animal

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

What animal shows its label

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Making good wine is not easy. Identify it in the supermarket or the liquor shop either. There are those who look at the bottle includes a seal of Denomination of originin its price, the variety and the vintage, the reviews, if the winery presumes an important prize … and then there are those who pay attention to an a priori detail much more mundane: if the label has animals and if so. Maybe it sounds strange, but that a trout, an eagle, a lizard, a rabbit or a rampant lion appear in the bottle, it can be the key to hitting the choice. In fact (and although it is not an infallible method) it is an important clue. Wines with animals? Yes. And it’s nothing new. After checking the increasingly widespread fashion of labeling bottles with fish drawings, lions and other wild fauna (or even mythological), Peter Renton launched in 2016 a question Curious in Wine In Provence: “Why do people buy came with animals on the label?” It is not a minor issue. The issue has already been touched on several academic studiesincluding one cited in 2008 by Science Daily in which it was pointed out that almost one in five tables of table wine released during the previous three years included an animal in its bottle. Commercial and “Perceptual fluidity” On the sidelines, the animal-life relationship leaves a question for consumers: can these animals help us to identify good offers? Click on the image to go to Tweet. What animals tell us. Recently journalists Fox Meyer and Jan Diehm They did An interesting experiment For The Pudding: They turned to AI to find out if the presence of animals in the bottles can give some clients about which wines are ‘better’. Its purpose was not so much identifying the good wines or those with the best price as those most interesting, understanding as such broths with notes higher than the average sold at medium or lower prices. That is, better positioned than normal at more affordable prices. Another of its objectives was to detect “overvalued”, expensive and bad. To get this Meyer and Diehm handed two valuable resources: I livea specialized platform that includes prices and a qualifications system, and Chatgpt Vision. The first allowed him to collect bottles data and the second helped him categorize them based on animals included in the labels. And what did you find out? They identified almost a thousand and a half wines (1,488) that had some type of fauna on their label. Then they classified them into 16 groups based on the “category” of the animal, leaving out the minority. The list includes amphibians and reptiles, bears, birds, insects, canids, felines, cattle, deer, fish, horses … and thus more than a dozen and a half of creatures, among which are included, for example, pachyderms or fantastic and mythological beings. His next task was to calculate the average price of each of those groups. Espóiler: The most expensive wines were those that had amphibians and reptiles (average cost of $ 39.97), bears (31,55), mythological creatures (34,99) and felines (38,43). In general, wines with animals were however slightly cheaper than the average: the bottle cost 26.99, compared to almost 30 of the global average. Price issue … and quality. Calculating prices was only the first part of the exercise. The other, just as relevant, was to estimate its classification. In that case the reptiles and amphibians “click”. They obtained a note of 3.95, below the general average of 4. The best positioned, all with 4.1 (in Vivino it is used A five -star ranking), were the bottles with bears, felines and mythological beings. Beyond what concrete creatures appear on the labels, the investigation of Meyer and Diehm left an interesting first conclusion: from entry the bottles with animals are an interesting option for cost and quality. Its average price is slightly lower (three dollars) than wines that are not labeled with animals, although they have the same qualification on average. “This means that, above all things, it is better to buy any animal than not buying any,” the two authors collect in The study. But … What animals choose? The million dollar question. After all, between some animals and others there are considerable differences. Meyer and Diehm were fixed, for example, the bottles with farm and livestock animals had lower prices and valuations, quite the opposite that animals that can usually be found in heraldic shields, the most expensive and best valued. The question is therefore … What wine is the one with the best value for money? To answer that issue Meyer and Diehm were fixed in the bottles of less than $ 150. And his conclusion was clear: the fish. 24.2% of the bottles with that labeling were in the group of “magical offers”, those with good price and good valuations if the stockings are taken into account. Its average cost is $ 24.99 and the rating of 3.9, although much of the analyzed bottles reached a four -star or even higher note. Eye to fish. “Fish is the best option. One third costs less than 20 dçolar and almost half has a four -star rating or more,” concludes the report, which slides a key of why these wines are well positioned: a good part of their offer are white, a broth that is suggested to pair with seafood and that in general show a medium lower price than the red wine. And the rest of the animals? Among reptiles the percentage of “good offers” (quality-quality) is 5.3%, among the bears of 13%, birds show 16.5%, insects 21.4%, 10% canids, 9.6% felines, 13% cattle, 6% deer, 13.9% horses, 18.2% invertebrate sailors, 15.4% The pachyderms, 10.7% of pigs, 12% the rabbits and 19.3% the sheep. Images | Terra Fossil (Flickr) and Eugene Kim (Flickr) In Xataka | We already knew that Spanish wine was on its way to collapse. What we didn’t know was that drought was going to accelerate it … Read more

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