agree Archives - usatoday24

The problem is that no one can agree on what they are.

March 19, 2026 by usatoday24

He James Webb Space Telescope It has been targeting the most remote regions of the universe for years and, with each new observation, it has revealed something that doesn’t quite fit. In his images, small, tiny, bright red dots appear, which repeat with a frequency that is difficult to ignore. They are not a specific anomaly or an observation failure: they are objects that astronomers have been studying for some time without having yet achieved a convincing explanation of their nature. The novelty. A recently published study in The Astrophysical Journal, led by Devesh Nandal and Avi Loeb, from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, opens an alternative to the most widespread interpretation. Specifically, it suggests that some of these red dots might not be systems dominated by active black holes, but rather supermassive stars formed in the early universe. Speaking to Live ScienceNandal argues that this type of star can explain key features of these objects without depending on the presence of growing black holes. Before this turn, the so-called “little red dots” had already been on astronomy’s radar for some time. The term began to be consolidated in studies published in 2024, when several teams began to analyze them systematically after the first Webb observations. We are not talking about a recent discovery, but rather an accumulated enigma: At Xataka we already address it as a phenomenon that is difficult to fit into current modelswith very compact, extremely luminous objects present in the early universe. The dominant hypothesis. During the first years of analysis, the explanation that gained the most traction was that these red dots were driven by growing black holes. In the first phase, some of the researchers attributed its red color to dust in the environment, although later work has shifted part of that focus to hydrogen gas. What is starting to not fit. With the passage of time, some observations have complicated this initial interpretation. Several of these objects do not show clear X-ray emissions, one of the most common signs of active black holes, and their spectra lack strong metallic lines beyond hydrogen and helium. Added to this is “The Cliff”, one of the objects analyzed by the RUBIES program, which does not fit either as a conventional galaxy or as a system dominated by dust. The proposal of the new study fits into this context, which proposes a different reading for at least part of these objects. Instead of active black holes, some small red dots could be supermassive stars formed from primordial gas, composed almost exclusively of hydrogen and helium, and observed just before collapsing. According to the model developed by the team, this scenario reproduces both its extreme brightness and specific features of its spectra, without having to assume the presence of a growing black hole. The new study does not close the debate, rather it expands it. The researchers themselves acknowledge that directly demonstrating what lies behind these objects remains extremely difficult, and other voices in the scientific community insist that none of the hypotheses can yet be ruled out. The presence of black holes in these systems remains to be demonstrated directly and, for now, is inferred mainly from their brightness and how abundant they are. Images | NASA/ESA/CSA (1, 2) In Xataka | The Zoo Hypothesis: Why Aliens Likely Know About Us and Don’t Want to Contact Us

The “shitification” of the internet is everywhere and seems inexorable and inevitable. Norway does not agree

March 18, 2026 by usatoday24

When we say that any time in the past was better, perhaps we are erring on the side of idealizing the past, but when it comes to the Internet the phrase becomes more relevant. We have normalized online experiences to degrade with fewer features, more ads, new subscriptions… The only thing missing was the AI garbage to finish finishing it off. It seems like nothing can stop the shittification of the internet. Nothing less Norway. A day in the life of a “shitter”. This is how it is titled the video that the Norwegian Consumer Council has published to report a situation. It shows a man who makes holes in his socks, saws the leg of the table so that it is limp, dries some markers with a hairdryer… He defines himself as a shitter: “What I do is take things that are perfectly fine and make them worse,” he says. The video is very funny and is part of a campaign against a not so funny problem: the degradation of digital services. The organization has developed a complete report in which they describe the problem and propose a plan to address it. Shitification. It is a term coined by writer Cory Doctorow and declared word of the year by Macquarie Dictionary in 2024. The definition is as follows: The progressive deterioration of a service or product caused by a decrease in the quality of the service provided, especially in the case of an online platform, and as a consequence of the search for profits We are not talking about natural degradation, but something deliberate that responds to an economic objective. A clear case has been that of Netflix, which not only chased shared accountsbut eliminated functions such as the possibility of casting from the mobile phone to the television. Not to mention the ads on payment planssomething that has spread to practically all streaming services. Theard everywhere at once. But this phenomenon reaches all types of services, not just streaming. We see it in the form of more ads on apps like Instagram (many of them of scamsby the way), It happened to me with the security camera app I had at home and there are even those who bought a connected refrigerator for thousands of euros so that they could start ads appear on the screen. Of course, companies offer you a solution to remove annoying ads: ✨pay a subscription✨. The phases of shitification. It is not something that happens overnight, but first they attract you with an attractive service, that works well and offers advantages. Once they have a solid user base – when they have caught us – the party begins. A good example was Uber, which in its beginnings offered very low prices to present itself as a more attractive alternative to taxis and now it’s more expensive. Generative AI makes it worse. According to the Norwegian report, far from solving the problem, AI is making it even worse. He junk content made with AI It is the most visible face, but they cite many more examples, such as Google AI Summarieswhich are often inaccurate and weaken the information ecosystem. There are also the AI-based advertising algorithms that make more ads reach us, platforms that are forcefully integrating AI everywhere, sometimes taking advantage of it to raise prices. Norway’s proposal. The use of this type of practices is widespread and its advance seems unstoppable, but Norway proposes three lines of action to reverse it: Give power back to users: that we can decide which operating system to install on our devices, that interoperability is mandatory, protect “de-shit” tools such as ad blockers and alternative recommendation algorithms. Stop depending on big technology: force them to “open the doors” and use open standards, finance and promote free software, using public administration as a lever. Apply the law: Norway proposes raising sanctions even further and tightening controls. The European Digital Markets Act has already taken steps in this direction, such as USB-C on iPhone or the sideloading on iOS. However, managing to end this degradation completely seems like a titanic task. Norway has sent letters to fourteen countries, including the United States, asking them to take action. Image | YouTube In Xataka | Thanks to AI we can now stop reading and writing as much as we used to. According to science, it is the worst for Alzheimer’s

We have been hearing for years that plastic is safer than wood. Jordi Cruz does not agree (and it seems he is right)

December 2, 2025 by usatoday24

Science has spent decades studying what happens with E.colithe Salmonella and company when they touch the wooden, plastic or metal boards that we use in the kitchen. It is an old (and we thought unsolvable) fight, but the famous chef Jordi Cruz has spoken. He said it on TikTokbut since the ways of distributing content on the Internet are capricious, he has also said so in tens of websites. The question is whether what he said makes sense. What does Jordi Cruz defend? In essence, Cruz has commented your prints on three cutting board materials (plastic, metal and wood). Furthermore, it has gotten wet: for him, the best option is wood. As explainedwhile plastic is filled with grooves where bacteria accumulate and metal destroys the edge of the knife, wood has “natural antibacterial and antimicrobial” properties, where bacteria “get between the fibers and end up dying.” The controversy has been enormous, of course. A curious debate. That “clear” comes from the fact that for years it has been said that wood is the material that “accumulates the most bacteria”, in contrast to “non-porous” plastics that can be put in the dishwasher (and can be cleaned more easily). It is logical that seeing a famous chef say that wood is the best has made many put your hands on your head. However, Cruz is not as off track as we might think. What the evidence says. From the very beginning (the pioneering studies by Dean Cliver at the University of Wisconsin in the 90s), research they have been giving us back the same image: There is no evidence that plastic is inherently safer than wood. Appropriate (hard and closed-pore) and well-preserved wood creates a hostile environment for many bacteria. The problem is that. Wooden boards are not only more expensive, but require maintenance. And if we are not going to give it to them, plastic with all its problems is safer. Although not totally sure, of course. That is to say: the most dangerous boards are the old, scratched and poorly washed ones. The material does not matter, what is important is its state of conservation. And then? Some time ago, food safety experts stopped focusing on the material and began to look for strategies that would try to reduce the main risk derived from the tables: cross contamination. A good example of this are the recommendations of the North American USDA. For the Agency, both wood and other “non-porous” surfaces are acceptable for things like meat and chicken. Their main recommendation is another: use a table for raw meats and a different one for ready-to-eat foods (in addition to always cleaning them with hot water and soap; and subjecting them to periodic disinfection). In Europe the recommendation is similar and, in fact, he adds that although there may be more or less appropriate materials depending on the use, “in domestic kitchens the priority is hygiene and not the specific material.” What do the chefs say? What Jordi Cruz says (that a wooden board is best as a “main board”) is a general consensus between chefs and gastronomic influencers. However, it is common to restrict them to chopping cooked vegetables, fruit, bread and produce. On the other hand, also it is common to use plastic with meat and raw fish. Or what is the same, for “dirty uses.” Sometimes we get stuck in absurd debates. And this is a good example: the public debate has dedicated a lot of effort to establishing the idea of ”bad wood/good plastic”, when the important thing is to use several boards, assign them fixed uses and clean (and replace them) when necessary. Image | Garden House | The Anthill In Xataka | To the question of whether ultra-processed foods are as bad as we have been told, science still has no clear answer

8 kilometers of ice have been lost in two months and researchers only agree on one thing: it is something to worry about

November 5, 2025 by usatoday24

Predict their future the antarctic glaciers It is undoubtedly a great challenge for science, but the most important thing above all is to know How will it affect global sea level?. The worst of all is that the latest news we have at our disposal is not at all positive, since the Hektoria glacier It has retreated 8 km in just two months, which is an unprecedented speed in the modern era. Where we start from. Normally, the retreat of glaciers It is measured in hundreds of meters per year. It is one of the clearest metrics we have to be able to ‘measure’ global warming, and that is why now what a team from the University of Colorado Boulder has just recorded on the Hektoria glacier, on the eastern peninsula of Antarctica, plays in a completely different league. The measurement. In just two months during 2023, the Hektoria lost almost half of its mass. In total, 8 kilometers of ice disappeared. A speed of collapse that has never been seen in modern history and that, according to the authors of the study, is more typical of the end of the last ice age. Something that doesn’t add up in this case. Hektoria is relatively small by Antarctic standards (about 300 km², less than the city of Malaga), but its collapse was so sudden that it left researchers stunned. A coincidence. Ironically, the research team wasn’t even studying Hektoria. They were analyzing satellite and remote sensing data for another project when Ochwat realized that the glacier had essentially disappeared from the images. The measurements. This is where technology comes into play. The team had to combine data from multiple satellites to understand what had happened and, above all, how quickly he did it. “If we only had one image every three months, we couldn’t say that the glacier lost two and a half kilometers in two days,” explains Ochwat. In this case, by combining images from different satellites you can fill in the time gaps and confirm with evidence in hand how quickly the ice has been melting. But the key was not only in the images. They also used seismic instruments that have the ability to detect a series of “glacial earthquakes” that occurred exactly during the period of rapid melting. And these earthquakes are not measured for the sake of it, but to confirm something crucial: the glacier was anchored to the bedrock (and not floating) just before breaking. This is fundamental both for science and for the entire planet, since ice that is floating (such as an ice shelf) does not raise sea level when it melts, any more than an ice cube does in a glass of water. But ice that rests on land (or anchored to a seabed) and falls into the sea does contribute to the global rise in sea level by increasing its volume. Your Achilles heel. The collapse was not due to simple superficial melting. The cause was topographic, since many Antarctic glaciers rest on deep canyons or underwater mountains. The Hektoria, however, had the misfortune of resting on an “ice plain”: an area of bedrock that was exceptionally flat and below sea level. This flat topography caused a gigantic section of the glacier to begin floating all at once, rather than gradually. The moment the glacier lost its anchorage to the ground (its “line of support”), it was exposed to the forces of the ocean, and therefore everything began to advance very quickly. The process was brutal, since it all began with the warmest ocean water that seeped underneath and began to open cracks from the bottom of the glacier upwards. At the same time, the glacier already had cracks on the surface. Eventually, the lower and upper cracks met and the glacier literally disintegrated. A warning for future glaciers. The Hektoria case is a first-rate warning. Scientists know that there are numerous glaciers in Antarctica that also rest on these types of ice plains. Until now, it was thought that their collapses would be centuries-long processes. Hektoria shows that they can be months, which should set us off due to the implications it would have on sea level. And while the collapse of a small glacier like Hektoria won’t dramatically change global sea level, it alone does demonstrate that a rapid collapse mechanism, until now theoretical or believed to be typical of past geological eras, is perfectly possible today. If this same mechanism is activated in much larger glaciers, sea level rise could accelerate very considerably and much sooner than expected. Images | Cassie Matias In Xataka | When glaciers melt, bodies appear: archaeologists are recovering them in a time trial

The question now is whether the deceased would agree

June 20, 2025 by usatoday24

The possibility of “resuscitating” the dead is something that We have already seenbut with artificial intelligence tools the thing goes beyond a simple Deepfake. Imagine being able to maintain a conversation with a loved one who died every time you want. Well, with its virtual version. It sounds like Black Mirror episode, but the trend is growing. This opens new doors for duel and memory, but also raises legal and ethical questions about control and consent about digital identity after death. Duel technology. The ‘Grief Tech‘Use technology to help people cope with the loss of a loved one. As? Creating digital versions with which they can interact. It is one booming trend. In China, the Deepfakes of loved ones They are increasingly popular. The emergence of increasingly advanced artificial intelligence tools allows the result to be more realistic. There are companies doing business with this, such as HEREAFTER AI either Sence ai That based on tattered conversations and memories, they create a chatbot with which to hold a conversation. Others take it further and create an interactive video-Avatar. This is the case of Re; Memory, You, Virtual Only either Storyfile. The latter has helped the Lista family, protagonists of this NYT reportto create an avatar of his father who suffers from terminal cancer. These virtual ghosts have also been used for other purposes, such as This created from a murdered young man to cause a greater impact on the jury. Why this happens. Save memories of our loved ones when they die is something that humans have done For millennia. Objects, photographs, videos or an avatar with AI, all respond to the need to remember the link we had with that person. However, it is not the same to look at a photo than to maintain conversations with a digital replica of a dead loved one and raises doubts of its consequences, both at the psychologic and ethical level. The duel in the AI era. This type of digital chatbots or avatars can be comforting at specific times, questions about their effect on long -term mental health arise. The loss of a loved one is a very painful process and, if complicated, can lead to weakening symptoms. In statements a EuronewsDr. Kirsten Smith, a clinical researcher at the University of Oxford, said: “There is evidence of multiple studies that indicates that the search for proximity (behaviors destined to restore closeness to the deceased person) is related to worse results in mental health.” Some of these ‘Grief Tech’ services as it is already in mind and are presented as a temporary tool to help process the loss. In their case they offer a payment model for each session with the chatbot and also its use time is limited. What does the law say. Who decides who can be resurrected with an AI? The truth is that there is no legislation that prevents creating one of these ‘posthumous avatars’. The works created by a person are protected by the Intellectual Property Lawbut not your voice, photos or videos. He General Data Protection Regulation in force in the European Union does not apply directly to deceased persons and, in the case of the call Digital willit focuses on user profiles on social networks and accounts of different services That do not resurrect me with ia. In Ars Technica They talked about this subject and raised the question: can you put in the will that they do not “resurrect” with ia? We do not know if someone has done it, but it may not serve much without clear legislation. If someone creates a ‘digital ghost’ of a deceased without permission, family members could request that it be eliminated, the problem is that it is the relatives themselves who request it (which would be the most logical). Cover image | Gemini In Xataka | Chatgpt is taking some people to the edge of madness. Reality is less alarmist and much more complex

Valencia’s TSJ does not agree

March 17, 2025 by usatoday24

Return to work after having suffered a heart attack and being intervened urgently is very hard. But that, when leaving the hospital, you have to drive a 674 km truck And it takes more than ten days to return home because the company has not organized the transfer to Spain is much worse. The cherry cherry is to make all that journey making cast stops and that, when you reach your destination, the company has prepared The dismissal letter. The story you have collected Genbeta It may seem surreal, but it is what happened in 2021 to a truck driver from Elche who, while he was making a long distance route through Europe, suffered a myocardial infarction and had to be treated in Germany. Now, the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia He has failed in his favor declaring the nullity of dismissal and setting compensation for the treatment received during his return to Spain. The truck driver incident As detailed The sentence From the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia, a truck driver of Elche lived a dramatic experience when on December 12, 2021, while driving on Germany on a long distance route to Norway, suffered a myocardial infarction and had to be hospitalized for three days to practice a catheterization. This incident occurred only three months after the driver was hired as a temporary worker with the aim of covering a new route. After being discharged in the German hospital, the truck driver found himself in a difficult situation that justice has described as “negligent actions” and “uncontending.” Despite having a work decline due to the surgical intervention they had undergone, the company demanded that it lead more than 674 kilometers to Strasbourg, where a partner who was on a route back to Spain picked him up and returned together. However, this return trip, far from being direct, included multiple stops and additional distribution tasks assigned to the partner he had collected. Finally, the return was an odyssey that lasted until eleven days later of the medical incident. Welcome home: You are fired The truck driver’s adventure did not end with his return to Spain. Upon arriving at Elche on December 23, He notified him the dismissed Without prior notice. The company did not officially communicate the dismissal until a week later, under the pretext of needing its presence to “sign documentation.” This dismissal was considered by the truck driver as zero for violation of fundamental rightsspecifically the right to physical and moral integrity. In addition, it was argued that dismissal occurred as a result of the worker’s state of health, which could be considered Disability discrimination. The company, meanwhile, tried to justify its actions. They argued that dismissal was not such, but a “valid extinction of a temporary employment contract due to the circumstances of production.” According to the company, temporary hiring responded to specific market needs, such as covering a new route to Norway and Sweden during the winter and Christmas campaign, and that service had concluded. The company insisted that, for the return, the instructions of the mutual for the worker’s medical assistance had been followed and denied any discrimination or violation of fundamental rights. However, these justifications were not enough to convince the court. The court ruling The Superior Court of Justice of Valencia issued a Judgment in favor of the truck driver. The High Court supported that the company had acted contrary to the protection of the worker’s physical integrity by forcing him to drive in precarious health conditions after having suffered a heart intervention. The sentence declared the nullity of dismissal forcing the company to readmit itand ordered compensation of 30,000 euros for the truck driver for moral damage derived from the management of his return home. The court rejected the company’s allegations on the legality of the TEMPORARY CONTRACT EXTINCTIONconsidering that the cause of temporality had not been properly justified. This judicial decision sends a clear message to companies about the need to prioritize the welfare and safety of their employees collected by article 19 of the Workers Statuteabove the operational demands. In Xataka | 40,000 euros for a croquette: Mercadona dismissed an employee for eating a croquette and must now compensate him Image | Wikimedia Commons (19Tarrestnom65), Unspash (Gabriel Santos)

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