acquaintance

The legendary Renault plant in Valladolid is “reinvented” with an old acquaintance: the combustion engine

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The historical map of car factories in Spain is blurring with the evolution of the industry and the transition towards electrification, which has brought an unequal destiny for all of them: uncertain future of Ford in Almussafes to the Cupra bastion in Martorell. In the middle of the peninsula and emulating the village of Asterix and Obelix, an irreducible combustion engine factory that still resists: the Renault of Valladolid. But staying with the combustion engine does not mean staying stuck in the past: the historic Valladolid plant, which has such iconic models behind it as the Renault 4 CVpromises to continue writing history with Tilting Gravity Die Casting, the technique that changes how the heart of hybrid engines is manufactured. And Valladolid is the first factory in Spain to use it. New technology and more production. Horse Powertrain has invested 45 million euros at the Valladolid plant to install a head gasket manufacturing line using the Tilting Gravity Die Casting process, the first with this technology in the state. The new facility, which will occupy 3,500 square meters, will increase cylinder head manufacturing by 20% (from 300,000 to 360,000 units) and will require 150 new permanent jobs. Context. We are talking about the old Renault from Valladolid, but it has little of that 1953 Renault: today it is powered by Horse Powertrain, a joint venture formed by Renault 45%, Geely 45% and Aramco 10%. The formation is not coincidental: Geely provides the Chinese technological muscle, Renault its experience in the sector and the Saudi oil company is more than just financial muscle: it is interested in the combustion engine having the longest possible run. In Valladolid, Horse does not manufacture cars: it manufactures the hybrid E-Tech engines of the Captur, Symbioz, Clio, Austral and Rafale, the “heart” of a good part of the Renault range in Europe. And not only from Renault, but also from the group’s brands, which makes it strategic in that a single engine can end up in several different models. Why is it important. The bet is not minor: Valladolid is one of Horse Powertrain’s most strategic plants, which confirms that this is not a local experiment but a first-class industrial decision. The new technology allows engines to be manufactured with a more precise design and greater durability, something essential for hybrids, whose constant start-stop cycle subjects the components to greater thermal stress than a conventional engine. And the context justifies it: although almost one in five cars sold in Europe is already electric96% of those circulating they still have a non-plug-in motor. An inertia of more than 250 million vehicles that will not disappear in a decade. At a business level, the support is unquestionable. Its CEO highlighted that this investment “further demonstrates Valladolid’s leadership as a world-class automotive plant.” On the other hand, it is the first plant of this type in Spain and has been considered as a Priority Industrial Project by the Government of Castilla y León. What is Tilting Gravity Die Casting. Head gaskets are traditionally made of aluminum through a molding process, which leads to the possibility of air bubbles forming inside. And if there are bubbles, there will be microporosities and the structure will therefore be weaker. The TGDC solves this in a seemingly simple way: the aluminum no longer falls into the mold, but rather the mold is tilted so that it flows slowly and uniformly, thus minimizing turbulence and the risk of air. Bridging the distances, like when you pour beer into a glass. The result is a more homogeneous and structurally more integral piece that better withstands use and deterioration. In addition, this method requires less machinery and shortens production cycles. The push of Spain in the European industry. At the 2024 Paris motor show, then-Renault CEO recognized that the French unions were demanding the hybrid vehicle projects in Valladolid and Palencia due to the lack of demand for their electric models in the Douai and Maubege factories, however this latest movement is a complete “non, merci”: Spain not only does not give up production but also expands and modernizes it. Spain is the second state that manufactures the most vehicles in the old continent and this operation reinforces that position in the segment that endures the most: the hybrid. The question that remains in the air is whether De Meo’s successor will maintain the same commitment to Spanish plants in the face of French union pressure. Renault’s roadmap, which the brand plans to update soon, will give clues. In Xataka | Renault is a firm defender of the hybrid car and has its key factory in Valladolid. We have been there to know your future In Xataka | Given the tariffs on China, the CEO of Renault is clear who the European electric car should imitate: China Cover | Xataka

There are more and more older people dying for falls in the US. And the culprit is an old acquaintance in the West

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We recently discovered that from the age of 35 our performance did not collapse as it had been thought, but rather On the contrary. However, it is a law of life that new problems derived from health and our physical form arrive with old age. In fact, in the United States they have realized one thing: more and more elderly die from falls, and have found the culprit. A growing problem. In the United States, falls have become one of the main causes of death among older people. In 2023 they died More than 41,000 adults over 65 years of injuries associated with fallsand the mortality rate has tripled in three decades. The most vulnerable group, those over 85, went from 92 deaths per 100,000 in 1990 A 339 in 2023. This increase is alarming because it coincides with decades of programs, medical guides and investments to prevent falls that, despite the efforts, have failed to reverse the trend. Drugs as a trigger. Epidemiologist Thomas Farley holds that differentiates it with countries like Japan or Europe lies in the high medication of the greatest Americans. Points to the called Frids (“Fall Risk Drugs”), a group that includes benzodiazepines, opioids, antidepressants, gabapentin, certain classic heart and antihistamine medications such as diphenhydramine. These drugs induce sleepiness, dizziness or weakness, and are linked to 50–75% more falls in the elderly. His proliferation, in his opinion, explains why deaths multiplied without other factors, such as loss of mobility, poor vision or risk risks, have worsened in the same proportion. Other factors. Other specialists like Thomas Gill and Neil Alexander Matizan In the New York Times That vision. They point out that before death certificates used to attribute the death of elders to heart failure or other ailments, minimizing the role of falls. Today Document betterwhich increases statistics. In addition, medicine prolongs the lives of people with chronic diseases and multiple disabilities, making the current cohort of over 85 years Be more fragile than that of thirty years ago. That accumulated fragility could partly explain why they survive less after a fall. Also, although the use of opioid and benzodiazepines has decreased or stabilized, they have The prescriptions are grown of antidepressants and gabapentin, which maintains the pharmacological exposure. The urgency of the “discomfort.” Before the consensus that drugs play a key role, the emerging strategy It is the “discomfort”: Review and remove unnecessary medication or adjust doses to reduce risks. Networks like the US depressal recordch network They insist that it is easy to prescribe, but difficult to remove treatments once established, by clinical inertia and patient resistance. The list Beers Criteria I already recommend alternative therapiesas cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia, physiotherapy, exercise and psychological approaches for pain, instead of powerful anxiolytic or analgesics. Samurai discipline to the rescue. In parallel to the numbers of the United States, Un work from the University of Tohoku revealed that The re-hoa traditional Japanese practice associated with the samurai that consists of slow and controlled movements of sitting, rising and walking, can significantly improve the strength of the knees and reduce the risk of falls in seniors. In just three months, adults who made this routine for five minutes a day, four times a week, increased on average 25.9% Its knee extension force, compared to 2.5% of the control group. The method, which does not require equipment and minimizes risks of injury, is raised as an accessible alternative to combat the loss of muscle mass and the fragility of age, combining physical benefits with the cultural value of an ancestral tradition adapted to the challenges of modern health. Preventable tragedy. Be that as it may, each fall that causes fractures, brain injuries or dependence is a devastating event that alters lives and generates huge costs. The paradox is that many of these deaths They could be prevented with a more rigorous control of the prescription and with programs that prioritize non -pharmacological interventions. The key, in the case of the United States, points to patients and caregivers demanding their doctors Check the treatments and raise alternatives, because often that conversation does not happen. The increase in deaths from falls in the elderly, far from being an inevitable consequence of aging, reflects failures in the care model and opens an urgency: to balance the extension of life with the quality and safety of those years won. Image | MR.FINK’S Finest In Xataka | We had always thought that after 35 our performance collapsed. Is the opposite In Xataka | China has a huge youth unemployment problem. So much, that some people pretend that they work

The abuses have shot in the United States and the main suspect is also an old acquaintance in Europe: the SUV

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25 years ago, cars were more insecure. It is undoubted. Modern vehicles have been filled with radars, sensors and cameras that have turned our cars into authentic technological machines that squeak, stop and even dodge before an obstacle. But mortal abuses have shot in the United States. Every day we see less. And no, they are not your eyes. The study. It has been done by the Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS)an independent association that studies road safety on US roads. According to their data, mortal abuses to pedestrians in the United States have shot 37%. And in 42% if we talk about cyclists abuse. It is not a matter of cars being more insecure. On the contrary. Cars are safer than ever. At least for those who travel inside. Because the problem is that every time we see less what we have in front of us. And that, according to the IIHS, explains why this increase. Giant cars. The United States has always been a country of huge cars. In 2021, We already explained in Xataka that some of the best -selling cars in the country could have six children sitting in front and would not see them. One behind the other. Uploaded aboard a Cadillac Escalade, a driver would see only the head (and partially) of the sixth child sitting in the row. Just take a look at the best -selling cars in the United States To verify to what extent their drivers prefer large cars. The best-selling vehicle is the Ford-F Series, a pick-up with a multitude of versions. The second The Silverado Chevrolet (another pick-up) and the third classified is the most “restrained” Toyota Rav4. Of course, they are far from the Dacia Sandero, Renault Clio and Volkswagen Golf that take the first three positions on the list of best selling in Europe. However, little by we continue to go down, among the 10 best -selling cars on our continent we find up to four SUVs. We see less and less. The IIHS has studied What visibility has a driver less than 10 meters around your vehicle and if it has improved or worsened in the last 25 years with the launch of the new generations. And there are bad news: among the three best -selling SUVs in the United States, visibility has worsened considerably. According to his calculations, the driver of a Honda CR-V saw 68% of everything around a 10 meter radius. In your latest generation, you can only observe 28% of what surrounds you. A Ford F-150 does not get much better data. In a quarter of a century it has only lost 7% visibility. The problem is that 25 years ago it was so bad that the driver has gone from seeing 43% to 36%. In Azul, the blind points of one of the cars analyzed Huge blind spots. The problem is that cars have become machines with huge blind spots. The higher the nose, less visibility in short distances. The bigger the car front pillar, the less visibility we have diagonally. And even the rearview is a problem when the size is triggered. This has been measured in the IIHS with 360º cameras located at different heights to represent all the carvings of the drivers. Then, a software performs an average and calculates how far the driver begins to see or how much space is outside his viewing angle. In the upper image, the blue zone is the space that is covered to the driver. In Europe we also know them. Yes, in Europe we also know these cars well. If we take a look at SUV sales 25 years ago we will realize that Just 5% of the market share It was occupied by this type of cars. In 2025 More than half of the cars sold can be put within this category. For a five years, the SUV is the car that sells the most. But, in addition, cars have grown a barbarity in this quarter of a century. There are SUV versions that would seem more than unlikely 25 years ago, such as Toyota Yaris Cross. And the height of the cars has not grown much but their frontal ones have been muscular and are now larger. A BMW X3 measured 4,565 meters in 2004. Today measures 4,755 meters. A danger. Those who suffer the most the consequences of this excessive growth are pedestrians and cyclists. As we said, cars are safer in case of accident. And have a technological arsenal to avoid them, such as the rear camera to which forces the European Union. But lifting the front has very serious consequences in case of accident. In case of shockit is more likely that the pedestrian dies in the accident or that he receives serious injuries such as hip breakage. Also head injuries (if they bounce against the car) are more serious. The studies say That every 10 centimeters that the hood rises, the possibilities of receiving serious injuries increase by 27%. Photo | IIHS In Xataka | At night all pedestrians are brown: the abuse prevention system fails when it is most needed

In 2021 Texas stayed in the dark for days. Politicians blamed the wind, but the culprit was an old acquaintance

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The story occurred in February 2021when a historic winter storm that affected much of the state of Texas generated the last great electric blackout. Between February 13 and 17, extremely low temperatures and adverse weather conditions caused the disconnection of more than 4.5 million homes and business, some for several days. The event is considered one of the blackouts more serious in history Modern of the United States, so much that politics tried to take advantage of the “guilty.” The mirage of the wind. As we said, in February 2021, Texas lived one of the most serious energy crises in its modern history, when a winter storm paralyzed a good part of the state, causing massive power cuts, dozens of deaths and extreme conditions that affected millions. In the midst of chaos, the governor Greg Abbott appeared on national television (in Sean Hannity program, in Fox News) to directly hold the renewable energies of collapse, and especially wind. In a sharp statement, he said that the ruling showed that the State and the country continued to need fossil fuels to guarantee the winter supply. However, the accusation, repeated by other leaders conservatives and related media, not only It was wrong but deeply interested, because the data showed that the main person in charge of the collapse had been … Natural gas, not the wind. The Texas Network and its fragility. Texas has a unique electrical grid, known as Ercot (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), which operates almost independent of the rest of the national network. This deliberate disconnection, designed to avoid federal regulations, also prevents the State from importing electricity easily in case of emergency. Thus, when temperatures fell dramatically in February 2021, many electric plants (especially those fed with natural gas) They were not prepared To operate in freezing conditions. The pipes froze, the valves failed and gas production collapsed, just at the time of greatest energy demand. Although some wind turbines also froze, their weight on the network was relatively small: about 7 % of the production planned for that time of the year, according to expert calculations. Most cuts came from thermal and nuclear plants that could not operate due to lack of fuel or technical problems derived from extreme cold. Politics in a blackout. Despite this evidence, the narrative that was quickly imposed in conservative sectors was that the ruling had been caused by clean energy. From Fox News to the Wall Street JournalHE They multiplied the voices that ridiculed the renewables, called them “non -reliable” and demanded a return to coal -based energy. An old ideological campaign against environmental policies was reactivated and, in particular, against the Green New Deal promoted by some Democratic legislators. Even false images were shared, such as a photograph of frozen turbines supposedly in Texas that It turned out to be from Swedencaptured years ago during a thaw test. Social networks, media and politicians such as Congresswoman Lauren Bobert or state senator Mike Thompson They spread without contrast Uninformed arguments that placed wind and solar energy as guilty of the blackout, reinforcing a rhetoric that had been downed long before the incident. The response of experts. Numerous researchers and electrical systems specialists They denied the official version repeated by the governor and other leaders. Jesse Jenkins, engineer of the Energy System of Princeton, summarized in a phrase What happened: “All generation sources are being beaten.” Indeed, freezing affected both gas and coal, nuclear and renewable plants. The problem was not a single technology, but the lack of preparation of the infrastructure set in the face of extreme weather conditions. Leah Stokes, political scientist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, The irony stressed to New York Times of the situation: the same fossil fuels that were feeding climate change were those that had failed in an increasingly common weather scenario. From that prism, what did not support the system was not renewable energy, but an obsolete network model, little resilient and possibly more focused on economic efficiency than in climate emergencies. Climate change as a backdrop. Plus: the crisis occurred just when Joe Biden came to the presidency and had signed his First executive orders In climatic matters, reincorporating the United States to the Paris Agreement and canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. Under that context, the Texas blackout became a discursive battlefield between those who asked for more investment in clean energy and resilience, and who defended the continuous and reinforced use of fossil fuels. Biden had made it clear that his vision went through Modernize infrastructure Energy of the country, generate green jobs and reduce emissions towards a zero net target in 2050, but the storm served the opposition sectors as excuse to discredit said agenda. Broken system Far from demonstrating an alleged “uselessness” of wind energy, the Texas blackout In 2021 it was a more warning about the vulnerabilities of an energy system unable to adapt to the 21st century climate. While the authorities blamed the turbines, millions of people froze without heating, hospitals worked with emergency generators, and citizens (such as state deputy Brandon Woodard, in Kansas) they wondered if those interruptions would become A new standard. If you want also, the event left a teaching: reliability does not depend on a type of energy source, but on an integrated, resistant and modernized system that combines technologies, storage, interconnections and preparation against climatic extremes that will be more frequent. In Texas, loading the blame for the wind was a convenient, but dangerous distraction. As almost always, the true enemy were not renewable, but negligence. Image | POT In Xataka | The precedent closest to the great blackout of Spain was lived in 2003. And it also began in the interconnected network In Xataka | Having solar panels at home sounds very good in case of national blackout. The problem is that they do not always work

A few months after the arrival of ‘GTA VI’, Twitch crowned as the most watched of 2024 to an old acquaintance of the franchise

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We are in 2025 and, although the industry has an eye on the expected ‘GTA VI‘, what Twitch dominates remains its predecessor. ‘GTA v‘, which was launched in September 2013, has been placed again at the top of the podium of the most seen video games on the Amazon platform, Collect The Verge. In 2024 he accumulated more than 1.400 million hours seen, surpassing giants such as ‘League of Legends’ (1,190 million), ‘Valorant’ (804 million), ‘Fortnite’ (539 million) and ‘Call of Duty’ (451 million), according to official data shared by Twitch. In total, more than 15.6 billion hours of video games on Twitch were consumed globally. Why does it continue to work? The main engine behind this phenomenon is not the story mode or the original missions of the game. The key is in the ‘GTA Roleplay‘, a modality based on online servers where players assume fictitious identities and build improvised stories in real time. There is no imposed narrative: each session is different and created by the community itself. This mode, which is only available for the PC version, has made the game reinvent year after year. The role play dynamics, added to the freedom of the open world, makes it an ideal platform both to play and to generate live content. A veteran who keeps billing. In addition to the impact on audiences, the title remains an income machine for Rockstar Games. Since its launch, the ‘Grand Theft Auto’ franchise has generated more than 8,000 million dollars. Only ‘GTA V’ has sold more than 210 million copies, which places it as the third best -selling video game of all time, only behind ‘Minecraft’ and ‘Tetris’. A good part of that income comes from ‘GTA online’, the multiplayer mode that has grown in parallel to the base game and that maintains an active, competitive and creative community. With an eye on ‘GTA VI’. All this happens while the world of the video game expects the launch of ‘GTA VI’, planned for autumn of 2025. The current figures of their predecessor not only reflect nostalgia or fidelity of the community, but an active base that generates global content, money and interest more than a decade later. ‘GTA V’ is not just a long -lived game. It is one of the most durable cultural phenomena of digital entertainment. And if it serves as an indication, the way for ‘GTA VI’ seems to be more than paved. Images | Rockstar | Twitch In Xataka | If the question is “you will sell the Nintendo Switch 2 despite the price increase” the answer is: yes, a lot

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