American

FIFA had been trying for years to get soccer into the US. In this World Cup it has been American culture that has entered football

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Each match in the 2026 World Cup has been stopped twice for players to drink water. What FIFA sold as a medical standard has become one of the largest sources of advertising revenue in the history of football. The hydration break It is reminiscent of the one you already see in a LaLiga match in August, when the heat at four in the afternoon justifies it. Here, repeated in air-conditioned stadiums where more than one fan is seen wearing a cardigan, it sounds more like an excuse. It’s just the most visible symptom of something bigger. The panoramic. FIFA has been pursuing the American market for years without soccer finally gaining ground against basketball, American football or hockey. This summer he has changed his strategy: instead of selling football as it is, he has redesigned it with the cultural and television codes of the United States. Pauses that cut off the game, advertising in the middle of the game, celebrities paid to occupy the box, hospitality overflowing, very expensive tickets, a break from the final that doubles its usual duration to accommodate a concert… The tournament has also been played in Mexico and Canada, but it has not stopped sounding like the NFL and the NBA. The party has stopped being the product. He show prior, rest and show Later they are also products, they also compete for the same attention. In detail. The centerpiece is the hydration breaks: three minutes in the 22nd and 67th minutes of each of the 104 games, without discriminating by temperature. FIFA announced them in December as a health prevention and authorized television stations to fill the gap with up to two minutes and ten seconds of advertisements. It is not the only piece of the decoration: Halftime in the finals has been extended to about 30 minutes to accommodate a Super Bowl-style musical performance. One has appeared backroom VIP, very similar to the NFL boxes, where authorities, family and celebrities follow the game. Television production has adopted shots, access to locker rooms and tunnels that until now were the domain of American football. Between the lines. It is tempting to blame the United States for “Americanizing” soccer. But the one who has made every decision (breaks, calendar, 48 teams…) is FIFA, which has seen in the American entertainment model the fastest way to continue increasing income just when Europe, its traditional place, begins to show signs of stagnation. The French Ligue 1, without going any further, lost his television deals and has had to set up its own direct sales platform. behind the scenes. The change is not only a matter of changes in the regulations, it is also noticeable in how it is broadcast. The networks constantly cut to celebrities, boxes and reactions in the stands in search of the viral shot. Every break, every corner, every substitution is an opportunity for sponsorship, not just hydration. The fan in the stadium is no longer just a spectator, he is part of the set. The stands are lit, focused and edited, NFL style. In figures. The numbers explain why FIFA has been compensated for the change in model. The organization’s audiovisual income has grown by 36% compared to Qatar 2022, up to about 3,925 million dollars. Fox calculates entering between 250 and 500 million dollars only with the advertising of hydration breaks. A 20-second ad during a break has been sold in France for 425,000 euros. For the rights bid for 2030 and 2034, offers in the United States could start at $1 billion and reach $2 billion if both tournaments are packaged. Yes, but. Not all football has jumped on the bandwagon. The Premier League, the richest and least in need of new income, does not contemplate breaks: British regulations limit live advertisements and in England it is rarely as hot as would justify them. UEFA has said that He will not take them to the Champions League or the Euro Cup in 2028. And now what. CONMEBOL has already announced 90-second breaks for the Libertadores and the Sudamericana 2026. The MLS and the NWSL will negotiate their next rights with the World Cup precedent on the table. And FIFA is preparing the 2030 bid, with Spain as one of the venues, knowing that the networks will no longer pay only for the 90 minutes of the match: they will also pay for the minutes in which it stops. Featured image | FIFAXataka In Xataka | It is possible that today you will hear your neighbor sing Spain’s goal before you: the delay of streaming compared to DTT

80 years ago an American destroyer attacked what it believed to be an enemy submarine. We just discovered it was a sunken ship

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In June 1942, something unprecedented in modern American history happened: someone invaded them. In the middle of World War II, Japanese troops landed on Attu Island, in the extreme west of Alaska. What took place then was an icy and fleeting battle that resulted in the death of more than 3,000 people in less than three weeks. Faced with well-known operations reproduced ad nauseam in cinema on the European front or the South Pacific, the battle of Attu She was and is a great unknown. Eighty years later, the remains of that battle were still sunk on the seabed of the Aleutian Islands. Until nothing ago. The discovery. In July 2024, an archeology team funded by the US oceanographic agency NOAA and the US National Park Service carried out the first in-depth underwater exploration in the waters of Attu. There they found two shipwrecks from World War II: on the one hand, the Kotohira Maru, a Japanese military cargo ship sunk on January 5, 1943 by B-24 bombers. On the other hand, the SS Dellwood, an American cable ship that ran aground on an underwater pinnacle seven months later, on July 20, 1943. Both wrecks lie just 25 kilometers apart from each other. Why is it important. Because the Battle of Attu is probably the least studied campaign of the war and this finding is only the beginning of deeper research. Beyond recovering this military history, this discovery brings to the forefront another little-known tragedy: the one suffered by the Saskinax̂ indigenous people of Attu. After the occupation, the Saskinax̂ were deported to Japan, but when the war ended they were prohibited from returning: Attu had become a US military base. Of the 41 prisoners sent to Japan, only 25 survived and most ended up relocated to another island. Context. Despite being a brief and almost unknown battle, it was the fiercest: the ratio of American to Japanese casualties was the second highest of the war, only surpassed by the famous battle of Iwo Jima, as explained by the research team. The Kotohira Maru was bombed when it was trying to supply the troops isolated in Attu: it was carrying wood, food, fuel and construction materials, essential for the survival of the Japanese soldiers, who endured harsh climatic conditions (it is practically in the Arctic) and almost no trees. For its part, the SS Dellwood ran aground while laying communications cables between islands. In detail. To find the ships, the researchers dragged from their boat a high-resolution sonar capable of “photographing” the seabed with an accuracy of centimeters. When the sonar detected something of interest, they sent an underwater drone to investigate it closely with a video camera. In five days of work they inspected more than 1,000 targets at the bottom. But perhaps the most striking thing was not what they found, but what they solved. In May 1943, the destroyer USS Phelps attacked what it believed to be a Japanese submarine near Holtz Bay. They were wrong: this study has revealed that what the destroyer had detected as a submarine was actually the hull of the Kotohira Maru deposited on the seabed. Yes, but. The study has certain limitations. Strong underwater currents made the remote-controlled underwater robot’s work difficult, especially on the Kotohira Maru, leaving large areas of the wreck undocumented. The team recognizes that they need a more powerful robot to complete the job. There are also unanswered questions. Without going any further, the identity of the Kotohira Maru crew remains a mystery: the files only confirm that two people were rescued, a figure that the study’s own authors consider improbably low. And no one has yet addressed a thorny issue: who has legal sovereignty over these war wrecks. In Xataka | Barcelona started digging to build a parking lot. He ended up discovering a 10 m medieval ship of uncertain origin. In Xataka | The 17th century ship refloated in Cádiz held a surprise for archaeologists. One of more than 50 meters Cover | US Navy and Exploration of Alaska’s World War II Submerged Heritage: The Kotahira Maru and S.S. Dellwood Wreck Sites off Attu Island

The Trump Mobile T1 wanted to be the quintessential American mobile. It has turned out to be an absolutely Chinese mobile

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Donald Trump was determined that Apple will build the iPhone in the United States and he managed to get them to take steps in that direction, but it soon became clear that the 100% American iPhone was a utopia. Things didn’t go as planned, so he did something very Trump: announce its own smartphone made in the USA. After almost a year since its announcement, the Trump Mobile T1 is already has reached the hands of several analysts and the conclusion is that nothing American. The mobile phone is an old acquaintance and It is mostly made in China. An HTC U24 Pro with a coat of paint It is the summary of what they have discovered after analyzing it in detail in iFixit. The mobile phone that promised to be 100% manufactured in the United States is an almost carbon copy of the HTC U24 Prowith the main difference that its back cover is gold and has the American flag engraved with the text ‘Trump Mobile’. The differences come down to color, the camera module and little else There are other cosmetic changes, such as the speaker grill having a different pattern and the camera module having a different design, with an oval piece encompassing the three lenses (which by the way is completely misaligned in the photos on the official website). At the specifications level, the only change is that the battery is a little larger than in the original HTC, but it loses the 60W fast charge and is left with only 30W. At the internal design level, iFixit says that matches point by point with the original HTC model: same component layout, same motherboard and same screen. In terms of specifications, the HTC U24 Pro was launched in summer 2024, so it does not have the most cutting-edge features. We are talking about a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chip, 12GB of RAM, 512GB of capacity and a 6.78-inch screen (although the Trump Mobile website says it is 6.8 inches). Made in China, assembled in the USA (or almost) First of all, it should be noted that the mobile was announced as “designed and built in the United States”, but In January of this year they lowered the promise by others like “designed with American values ​​in mind” or “proudly assembled in the USA.” This already gave clues of what was to come and the iFixit breakdown confirms it: it is very little American. In 2017, HTC sold a large part of its smartphone division to Googleabandoning frontline manufacturing. Since then, HTC has turned to Chinese ODMs to be able to manufacture and assemble its phones. Although they have not confirmed it directly, according to The Verge investigation Everything indicates that the HTC U24 Pro is manufactured in Guangdong Yuanchang Electronics, located in (surprise) Guangdong, China. According to Trump Mobile, the device is assembled in Miami, Florida. Specifically, they say the phone is assembled from “about ten pieces,” which is just enough for the FTC to allow them to use the label. ‘assembled in the USA’. To achieve ‘made in USA’ status that Trump so desired, the FCT is much stricter and requires that “all significant processing” and “all or substantially all” components be manufactured in the United States. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | In its quest to manufacture the iPhone at home, the US has achieved something historic: that the majority of its smartphones come from India

gain ground among American companies

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Not so long ago, the idea of ​​an American company directly paying a Chinese company like DeepSeek to use artificial intelligence would have sounded, at the very least, unlikely. Not because there was a lack of alternative models, but because the enterprise AI board seemed dominated by the big names of Silicon Valley and by a growing concern around data, security and technological dependency. But the expense is starting to weigh. And when a technology becomes expensive to maintain at scale, some companies begin to look beyond the usual vendors. The data. The specific sign appears in Ramp’s monthly lista New York-based company that processes business expenses and sorts the software providers its customers purchase for the first time. In June 2026, DeepSeek ranked first in that ranking. The data was also collected by SCMPwhich introduced it as part of a move by some US companies toward more affordable AI options over alternatives like OpenAI and Anthropic. What Ramp measures. The nuance is important, because this ranking does not say that DeepSeek has surpassed OpenAI or Anthropic in total enterprise use. As we say, Ramp classifies the suppliers that its clients buy for the first time, which serves to detect early signs of interest, but not to automatically convert them into consolidated market share. In other words, DeepSeek appears as a trending provider within that spending universe, not as the new leader of enterprise AI in the United States. It’s not just open source. Ramp’s precision is relevant because it separates two very different scenarios: using an open source model within the infrastructure itself or contracting DeepSeek directly as a provider. In this case, Kharazian assures that the spending data points to the latter and summarizes it like this: “Companies are sending and receiving data directly through DeepSeek.” That nuance explains why the movement attracts so much attention. We are not just talking about companies testing Chinese technology in isolation, but about direct payments and use of the service. The underlying explanation is in the cost. Kharazian notes that companies are adopting more disciplined management of AI spending and that he expected more interest in open models or cheaper options from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. What he did not expect, he explains, was that American companies would end up using DeepSeek. Therefore, the Chinese service remains part of a business conversation marked by invoices that are increasingly difficult to ignore. Proportion matters. DeepSeek now appears high on the monthly list of trending providers, but its previous figures within the Ramp AI Index show that we are still talking about a small phenomenon. According to Kharazian, the Chinese company went from 0.3% enterprise adoption in January 2025 to 0.1% shortly after, and in April 2026 it was still around that level. In that same index, Anthropic and OpenAI concentrated 34.4% and 32.3%, respectively. The reasonable reading, therefore, is not that DeepSeek has caught up with the leaders, but that it has re-entered the radar of some American companies. The complete photograph. According to the firm, companies are not only looking towards Chinese models, but also towards open models and model inference and deployment platforms such as Fireworks AI, fal AI and DeepInfra. In any case, the message for Silicon Valley is clear: some American companies are willing to look at alternatives that recently seemed much more difficult to imagine. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | France has been determined to rob Spain of its position as a data center power in Europe

American chipmakers keep making money there

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China is unequivocally the largest market in the world if we stick to the size of its industrial productionto the volume of your e-commerce already its export capacity. If you look at your adjusted gross domestic product purchasing power parity, also leads. However, if we stick to its nominal gross domestic product and domestic consumption per capita, USA is ahead. Be that as it may, depending on the metric we observe, the country led by Xi Jinping establishes itself as the first or second largest market. Its leadership in some sectors, such as financial services or software, is not entirely clear. And, for this reason, it can be argued. However, in the area of electric cars, steel production either semiconductorsChina leads with authority. In fact, its integrated circuit market is larger than that of the US, Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. And American companies are not at all immune to this reality. The report “Hurun Top 100 American Companies in China 2026”, which has been prepared by the Hurun Research Institute, defend that the income of twenty-six American semiconductor companies grew on average by 20% in China in 2025 despite the trade tensions between the US and China. Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD or Intel are some of them. In the current confrontation scenario It is surprising that China remains such an important market for American IC companies. The Chinese market continues to grow A note before we move forward: Hurun Research Institute is part of Hurun Inc., a media, data analytics and investment company founded in 1999 by British entrepreneur and analyst Rupert Hoogewerf. The report I told you about a few lines above follows the trajectory of 100 publicly traded US companies and pays close attention to their economic performance in China over the past year. Western Digital, Analog Devices and AMD have led this expansion Curiously, 26 of the 100 companies with the highest income from this Asian country belong to the semiconductor sector, which has been classified as strategic by both the US and China. And among the 10 with the highest revenue during 2025 are Qualcomm, Nvidia, Intel, Broadcom, Applied Materials and AMD. Another interesting fact: Western Digital, Analog Devices and AMD have led this expansion with an interannual growth rate of 43%, 34% and 24% respectively. The three occupy positions 33, 30 and 10 on Hurun’s list. Nvidia is not one of the American companies that has grown the most in China for a compelling reason: it is the most damaged company due to the export controls that the Donald Trump Administration has deployed. Be that as it may, Rupert Hoogewerf has pointed out in a statement that “the strong momentum in this report underscores the Chinese market’s robust demand for computing power for artificial intelligenceof high-end chips, and also the expansion of the semiconductor industrial chain.” Image | Intel More information | SCMP In Xataka | The chip of the future comes from Japan: it is 1,000 times faster than current semiconductors and does not heat up

If you live in Madrid or Barcelona, ​​it is possible that a Latin American bookstore has opened next to your house

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The indomitableopened four months ago in the Madrid neighborhood of Prosperidad and directed by a Mexican. A few meters from Retiro Park, the now classic The Retreat of Lettersowned by two Colombians. In Arganzuela, the Argentine bookstore Mandolin It inaugurated its first Madrid branch a year ago. It is not an isolated or spontaneous phenomenon. It responds to an accumulation of demographic, editorial and economic factors that go beyond the folklore chronicle. From rookies to veterans. In this panorama, the most recent projects coexist with initiatives that have been established for a few years. The Mistral It opened in 2021 in the hall of the old Arenal Theater, two minutes from Puerta del Sol, by the Argentine Andrea Stefanoni, and was considered the most beautiful bookstore in the world by National Geographic that same year. His fame allowed him to organize a short story contest that received 150 manuscripts from different countries. Closer in time, in 2020, a couple of Venezuelans inaugurated The little beings also in Madrid, where they sell new and used books with special attention to Venezuelan and Latin American production. Olavidefounded by two Argentine journalists, combines book sales with cultural activities. AND Late Space It simultaneously functions as a bookstore, cafeteria and headquarters of Late, an Ibero-American network of narrative journalism founded as a cooperative by professionals from Colombia, Spain and Cuba. Repeating pattern. Although they are founded by Latin Americans, these bookstores do not operate exclusively with the diaspora as clientele. They are neighborhood bookstores in the most classic sense: children’s collection, independent labels and a personal relationship between bookseller and customer. They organize workshops and reading clubs. Sometimes they even serve cuisine from their places of origin. As a reflection of this phenomenon, the Madrid Book Fair of 2025 dedicated a table of its Meeting of Independent Ibero-American Bookstores to the phenomenon. The figures behind the phenomenon. The most recent breakdown by Latin American origin available, the analysis of the Elcano Royal Institute Based on INE data as of January 1, 2024, there were 4.25 million people born in Latin America residing in Spain (9% of the total population and 48% of all immigrants). The trend behind that figure has not slowed down: during 2024, the largest increases in the foreign population were once again concentrated in Colombians (+98,057), Venezuelans (+52,555) and Moroccans (+48,306), according to the INE. in December 2025. The accumulated result is that as of January 1, 2026, Spain has exceeded the 10 million inhabitants born abroad. A community of that magnitude, concentrated in large cities, generates cultural demand. But… why is this demand channeled towards the opening of own bookstores and not only towards consumption in establishments that already exist? The distribution obstacle. Part of the answer lies in how the transatlantic publishing market works. That Spain and Latin America share a language does not mean that they share a catalog: for example, El Retiro de las Letras imports directly from publishers in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Argentina to make authors visible that do not reach Spain through conventional distribution channels. Combed Cana bookstore specialized in Latin American fiction with offices in Barcelona and Madrid, recognizes that half of its titles are not distributed in Spain and that These copies cannot be returned if they do not sell.. It is a risk of excess stock that large chains are not willing to assume. The bookstore Juan Rulfoproperty of the Economic Culture Fund of Spain, and the Ibero-American Bookstoreopen in Madrid’s Barrio de las Letras since 2004, have been covering that specialized niche for decades. To those establishments have been added in recent years dozens of projects promoted by immigrants that multiply the offer, from bookstores specialized 100% in Latin American narrative to hybrid spaces with a focus on culture. Relief in the sector. The context of the book sector in Spain is not immune to this phenomenon. There are 2,754 independent bookstores active in Spainand although it is a figure in permanent declinethe business going well in economic terms: In 2024, the Spanish publishing sector had a turnover of 3,037 million euros, 6.3% more than in 2023, in its eleventh consecutive year of growth and with the highest figure since 2008. How do you explain that establishments fall while turnover rises? 85% of closures are caused by the retirement of the bookseller. Latin American booksellers are occupying a space where replacements are scarce, in residential neighborhoods of large cities where the traditional bookstore has closed. The limits of the phenomenon. It is advisable not to exaggerate the scope of the phenomenon. A few dozen bookstores founded by Latin American immigrants in Madrid and Barcelona do not reconfigure the Spanish publishing ecosystem. Spanish book exports in 2024 reached 381 million euros, aimed mainly at Ibero-American countrieswhich indicates that the flow of books between Spain and Latin America continues to be mostly in the opposite direction. What these bookstores do represent is a symptom: that of an immigrant community with sufficient cultural roots to invest in a business with fair profitability and that demands a very high vocation. A sector where the main problem is that retirements are multiplying and where there is a Latin American catalog with four million potential readers who continue to need intermediaries willing to cross the Atlantic. In Xataka | The 24 most beautiful bookstores in the world

American refrigerator or 70 cm Combi? Be careful with making mistakes when buying liters that you may not be able to use

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I don’t know about you, but when I go to the grocery store, it often feels like I’m preparing for a catastrophe. Many of us live at home and I don’t like going shopping every other day, so I try to put in the cart what I need for at least a week. What’s happening? Then you need space at home to store it.. I have plenty of cabinets and drawers, but my kitchen refrigerator doesn’t have as much space as I would like. Even though I don’t have a kitchenettethis whole situation has made me consider more than once about jumping into an American refrigerator (you know, the ones with two doors with a left-right distribution). But, Is it really worth it compared to a wide combi? Let’s see which one can fit best in your kitchen and your needs. Bespoke AI American Refrigerator 178cm 659L Class E Inox RS70F65QETEF The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Choosing an American refrigerator If you start browsing stores looking for an American refrigerator, you will see that they all have a very large capacity measured in liters. This is something that cannot take us by surprise, although it has a certain “trick”, since it adds the space of the refrigerator to the freezer. What not many people notice is that, although these refrigerators are very large, the reality is that they are also narrow. And that’s where it comes in the pizza box test. There’s not much science to it, it’s just what you think: since the shelves are narrower, a pizza box does not fit horizontally. This is the most visual example, but you can take it to other everyday things that you are more likely to keep in your refrigerator. There we can include food trays, cakes, large tupperware or even watermelons if they are large. Now, what you lose in width you gain in height. This is ideal if you are one of those who practices batch cooking and you cook in one sitting for several days, so you can stack the tupperware without any problem. In addition, you can also take advantage of the more vertical distribution of the refrigerator to your advantage, placing the things you use most at the top and the things you use least at the bottom. More things to keep in mind about these refrigerators. First, the best thing they have: the freezer. The left-right distribution means that we have plenty of room to freeze things of all kinds and have them very well organized. Not only that, but its more vertical distribution also means that we can have a lot of space at eye level and not have to bend down every time we want to check what we have frozen. All this has a price (and never better said), since American refrigerators have higher energy consumption. There is also the issue of the water and/or ice dispenser that these types of refrigerators normally come with. It depends on the model, but there are those that need a water intake to make this workalthough there are others that have a tank that we can fill without the need for installation. And, speaking of installation, be careful with American refrigerators: they are deeper. This can make them stand out from the line of the furniture, something that aesthetically does not look very good. Choose a wide combi The vast majority of vans in stores are about 60 centimeters wide. We would not put one of these to compete in capacity with an American, but things change if we add 10 centimeters to the formula. It seems like very little difference, but from 70 centimeters wide, the combi gains a lot more capacity. And, of course, without taking up as much space in the kitchen as an American refrigerator. These pass the pizza box test without breaking a sweat, since its shelves are much wider. Now, the extra total capacity they gain is not enough to beat the American refrigerators. Not through the refrigerator, but through the freezer. There they clearly lose out, so if you have a freezer full of food, it may not be worth it to go for a combi. There is also the issue of consumption. It will depend a lot on the model we choose, but as a general rule, one of these wide combis It will consume less energy than an American refrigerator. It will not be a consumption figure large enough for us to rule out the Americans, but it will be something to take into account. The good and the bad of both options, face to face American refrigerator wide combi THE GOOD 🟢 Plenty of space to freeze and stack tupperware in the fridge You can have frozen products at eye level so you don’t have to bend down all the time Much more horizontal capacity for large containers and takes up less space Less electricity consumption THE BAD 🔴 Uses more light and has less horizontal space to store large things The “aisles” of the refrigerator are narrow, so if you put something bulky you won’t see what’s behind it Your freezer doesn’t do much, so you may have to juggle if you freeze a lot of food. Ideal for: Kitchens with a lot of space and for large families who need a huge freezer Smaller kitchens and for storing very wide trays or containers without a problem In summary: 👉 Choose an American refrigerator if: You have plenty of space and if you prioritize maximum capacity in your freezer. 👉 Choose a wide van Yeah: You prefer to have wide shelves and you want a large refrigerator, but not gigantic. Recommended models American refrigerator: Bespoke AI RS70F65QETEF As an American refrigerator option, we have this one from Samsung. Here we are talking about a refrigerator with a total capacity of 659 litersdivided into 239 liters for the freezer and 420 liters for the refrigerator. The refrigerators from this … Read more

China has invented the coldest helium-free alloy in the world. The American DARPA is not going to like it

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In addition to having an extremely high voice, filling balloons or scuba diving, the most widespread use of helium is in refrigeration, a crucial task in countless tasks ranging from magnets for magnetic resonance imaging to particle accelerators (with conventional helium or Helium-4) to cryogenic cooling for quantum computing or neutron detectors (Helium -3). Critical industries. Because yes, everything is helium, but the circumstances change depending on the isotope. Thus, while Helium-4 is abundant in the atmosphere but difficult to retain (it escapes into the atmosphere due to its lightness), Helium-3 is scarce on Earth and is also difficult to obtain: it is a byproduct of the aging of tritium nuclear warheads. Simply put: the helium needed to cool quantum computers and cutting-edge physics acts as a bottleneck to research. A Chinese research team has published in Nature a solution: a metal alloy that cools almost to absolute zero without needing helium. The invention. It is a metallic alloy, EuCo₂Al₉ (ECA), a rare earth intermetallic compound capable of reaching 106 millikelvin (–273.05 °C), thus establishing a record: it is the lowest temperature achieved by a metallic magnetocaloric material without using helium-3. Another peculiarity is that it combines two seemingly antagonistic properties: it acts like a sponge that absorbs heat from the environment and its thermal conduction is between 50 and 100 times greater than other similar materials. A combination that postulates it to be the definitive supercoolant. The network structure, its interactions and the resulting supersolid spin state. Chinese Academy of Sciences Why is it important. We have already seen that helium-3 is a rare commodity and its usefulness in advanced physics and quantum computing. Finding an alternative opens the door to alleviating that bottleneck, although it is still in an early stage. Historically the largest global suppliers of helium-3 They have been the United States and Russiaas a byproduct of its nuclear programs. With this invention, China is one step closer to achieving independence of this strategic resource because it currently imports almost all of the helium-3 it consumes (95%, according to this paper 2024). But the United States is also interested: at the end of January, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a call to develop a modular helium-3-free cooling system for quantum and defense technologies. In less than two weeks I had the solution, yes, from China. Context. The superconducting quantum computers They require working below 1 Kelvin and in that scenario the standard for decades has been dilution refrigeration technology. In a few words and in a simplified way: expensive refrigeration contraptions that occupy cubic meters and need helium-3 continuously. This limits its scalability, practically limiting it to specialized laboratories. Adiabatic demagnetization cooling on which the ECA is based is not new, in fact the concept is a century oldbut its features have never been up to par. As explains the CASthe endemic problem was its poor thermal conductivity. According to the South China Morning PostPeking University already built two refrigerators using this principle in 2024, which have been operational for several months. How have they done it. The cooling technique is called adiabatic demagnetization (ADR): a magnetic field is applied to the cold material, so that the internal “magnets” of the material align and release heat to the outside. When the magnetic field is removed, they return to their natural disordered state, absorbing heat from the surroundings, thereby lowering the temperature. To solve the historical problem of low conductivity, ECA enters an unusual “metallic spin supersolid” physical state, which combines high heat absorption capacity with thermal conductivity similar to a conventional metal. Yes, but. Being able to drop the temperature to 106 mK is remarkable, but the reality is that classic dilution systems in their most advanced version are capable of reaching 10 mK or less. And this is where much of quantum computing operates. In short: there is still a thermal gap to overcome. On the other hand, it is a first step: going from laboratory material and even a prototype to the industrial or military environment is a long road. Scalability and costs will be decisive. Finally, it should be noted that the composition of the ECA includes Europium (in addition to cobalt and aluminum), a rare earth that makes the operation difficult and expensive. Nevertheless, China starts from a privileged positionas long as it is the absolute leader in this industry. In Xataka | Spiderman’s web is no longer science fiction: China has just created something very similar after years of vetoes In Xataka | Japan has a rare earth megadeposit: 700 years of consumption to challenge China Cover | VALGO, ASML

Madrid stew. An American team manages to grow chickpeas in lunar regolith

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A team from the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M has achieved that a handful of chickpea plants complete their life cycle in a substrate that imitates the lunar regolith. That is to say, (for the first time) it has been possible for a legume of direct nutritional interest to germinate, develop flowers and produce seeds in a medium of this type. But, let’s go for twists. Grow chickpeas on the Moon!? Although that is the most striking headline, the truth is that it is not exactly that what researchers have shown. We have been trying to find ways to grow crops in the lunar regolith for years and, in fact, the tests that were done in 2022 on real samples were a failure. For this reason, the team has focused on demonstrating that a sterile substrate could be transformed into something similar to arable soil by exploring the symbiosis between the plant in question and a fungus. That is, the crucial thing is that they have managed to ‘bioremediate’ the pulverized rock. And what did they do? The researchers got together chickpeas with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi drastically improve the absorption of water and nutrients, increase resistance to stress and function for practical purposes as natural biofertilizers. The chickpeas in question flowered and produced seeds in soil containing up to 75% simulated regolith. In the soil composed of 100% simulated regolith they couldn’t get them to give seedsbut the step forward is incredible. Above all, because we have gone from a proof of concept in which lPlants could survive with a lot of stress to one where they can generate crops. The choice of plant is also interesting. Typically, space agricultural research has focused on short-cycle leafy vegetables and, indeed, lettuces. have been cultivated on the ISS for a long time. The problem, as researchers say, is that these vegetables serve to complement the diet, but do not contribute much nutritionally. Chickpeas (with their 15 grams of protein per cup and almost all essential amino acids) are something else. However, the question is important: does it make sense to plant on the Moon? And the answer, as Raúl Herranz of the CSIC points outit’s just not right now. If you need 25% of the necessary soil, mushrooms and some worms… it is probably more efficient to carry the chickpeas packaged. Luckily, this is only the beginning of the journey and there is still a long way to go before the final turnaround. The good news is that we are getting closer. Image | Salvatore G2 – POT In Xataka | A study has tried to find out why space food is so bad: it’s not the food, it’s the astronauts

With the fashion of American kitchens, a refrigerator that makes noise can be torture when watching TV. How to choose well to avoid it

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How cool American kitchens are. You have, without walls, doors or partitions in between, the kitchen next to the living room and dining room. I love the concept itself, but there are two things that have always raised doubts in my mind. One is the smell, because imagine starting to do something that doesn’t smell good (like cooking cauliflower or making some fried fish, for example) and going to the couch to watch TV while you do it. And then there is the issue of noise. Of course, here you may think that it is the price to pay for having everything in the same space and you are right. If everything is together, you have to assume that, while you cook, you will have noise next to the TV. But the stove, the extractor or the oven are not the only things that make noise in a kitchen. What’s wrong with the refrigerator? This appliance makes noise and is not like the rest of the things in the kitchen: it is always working. For this reason, if you have an American kitchen, It is essential that you choose carefully which refrigerator you are going to place in it. Yes, it’s about looking at what decibels it emits, but there is something to it. I explain everything you need to know about the subject. Two or three dB more than necessary are enough to ruin your movie night A refrigerator is not as noisy as a washing machine when it starts spinning like crazy, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sound. In houses or apartments with traditional kitchens, this is not a problem. I have been living in my apartment for more than 20 years and, since the kitchen is at one end, I barely know the noise my refrigerator makes. Things change if the kitchen is American. I put you in situation. Imagine that you are on the couch watching a movie with a blanket and popcorn. During shootings and explosions you will not hear anything other than the TV, but things change when there is dialogue or even nothing at all. There, if your refrigerator sounds more than necessary, you are going to hear a hum that is anything but pleasant. Okay, but how do I know how loud a refrigerator sounds? If you take a look at the technical data sheet of any refrigerator, you will find the sound it emits measured in decibels (or dB). It is obvious that the higher the dB number, the greater the noise it emits. What is not so obvious is that A difference of just 3 dB will make us perceive twice as much noise.. To put it bluntly: a refrigerator that emits 40 dB or more in a kitchenette can be really annoying when watching TV. The ideal is to search for this type of spaces a refrigerator that emits 39 dB or less. But of course, since two or three dB less is noticeable, the less the refrigerator emits, the better. The noise comes from the compressor, but not all are the same We have talked about the noise, but not its origin. The sound that refrigerators emit comes from their compressor, which is responsible for keeping your food and drinks very cool. And what does that matter to me for my American kitchen? The answer is very simple: depending on the type of compressor or motor, the type of noise is not the same. Refrigerators that are a few years old have a traditional motor or compressor. This, in summary, only has two modes: either it’s off or it’s on. If the refrigerator detects that the temperature inside is too high, it starts the compressor at full speed to cool down. This means that, when this happens (which often happens if you open the door too much, for example), we will hear a loud noise when starting, followed by a humming noise that will last until the compressor stops. That changes with Inverter motors. These are basically always on and they regulate their speed depending on the temperature. If you open the door and it gets a little cold, speed up a little. However, if your refrigerator has been closed for a long time, it will run very slowly, so the noise will be less. This way, the noise made by the refrigerator will be quieter most of the time. And of course, you get rid of the “noise” of the traditional compressor when starting up. If you are looking to save as much as possible, refrigerators with traditional compressors are cheaper. In price, because traditional compressors consume significantly more energy than inverter motors. However, I would only place one of these in a conventional kitchen and away from the living room or bedrooms. For an American kitchen, in 100% of cases, I would always recommend a refrigerator with an inverter motor. Not only because they tend to emit, on average, less noise. It is due to the fact that we are not going to hear them start suddenly, something that does happen (and very often) with those that have a conventional engine and that can be annoying if we have the refrigerator next to the TV. Therefore, with that clear, it is time to take a good look at the dB. The good and the bad of both options, face to face 36 dB or less between 37 and 39 dB THE GOOD 🟢 You won’t hear it even when the protagonists of your movie look at each other without speaking. They are cheaper and, at the same price, you get a refrigerator to store more food or drinks THE BAD 🔴 It is a more expensive option that may cause you to have to cut back on capacity or features You will hear a slight hum while watching TV that can take you out of the movie Ideal for: Do not hear any type of hum or vibration when watching TV Families who … Read more

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