arrived

This is the world’s first triple-resolution QD-OLED monitor from MSI. And he has not arrived alone

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Computex 2026 is being the stage for many brands to present a battery of products. One of them is MSI, which has put on stage a fairly large selection of monitors where it stands out especially the world’s first triple resolution QD-OLED monitoralthough there is much more. We are going to talk a little about all of them in this article. MSI MPG OLED 322URDX36 As we have already anticipated a little above, the MSI MPG OLED 322URDX36 is the first QD-OLED monitor with triple resolution in the world: 4K/360Hz, 2K/520Hz and FHD/680Hz. This is very useful because it allows the user to choose if they prefer higher resolution and sharpness, or, on the contrary, prefer to prioritize the refresh rate for games that require fast movements (this is very common in competitive games). In addition to this, it uses technology Penta Tandemso your panel has a multi-layer structure. This, in practice, translates into more shine, better color and greater durability against burning. In addition, it has a maximum HDR brightness of 1,500 nits, HDMI 2.1a ports and a USB-C port that delivers 98 W, ideal for charging a laptop, for example. MSI MEG The MEG It is the first QD-OLED gaming monitor with Agentic AI. This internal artificial intelligence will analyze what is on the screen to automatically improve the image. This is interesting because it does not depend on the console or PC we are using, but rather it is something done internally by the monitor itself. It also learns from user habits. In addition to this, it also uses a QD-OLED panel, has 34 inches and UWQHD resolution (3,440 x 1440 pixels). It also comes with the Penta Tandem technology that comes with the monitor above and has a 360 Hz refresh rate. It will arrive in stores on August 5. MSI MPG 271KRAW18 MiniLED is also having a lot of presence in monitors and this MPG 271KRAW18 is a very good example of this. In fact, It is the first gaming monitor of its type with 5K resolutionalso offering 180 Hz. In addition, it has Dual Mode, so we can switch whenever we want to 2K/330 Hz. At the moment, it does not have a release date. MSI MAG 271KPD7 Let’s now go with a more economical and very versatile option. The MSI MAG 271KPD7 is a monitor with an IPS panel that has double resolution, although with a different approach. With 5K resolution it offers 75 Hzsomething that can be great for working with text in a very clear way (also for playing, of course). But it also gives the option to switch to 2K and 300 Hz, thus offering very high fluidity. It will arrive in stores this June. MSI MAG OLED 321UPX18 Another of the monitors presented, the MAG OLED 321UPX18, seeks to be a more affordable option for those users who want to immerse themselves in the world of OLED monitors. It has 4K resolution and a refresh rate of 180 Hzbut in this case it does not have the possibility of changing the resolution like the options above. But, despite this, it also uses the same Penta Tandem technology. Something to keep in mind is that it has a diagonal of 31.5 inchesso it is not a compact option. This one, at the moment, does not have a release date. MSI MAG OLED 271QPX32 We continue with OLED monitors with this MSI MAG OLED 271QPX32, which is 27 inches. It also uses Penta Tandem technology, although in this case it opts for a WQHD resolution. It offers a refresh rate of 320 Hz. This monitor will arrive next September and it will do so below 600 euros, which is further proof that we increasingly have more accessible options for this type of monitors. MSI PRO MAX 341QPXW14G To finish, we go with a monitor more oriented to the professional world such as the MSI PRO MAX 341QPXQ14G. This manufacturer also brings Penta Tadem technology to this type of monitors with a 34-inch screen with UWQHD resolution and a refresh rate of 144 Hz. It should be noted that it has a double USB-C port as 98 W and 15 W, respectively. MSI now has a 10% discount on its entire store All of these monitors are coming soon, but they are not available. Despite this, it is worth taking a look right now at the MSI store since right now there is a 10% discount on any device from this brand. Since we have focused on their new monitors in this article, we are going to see a couple of those that we can buy now (and cheaper). MSI MPG 264URDFW E16M: This is a 27-inch monitor that uses MiniLED technology. It has 4K resolution and a 320 Hz refresh rate, making it perfect if you usually play competitive titles. Its RRP is 549 euros, although we now have it available for 449.10 euros with the 10% coupon. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links MSI MAG 321UP: An option to consider if you prefer QD-OLED technology. In this case, we are looking at a 31.5-inch screen that also has 4K resolution. It has a refresh rate of 165 Hz and a response time of only 0.03 ms. It costs 799 euros, although now it remains at 626.10 euros with the 10% coupon. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | MSI In Xataka | Ultrawide monitor vs two monitors: productivity science says it’s not just inches that matter In Xataka | 144 Hz is not just for gaming: the subtle change on your screen that your eyes will appreciate after eight hours of Excel

The fires have already grown by 218% so far this year and summer has not yet arrived

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While announcing “the largest deployment of the State”, the Government of Spain has given a disturbing piece of information: the number of fires has skyrocketed by 218% so far this year. And yes, May isn’t over yet. The fine print, however, is interesting. The data, as I say, refers to the number of reported fires, but does not directly correspond to the burned area. In fact, despite to the enormous ‘boom’ of fire outbreaksthe burned land is still below the average of the last decade. In this sense, what is truly interesting is the paradoxThat with reservoirs at historic highs and no signs predicting an upcoming drought, the risk of fire has not stopped. In fact, it has skyrocketed. Clarifying the data on the fire boom. Indeed, between January 1 and May 15, 2026, 127 fires were reported, compared to 40 in the same period in 2025. That is a growth of 218%. And it’s true that “tripling” the fires sounds like a lot: but of those 127 fires, only three were large forest fires and only six required major intervention. The key fact, as we can see, is none of that. During the quarter, 12,946.66 hectares have burned; that is, 2.2 times more than in the same period of 2025 (5,822.12). But it is still 29.6 less than the average for the decade. The key fact is that we have improved a lot in preparing for and putting out fires, but this year the situation is very complicated. The three ways we have of counting fires (Civil Protection, MITECO and EFFIS/Copernicus) say that the year is getting complicated at a forced pace. Above all, because 2025 was a very bad year: three times as many hectares as average were burned. Where is really the problem? In the concentration of damage. According to Greenpeace, less than 1% of fires They already concentrate 86% of the surface burned and the average size of the large fire has gone from 1,500 hectares to more than 6,000. In this context, having more fires means having a greater chance of one of them becoming a superfire. And the countdown has already begun: the fire season is at the door and, despite the grandiose declarations of the administrations, we are not prepared. Image | Marcus Kauffman In Xataka | The satellite that detects fires before firefighters has a problem: it has to avoid space debris and is leaving blind spots on the map

Before Spielberg’s shark arrived, a movie spread panic in Spain with something simpler: staying locked up

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When Antonio Mercero and José Luis Garci traveled to New York in the early 70s, they were climbing the Statue of Liberty when they both decided that José Luis López Vázquez had to star in his next project. Years later, that intuition would end up giving rise to one of the most traumatic images on Spanish television. The real terror is not sharks. Years before Hollywood popularized everyday fear with movies like Jawsa Spanish production of just 35 minutes achieved something even stranger: making thousands of people afraid to enter a telephone booth. The idea was absurdly simple. A man comes in to knock and discovers he can’t get out. Nothing else. But Antonio Mercero immediately understood that there was something deeply disturbing there. It wasn’t just the physical claustrophobia of being trapped inside a glass box. It was the anguish of feeling watched, ignored and finally abandoned throughout the world while everything continues to function normally around. The cabin turned an everyday and seemingly innocent object into one of the most disturbing images on Spanish television. A simple gag. The most fascinating thing is that the film began almost like a joke. Antonio Mercero, José Luis Garci and Horacio Valcárcel initially imagined a comical situation about a man unable to get out of a telephone booth. But Mercero he became obsessed with that image. For years he kept thinking about it until he found the key that transformed the story into something completely different: the protagonist I should never escape. That’s where the real terror appeared. The cabin went from being an absurd sketch to a existential nightmare. Mercero himself understood that the film had to change tone without the viewer realizing it, starting out as an almost friendly comedy of manners and ending up becoming a terrifying descent into something irrational and macabre. In fact, that gender twist continues to be one of the most revolutionary things about the work today. Kafkaesque Madrid. Much of the strength of The Cabin comes from how you use spaces completely normal to make them oppressive. The inner courtyard of Chamberí where the first part takes place functions as a small social laboratory: neighbors watching from balconies, onlookers laughing, police incapable of helping and pedestrians transforming the suffering of others into an improvised spectacle. Mercero obsessively took care of visual details to increase tension. For example, the cabin was painted red because the color generated more nervousnessand was built slightly narrower to enhance the feeling of suffocation by José Luis López Vázquez. The protagonist appeared dressed in dark clothing, “like a fly trapped in a honeycomb,” according to explained the director himself. And then there was the final trip through the peripheral Madrid of the 70s, passing through tunnels, open fields and industrial structures until arriving at the Aldeadávila hydroelectric plant, converted into a kind of mechanical underworld full of corpses trapped in other cabins. Mercero and López during filming López Vázquez and fear. Mercero needed an actor capable of sustaining practically the entire film without dialogue. The story depended on the body expression, the eyes and how the protagonist’s face evolved from initial shame to absolute despair. That’s where José Luis López Vázquez appears, who immediately understood how special the project was and got completely involved in it. The actor even asked roll chronologically to emotionally construct the deterioration of the character. during filming endured extreme heat inside the cabin and physically dangerous scenes suspended over enormous heights while the structure was transported by cranes. All of this was reflected on the screen and it is one of the reasons why the film works, because the viewer physically feel the fear of the character. López Vázquez manages to convey the humiliation of becoming a public spectacle and the horror of understanding that no one is going to save you. Paranoia in Spain. The impact was so great that it bordered on collective psychosis. What’s more, the day after the broadcast, José Luis Garci counted that he saw several people holding the door of the booths with their feet while they called to avoid being locked out. The anecdote was repeated in many Spanish cities. The paranoia reached such a point that Telefónica itself even hired López Vázquez to star in ads intended to reassure the population and convince them that the cabins were safe. The phenomenon is very reminiscent of what Spielberg would achieve two years later with shark: turning something everyday into a permanent source of anxiety. The difference is that Mercero achieved it with something even more banal. There was no need for a monster hidden underwater. A door that didn’t open was enough. More than a horror movie. Part of the greatness of The Cabin is that it continues allowing interpretations more than half a century later. Some saw a review direct to Francoismto the lack of freedom and the feeling of confinement in Spanish society at the time. Others found a reflection on human lack of communication, collective indifference or even death. Mercero always downplayed those readings and said that he was simply interested in telling the story of a trapped man. Be that as it may, that is probably where its strength lies. The movie never fully explains anything. It works like an open parable where each viewer projects their own fears. Maybe that’s why it continues to be so uncomfortable today. Because phone booths disappeared years ago, but the feeling of feeling trapped while the rest of the world watches without doing anything is still completely recognizable. Image | x In Xataka | “Hit me for real”: the story behind Sylvester Stallone and one of the most dangerous scenes in film history In Xataka | The day a man dared to go further than anyone else: a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits

The number of tourists to Antarctica has skyrocketed 1,000% in 30 years. There are those who believe that the real boom has not yet arrived

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The hantavirus crisis has served so that, at least for a few days, much of the planet remembered COVID-19 and what was exposed that there is a hyperconnected world and a changing climate to the expansion of pandemics. Also (even if only glancingly) to remember a phenomenon that has been gaining strength for years in a silent, discreet, but forceful way: the tourist exploitation from Antarctica. The MV Hondius was promoted like a cruise to remote destinations departing from Ushuaiastarting point also of the vast majority of ships traveling to the southern pole. He interest in Antarctica by the MV Hondius shipping company (Oceanwide Expeditions) is no coincidence. There are more and more signs that suggest that polo is becoming an important tourist asset… and (above all) on the rise. A percentage: 1,120%. Antarctica may be one of the most remote places on the planet, but that has not left it off the radar of the tourism. On the contrary. For some time the data of IAATOthe International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, show that the region has never been busier. The annual balances may register slight fluctuations, but the curve they draw when the focus is opened and the last three decades are analyzed shows the growing popularity of the destination. The latest evidence has been provided The Vanguard in an article in which he leaves out a key fact: during the 2024 season, more than 122,000 people visited the continent, which represents an increase of 1,120% compared to 30 years ago, when the statistics did not exceed 10,00 visits. Is there more data? Yes. To be more precise, the last balance from IAATO shows that if in the 1993-94 season the number of disembarked passengers barely reached 8,000, in 2013-14 it already exceeded 27,700 and in 2023-24 it was close to 78,900. In parallel, the number of those who only travel on cruise ships, without setting foot on land, has also been increasing. If in 2013-14 there were 9,700 people, last season they exceeded 43,200. Looking ahead to the 2024-2025 season the body calculates a slight decrease in the number of travelers who do not get off the boat and an increase in those who do. The first would remain at 36,769, the second at 80,434. Added to these are 938 “deep field” visitors, as those who fly to the interior of the region or board a ship to explore the Antarctic Peninsula or the islands are called. USA, the big market. IAATO statistics allow us to go further and analyze, for example, the nationalities of travelers who stop in Antarctica. The Americans are in the lead, with 44.6% in 2023-24, followed far by the Australians and Chinese, who each take almost 8% of the pie. The British, Canadians, Germans, Argentines and Brazilians also stand out, although IAATO has identified visitors of more than 200 nationalities. As for what they do there, the vast majority (98%) of tourist trips focus on the Antarctic Peninsula during the southern summer season and They depart from Ushuaiasouth of Argentina. Activities offered upon arrival include zodiac trips, landings and (more rarely) kayaking, climbing or overnight stays. IAATO graph with the flow of visitors between 1993 and 2002. IAATO graph with the flow of visitors between 2011 and 2024. Looking to the future. The flow of tourists may have skyrocketed in recent decades, but could fall short in the coming years. At least that’s what the researchers who have just published believe. a study on “Antarctic tourism management” in Journal of Sustainable Tourism. In it, the team led by Dr. Valeria Senigaglia slips two pieces of information. First, verify the boom of visitors in the last 30 years: from less than 8,000 in 93/34 to more than 120,000 in the 2023/24 season. Second, he warns that if the model is not rethought, the number of tourists could quadruple in the next decade until reaching almost half a million people annually. “If the number of visitors grows at the average annual growth rate recorded between the 1992-1993 season and the 2023-2024 season (a constant annual growth rate of 14.0%), the total number of visitors is expected to almost quadruple in 10 years, reaching approximately 452,000 in the 2033-2034 season,” specify the paperwhich also recalls that approximately 65% ​​of the more than 120,000 tourists who currently take cruises to Antarctica travel on ships that allow disembarkation, operations that tend to concentrate at the same points. An invisible footprint. That Antarctica arouses curiosity and there are people who want to know it or even visit it is, a priori, nothing bad. The problem, like warn the authors of the report, is the impact that this growing flow of tourists can have on a particularly fragile ecosystem. Although all the details are taken care of during the landings and IAATO demand tourists not to touch or feed local wildlife or damage plants, their presence poses certain environmental risks. For example, Elie Poulin, from the University of Chile, warns in The Vanguard that tourism can unintentionally spread exotic species. It comes with someone transporting them without knowing it. “Widespread degradation”. “The risks are real. An invasive species of grass has established itself on one of Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands, while bird flu has reached the Subantarctic Islands, where it has had a devastating effect on the seal population,” warned Dana Bergstrom has long been an expert in Antarctic ecology. This is without taking into account the environmental footprint left by cruise ship traffic or frequent disembarkation in certain areas. “A major concern is that the cumulative impacts of tourism will interact with alterations in weather patterns, snowmelt, ocean currents and nutrient cycling caused by climate change, leading to widespread habitat degradation and declines in wildlife populations and diversity,” insist Senigaglia. Review the guidelines? The reality is that visiting Antarctica is still not the same as traveling to any other tourist destination on the planet. Since 1991 there has been a protocol of environmental protection of Antarctica that … Read more

Without state aid, China feared that electric sales would plummet. Until the Hormuz crisis arrived

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It seemed that the market was retreating but, perhaps, what it was doing was taking a breath to come back much stronger. Never before in China have plug-in and electric hybrids, known as “new energy” cars, had so much weight. Last April, a new record was broken that only confirms where the future of its industry lies. Record. 61.4% of the cars sold in China last April they were “new energy” vehicles. This is the category used by the Chinese State to talk about plug-in and electric vehicles. Its market penetration is the highest in the country’s history. The figure is almost 10% higher than last year, despite the fact that sales have fallen. This means that gasoline-powered vehicles have collapsed and that the customer is already beginning to massively accept the plug-in vehicle as the car of the future. a collapse. It is the word they use in CarNewsChina to refer to the drop in sales of internal combustion cars. And, according to data provided by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), the sale of combustion cars has plummeted by 37% compared to the previous year and 33% compared to the month of March. Media like Jiemian They point to a clear cause of this trend: the price of oil. Last April, sales of cars with internal combustion engines were reduced by 530,000 units. The drop is undoubtedly influenced by a rise in the price of gasoline. The State has tried by all means to mitigate the impact on the consumer and the industry. In their market planning, the extra cost at the pump has been cushioned but, as they point out in Reutersgasoline and diesel are close to reaching all-time highs. Thank goodness. In Reuters They assure that China is the country that is best saving the oil crisis due to its diversified purchases but also due to the intensive use of electric cars. According to the Chinese media 36krIn 2024, China was already saving more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day thanks to its electric cars and represented a saving of 12% of its imports of this product. They explain that, although crude oil imports increased in 2025, this was due to an acceleration in the industry but electric cars helped mitigate the impact on purchases. Relief is key given the constant interruptions in regular supply of the countries near Hormuz. And it is that China has Russia as its main supplier but Saudi Arabia follows as second. A powerful track. So far this year, overall car sales in China have declined and especially “new energy” cars have been in the spotlight. Without the support of the State with purchase aidits sales have fallen by 17% but indications are that the oil crisis is helping the market rebound. In April, the drop in these cars was 6.8% while global sales fell 21.5%, both data compared to the same period of the previous year. In the first 10 days of Maysales of these cars have decreased by 13% compared to last year but have grown by 27% compared to the first 10 days of last April. Without state aid, car sales in China have fallen, underscoring the country’s historic problem in encourage family consumption. However, it does make it clear to us that the slowdown between plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles is being less than that of the rest of the technologies despite the fact that the State has stopped pushing. A backup. The movement towards electric vehicles is an endorsement of the policies of the Chinese state. With the economy managed with five-year plans, China has been building a base for more than two decades to be dominant with the Chinese electric car. He attracted knowledge by giving up landhas built a solid foundation in the supply chain and now Their brands already dominate the local marketthe largest in the world. But they have also given a lesson that is beginning to be seen outside their borders: the electric car is a good tool to alleviate the complications of the oil market. On a day-to-day basis, the savings by charging an electric car at low power are very high. If the price of gasoline rises, the savings skyrocket. Beyond China. Aware of this, China has put the turbo into its exports. BYD (which only sells plug-in vehicles) has broken a new shipment record. They are at the perfect time to enter the market with their low ranges but also offering electric cars at very competitive prices. Especially among plug-in hybrids. At the moment, most of the sales of Chinese cars in Europe are low-end cars with combustion engines. This already helps them penetrate the market, gain share and begin to be seen by new potential clients. But, also, its plug-in hybrids do not pay tariffs. This is allowing them to compete on price with Europeans and in countries like Spain, where it is considered the main purchasing value for a large part of the market, it is key. For example, a fact: so far this year, five of the 10 best-selling plug-in hybrid cars in Spain they are Chinese. Photo | INC and BYD In Xataka | An electric car is 54% cheaper to maintain than a combustion car. And it may not compensate because the data has a trick

There are thousands of scientific articles that ask you to pay to read them. Sci-Bot has arrived to access them for free

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Scientific knowledge is supposedly something that nourishes all human beings to continue advancing, but the problem is that in many cases the articles that contain this knowledge are in tools that require a subscription to read them. This limitation in access to universal knowledge has led to the emergence of different platforms that bring together all these articles, such as Sci-Hubwhich now improves with his AI called Sci-Bot which promises to put an end to ChatGPT’s “hallucinations” in the scientific field. How it started. At the end of this same month of April, a message on networks published by Mushtaq Bilal began to go viral, and no wonder, since it gave a notice in which, ironically, it invited us to use a new Sci-Hub tool that allowed access to scientific advances for free. Something they do through the back door and that already it almost cost them closure forced by the famous ‘Pirate Bay’ But logically this publication had the opposite effect, going viral, and also revived the eternal debate about the paywalls in science they can block access to this knowledge. But now Sci-Hub’s new tool has arrived to change this (partly). A great library. To understand the magnitude of Sci-Bot, you must first look at the size of its brain, since since Elbakyan founded the web in 2011, Sci-Bot has become in a headache for scientific dissemination giants such as Elsevier or Springer, which are behind the publication of thousands of top-level articles. Here, according to the official data of the platform itselfSci-Hub hosts 88,343,822 research documents and books, so we are talking about 100 TB of human knowledge covering more than 95% of the publications of the main scientific publishers. And with free access and without going through the checkout, as happens on the websites of some of these publishers. The jewel in the crown. As Sci-Hub’s own page reveals, Sci-Bot is an AI that is designed to be able to search within the titanic database to select the most relevant studies and compose articulated responses. Its main attraction is that compared to generalist AIs like ChatGPT or Claude there are hardly any hallucinations, such as its creators pointed out in a scientific article in which tests were carried out in this sense. And this is something very important because I have been able to experience with my own eyes how AI invents bibliographical references or assigns research to authors who have nothing to do with it. But Sci-Bot, being anchored to a real database from which it draws the information, means that there are direct references to the original papers, allowing users to jump over the hated paywalls to access scientific evidence. Still needs improvement. At the moment it is starting in its alpha phase and that is why it has different limitations, such as that it can only answer one question at a time and does not maintain the thread of chained queries, even if they are on the same topic. But the truth is that it is quite promising to have access to the vast majority of human knowledge. They put obstacles in his way. Here, logically, the magazines have a lot to say, since they do not like having the articles freely available when they request a subscription to access them. This means that right now Sci-Bot has the most recent scientific articles as its blind spot, since due to the new and aggressive security measures implemented by large publishers in recent years to avoid scrapingthe database has some gaps in articles published in the most recent months. This makes the AI ​​unable to respond regarding the most recent evidence. But without a doubt we are facing an advance that began with the arrival of Sci-Hub with the promise of democratizing science, although through the back door by freely publishing articles that are actually ‘private’. And the only thing this will do is create a new front between open access and large publishers seeking financial returns. In Xataka | More and more media outlets are going over the paywall in Spain, the big question is whether there will be subscribers for everyone

We believed that tons of feces were the big problem with the touristification of Everest. Until the scam rescue arrived

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Everest may be the roof of the world, but it has long ceased to be the remote and isolated place they found themselves seven decades ago. Edmund Hollary and Tenzing Norgaythe first to summit its icy summit. The best proof was left to us just before the pandemic by Nirmal Purja, the author of one of the most famous (and striking) snapshots of the mountain: in it we see a very long row with dozens and dozens of tourists climbing in single file towards the summit, just as if they were queuing to enter the Louvre or board a cruise ship. That Everest has become a monster touristified It’s no surprise. What is curious is that there are people (presumably) breaking the laws to take advantage of that demand and defraud the insurers. A huge theme park. One would expect the highest place on the planet to be an inhospitable place, reserved for the most intrepid locals and adventurers. Perhaps it was like this in the 1950s, when Hollary and Norgay ascended to more than 8,800 meters of altitude to reach its summit. Not today. The photography that Purja took in 2019 is just the graphic verification of a phenomenon that can be measured in figures… and even in feces: Everest is a tourist icon that they visit every year hundreds and hundreds of climbers, leaving behind millions of dollars and a trail of tons of waste. You will find more infographics at Statista Where there is tourism… There is business, of course. That universal truth is applicable both in Amsterdam, Florence either Barcelona such as in the remote Himalayas, which over the last few decades has seen a thriving industry take shape dedicated to serving those who visit Everest. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTC), in 2023 alone Nepal’s tourism sector generated revenue worth about 2.5 billion of dollars and boosted hundreds of thousands of jobs, both direct and indirect. Even Nepal has considered shoot 40% the fees he charges mountaineers, a source of income that among other things helps him clean the region. Where is the problem? Beyond the environmental impact that this overcrowding has in the mountain range, there is actually no problem in travel agencies, Sherpas, transportation companies, hotels and other businesses oriented to Nepalese tourism trying to make money. Climbing Everest doesn’t come cheap, but at the end of the day, whoever wants to pay for it. The problem is that not all of these professionals respect the law when looking for ways to make money. What’s more, there are those who have no qualms about cheatfalsify and commit millionaire frauds. Mountaineering and picaresque. The news I advanced it a few days ago The Kathmandu Postone of the largest English-language newspapers in Nepal. The Central Investigation Bureau of the Nepalese Police (CIB) has revealed a network dedicated to deceiving insurers who cover mountaineers in the Himalayas. Their modus operandi may vary, but the idea is always the same: alleged scammers make fraudulent ransoms to claim compensation. It may sound rudimentary, but the scam takes advantage of two circumstances that work in its favor. First, in rescue operations speed prevails, so there is no room to wait for the approval of the experts. Second, deceived insurers are often based thousands of kilometers away (in London or Paris), making it difficult for them to confirm what is happening on the ground. One goal, two methods. How do you prepare the scam? The CIB has identified two methods. The first is quite simple and requires the tourist to participate in the deception. If a climber is exhausted after days (or even weeks) of hiking and wants to save the trip back to camp, his guide can offer him a way out that is as comfortable as it is ethically questionable: faking an illness so that the insurance company can mobilize a rescue operation. The second method is a little more complicated, but the end result is the same. The guides or accommodations take advantage of the client’s ignorance to make them believe that the symptoms of altitude sickness (which are usually resolved with rest, hydration and a gradual descent) are actually signs that they are at serious risk, even of death. The key is to suggest the hiker enough so that he ends up asking to be evacuated by a charter helicopter. And where is the business? In the cost of the operation. It is not just that the company that provides that service charges the insurer for a helicopter that was not really necessary, it is that, precise The Kathmandu Postoften manages to expand its profit margin. As? It carries several passengers on the same flight and then sends separate invoices to their insurance companies. In practice that means that a single $4,000 charter flight can end up giving rise to three separate claims worth $12,000. Added to this are alleged treatments in the hospital, even when the client in question did not need assistance. For example, the Nepalese newspaper talks about cases in which treatment is claimed for hikers who were actually in the cafeteria. Not all people who are involved in this mess have to participate in the deception. He post speaks of falsifications of flight manifests or reports with digital signatures of completely unrelated doctors. One figure: 20 million dollars. At the end of March the CIB accused 32 people for this type of crimes, which according to the AFP agency amounted to a total scam 19.69 million of dollars. It may seem like a lot, but the figures revealed by the CIB investigation are eloquent: between 2022 and 2025, it identified 4,782 foreign patients treated in the investigated hospitals. Of these, inspectors believe that 171 corresponded to simulated evacuations. During that period some health centers received deposits worth millions of dollars related to those services. The older ones are the helicopters. Poisoning? The CIB investigation has attracted the attention of the media everyonealthough their headlines often focus on another … Read more

In 2003 someone released 18 Bavarian beavers into the Ebro basin without saying anything. They have already arrived in Catalonia

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It was a matter of time. In 2005 and while studying the European mink on the banks of the Aragón River, biologist Juan Carlos Ceña realized that something didn’t fit. There were felled trees, remains of forage, footprints, burrows and very specific droppings: it was just what one would expect to find in the vicinity of a beaver community. But there were no beavers in Spain. Everyone knew that. The strange story of the Iberian beavers. For years, researchers have debated whether the last specimens disappeared in the 17th century, the 18th century, or even the 19th century. In the end, the consensus is that the only evidence available They place them in the 2nd century BC. After that moment, no one knows what happened to the peninsula’s beavers. Therefore, what Ceña had just discovered was a bombshell. But, as soon as they started investigating it, they realized that there was a lot of fabric to cut. Sometime in the spring of 2003, someone illegally introduced 18 European beavers from Bavaria. Nobody knows for sure who he was or why he did it. But we know that it continued to be done. Today, there are beavers in the Tagus and the Guadalquivir. And of course we know that your beaver expansion it’s not natural. In 2023, biologist Teresa Calderón calculation that the Tormes beavers would have taken 40 years to get there by their own means from the closest documented population. The Andalusian case is more bloody: there is no way for the beavers to travel on their own the 365 kilometers of southern subplateau between the stretch of the Guadalquivir where they were found in 2023 and the closest point where we had previously found them. The ‘beaver bombing’ was a reality. But the worst was not (only) that: the worst was that, once they reached a river, they were there to stay. As soon as they took root in an area, they did not abandon it: if in 2007 they had already ‘conquered’ 60 kilometers of riverbank, by 2023 the beavers were already in Mequinenza and the lower stretch of the Ebro. It was a matter of time before they arrived in Catalonia and the news is that they have already arrived. The Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications has confirmed the presence of the beaver in the Segrià region, in the province of Lleida. Good news. And I’m not talking about the expansion of the beaver. That, today, is neither good nor bad news. It just is. I’m talking about, according to a handful of recent articles, “Beavers can turn river corridors into permanent carbon sinks“That is, they can be a climate ally that helps us recharge aquifers, purify water naturally and help in the recovery of wetlands. It is the ecological version of the old Castilian saying that “when God closes a door, he opens a window.” And thank goodness, because invasive species are here and we will not be able to get rid of them. Image | Derek Otway In Xataka | 20 years ago someone thought it was a good idea to release beavers into the Ebro. Now Zaragoza has a problem that is difficult to solve

Building data centers in the Middle East seemed like a great deal. Until Iran arrived

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A few days ago we said that Iran had attacked two data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain. It is the first deliberate attack on a data center and proof that it has become critical infrastructure at the level of power plants. The question is who thought it was a good idea to build data centers in one of the most unstable areas on the planet. A plan that comes from afar. In a trip to Saudi Arabia last yearTrump was accompanied by an entourage of technological leaders among whom were Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman or Sundar Pichai among others. At this meeting, massive investments were announced in the region with the construction of a massive data center complex. However, although it has been strengthened by this administration, the previous one was the one that started the path. In September 2024, Biden met with the leader of the Emirates to seek a strategic alliance that would allow them to develop their AI ecosystem. The reason. What has led technology companies to build in the Middle East is evident: saving. They count in Financial Times that the Gulf countries offered very interesting incentives, such as subsidies and cheaper energy. Furthermore, in this way all the problems they are having at home with the electrical gridpermits and resistance from many communities. The business seemed good. The map of AI in the Middle East. Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the countries with the most data centers, with 57 and 61 facilities respectively, according to Data Center Map. Of all of them, many are from American companies. Amazon alone has nine in the area, including those in the Emirates, Bahrain and also Saudi Arabia. Microsoft has data centers in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and is building one in Saudi Arabia. Oracle, OpenAI and other partners are building a mega data center in Abu Dhabi which they expect to reach 5GW. The damage. Although the Middle East has gained presence on the map of big tech data centers, the concentration of infrastructure is still ridiculous compared to that of the United States itself, which has more than 4,000 installations. All in all, build a data center It’s not exactly cheap. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, said a few months ago that Each gigawatt costs about $50 billion.. The irony. The same leaders who posed for a photo with Trump on that trip now see how their infrastructure is threatened and suffering the consequences of the conflict caused by the president himself. The idea of ​​investing in so much digital infrastructure in an unstable area was not such a good idea. The war against Iran It looks like it’s going to get longer. and nothing prevents Tehran from continuing to attack energy and technological facilities in the region. They were looking to reduce costs and it may end up being expensive, although seeing the projected capex for this yearthey can afford it. Image | Data Center Map (edited) In Xataka | The US is beginning to realize something worrying: AI data centers are skyrocketing its electricity bill

Southeast Spain is the driest place on the peninsula and a DANA has just arrived to “rescue” it. It will give more problems than solutions

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Right now, as I write, “the world cup is falling” on Alicante. And that, in itself, is news. Not the DANA that is crossing the southeast right now, which has a moderate entity and is going to leave unremarkable accumulations; No. It could be, but no. The news is thatit’s raining in the southeast and that, for some time now, has become almost a miracle. A miracle that leaves something revealed, Almería, Murcia and Alicante live in a climatic (and emotional) ‘new normal’ for which we have no physical (nor psychosocial) infrastructure. Let’s look at it in some detail. What is happening? At a meteorological level, the situation is very simple. In the early hours of March 10, a DANA detached itself from general circulation and positioned itself between eastern Andalusia and the Alboran Sea. In the next few hours, the epicenter It will be located over the province of Alicante and it will also cause enormous instability in Murcia, Albacete, all of eastern Andalusia and some parts of Valencia. AEMET predicts accumulations of between 30 and 50 mm in Murcia and Alicante, with some very specific areas reaching 80 in six hours. We may see snow above 900 meters. However, it must be taken into account that the DANA is very small: any change in trajectory, can move precipitation from one region to another. Is it normal? If we are honest, it is quite normal. This is part of a very unstable first week of March with storms, DANAs, haze and many more problems. The underlying problem. The problem is that, for months, we have seen how the very abundant rains of January They left aside this corner of the Peninsula. Thus, the Segura basin is the worst in the entire country followed by that of Júcar and that of the Andalusian Mediterranean basins. That is, not raining is a problem. But let it rain too. Because throughout that area of ​​the country, although it may not seem like it, although it is very subtle, tension continues every time a DANA appears on the weather forecast maps. The worst part goes to the areas where it hit the DANA of 2024 (with up to 30% of children with sleep problems and thousands of people suffering from eco-anxiety and fear), but the consequences are there whether we like it or not. Above all, with failures around the corner. Rethink everything to adapt to what is coming. A few weeks ago, AEMET and the University of Valladolid They published a very interesting work in which they explained that without climate change the DANA of 2024 It would have been much more unlikely. The January rains over Andalusia they do not help to calm to the experts. Image | ECMWF In Xataka | In California, the funds discovered that there is no investment more profitable than farmland. Now it’s Spain’s turn

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