answer

We believed Amazon was already spending too much on AI. Your answer to Wall Street: spend even more

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The honeymoon between AI and Wall Street is over. Amazon knows this very well, having just received that dreaded “we have to talk” message from investors with a drop of more than 10% in its shares yesterday. It seemed that the stock markets rewarded the fact that companies They invested absurd amounts of money in AI. It is just what Amazon announced yesterday, but that strategy has had a totally negative response in the markets. what has happened. Amazon presented yesterday financial results for the last quarter of 2025. Revenue grew by 14% and net profit by 6%, modest figures that were not very popular. But above all, I did not like that Amazon announced that it estimated a capex (capital expenditure) of $200 billion in 2026 in AI. Amazing. Wall Street used to reward, now it punishes. In 2025, that capex was $131 billion, and Amazon is determined to continue betting everything on AI. Before, investors rewarded that audacity. Now they are punishing her: the shares plummeted 11% “after hours“, and it will be today when those actions start with that reflected fall. We want return on investment. That market reaction is not an isolated event. Amazon’s fall comes just hours after Microsoft or Google suffered similar falls. The market before valued the potential of AIbut now he demands return on investment more than ever and has become impatient. Big Tech had operated with a blank check, but when revenue forecasts fall short of estimates, optimism evaporates. Income grows, yes, but not that much. The real problem is the imbalance between capex and revenue growth. AWS grew a spectacular 24% in revenue, but spending is growing at an even greater rate. Google, Amazon and Microsoft are trapped in a kind of infrastructure “arms race”: the first one to stop spending loses, and that is a big problem. He who does not risk, does not gain. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy explained that “this is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to forever change the size of AWS and Amazon as a whole. (…) We are going to invest aggressively to be the leaders.” It is a speech identical to that Mark Zuckerberg said a few months ago when he said he was willing to lose hundreds of billions on AI: not investing them would be worse for Meta. But Amazon is much more than AI. There is another disturbing element in this huge bet by Amazon. The reality is that the company has many expensive fronts. From the Kuiper satellite network to compete with Starlink to the robotization of its Whole Foods logistics and other areas. When adding AI to the equation, the math doesn’t seem to work out. Optimism ends. Historically, large technology companies have taken advantage of the optimism of the market and investors to justify spending forecasts completely unrelated to their income. In 2026, with the macroeconomic situation of “we no longer like risk” —tell it to bitcoin— and the pressure for profitability, “free optimism” has disappeared. If you are going to spend like crazy, you have to raise like crazy too. Amazon is doing well, AI is not. This total commitment to AI is preventing us from seeing that the rest of Amazon’s businesses are doing very well. Online sales grew by 10% and advertising grew by a notable 23%. E-commerce, the cornerstone on which Amazon was built and operates, is funding the AI ​​party, but it is turning into a bottomless pit. Like Qatar’s GDP. According to the world bankQatar’s GDP in 2024 was $219 billion. That Amazon invests almost the same in AI data centers alone is dizzying. It is the same thing that we said yesterday about Google, which also projected a capex of 135 billion dollars by 2026. The figures are no longer dizzying: they are crazy. Beware, obsolescence. And all that investment can end up wasted, especially because there is an implicit risk in the data centers that are built: in three or five years they could become obsolete if the architecture of AI chips changes radically. It is bread for today, and hunger for tomorrow… without counting the energy factor or the water consumption. Xataka | While Silicon Valley seeks electricity, China subsidizes it: this is how it wants to win the AI ​​war

Science has been measuring whether size matters for years. A study with 3D simulation has the most complete answer

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It is probably one of the most recurring questions in the history of humanity and, yet, one of the ones that accumulates the most myths per square meter. Leaving aside popular culture and internet forums, scientific literature has been trying for years to quantify what is true about the importance penis size. Science to the rescue. A published study This year, PLOS Biology wanted to resolve a question that has undoubtedly generated many jokes and also some complexes in the male sex. And the truth is that the short answer to this question is that size does matterbut perhaps not for the reasons most men believe. The signal theory. Until now, many studies were based on simple surveys to answer this question. However, this study has gone one step further by using 343 3D figures to evaluate the response of more than 800 participants. The goal was to understand penis size not only as a reproductive tool, but as an evolutionary signaling trait. The results. In the investigationfemale participants rated men as more attractive, which combined three factors: greater height, a “V” shaped torso (wide shoulders and narrow hips) and a larger penis. But there is a very important nuance. Attraction doesn’t follow a line of “the more the merrier” ad infinitum. The study in this case detected diminishing returns, since after a certain size, attractiveness does not increase proportionally, but rather there is a ceiling. Competence. But men also went through this study to evaluate the size of other men. In this case, it was highlighted that they perceived those with larger genitals as more competitive rivals and with greater fighting capacity. This suggests that, evolutionarily, the size could have served as both sexual ornament and a signal of status or threat towards other males, similar to the antlers of a deer. What they prefer. If we move away from evolutionary theory and go to stated preference, the baseline study remains the one published by N. Prause in PLOS One in 2015. This work is key because it differentiated, for the first time with rigor, between the type of relationship sought. In this case, using 3D models on heterosexual women, a preference was specifically shown for a slightly larger size, averaging about 16.3 cm in length in an erect state and 12.7 cm in circumference. But in the case of stable couples, the preference dropped slightly to 16 cm and 12.2 cm in circumference. The key reading. The first point to note is that circumference matters more than length in visual choice. The second is that these measures are only “slightly” above the population average. A mechanical reality. This is where science busts most porn myths. A narrative review published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2023 analyzed the existing literature To answer the million-dollar question: does a larger penis give more pleasure? The answer is a very nuanced ‘it depends’. Science points out in this case that there are few high-quality studies that manage to directly link size with the organism, and the results are heterogeneous. But if we draw a clear conclusion, the truth is that the quality of the relationship such as trust or communication correlates more strongly with sexual satisfaction than the size of the penis. Male anxiety. If female preferences are moderate and satisfaction depends more on technique than size, why is there still so much anxiety among society? The studies in this case They point out that there is a great disconnection between reality and male perception, since approximately 38% of men report some degree of dissatisfaction with their penis. However, the vast majority of couples have a positive view of their partners’ genitals. Images | Deon Black In Xataka | Desire in times of stress and screens: this is how the era of programmed sex was born

The answer lies in what happened yesterday afternoon.

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The normality of a Sunday marked by strong wind in the Canary Islands was abruptly broken at 12:13 p.m. At that moment, the clocks stopped and the screens went off throughout La Gomera. According to official sourcesthe island suffered a total “zero energy” that left 15,610 medium and low voltage points without supply. It was not just a question of lighting: the fall of the system took telecommunications with it, leaving a large part of the population without mobile coverage and plunging businesses into chaos as the dataphones became inoperative, as reported by testimonies collected by The Newspaper. The question iinevitable: again? The technical cause points again to the energetic heart of the island. As explained by Radio Televisión Canaria (RTVC)the origin was a “destabilization of one of the generators” located at the El Palmar thermal power plant. This initial failure caused what is known in electrical engineering as a load shedding or cascade effect. For safety reasons, the instability of that first piece of equipment caused the rest of the generators to fail, resulting in a general power outage. Although the Endesa company has communicated that the exact causes are under investigation, the president of the Cabildo, Casimiro Curbelo, has been more blunt pointing out the age of the infrastructure: “One of the equipment failed, possibly because its engine is old, and that caused the entire unit to destabilize.” A recovery in record time. Unlike the traumatic blackout of July 2023, which kept the island in the dark for three days and resulted in a penalty of 12.1 million euros for Endesa, the response on this occasion has been noticeably more agile. The technicians managed to reverse the situation from “zero” in just 17 minutes. The recovery was, however, “gradual.” As explained in ElDiario.esthe Minister of Ecological Transition and Energy, Mariano Hernández Zapata, warned that the process had to be slow to prevent the system from collapsing again when receiving the entire load at once. At 3:25 p.m., approximately three hours after the start of the incident, the Cabildo confirmed the restoration 100% of the service, although maintaining alert for possible “micro-cuts” of adjustment and maintenance. The technical feat that did not arrive in time. This new incident reveals a critical technological reality: the extreme vulnerability of “isolated systems”. The definitive solution is already under water, although with a bittersweet taste due to the deadlines. As detailed by Red Eléctrica de España (REE) In its planning, the ship Enterprise Cable In August 2025, the laying of what is the deepest tripolar AC cable on the planet began, descending to 1,145 meters on the seabed. This 36 kilometer engineering work, which will connect the substations of Chío (Tenerife) and El Palmar (La Gomera), is the 66kV “umbilical cord” that will allow: End isolation: La Gomera will be able to receive up to 50 MVA of energy from Tenerife in case of failure. Integrate renewables: It will make it easier for the island to advance its decarbonization goals by being able to pour clean energy into the grid. Robustness of the system: We move from a single, dependent generation model to an interconnected network model. But the irony tells itself. According to the official REE schedule, the completion of the interconnection was scheduled for the end of 2025. However, at the start of 2026, the Gomeros They have verified again thatwhile the last connections are not completed and the infrastructure comes into operation—predictably in this first quarter—, its electrical security continues to depend on a plant whose material fatigue is no longer a secret. An island on alert. Although the light has returned to homes, the feeling of uncertainty persists. The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, and the minister Sara Aagesen have maintained permanent contact to monitor the situation, aware that the island’s image is damaged with each blackout. La Gomera has shown to have learned its lesson in terms of emergency protocols and speed of response, but the infrastructure is still at its limit. All eyes are now on that submarine cable that, according to Casimiro Curbelois the only real guarantee that an old engine will not silence the life of an entire island again. Image | freepik and Tony Hisgett Xataka | 99% of the internet travels through submarine cables. Now there is a much more ambitious plan underway: linking the electrical grid

If the question is why today’s songs are so simple, science has the answer: because we are.

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I belong to a generation that screamed singing Queen songsLast in line or Extrememoduro that they sounded on a cassette. Therefore, it has not gone unnoticed by me that, in the last five decades, music has changed. The letters they have become simplermore repetitive and loaded with negative emotions or stress. This shows it a data analysis about more than 20,000 songs that occupied the Billboard Hot 100 between 1973 and 2023 published in the magazine Scientific Reports. This phenomenon does not just happen. In reality, it is our own reflection, and the result of profound social transformations, of how we feel, consume and live our lives. A study that traces an underlying trend. He study Conducted by researchers at the University of Vienna, it has analyzed the lyrics of popular American songs over a period of five decades, measuring three key variables: presence of stress-related vocabulary, general emotional tone (positivity or negativity) and lyrical complexity based on repetition metrics and word variety. The result has led researchers to be able to affirm that, from the seventies to today, the use of words associated with stress has increased, the proportion of positive expressions has fallen and the structures of the letters have been simplified. What does it mean that they are “simpler”? According what was published by Forbesthis pattern is also seen in other investigations that compare songs from different genres over the years and their conclusions are the same: the lyrics of current songs tend to repeat more simple phrases, express intense emotions (such as anger or sadness) directly, and use fewer metaphors or complex images than in the past. Saying that the songs are simpler does not only mean that they are easy to remember, but that their lexicon and structure have been losing richness and complexity. Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great tradition of American song.” With all the respects to Bad Bunnybut I don’t see him as a candidate for the 2026 Nobel Prize due to the depth of his lyrics. The algorithm enjoys it. In technical terms, letters that are repeated frequently and use less distinctive vocabulary are more “comprehensible” for algorithms that measure textual complexity. Not only does this make it easier for them to stick in the listener’s head (raise your hand if you’ve never woken up with a catchy song in your head), but it also responds to how we consume music today. In times of streaming and algorithmic listscatchy and repetitive themes compete better for attention. The change in music has occurred in parallel with the rise of rapid consumption platforms and more fragmented forms of listening. The artists they don’t even play it anymore releasing a good album. Not even with a single, but they compete in a context where the first chorus decides whether the listener continues or skips to the next song. That competition for attention It explains the rise of simple structures and quick hooks, but it also influences the type of emotions that predominate in the lyrics. A mirror of our collective anxiety. According to the conclusions of the University of Vienna study, the greater presence of terms associated with stress, anxiety or conflict is correlated with emotional state of society. As diagnoses of anxiety and depression increased in the population, an increase in negative language in cultural works has also been detected. This does not mean that music causes these states, but rather that it turns them into a space of expression. As and as I emphasized Patricia L. Sabbatella, professor of music at the University of Cádiz, “Music is part of everyday life, fulfilling different uses and functions ranging from entertainment, social cohesion, communication, emotional expression and regulation to learning, relaxation or entertainment.” Therefore, this transformation responds to the function of music as a barometer and emotional regulator of society. It is his reflection and at the same time his therapy.. “Surprisingly, social shocks like COVID-19 coincided with attenuations rather than amplifications of these trends, indicating a preference for emotion-incongruent music,” the researchers noted. What music tells us about ourselves. Although the average negativity and stress has increased, it does not mean that all music is gloomy or empty of meaning. There are artists and songs that challenge these trends. What the study indicates is the dominant pattern, not that all music is like this. One of the conclusions of the study is that if popular songs are now, in general, simpler, negative and stressful, it is because this phenomenon appears as a reflection of societies with accelerated rhythms, high levels of anxiety and a relationship with digital culture that favors the immediate and emotionally intense. Music is not the cause, but it is a sensitive mirror of how we feel and how we communicate. In that sense, understanding these changes not only helps explain why a hit from the seventies sounds different from the current onebut also what kind of roles music plays today. In Xataka | Angie Corine has made a name for herself in the Spanish rap scene with an unexpected commercial twist: she is right-wing Image | Unsplash (Eric Nopanen)

Ukraine has asked Russia if they stop for Christmas like in the First World War. The answer could not have been more Russian

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The inevitable reference when talking about a Christmas break in the middle of a conflict is the spontaneous truce December 1914in the first months of the First World War. On several sectors of the Western Front, British and German soldiers left the trenches, exchanged cigarettes, sang Christmas carols and even played football in no man’s land. Ukraine has remembered it, but it is going to be complicated. The first time. On that occasion of the First World War, the truce was not ordered by the commanders nor was it part of a political negotiation: came from belowof human exhaustion in the face of a war that had not yet shown all its industrial brutality. Precisely for this reason it was never repeated. The high command considered it dangerous, subversive and incompatible with a modern total war. Since then, Christmas has been used many times as a rhetorical symbol of peace, but almost never as an actual interruption of fighting. The Ukrainian proposal. In this historical context full of symbolism, Ukraine has raised the possibility of a ceasefire during Christmas, an idea carefully formulated so as not to appear as a disguised surrender. Zelensky has spoken of a specific pauseespecially linked to attacks against energy infrastructure, at a critical time of winter and with the civilian population as the main collateral victim. At the same time, kyiv is preparing a new package of peace proposals backed by European partners and channeled through the United States, with the expectation that Washington will offer top-level security guarantees if Moscow rejects the plan. Zelensky, however, has shown caution and has lowered any expectations of a quick deal, publicly assuming that Russia may choose to continue the war and that, in that case, Ukraine will ask for more sanctions and more weapons. Officers and men of the 26th Division Ammunition Train playing football at Salonica, Greece, on Christmas Day 1915 The Russian response. The Kremlin’s reaction to the “Christmas break” has been immediate and bluntalmost ritual in its formulation. Dmitri Peskov has discarded any temporary ceasefire, including a Christmas truce, with an argument that Moscow has been repeating for months: a pause would only serve for Ukraine to regroup, rearm and prolong the conflict. In official Russian language, the word “truce” is presented like a trapwhile the word “peace” is reserved for a scenario in which Russia has achieved all your strategic objectives. According to Peskov, Moscow is not ready to replace a comprehensive negotiation (in their own terms) for “momentary and non-viable” solutions. The logic is clear and brutal: either the Russian framework of political and territorial victory is accepted, or the war continues without sentimental interruptions. Territory, guarantees and red lines. Behind the exchange of statements lies the real core of the conflict. Russia demands that Ukraine rspread to wide areas of its territory, accept permanent limits on its armed forces and rule out any future accession to NATO. Ukraine, for its part, rejects hand over the Donbaseven under ambiguous formulas such as a supposed demilitarized “free economic zone,” and remembers that it was already betrayed once when it renounced its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees that did not prevent the invasion. Polls show that a clear majority of Ukrainian society opposes withdrawing from the east and is willing to continue fighting, a domestic factor that greatly limits Zelensky’s political margin even as international pressure increases. Christmas without miracles. The proposal for a Christmas break actually exposes the abysmal distance between the war that we evoke in historical memory and the war that is being fought today. In 1914an improvised truce was possible because the soldiers still saw each other as human beings confronted by accident. In 2025, the war in Ukraine is a conflict of objectives strategic, existential red lines and cold calculation of power, where each day of pause is measured in kilometers of front, ammunition reserves and operational advantages. The Russian response dry and distrustfulis not only “very Russian”: it is confirmation that, in this war, Christmas has no capacity to suspend the logic of the conflict. Unlike more than a century agothere is no room for carols between the trenches, only for official statements that remind that, for Moscow, peace does not begin with a truce, but with the political defeat of the adversary. Image | RawPixel, WikiCommons, Ariel Varges In Xataka | 24 hours later, satellite images leave no doubt: a Ukrainian underwater drone has changed the future of wars In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right

Zara has found the formula to produce more photos in much less time. The answer was not where many thought

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Every time a big fashion brand mentions artificial intelligence, the reflex is almost automatic. We think about the possibility of models replaced by avatars, sessions that are reduced to a minimum and increasingly automated campaigns. It is a logical reaction, fueled by what we have already seen in the sector in recent months. But not all bets go that way. In the case of Zara, the question is not whether AI enters the creative process, but how it does so and what it decides to preserve intact. Not all AI in fashion is the same. In recent years, the sector has been trying very different paths under the same label. There are brands that have opted for generate complete campaigns with images created by generative systems, and others that have explored the creation of digital “doubles” of models to reuse their image in marketing. This context explains why Zara’s announcement triggers almost automatic suspicions. But it also forces us to refine the focus, because replacing a session is not the same as reusing a photograph, nor is it the same to displace people as to reorganize how visual content is produced. What exactly has Zara announced. Reuters reports thatZara has begun using AI to help create new images of real models in different outfits and accelerate visual production, in a movement that is part of a broader trend in the sector. As explained by an Inditex spokesperson, AI is being used to complement existing processes, not to replace them. The company presents it as a way to gain speed in the production of images without considering a total change of model in how its visual communication is built. How the “nuanced” approach works. From what has been published so far, the approach aims to take real photographs of human models and use AI to edit them and show those same models with other combinations of clothing, without repeating the session. The British newspaper CityAMfor its part, includes the anonymous testimony of a model according to which Zara asked for permission to edit its images with AI and thus show different items. This difference is important, because we are not talking about generating a campaign from scratch or creating a complete digital replica, but rather about expanding the number of final images based on previously photographed material. A precedent that marked the debate. Months before Zara’s move, H&M had contributed to tense the conversation with a much more visible proposal. In March 2025, the swedish company announced that would begin to create digital “twins” of 30 models to use in social networks and campaigns, always with prior permission. The initiative included compensation and control of rights by the models, but it also provoked criticism and once again put on the table the fear of a progressive reduction in work on traditional sets. The other end of the spectrum. The clearest contrast is offered by Mango. The company presented a campaign for its youth line generated entirely with AIa much more radical approach than Zara’s. In its case, AI is not limited to expanding combinations from a previous session, but is placed at the center of the creative process, although with subsequent intervention by human teams for selection and retouching. Mango frames this decision within its 2024-2026 strategic plan and presents it as a commitment to efficiency and innovation, thus marking a clear limit compared to hybrid approaches. Even so, the discomfort does not disappear. Some actors in the sector warn that the growing use of AI could reduce the number of assignments for photographers, models and production teams. It does not speak of a specific impact, but of a cumulative effect that can alter an entire ecosystem, from established professionals to those trying to make their way. The concern is not only focused on a specific brand, but on the sum of decisions that, little by little, change how many times a camera is turned on. Images | Zara | Highlight ID | M. Rennim In Xataka | All tech companies are putting AI in all their products. The problem is that nobody wants them

If the question is whether we will be able to buy a cheap combustion car in 2035, we already have the answer: no.

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The European Commission has presented its proposal for lighten emissions obligations for manufacturers in 2035. It is the confirmation that, if finally approved, Germany has won. And the country has gone on its own in its pressure on the European Union but, in addition, the new proposal reflects the true concerns of its industry. To better understand what has happened, we must remember. In 2022, The European Parliament approved the ban to sell cars that emit CO2 in 2035. The objective was reduce emissions by 100% pollutants target of 2021 and, therefore, that eliminated the possibility of selling any car that used this technology. That is to say, Europe had to jump to the electric car whether it wanted it or not. Some time later, with Germany and Italy putting pressure, the possibility was approved for cars sold from 2035 onwards to use combustion engines powered by efuel. These are synthetic fuels that, supposedly, during their production capture the same or greater amount of CO2 than that emitted by the exhaust pipe. If this is true, the car would be carbon neutral. With the wording that the car must be neutral in carbon emissions, the door was also open to the use of hydrogen cars (both in fuel cell as in format hydrogen combustion). These cars are also carbon neutral for the same reason, but along with their water vapor they do expel certain particles that are harmful to humans such as NOx or fine particles. At the time, the European Union kept a letter. The objectives could be revised and this This is what the European Commission has done. This has approved a proposal that has to be ratified by the European Parliament and the States (Council of Europe). Although it is not, therefore, official, it does anticipate that we will see changes in the rule. This regulation has several key points: The carbon emissions target is reduced from 100% to 90% compared to 2021 figures. The door opens to create a category that has become popular as eCarsmall electric cars (less than 4.2 meters), with their own regulation that will count as 1.3 cars when calculating the fleet’s emissions. The objectives of reducing emissions by 55% in 2030 are postponed to 2032. In those years, a space opens up in which manufacturers will have to comply with the proposed objectives by the end of 2032, with an average of those three years. A measure similar to the one that has been opened in the period 2025-2027. And this completely defines which cars can be sold. The data As we said, Germany has gotten away with these pressures. And in recent days we have seen two clearly differentiated fronts. Spain and France were willing to maintain regulation just as it was. Another group, cwith Germany in the leadproposed the revision of the objectives but the country, however, did not sign the letter of the six dissident countries in which Europe was asked to reverse its environmental policies regarding automobiles. Now, with the requirements that are proposed by the European Commission We know that, if it is finally approved, cars with combustion engines will continue to be sold. But as long as the average fleet of cars on the street guarantees that 90% reduction in emissions, which in practice leaves sales in a vast majority of electric cars punctuated by pure combustion vehicles. It must be taken into account that reducing CO2 polluting emissions by 90% compared to 2021 means that the fleet average will not be able to exceed 11.6 gr/km of CO2 (in 2021 it was 116 gr/km). That implies a ridiculous consumption of just 0.5 l/100 km of gasoline. A figure that is almost impossible to achieve for a specific car. Until now, plug-in hybrids were around 1l/100 km and CO2 averages of 50 gr/km in their official approvals. An already very high figure but will rise with the entry of the new calculation system multiplying the record in CO2 emissions. To compensate for this, a car only has one option left: increase its battery. The intention for 2035 is that plug-in hybrids will have a lot greater electrical autonomy. To give us an idea, the plug-in hybrid with the greatest autonomy on the market right now is the Lynk&Co 08 with 200 approved electric kilometers. Despite everything, Its CO2 emissions remain at 23 gr/km of CO2. That is, they double the maximum allowed in 2035. With this data, the company has to sell one electric car for each of these plug-in hybrids to be right within the limit of permitted CO2 emissions. But, in addition, Homologation criteria will be much stricter from 2028. So much so that a plug-in hybrid car that in 2021 registered around 50 gr/km of CO2 is expected to exceed 120 gr/km of CO2 with the new approval. Therefore, Lynk&Co should sell more than two electrics for each plug-in of the aforementioned Lynk&Co 08. The other option for an electrified vehicle with a combustion engine is the extended range electric vehicle. This type of car is, in practice, a plug-in hybrid but its combustion engine is designed for emergencies. So far we have seen cars like the Mazda MX-30 sold under this name but, in reality, they have a 50 liter fuel tank. What will have to arrive will be more similar to the first BMW i3 REX (the version with range extender) whose tank was 9 liters and, therefore, it was designed for an emergency. Expensive, very expensive Taking all this into account, it is clear that emissions obligations have been relaxed but it is still essential for manufacturers to continue selling a large number of electric vehicles. In practice, the best news for them is that 2025 fines postponed to 2027 and, therefore, they have two more years to comply with the obligation to place the average of emissions from its fleet at 93.6 gr/km of CO2. The plan was to fine 95 euros for each gram exceeded and … Read more

The Black Death continued to hide an enigma almost seven centuries later. The answer was in some trees in the Pyrenees

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There are few episodes in the history of humanity more famous, studied and debated than that of the Black Deaththe epidemic that spread death across Europe between 1347 and 1353. However, there remained an enigma to solve, one as basic as it was relevant: Why the hell did the epidemic break out when, where and how did it do so? Why did this wave of death break out in the 14th century and not before or after? Solving a puzzle. This mystery is what Martin Bauch and Ulf Büntgen, from the GWZO and the University of Cambridge respectively, have wanted to solve in a study just published in Communications Earth & Environment. With it they not only want to shed light on one of the darkest episodes in Europe. They also show that, almost seven centuries later, the “black death” continues to be one of the chapters that most fascinates the world. Nothing surprising if one bears in mind that between 1347 and 1353 it took millions of lives in Europe, reaching mortality rates that in some regions they touched 60%. Searching in the Pyrenees. Perhaps the most curious thing about Bauch and Büntgen’s study is that it does not start in historical archives. Or that wasn’t at least his main place of work. The key to his research is in the Spanish Pyrenees, more specifically in the secular pines that they found there. When studying the interior of their trunks in search of clues about the medieval climate of Europe, they found something unexpected: a succession of “blue rings”. For most, that detail would go unnoticed, but Bauch and Büntgen saw something in it: evidence of a chain of colder, wetter summers than usual. “Unusual summers”. When the tempera falls, the trees cannot properly lignify their cells, which in turn leaves a bluish mark in the ring register of the trunk. In the Pyrenean pines, researchers found such marks that suggest that much of southern Europe must have experienced “unusually cold and wet summers” in 1345, 1346 and 1347. What’s more, when digging through libraries and written sources they found clues that point in exactly the same direction: a period marked by “unusual cloudiness and dark lunar eclipses.” The next question is… What caused this change in climate? And why is it important? The power of an eruption. Regarding the first question, researchers have few doubts. In his opinion, the drop in temperatures in summer was caused by a volcanic eruption (or even a chain of them) recorded around the year 1345 and which triggered a fatal domino effect: a considerable expulsion of ash and volcanic gases that generated a layer and caused a drop in temperatures, just as happened in other episodes throughout history. Climate, agriculture… Hunger. For the next question, why is it important that a volcano began releasing gases and ash almost seven centuries ago, the answer is simple: agriculture. The changes in climate not only left their mark on the centuries-old trunks of the central Pyrenees, they also punished the fields of the Mediterranean region, reducing crops and generating losses that threatened to lead to famine… and social instability. Against this backdrop, the powerful maritime republics of Italy did the most logical thing: chartered ships to import grain from the east, from the Black Sea area, more specifically from the Golden Hordein the Sea of ​​Azov region. It didn’t matter that Genoa and Venice were at war with the Mongols. Hunger was pressing, the threat of riots loomed and European diplomacy did its job. Already late in 1347, ships with grain began to arrive in Europe, unloading their precious merchandise in Mediterranean ports. More than grain. The problem is that in the holds of the ships mobilized by Venice and Genoa, the same ones that were supposed to prevent Europe from being besieged by famine, there were not only tons of grain. On board they brought fleas infected with Yersinia pestisthe bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague. “The exact origin of this deadly bacteria is still unknown, but ancient DNA suggests that a natural reservoir may have existed in wild gerbils somewhere in central Asia,” they explain from the University of Cambridge. The result: grain ships suddenly became vectors of a fatal disease, the bacteria jumped from rodents to humans, and the Black Death soon spread across Europe, with something much worse than famine. The ships of the black death. The rest is known history. Between 1347 and 1353 the disease killed millions of people. It is often said that the plague took the lives of 60% of the European population, a percentage that some raise to 65%, although in recent years some studies They have warned that the calculation is overstated and there were regions in which the registry was maintained. “Evidence of the Black Death can be found in many European cities almost 800 years later,” Büntgen and Bauch explain. “We were also able to show that many Italian cities, such as Milan or Rome, were probably not affected, because they did not need to import grain after 1345.” Why is it important? The study is interesting for several reasons. The main one, because it sheds new light on an aspect as basic as until now enigmatic about the Black Death. We knew about the role of Yersinia pestisabout the ships, about the role played by rodents, we knew the tragic death toll, its impact on the society, culture and economy of Europe… But we did not know why the epidemic broke out just when it did and not before or after. The succession of factors is so fascinating that researchers speak of a “perfect storm” in which climatic, agricultural, social and economic factors were added. A cocktail that, they insist, does not only speak to us about the Middle Ages. “Although this coincidence seems unusual, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging due to climate change and resulting in pandemics is likely to grow in a globalized world,” Buntgen adds.. “It is … Read more

If the question is why we buy a home in Spain, mortgages have the answer: to invest

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In the middle of the debate on the weight of speculation in the Spanish real estate market and with the Catalan Government immersed in the debate Regarding whether or not it should put limits on the purchase of housing for investment purposes, the sector has come across data that adds even more fuel to the fire. According to a study carried out by the Financial Users Association (Asufin), the 47.7% of the mortgages signed are aimed at acquiring homes for investment purposes. That is to say, the idea of ​​those who take mortgages is not to convert houses into homes, but to put their savings in a safe security in search of good returns. What does the study say? The report by Asufin is just that, a report with its biases and limitations prepared based on a survey with 1,301 interviewees and data from different official sources, but it still offers an interesting ‘photo’. And a resounding conclusion: among those who go to the bank in search of financing to buy a home, there are many more people with an investment mentality than there are families looking for a home in which to settle. What figures do you use? The study concludes that only 15.9% of the new mortgage holders will convert the home into their first residence. Another 18.5% are looking for credit to get a second home that they will dedicate to personal use and 17.9% intend to change their usual residence. The photo is completed with the 47.7% that we mentioned before: buyers who knock on the doors of banks in search of credit to purchase a second home as an investment. The size of this last percentage is not surprising if we take into account that the price per residential square meter has been climbing for years (both in the purchase and rental markets) and there are those who estimate that buying an apartment for rent offers returns of more than 6% (either even older), significantly above what more traditional investments guarantee. Why do we buy houses? Asufin’s study has given rise to another interpretation that shows us more clearly what percentage of buyers go to the real estate market with an investment mentality, not in search of a home. If what we are talking about is the reasons that lead buyers to consider requesting a loan, investment is the main motivation 65%. The data shows that brick is still seen as a refuge value. And so, recognizes the associationleads to “the cycle of buying to rent or saving value to sell more expensively continuing to significantly stress the market.” It’s actually nothing new. Previous studies Asufin itself already reflected that more mortgages are requested to invest than to buy homes. Does the report say anything else? Yes. It confirms the low flow of new housing entering the market, that today the cheapest option is fixed mortgages and that foreign buyers they account for a total of 14%although the data varies depending on the region and the market segment we are talking about. For example, in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands they account for almost 30%, while there are half a dozen autonomous communities in which foreigners do not even reach 4%. Another interesting reading is that credits take up a considerable part of the finances of Spanish households. To be more precise, the average mortgage payments are already They represent 35% of salaries, a percentage that rises to 40% if we talk about the segment of young buyers, between 25 and 35 years old. However, the Asufin data show a slight change in trend, with a clear decline in the percentage of buyers who go into debt to buy second homes for investment purposes. Although they continue to represent an important part of the pie (47.7%), at the beginning of the year they represented 56.2%. Image | Ján Jakub Naništa (Unsplash) In Xataka | Buying a house is already an impossible mission for many young Spaniards. So his parents donate it to him

To the question of what sense it makes to compete with Google, OpenAI or Anthropic in AI, Mistral has an answer: small and local models

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French startup Mistral AI Mistral 3 has been launcheda family of 10 open source artificial intelligence models that represent its most ambitious commitment to date. The Parisian company, which is often considered the main European hope in the development of AI, seeks to differentiate itself from the large American technology companies by betting on flexibility and deployment in all types of devices instead of raw power. Under these lines we tell you all the news. What Mistral has presented. The Mistral 3 family includes a flagship model called Mistral Large 3, with 675 billion parameters, and nine compact models grouped under the name Ministral 3 (in three sizes: 14,000, 8,000 and 3 billion parameters). All models are released under Apache 2.0 license, allowing unrestricted commercial use. The large model also has multimodal capacity, being able to process text and images. It is also multilingual, with a special emphasis on European languages. On the other hand, small models can run on devices with just 4 GB of memory, making them perfect for modest laptops, mobile phones and embedded systems without the need for an internet connection. Why strategy matters. While OpenAI, Google and Anthropic focus on increasingly powerful and closed systems with agentic capabilitiesMistral has focused on the breadth and scope of its models, efficiency and what its co-founder Guillaume Lample calls “distributed intelligence.” According to declared told VentureBeat, the company believes the future of AI is defined not by scale, but by ubiquity: models small enough to run in drones, vehicles, robots and consumer devices. The economic and practical argument. Lample explained It means that in more than 90% of cases, a small, specifically tuned model can get the job done, especially if it is trained with synthetic data for specific tasks. According to Lample, this is not only cheaper and faster, but it eliminates concerns about privacy, latency and reliability. The company also has teams that work directly with customers to analyze specific problems and fine-tune small models that perform specific tasks. This, above all, can attract companies that become frustrated when choosing the best possible model for a specific task and, if it does not perform adequately, they end up giving up. Europe is lagging behind. If we talk about innovation and technology around AI, we do not hesitate to say that Europe is leagues away of what companies in the United States and China are offering. This is why Mistral AI advocates a different approach in which it prioritizes massive deployment in devices and the flexibility of its smaller models. The capacity offered by open models can be a great asset to continue betting on these technologies. In China, for example, the open models of DeepSeek, Alibaba or Kimi are emerging widelyabove in certain tasks even competitors as large as ChatGPT. Lample explained that most leading Chinese models are exclusively text-based, with separate image processing systems. For this reason, they also want to opt for a multimodal approach. A complete ecosystem. Mistral no longer only offers language models. The company has built an entire ecosystem that includes Mistral Agents APIwith connectors for code execution, web search and image generation; Masterlyyour reasoning model; Mistral Code for programming assistance; and AI Studioan application deployment platform that also has analytical and logging capabilities. Furthermore, his assistant Le Chat It has incorporated a deep research mode, voice capabilities and a list of more than 20 enterprise integrations. Thus, in addition to its model offering, the company can provide other companies with a whole layer of personalized products and services, with the aim of being their main source of financing. Digital sovereignty. Although Mistral is often characterized as Europe’s answer to OpenAI, the company prefers to consider itself as ‘a transatlantic collaboration’. Its CEO, in fact, is in the United States, has teams on both continents and trains these models in collaboration with American teams and infrastructure. However, its positioning as a defender of European digital sovereignty has earned it strategic partnerships with the French army, the country’s employment agency, the Luxembourg government and various European public organizations. The European Commission presented in October a strategy to promote European AI tools that provide security and resilience while boosting the continent’s industrial competitiveness. Offline capabilities for democratization. The use cases that Mistral has designed for its small models include, above all, local applications, such as factory robots that use sensor data in real time and without relying on the cloud, drones in natural disasters or rescues that operate offline, and smart cars with functional AI assistants in remote areas. Lample stood out that there are billions of people without internet access but with laptops or cell phones capable of running these small models, which he considers potentially revolutionary. Additionally, by running on the device, these apps preserve the privacy of user data. Real “open source” debate. Not everyone celebrates Mistral’s approach. Some critics question his decision to opt for models’open weight‘, that is, free to access but providing less information about their code than truly “open source” models, which provide the code and training data necessary to train a model from scratch. Andreas Liesenfeld, assistant professor at Radboud University and co-founder of the European Open Source AI Index, declared to the Financial Times that data at scale is the missing key in the European AI innovation ecosystem and that Mistral does not contribute to that at all. The long-term strategic bet. Lample recognize that their models are “a little behind” the most advanced closed systems, but argued that the important thing is that “they are catching up quickly.” Time will tell if Mistral’s approach to low-cost, versatile models with local applications ends up working for them to end up positioning themselves as one of the great European bets on AI. Cover image | Mistral AI In Xataka | China already has an army of 5.8 million engineers. His new plan involves accelerating doctorates

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