animal

The complex science behind nose-to-nose contact in the animal kingdom

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The kiss for humans is undoubtedly a summit of human romanticism or the closeness between two people, and when we focus on the animal world and see them doing our ‘Eskimo kiss’ by bringing their noses together, we believe that they also they are romanizing. But the reality is that touching noses mutually is not just a sign of affection, but a high-speed data transfer. What has been seen. A new scientific review published in 2026 in Evolution and Human Behavior has brought order to decades of scattered observations of this type of communication. Their conclusion is quite clear: from bats to pigs and rats, nose-to-nose contact is one of nature’s most sophisticated communication tools. And yes, our human kiss could simply be a version 2.0 of this ancient biological mechanism. The second olfactory system. To understand why animals rub their noses, you first have to understand that most mammals smell the world in stereo, but with two different systems. The first of these is the main olfactory system that detects volatile odors such as the smell of rain. But the second goes much further, since is centered on the vomeronasal system (VMO)which is a structure specialized in detect pheromones and non-volatile substances. Its importance. This second olfactory system is the one that interests us in this case, since the signals captured by this organ do not pass through the usual filters of rational thought; They rapidly project to the amygdala and hypothalamus, the command centers for emotion, aggression, and sexual behavior. This way, when two beavers they bump their noses, they are not “greeting” each other politely; you are injecting pure chemical information about your hormonal status and health directly into your limbic system. The language of noses. The touch of two noses has many more functions than a simple sign of affection, and depending on the species, a touch of the nose can be a sentence of submission or a medical check-up. In the case of rats, nose-to-nose contact is a political tool. The queen uses intense nudging and nose contact not to demonstrate love, but to exert dominance and reproductive suppression. It’s their way of chemically reminding subordinates who’s boss and inhibiting their ability to reproduce. The success of the pigs. In livestock farming and applied ethology, nasal contact between piglets is a performance metric. The studies cited by Rasmussen show a direct correlation: a greater frequency of nasal contacts is associated with greater weight gain and survival. This makes contact function as a social cohesion mechanism that reduces stress and improves the well-being of the group. The hedgehog accident. Although we may think that all contacts are social, in solitary animals such as the European hedgehog it has been documented that many of these encounters are accidental collisions. Basically, since they have very poor vision, they approach each other olfactorily until they collide. What is interesting is what happens next in cats and other small mammals: sudden immobility. The animal “hangs” momentarily processing the chemical sensory overload it has just received. The modern kiss. Although we do something similar with kisses, even with Eskimo kisses, the truth is that we have lost a large part of the functionality of the vomeronasal organ. But it is true that we maintain the behavior. A study carried out in 2023 published in Science dismantled the myth that the kiss is a recent invention, since it was already seen in Mesopotamia and Egypt that The lip-to-lip kiss existed 4,500 years ago. Its meaning. Anthropologists suggest that behaviors such as hongi Maori, the honi Hawaiian or the misnamed “Eskimo kiss” (kunik) of the Inuit are the missing links. In these practices, the goal is not the touch of lips, but rather the sharing of breath and smell in intimate proximity. The human kiss, with all its cultural load, could be an evolutionary remnant of that biological need to get close enough so that our brains could chemically “read” each other. What for a bat is an identity recognition, For us it has become a sign of intimacy, but the underlying hardware has a common origin: the need to communicate what cannot be said with words (or with grunts). Images | Simon Hurry In Xataka | It seemed like a hidden risk for celiac sufferers, but post-pizza kisses do not worry science

The problem with animal experimentation is not a lack of ethics, it is that science still does not have a plan B

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Scientific research is very necessary for a society to advance with new treatments to alleviate diseases, for example. But there is a big problem behind it that still lingers and that for many people may be incomprehensible: the use of laboratory animals to test these new advances before doing them in humans. And, as recognized by the Spanish scientific community: “we would use alternative methods if we could.” A paradox. Although we live in a time in which artificial intelligence and bioengineering dominate the current paradigm of society, we continue to depend on a frame designed in 1959 to validate whether a drug is safe or not. This happens for the use of animal experimentationwhich has been a major ethical conflict within science for years. The problem is that despite all the advances that exist, the use, for example, of a laboratory mouse cannot be replaced due to the lack of an alternative that is as complete as this one. The problem. The regulatory framework that is currently on the table focuses on the 3R principle proposed by Russell and Burch more than 60 years ago: Replacement, Reduction and Refinement. A theory that a priori seems quite noble, since In a few words it can be summarized in: if you can not use animals, don’t use them; If you have to use them, use as few as possible; and if you use them, do them as little damage as possible. However, as science itself has analyzed, this framework has become ‘procedural’. That is to say, it has become a list of bureaucratic tasks that legitimizes the use of animals under the pretext that it is a necessary evil that we must assume to continue advancing as a society. The ethics. The bioethical analyzes carried out on this matter focus on the type of studies that are approved to use animals. And it is not analyzed at this point whether it will contribute much or little to scientific knowledge, but rather how the proposed experiment is designed. This way, if an experiment is well designed, it is approved to use animals. All this despite the fact that their contribution to knowledge is marginal or insignificant. Something that creates an “ethical hole”: we continue to assume certain animal harm in exchange for an uncertain or diffuse human benefit. The great promise. If ethics pushes us to change, technology should give us the tool to do so. This is where NAMs (New Approach Methods) come into play, which focus on AI simulations of organisms, organs on a chip or organoids. In this way, we can understand this advance as the cultivation of mini-brains or human kidneys in the laboratory to work with them. Something that on paper seems like a great idea, since we would be testing drugs with human cells directly, eliminating the problem of testing on a different species. The problem. When we go down to the technical detail, we find a large wall in front of us. As the experts explainthese technologies cover specific niches, such as the damage that a drug can do to the liver, but they cannot replicate the entire film. Because an organism is not only the effect on an organ, but how all the systems that we have interconnected influence. The problems encountered They can mainly be summarized in several points: There is no possibility of creating a blood system that cleans the tissue and nourishes it as occurs in the real organism. There is no immune or nervous system that can react to the drug or generate pain in an organ. In a chip with an ‘organ’ inside, the effect of the drug cannot be simulated several years from now. Prohibited areas. With all these points, there are fields as important as autoimmune diseases (when the body attacks its own cells) where These models are irreplaceable. All this because it is necessary to see the simultaneous interaction of all the organs in a living being. Regulation. Currently there are different organizations that try to prevent a drug from killing a person, such as the FDA in the United States and the EMA in Europe. Both agencies to approve a trial of a drug in humans demand massive security data that are taken from the animals themselves. In this way, the alternatives are not used massively because they are not validated by these organizations that require the use of animal models in their standards. An attitude that perpetuates the system, which for many is truly crazy, since science depends on animals if it wants to continue developing drugs that improve the lives of citizens. All this because no committee places more value on the life of a mouse than that of a human. The future. In the short term we will not see a big change in this aspect. Organoids and AI It does not seem that they are going to suddenly replace animal modelsbut will act as complementary systems to reduce the number used in laboratories. Images | Matthew Mejia In Xataka | Researchers removed Instagram and TikTok from 300 young people to see if their anxiety decreased. The results speak for themselves

The most farmed animal on the planet is not chickens, pigs, cows or fish: it is prawns.

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Christmas is a time of carols, millions of led lightsnougats, empachos and a particular culinary ‘lore’ in which prawns and prawns are not usually missing. If tomorrow you have the opportunity to taste them during New Year’s Eve dinner, think about the following: what you have before you, on the plate, They are unique animals for humanity. And they are for a very simple reason. There is no other species that we raise more massively, not even chickens. There are those who estimate that approximately 51% of all animals What we have on ‘farms’ are precisely decapods, especially prawns. Prawns galore. If these days (lucky you) you have the opportunity to enjoy a good tray of prawns you should know a couple of things. The first one there are two typesdepending on their origin: there are wild prawns, caught in the ocean and the coasts; and those from aquaculture, which come from specialized farms and play a crucial role to supply the market. These fish farms are also interesting for another reason: they represent the largest farms in the world, at least if we are based on the number of living animals they contain. There are many (many) more breeding animals in them than in farms specializing in chickens, pigs, cows or even insects and fish. Click on the image to go to the tweet. But are there so many? This is what he suggests a study from 2023 that a few months ago rescued in Asterisk Magazine Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla, former investment expert and co-founder of Shrimp Welfare Project (SWP), an organization dedicated precisely to promoting more ethical decapod breeding practices. The report estimates that the planet’s fish farms usually host around 230 billion of these creatures at any given time. To be more precise, between 150,000 and 370,000 million, which exceeds any other known farm animal estimate. Even, the authors clarify, insects. “440 billion (300-620 billion) farmed shrimp are slaughtered each year, far exceeding the number of the most numerous farmed vertebrates used for food production, such as fish and chickens,” specify the articlesigned by Daniela R. Waldhorn and Elisa Autric and published in August 2023 by Rethink Priorites. The photo is completed with the specimens that arrive our months from fishing at sea. Are there more figures? Yes. And they are striking. Although both authors acknowledge that today there is only “partial data”, there are studies that indicate that every year hundreds of thousands of decapods are grown in fish farms on the planet, especially prawns and shrimp, which represent more than 80% of the total. In their report (in English) Waldhorn and Autric generally speak of “shrimp”but when delving into the problems surrounding the aquaculture of these species, both authors provide some extra detail. For example, when listing the species with the highest number of deaths, they specifically cite the P. vannamei and P. monodon. The most correct In Spanish it is to speak of “prawns”, rather than “prawns”. A percentage: 51%. The figures for the aquaculture industry are overwhelming, but they are better understood when compared to those of other sectors dedicated to raising animals in captivity for consumption. Jiménez Zorrilla points out that, in generalregardless of the moment, prawns represent 51% of the total number of animals raised on farms. They are followed at a considerable distance by fish (23%), insects (19%), chickens (7%) and pigs and other livestock (< 1%). Translated into figures, this means that compared to the 230 billion shrimp and prawns that (on average) live in fish farms, there are ‘only’ 779 million pigs and 1.55 billion cattle, 33 billion chickens and 125 billion farmed fish. In case the data were not clear in itself, the activist points out that every year 440,000 million of these decapods are slaughtered for consumption, “more than four times the number of humans who have walked the Earth.” Why is it important? Because Jiménez Zorrilla, like Wadhorn and Austric in their day, do not limit themselves to probing the size of the industry. Its objective is not so much to answer the question of how many shrimp live in the world’s farmers as to draw attention to the conditions in which they develop. “The problem is larger in scale than that of insect farming, fishing or any vertebrate for human consumption,” researchers warn. “If these animals are sentient, current commercial practices pose serious welfare risks during cultivation, handling, sale and slaughter.” Image| Kawê Rodrigues (Unsplash) Via | DAP In Xataka | Prawns, prawns, shrimp, prawns and carabineros: how they differ and which ones are better

Ultra-rich tourism has found an oasis in Kenya. A Safari at $3,500 a night that blocks animal migration

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For some time now, conflicts between large tourism projects and fragile ecosystems have multiplied: from the megaresorts built next to mangroves in the Caribbean that destroy natural barriers, even the hotels built in areas turtle nesting or unregulated cabins that have degraded reserves in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Each case shows the same pattern: the promise of immediate economic development versus the risk of damaging landscapes that cannot be recovered. The last one: a safari that short the wings of many animals. A camp in the worst place. The story was told these days the new york times. The opening of Ritz-Carlton Masai Mara Safari Campwith its $3,500-a-night suites, private plunge pool and privileged views of the Sand River, has ignited a controversy that goes far beyond elite tourism: for Maasai leaders, local guides and ecologists, the resort has been built on one of the last areas free of construction and in the middle of the corridor through which millions of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles move every year between the Serengeti and the Mara. What Marriott presented as a “historic” raid in the high-end safari, many perceive it as the most serious threat to a natural corridor that supports one of the most important ecological spectacles on the planet. The complaint filed by the Maasai scholar Meitamei Olol Dapash It maintains precisely that: that it has been built in a critical space where decades of monitoring data confirm a continuous and irreplaceable migratory flow. Overwhelmed tourism. The Ritz-Carlton is not an isolated casebut the most recent symbol of a growth that has become explosive: from 95 camps in 2012 to 175 in 2024an increase that experts consider incompatible with the ecological capacity of the Mara. The rise of tourism has multiplied the number of vehicles that chase animals off-road, deteriorate vegetation and corner predators, as in the viral video of 2023 in which dozens of cars closed a circle around two cheetahs while they hunted. Added to this are the discharged wastewater to the rivers, the light pollution of the camps and the noise that alters the nocturnal routes of the fauna. Various species have already disappeared from the Mara (such as the african wild dog or the oryx) in a process that researchers describe as an inversely proportional relationship: when the tourism industry grows exponentially, fauna decreases in the same way. Ritz-Carlton An exceptional permit. Outrage grew when it was learned that the construction of the Ritz-Carlton was authorized despite the moratorium of 2023 that prohibited building new lodges within the reserve. The approval was based on a “one-time exemption” signed by President William Ruto’s leadership, a gesture that activists they interpret as the porch for an avalanche of uncontrolled luxury projects. Even more disconcerting, according to the Timesis the controversy over the supposed community consultation: signatures of Maasai who claim not to have participated in any meeting, questioned documents and a climate of vulnerability that makes many think that the most powerful took it for granted that no one would protest. For the inhabitants of the Mara, the feeling is that the process is deliberately jumped essential steps of environmental assessment and local participation. Ritz-Carlton A wall to block animals. The camp, it seems, is surrounded by an improvised wall of earth and grass that prevents seeing the interior and that, according to local guidesalready shows marks of animals trying to cross or climb it. It is, if you still stand still, an uncomfortable symbol: a luxurious refuge shielded from the rest of the environment and the communities that live a few meters away. For many Maasai guides, the barrier embodies a dangerous idea: that visitors can enjoy the ecosystem without having to face its real problems, isolated from the pressure that the camps exert on the territory. African conservationists have been calling for years for accommodation models with a minimal footprint (fewer rooms, removable structures, reversible impact) and a transition towards smaller, more sustainable conservancies, but the presence of large chains threatens to reverse that trend. The line that should not be crossed. The paradox is profound: the Maasai communities know that tourism is their main source of income and they don’t want to stop it. Hospitals, schools and scholarships exist thanks to visitors. What they demand is a model that does not destroy that which gives them life. For many, the problem is not Marriott itself, but its exact location: placing a permanent complex in a migration corridor sets a dangerous precedent that could open the door to future construction in equally sensitive areas. Young activists like Emmanuel Sananka they insist in which the fight is not against tourism, but against a model that ignores the local voice and prioritizes profitability over conservation. Faced with this, Marriott He defends that his camp generates employment (90% of the staff is Kenyan, and 40% local) and that it complies with environmental regulations, but mistrust persists. Ecosystem to the limit. In short, the conflict reveals a clash between two visions of the Mara: that of global luxury that sees it as an exclusive setting and that of the communities and scientists who consider it a living and fragile system where every square meter matters. The Ritz-Carlton embodies that stress point: a project that is too big, too fixed and located in the worst possible place. The court decision What is done will not only determine whether the camp remains or is removed, but also the direction of the entire Masai Mara tourism model in the next decade. It depends on what is decided the Great Migration It continues to flow as it has for millions of years… or it begins to fragment due to the same human pressure that claims to come to admire it. Image | Vencha, Ritzcarlton In Xataka | Someone wants to build a 144 meter high skyscraper in the middle of the port of Malaga. The reason: luxury tourism In Xataka | A robot called “Sardinator” circulated through the streets of Malaga promoting a … Read more

the animal ‘technology’ that is surpassing laboratories

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The story of Mwajuma Abdalla Ngema is that of thousands of people. He went to a clinic in Dar es Sallam (Tanzania) with a persistent cough and the first thing they did was to tuberculosis test which tested negative. After being discharged and a few days had passed, he received a call: the test was positive for tuberculosis, and the result did not come from a laboratory machine, but from the sense of smell of a giant African rat. The method. This scenario, which seems straight out of a science fiction movie, is the core of an innovative program led by the non-profit organization APOPO. In this case, using giant spider rats (Cricetomys ansorgei) have managed to create a tuberculosis detection system that is not only faster and cheaper, but in many cases is proving to be more effective than conventional methods. Tuberculosis. It remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world, causing 1.25 million deaths in 2023. One of the biggest challenges is detection, especially in those countries that have very limited resources to purchase reagents or appropriate machinery. And even if these possibilities are available, sputum analysis has limited sensitivity and some cases with a low bacterial load may occur. This is where the rats come in. APOPO, which initially began training them to detect landmines, discovered that their extremely acute sense of smell could be redirected to identify the specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that emits the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis in sputum samples. And the results speak for themselves. Scientific support. A published study in BMC Infectious Diseases reveals the incredible effectiveness of this method. During 2022, the program analyzed 35,766 samples in patients in Tanzania. Of these, local clinics gave a negative result to 33,866 of these samples through classical microscopy or Xpert tests. And this is where the rats came in to re-evaluate the results, offering a shocking fact: the rodents identified 2,029 additional cases of tuberculosis that would otherwise have been missed. This means that rats contributed to 52% of the total tuberculosis cases identified in the program, saving thousands of people from going undiagnosed and untreated. Speed ​​is also a key advantage: a rat can analyze 100 samples in less than 20 minutes, a task that would take a lab technician days. More effective. The true superpower of these “HeroRats,” as APOPO calls them, lies in their ability to detect the undetectable. The study showed that rats are six times more likely to detect tuberculosis in patients with a low bacterial load (“poor” or “1+” categories) compared to standard microscopy in clinics. This sensitivity is especially crucial for children, whose diagnosis of tuberculosis is notoriously difficult due to the low concentration of bacteria and the difficulty in obtaining quality sputum samples. But this is not a problem for rats, which are twice as likely to identify a case of TB in a child than in an adult. The training. Behind each correct diagnosis is a rigorous training process that lasts between nine months and a year at the APOPO center in Morogoro. Trainers socialize the pups from four weeks old to create a trusting rat-researcher bond. Although coexistence is not easy, according to the APOPO coordinator himself, he states that “at first there are trust problems (…) The rat has to trust that I am not a threat, and I have to be sure that it will not bite me.” Once the bond has been created, training is based on positive reinforcement. The rats are presented with several samples and are rewarded with food when they correctly identify a sample that is positive. And logically, before becoming a ‘diagnostic system’ they must have a score of 10/10 by correctly identifying positive samples. Economy. In addition to being effective, it is also a very economical solution. The cost of analyzing a sample with a rat is about 2,600 Tanzanian shillings (about 0.90 euros), while a smear scan costs between 4,700 and 7,000 shillings. And if we talk about a molecular test like PCR, we are going up to 42,000 shillings. This means that after a useful life of seven years, the rats “retire” having saved a lot of money, saving lives and ending his days in the center of Morogoro. Hundreds of thousands of lives. Since its inception, APOPO has analyzed more than 900,000 different samples and detected more than 30,000 cases of tuberculosis that health systems had missed. This is something that has prevented approximately 300,000 new contagion infections, because an untreated person can infect between 10 and 15 people a year. The success in Tanzania and Ethiopia has prompted APOPO to plan to open more laboratories in northern Tanzania and even to transfer the idea to neighboring countries that also have a very high prevalence of this disease. Images | National Institute of Allergy In Xataka | A silent epidemic is killing more and more humans around the planet: fungal infections

Pleasure, homosexuality and STDs in the animal kingdom. A specialist dismantles myths on how sex works outside our species

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Forget about the idea that animals only have sex to reproduce. Dolphins, bats, rams, bonobos or lions show that homosexual pleasure and behaviors are also part of nature. And not only that: there are species that change sex, that transmit diseases such as chlamydia or that transform their body to imitate genitals. All this composes a panorama as unexpected as fascinating. Science and apartthe Xataka section that was born to look at science with magnifying glass and do it in the company of experts, Return with a new episode in Our YouTube channelalso available on Spotify and Ivoox. On this occasion, Ángela Blanco interviews Ricardo MoureBiologist and Doctor in Biotechnology, with a very clear purpose: to explore what biology has discovered about sex in animals and leave aside the myths that we still drag. One of the points of the conversation is homosexuality in the animal kingdom. Moure clarifies from the beginning: “To be correct at a technical level, in animals we cannot talk about homosexual individuals or homosexual animals. We talk about homosexual behaviors“And add concrete examples:” Among the rams, one in five has sex with both males and females, and one in 10 only with other males. “ Another of the issues raised by the interview is that of pleasure in animal sex. Moure recognizes the difficulty of measuring it: “In the case of whether animals feel some kind of sexual pleasure, this is complicated because, of course, we cannot get into the mind of an animal and know its subjective perception, but it is true that it has been investigated if there are species in which there is sexual pleasure.” The clearest examples appear in social species, from primates to cetaceans, where relationships do not always seek offspring. Among the most graphic examples mentioned by Moure is the relationship between sexual behavior and the size of the testicles. “The size of the testicles depends a little on this,” he says. The contrast is striking: “Gorillas can reach 200 kg, they have testicles that are like two olives (…) but instead bonobos (…) They have very large testicles”The key is in sperm competition, which favors species where females maintain relations with several males. It also stops in the biological mechanisms that allow some species to change sex. “When a male clown fish is widowed, it changes sex and becomes the female,” Moure details, remembering that all these fish are born males and that their role depends on the structure of the group. But there are more factors that alter the proportion of sexes: “humans also greatly affect the distribution of sexes because of climate change,” he says. The interview also addresses a less known aspect: sexually transmitted diseases in animals. “A case that draws a lot of attention is that of the Koalas. The Koalas in Australia have a CLAMIDIA EPIDEMIA that the species is being loaded, ”says Moure. The problem is serious because it causes infertility and is very difficult to treat. What we have advanced here is just a fragment of an episode loaded with data, anecdotes and explanations that show this aspect in the animal kingdom. In Science and apartRicardo Moure provides keys that invite you to think otherwise the relationship between biology and sex. The chapter is now available. Choose the platform you want to enjoy it. Images | Xataka In Xataka | Zoophilia is the last great sexual taboo of our societies. And there are voices that want to discuss it

This genius has programmed animal crossing characters to play alone. The first thing they have done is rebel against the landlord

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The use of AI opens new exploration (and exploitation) routes for the Modders that manipulate the code of games so that they run into new expressive routes. The last test: Thanks to an advanced memory hacking technique and artificial language models, the residents of ‘Crossing animal‘They comment today, conspire against Tom Nook and explore new dialogue styles, in which there are no lack of social criticism. What have you done to you, animal crossing. The josh fonseca hacker used the Dolphin and Scripts emulator in Python to replace the text messages saved in the RAM of the Gamecube and that function as dialogues during the games (and it was documenting on YouTube). Since the game uses its own text coding system, it developed decoding tools that allowed information to an understandable format for a couple of extensive models of GEMINI -based language (one to write the dialogues themselves, another to give them intention, emphasis and “direct” the charts of the characters) that began to generate new dialogues. In order for the dialogues to be consistent with the game, the model was trained with specific examples and the animal crossing wiki was consulted to create character sheets of a certain complexity. It is an experiment that made, at a minor scale, in ‘Stardew Valley‘. And what happened. In a few moments, the villagers did what they usually do in the game: conversing with naturalness and humor, but without registered in the real world. The thing changed when a Feed RSS, which allowed them to discuss political and current issues. Soon they started talking about Trump very positively, comically positive in fact. The reason: the feed that Fonseca used was of Fox News, simply because he was the one who had the most at hand. This behavior of the characters makes sense: if the knowledge they acquire includes those that belong to the real world, the machine has no way to distinguish them from their fiction. But the next step was even more unexpected. To the barricades. Fonseca also installed a shared memory space thanks to which the characters could gossip. That is, remember the other characters, what they had said and what they felt for them. They began to plant rumors and criticism against Tom Nook, the iconic and discussed Magnate Tanuki of the game. The seed of the rebellion was soon planted: the characters realized that one of the key elements of the game, the high prices imposed by Nook, are an economic spring that forces them to work and trade continuously to pay debts. Suddenly, ‘Animal Crossing’ became a spontaneous reflection on undeniable traps (because if they end, there is no game) of capitalism. It is not the same, but it is the same. In one Interview with 404MediaFonseca seems to recognize that the experiment can alter the original spirit of the Nintendo game, but considers that its experiment is a powerful exercise inspired by hauntology (philosophical current that studies the possible future that never came to complicate). In addition, it states to be convinced that well used is a tool that can enhance art and creativity, as long as human screenwriters continue in the center of the process. The power of the past. Fonseca thinks that there is nothing like the games of yesteryear (something that is perceived on his YouTube channel, overflowing with nostalgic videos): “As a child I thought: ‘Video games will improve every year’. But after twenty years playing, I have become a little skeptical and think: ‘In reality there has not been so much innovation. Technologies of the future that interest me. Header | Josh Fonseca In Xataka | Someone has cut in half a playstation to create a portable version. The result is fantastic

A sliding butterfly has become the animal with the highest number of chromosomes than we have news: 229 pairs

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It is likely that at school they will teach us that the human being has, as a general rule, 23 pairs of chromosomes. We know that there are complex organisms, such as animals, that survive with Just a couple of chromosomeslike species ants Myrmecia Pilosula. The question is then what are the species with the highest number of chromosomes. A new record. A recent study has pointed out To a kind of butterfly, the so -called Atlas girl (Atlantic polyommatus), As the animal with the greatest number of chromosomes known: 229 pairs. The number is even more striking if we consider that many of the species closest to this in the taxonomic tree have 23 or 24 pairs. The Atlas girl. The Atlas girl is an elusive butterfly that inhabits the Northwest Cordillera of Africa, extending their habitat in parts of Morocco and Algeria. We had knew That this animal had a high number of chromosomes, but the new study of the animal’s genome opens the doors to have a precise measure of the number, at the same time that also allows us to know more about why this surprising figure. “I have been investigating this butterfly for many years and I am one of the few people who have been able to observe it in nature. Unfortunately, P. Atlantic is seriously threatened by the destruction of their habitat. Explain to Sinc Roger Vila, co -author of the study. Investigating the chromosome. The strange future of this butterfly genome began about three million years ago, Explain the responsible team of sequencing this genome. And everything would have begun with 24 chromosomes, a number similar to that of other species in his family. The analysis allowed to discover that the chromosomes of the Atlas girl had been fragmenting in the areas where DNA accumulated with less density. This, the equipment adds, implies that, despite the growth of the number of chromosomes, the genetic information contained in them did not grow proportionally. Three million years of fragmentation. The team observed that all chromosomes except sexual experienced this fragmentation, carrying the total number of cormosomes from 24 to 229 throughout the last three million years. A “relatively short” interval of time in evolutionary terms, highlights the team responsible for the study. The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Current Biology. Evolutionary advantage? The study raises new unknowns, admits the team. An example is to know to what extent the fragmentation of chromosomes or having an abundant number of these, can help or harm the species that travel this evolutionary path. More than counting chromosomes. Beyond establishing this “new record”, the study can help us better understand the evolutionary and genetic history of this and other species. Knowing this evolutionary past can also give us clues about the future of this evolution, the team maintains. We could, for example, better understand how species can respond to changes in their environment, such as the increase in the temperature we are observing in some regions of the globe. Chromosomatic changes also occur at the non-evolutive level, for example in some cancer cells. That is why knowing the fragmentation mechanisms of chromosomes It can help us to investigate the changes when they happen in medical contexts. In Xataka | The case of the wounded fox who returns to his caregivers is not so strange: how closely we are domesticating the fox? Image | Roger Vila

The place where dozens of animal cells are stored in case there is a great disaster

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In a basement from the Biomedical Research Park in Barcelona, ​​between liquid nitrogen clouds, an incalculable value treasure is saved: an ark of Noah of the 21st century. It does not contain couples of animals, but thousands of small tubes at -196 ° C that retain life. It is the Cryozooa pioneer biobanco that stores cell lines of hundreds of species, many of them to the edge of extinction. It is not an achievement, but a warning. At the head of this initiative is the renowned molecular biologist Tomàs Marquès-Bonet, one of the Greater world experts in genomics of great worlds. As the world has collected, This project is not a great achievementbut a last use resource in the event that the main species of our planet are extinguished. This is explained by the researcher himself: Recovering species with these techniques is the failure of society, but it is amazing to be able to do it. The first must be to preserve in your habitat the animals that remain alive. And when everything else has failed, it is better to have these banks than not to have them, like an ace in the manga Of a biopsy to cell immortality. The concept, inspired by the famous San Diego Frozen Zoo, is as elegant as powerful. The Cryozoo team collaborates with about twenty European zoos and aquariums to obtain small tissue samples, often during routine veterinary reviews. In this way, with a millimeter of leather you can create a stock of cell lines and keep them forever. The process is surprisingly pragmatic. Zoos send biopsies in tubes with a conservation medium. A complex cold chain is not always needed; Sometimes, as in the case of a stranded whale in Valencia, a little serum is enough to start. In the laboratory conservation is consumed. Once the fabric reaches the laboratory, Technicians cultivate cellsallowing them to divide and multiply to form a homogeneous population that is called ‘cell line’. Reprogramming to stem cells. The most revolutionary step is reprogramming. They can take a skin cell and, by laboratory techniques, return it to a pluripotent state, turning it into a stem cell of induced pluripotentiality (IPSC). “A stem cell is a pluripotent cell, which means that it can become what you want,” says Marquès-Bonet. And once this is achieved, the last step of cryopreservation of both cell lines and IPSC in liquid nitrogen is reached, where they can remain viable for decades, waiting for the science of the future to need them. A technique similar to that used for human embryo conservationfor example, in fertility processes. Currently, Cryozoo already houses more than 2,000 samples of almost 300 species, which have generated 350 high quality cell lines. Among its “treasures” are Montseny Triton cells (the most threatened amphibian in Europe), the Pyrenean frog, the ORYX DAMMAH (A species already extinct in nature) and even the rhinoceros Pedro, the longest in Europe, deceased in 2023. Quality on quantity. What distinguishes Cryozoo from other initiatives is not its size, but its obsession with quality. And it is that the bank’s goal is not to have the more cell lines the better, but to have the best and most viable. To achieve this, they have implemented a step that they consider crucial and that makes them unique: sequence the complete genome of each cell line they create. In this way, they ensure that the genome of the cultivated cell is a faithful representation to the original animal without genetic aberrations that have occurred in the laboratory. AND the fact of sequencing it It is also a great advance for science, because on many occasions it is the first time that this technique is done in a specific species. Something that will be in a repository that any researcher can consult. They want to avoid using these cells. With the ability to convert skin cells into ovules and sperm, the question is inevitable: is the ultimate goal of ‘de -sextinction’? But researchers have it clear: it is a red line that they never want to pass. Although technology has already allowed to bring functionally extinct species such as the Huron of black legs or the Przewalski horse, the Cryozoo team considers that its function is to be custodians of the genetic material, not to execute reproduction. They would only make their cells available to a project of this caliber if it had the validation of the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN) and a global consensus. Cloning is not the step. Although it can be attractive to make ‘photocopies’ of animals in a laboratory, the reality is that today It is a expensive and inefficient process. The real effort of the researchers today lies in preserving ecosystems so that animals live in them and reproduce naturally. Without man having to intervene. A cell bank to save animals … and also humans. The value of Cryozoo does not only reside in that distant possibility of resuscitating species. Its applications are immediate and revolutionary for current research. And it is that diseases can be studied without damaging any living being by infecting cells with a pathogen to see how cells react. But it goes further, being able to create ‘mini organs’ to investigate the biology of some species, test drugs safely or investigate human diseases in the genetics of these animals. A hope for an uncertain future. The changes that succumb to our planet can cause in the future to be a real climatic emergency. That is why we prepare the ‘end of the end of the world‘To collect all the seeds of the world, and now we also collect all animals. A genetic library that, in the best stage, we will only consult for pure scientific curiosity and never for a planetary emergency. Images | Gary Bendig Julia Koblitz In Xataka | Apocalypse diet: science already knows what survivors will eat a nuclear war

of television star to YouTuber entered into misfortune by animal abuse

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For a while, Frank Cuesta, better known on his television journey as Frank de la Jungla, was one of the best known and loved television faces in the early last decade. When their programs stopped being issued, it was installed on the Internet, and from its animal sanctuary in Thailand, a drift that has culminated in a disastrous way began. It has been with audios that reveal a face as an animal abuse that has definitely put a public image that had been awakening doubts for years. Conflictive audios. Earlier this week some audios were leaked in which he referred to animals of the sanctuary aggressively (“we must have delicatas, which people like Suricatas whores.”), Among other animals that he acknowledged having bought for sale. I also talked about poisoning cats (“I’m going to make a mix of cat food with poison to eat the son of a bitch and burst inside. (…) If you have a cat, you keep it at home”) Already dogs (“I will put poison every fucking days until all the fucking dogs die (…) I will load them all”) that entered the sanctuary. The audios have been Filrated by his exsocio chi wildlifewith the purpose of uncovering little ethical behaviors of Cuesta. He also spread images in which the bad state in which animals such as pig or otter were seen, or told stories about the replacement of dead animals with similar ones to maintain the attention of their YouTube followers. The defense. His team has defended the audios talking about a passenger anger in the context of audios for a friend. Frank Cuesta has defended himself in a video in which he cries before the camera and that he has already retired from his networks stating that all he did was put laxative for dogs and cats not to approach the sanctuary. But as They have pointed out several of His criticsit is not only an improper behavior of an owner of an animal sanctuary, but also adds to a long trajectory of controversies and conflicts. The tip of the iceberg. The filtration of these audios is the last episode of the fall in disgrace of Cuesta in recent months, but it has not been the most serious event that has had to happen: it was recently bitten by a spit copperwhich put him on the verge of death. Before that, in 2024 He had suffered the onslaught of a deer that broke two ribs and contact with a poisonous frog. But his most controversial moments are those that imply problems with justice: he has to respond to Three demands of his ex -wife and was arrested by the Possession of protected animals. The Internet reaction. Frank Cuesta has established in recent years an active relationship with various youtubers and Influencersin order to get Collection for your sanctuary. Some of them have reacted to Frank Cuesta Audios: The Grefg has criticized it publicly And he has asked for explanations, while Plex has defended itstating that everything seen in videos is true. Other content creators, such as Rome Gallardo either Hetero white uncle They have also positioned themselves against Cuest Dalas Review. Success on television. The success came to Frank Cuesta after the program ‘Callejeros Travelers’ interviewed it for a delivery set in Thailand. His knowledge about reptiles gave him the opportunity to drive his own space, ‘Frank de la Jungla’. With him he obtained a wave, and continuity with the program ‘La Jungal at home’, shot this time in Spain. He would still make a third series with four, ‘Natural Frank’, before moving on to Discovery Max with ‘Wild Frank’, which he recorded 17 seasons. A presence on YouTube. Although Frank Cuesta has obtained his fame primarily from the almighty television, it has been with the YouTube accounts that he has managed since the late last decade where he has shaped a peculiar Fandom. The first construction of an animal shelter and after a Sanctuary away from Thailand For animals that do not belong to that same environment, it has kept their followers hooked on materials on animals, although it currently costs only the channel dedicated to the Libertad Sanctuary. The accounts of your channel. Frank Cuesta de YouTube channel has 4,150,000 subscribers. Virtually all its content is paid: direct, streamings and private webcams that reflect the day to day in the sanctuary. The controversy, without a doubt, It has fallen well In terms of figures: it is estimated that there could be 60,000 subscribers in the last month and a half, and with more than 12 million views of their videos at that same time, have entered between 3 and 16,000 euros for their videos in the last month. Political positions. Meanwhile, their political positions have been radicalized: He aligned with Vox In 2022, launching inconvenience statements, although later It was distanced from the game behind him Violent behavior of Ortega Smith. This positioning, which has intensified Over the yearsthe opposition of progressive sectors won him, also very critical of his peculiar way to face animal care. An uncertain end. All this (mainstream success, problematic channels on YouTube, radical political positioning, abundance scandals) are the ingredients of a cocktail that seems to have ended up exploding with the publication of the audios. It is significant that many of the creators of content that criticize him, as some of those mentioned above, usually invoice content aligned with conservative positions: they are the same as months ago they defended their content for that same reason. A true polvorín that still smooths: we will continue to talk about Frank de la Jungla. In Xataka | Disinformation circulates more freedom than ever on the Internet. Here are some technical tools to protect you

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