future of medicine involves making increasingly earlier diagnoses so that the success of treatments is much greater, and now in a recent published article in Science Report The door opens for this to be a reality in dementia. To get here, what the researchers propose, where have you participated Rubén Armañanzas, from the DATAI Institute of the University of Navarra, is the use of a test such as the electroencephalogram together with artificial intelligence to develop a biomarker capable of predicting the risk of dementia with up to seven years in advance. Your methodology. To understand the magnitude of this advance, we must look at the population on which the study was carried out, which are people with subjective cognitive impairment. These are patients who go to the doctor because they notice that their memory is failing, but when they undergo standard cognitive tests, the results are completely normal, so they cannot be given a clear diagnosis even though it seems that something is not right. Until now, medicine found a blind spot in this phase as there was no way to know if these ‘complaints’ in memory were the prelude to Alzheimer’s or simply confusion. But now, the study with 88 older adults with this situation has shown that the brain emits alarm signals long before psychological tests detected them. You just had to know how to ‘read’ them. A new method. Here the research has unified different metrics to be able to read these warning signs. The first thing of all is to use an electroencephalogram to measure brain activity, which is a cheap, quick and non-invasive test. From here, the BrainScope technology platform analyzes this data by looking for 14 specific features related to neuronal connectivity and brain wave behavior. Once these characteristics are ‘found’, an AI algorithm comes in that processes the patterns and determines whether the patient analyzed can progress towards mild cognitive impairment or dementia such as Alzheimer’s. And the results are spectacular, since it has demonstrated outstanding precision when separating patients who develop the disease from those who do not. The future. The great value of this biomarker is not only technological, but also clinical, since the most reliable current tests to predict pathologies such as Alzheimer’s require painful lumbar punctures or scans that are not cheap. A system based on EEG and AI could be easily integrated into primary care clinical protocols or routine neurological consultations as it does not have a very high cost and, above all, is not invasive. The important thing here is to detect neurodegeneration in the earliest phases in order to gain golden time so that new drugs can act at the beginning of the disease and gain years of quality of life. Images | Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | We have a new “theory of everything” to understand Alzheimer’s. Its key is in some small granules

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