Japan is suffering a record number of ramen shop bankruptcies. And it is partly the result of the “1,000 yen barrier”

The ramen is almost a religion (gastronomic) in Japan. One, yes, condemned to adjust to a certain price range. Although bowls of noodles with soup, meat and vegetables are one of the symbols of Japanese cuisine and a draw for tourists, in the country ramen is seen as a modest dish for students leaving school or workers with a brief lunch break. A sort of ‘worker menu’. So much so that there is even talk of “1,000 yen wall”a psychological barrier to noodle bowl prices. The problem is that Japanese hoteliers have seen their costs increase until they are dragged into a critical situation: in 2024 they registered a record of bankrupt ramen shops and, although the situation improved significantly in 2025ruined businesses still number in the dozens. Bad season for business. That the expense sheet increases while the income sheet is conditioned by a psychological barrier that limits prices can only translate into one thing for businesses: problems. Japan’s ramen restaurants know this well, having been registering dozens and dozens of bankruptcies for years and in 2024 they even reached a record of closures. The data They come from the research firm Teikou and are eloquent. In 2020 there were 54 ramen restaurants condemned to bankruptcy, in 2021 there were 17, a figure that is largely explained by the aid given by the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2022 the bankruptcies rose again to 33. The following year there were 53, in 2024 a record of 79 bankruptcies and last year, the latest data available, 59 stores were declared bankrupt. For their study, Teikoku technicians mainly take into account those businesses that accumulated debts of more than 10 million yen (just over 54,000 euros) and have no choice but to declare bankruptcy. The key: the trend. The figure may seem low if one takes into account that throughout the country they are distributed more than 21,000 restaurants of ramen, but it is significant. Last year, in fact, he made the weapons fly due to the record of bankruptcies. The latest data from the sector are somewhat more positive, but are still far from ideal: dozens and dozens of businesses continue to close. However, there is another reason why the figures attract attention: the discourse. Local media and international They have spent time warning of the cascade of closures. There is who warns Furthermore, beyond the balance of bankruptcies, a significant number of establishments that remain open do so in delicate financial health. That is, they remain operational, but they are not well. Struck by costs. Bankruptcy figures may vary depending on the period analyzed, but what does not vary are the analyzes that talk about the causes of the ramen crisis. The diagnosis It is clear: the problem for the stores has been the rise in costs and the limited margin to pass it on to customers. In 2025 Washington Post cited a study from Teikoku Databank that concluded that the sum of the ingredients – including pork, pasta and seaweed –, labor and energy required to make ramen had increased by around 10% in three years. Other calculations They point out that the cost per client grew by 5% between 2022 and 2023. “Prices have been rising over time, but in the last three years they have been incredible,” recognized Tetsuya Kaneko, with a location in Tokyo. The ‘perfect storm’ of ramen. Tetsuya Kaneko assumed in fact that his case was not unique and “everyone in the sector is struggling.” At the end of the day, hoteliers have been forced to deal with a ‘perfect storm’ that works against them: inflationthe rise in import prices due to the weakness of the yen against the dollar and the increase in the cost of energy that had the war in Ukrainewhich also affected the flow of cereals. For three months now, the war in Iran has been added to this panorama, which has made transportation more expensive. “The example of ramen shops illustrates economic trends well because they have a hard time passing on increased costs to end consumers,” explains to the newspaper American Norihiro Yamaguchi, economist specializing in Japan at Oxford Economics. In his opinion, until 2022, consumers were hesitant about any price increase, but the reality is now different: “They have to accept the increase in the cost of living.” For all pockets. As if the situation were not complex in itself, ramen establishments have to deal with another challenge: prices. Or rather, the image that the dish has in the country and the psychological barriers that in a certain way determine its rates. It is not something completely unknown in Spain, where a similar logic operates in the menus of the day of the restaurants. “Ramen has always been a staple food for low-income people, students… I don’t want it to be out of reach,” Kaneko explains.. The “1,000 yen wall”. A quick Google search shows several references, both on blogs and specialized websites in Japanese culture as in diaries generalistswhat is usually called the “1,000 yen wall”, which in exchange amounts to about 5.4 euros. That round number marks the price ceiling that rarely exceeds a basic noodle bowl with broth, meat and vegetables. Or so it was until recently. Faced with the new scenario and the delicate situation to which many businesses have been dragged, those in charge have had to consider a dilemma: cross the 1,000 yen barrier or resign yourself to following in the footsteps of the 72 establishments closed in 2024 and 59 in 2025. Upload with apology included. A few months ago Kaneko I remembered how in 2023 it had to increase its prices by 50 yen, reaching 1,000 for a standard bowl. Another professional in the sector, Taisei Hikage, recalled how rates have changed in a matter of a decade: if 10 years ago there were basic noodle dishes for 500 yen, today the situation is very different. When he opened his own restaurant in 2023, he … Read more

The Congo River has been an insurmountable barrier for the two closest capitals in the world for decades. Until now

For decades, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been living in a peculiar situation: although they have the nearest capitals at the geographical level of the entire planet (with the exception of the Vatican and some cases special, like Nicosia), both metropolises live behind each other’s backs. At least as far as communications are concerned. Today to travel from Kinshasa (RCD) to Brazzaville (Congo) you need get on a ferry to cross the river that separates both countries or even a plane which covers the journey as long as it takes you to have a coffee and read the headlines in the newspaper. Now that’s about to change. Capitals just a stone’s throw away. The story of the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the former Zaire) has been anything but quiet. This has ultimately contributed to both nations sharing a particular condition, beyond the similarities between their names: their capitals are a stone’s throw away. Between Brazzaville (RC) and Kinshasa (DRC) there are a handful of hundreds of meters and a river, the Congo. Depending on the reference we take, between both metropolises there is between one and three kilometers in a straight line. If we except the even more peculiar relationship between the Vatican and Rome (and some curiosities historical), Brazzaville and Kinshasa are often considered the closest capitals. However, despite this proximity, those who want to travel from one city to another right now do not have it easy: they must take a ferry that covers the journey in half an hour or even (if they are in a hurry… and more money), fly over the limited airspace that separates both capitals. What if we build a bridge? The situation is sufficiently anomalous that the authorities have considered on several occasions building a bridge between both banks. The idea can date back at least to the 90s and has been rescued several times since then. Without much success. Whether for political or budgetary reasons or simply because the fear As infrastructure reduces commercial traffic in some influential ports in the DRC, the Kinshasa-Brazzaville viaduct has failed to make it past paper. Coming out of the box. That could change soon. In February the finance ministers of the DRC and the CR reached a bilateral agreement to establish a special tax regime that clears the future of the construction of the viaduct. It may seem like a minor issue, but the infrastructure is expected to be subject to a toll and, beyond the traffic of individuals and tourists, every year moves trucks loaded with thousands and thousands of tons of merchandise. “We have a harmonized tax and customs framework. We also have a bilateral pact, which will allow us to relaunch the call for tenders,” celebrated after the technical meetings Caddy Ndala, from the Brazzaville delegation. An agreement… and something more. If the bridge seems to see (finally) the light at the end of the tunnel, it is not only because of the tax agreement between both countries. The project has also attracted the attention of Africa50an investment platform founded by the African Development Bank (ADB) and African states. The entity is presented in fact as the “main promoter” selected by the DRC and RC to drive the public-private partnership that will shape the infrastructure. Global Highways precise that part of the investment to shape the viaduct will also come from the ADB, which has already financed the feasibility studies. And what will the viaduct be like? The main infrastructure will consist of a short bridge more than 1.5 km which will pass over the Congo River and allow the passage of vehicles and railways. It will also have sidewalks and border control posts. The idea is that the viaduct connects further with the roads that already exist in both countries, facilitating communication between the capitals. “The idea dates back to the mid-19th century,” recognized years ago the president of the ADB, Akinwumi Adesina. To clear its roads, the technicians have selected the narrowest point on the border. In an attempt to put an end to the misgivings that the infrastructure arouses in several commercial ports in the region, it has also been agreed to carry out complementary works of improvements in them. Hunting for goods. The bridge won’t exactly come cheap. In 2017, the ADB estimated that the project would require 550 million dollars, an estimate that has since risen to exceed 700 million. In return, the structure promises to completely change the relationship between both capitals. In 2020 the Africa Investment Forum pointed out that the forecasts involve both triggering the flow of people and goods: the former (people) would go from 750,000 annually now to more than three million; As for the latter (merchandise), it would rise from 340,000 to two million tons. Images | Google Earth and Africa50 In Xataka | A 2.5 billion-year-old geological wonder: Zimbabwe’s Great Dam seen by NASA from space

A woman from 7,000 years ago suggests that gender was not an immovable barrier

For decades, our vision of European prehistory has been dominated by a fairly rigid idea regarding the division of labor in communities: men were assigned certain tasks and women others. However, bones have a fascinating habit of disproving our prejudices, as has now happened after analyzing some human remains found in Hungary. What has been seen. This new analysis of human remains Dating back to more than 7,000 years ago, it has revealed an older woman buried not only with typically “masculine” grave goods, but also with marks on her bones that show that she did the same physical work as them. Something that has marked a before and after in gender roles in prehistory. The rule and the exception. To understand the magnitude of the find, an international research team thoroughly analyzed 125 adult skeletons which came from different cemeteries in Hungary. Here the researchers already knew that there were structured gender norms, since the funerary “law” was very clear, indicating that men were buried lying on their right side and accompanied by polished stone tools. In contrast, women stood on their left side and their trousseau was usually composed of belts made of shells. Up until this point, everything seemed to fit into a perfect binary system, until researchers came across the skeleton of an elderly woman. And, unlike the rest, she had been buried with polished stone tools, the classic “masculine” status symbol of her culture. They went further. If the grave goods on this corpse were already an anomaly by the standards of the time, the biomechanical analysis of the skeleton ended up surprising the scientists. In this case, the researchers did not limit themselves to looking at what objects accompanied the dead, but they crossed these data with the patterns of physical activity imprinted on the bones, such as the natural wear and tear of the different parts of the bones. Basically, the bones adapt and deform according to the postures and loads that we endure throughout our lives and that is why they can give us a lot of long-term information about our jobs. Here the researchers discovered that the men of this community tended to have marks associated with prolonged kneeling and intensive use of their arms, probably due to the use of specific tools or carrying work. Something that women did not have because they did not carry out those tasks. The surprise. Here the study skeleton that attracted so much attention revealed the same bone marks and joint wear resulting from kneeling as the men had. In this way, not only was this woman buried as a man, but she lived, worked, and moved like one of them. Neolithic genre. This study brings to the table a fascinating conclusion: Neolithic societies did have marked gender roles and a structured division of labor, but it was not something set in stone that ‘condemned’ a person to a job for being a man or a woman. As science now points out, the roles were “generalized but flexible.” This means that the fact that this community has decided to bury a woman with the honors of a man, recognizing the role she played in life, shows that in Europe seven thousand years ago there was room for exception. Images | engin akyurt In Xataka | 2,000 years ago Epicurus had already understood the secret of pleasure: “Nothing is enough for those who have enough is little.”

This is the Hormuz “swarm” that threatens to break the $100 barrier

Just enter Marine Traffic to understand the magnitude of the problem. The entire world is holding its breath before a funnel of water just a few miles wide. Through the Strait of Hormuz travels approximately 20% of the world’s daily oil supply and a vital quota of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Today, that global artery is suffering a heart attack. An unprecedented escalation in the Middle East, detonated by attacks of the United States and Israel that ended the life of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has unleashed a hail of missiles and drones. The result is a blockage de facto of the most important sea route on the planet. X-ray of a historical traffic jam. The cover image of Marine Traffic It is a veritable swarm of red icons that crowd on both sides of the strait, especially near the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Once we move the cursor over the boats, we see that they are still. According to the data of S&P Globalmaritime traffic has plummeted, between 40% and 50%. There are around 240 ships clustered waiting for instructions. Among them, as analyst Weilun Soon details in Bloombergthere are at least 40 supertankers (VLCCs), inactive giants each loaded with about 2 million barrels of crude oil. And time is against us: according to estimates by JPMorganIf this effective closure lasts more than 25 days, producers will run out of space to store crude oil and will have to stop physical production. The chaos is not only physical, it is also electronic. The data team SkyNews has documented severe interference in ship tracking systems (AIS). The signals are so distorted that some oil tankers appear located inland on radars. The fear is more than justified: the war has already spilled into the water. According to reports from the UKMTO (UK Maritime Commercial Operations) cited by Business Insiderthe tanker skylightflying the Palauan flag, was attacked near Oman. The balance has left four injured and 20 crew members urgently evacuated. Markets in panic and freight rates through the roof. The chain reaction has not been long in coming. In a quick look at the bag, we can observe the initial panic of investors: in the first hours of operations, Brent crude oil (the European benchmark) soared by 13%, reaching $82 per barrel—its highest in 14 months. Although it later relaxed to dawn this Monday around $79, the scare was already in the body. This whiplash has had winners and losers in the European stock markets. As you have detailed Guardian, While oil companies (Shell, BP) and defense companies (BAE Systems) rose sharply, airlines such as IAG or easyJet plummeted by around 10% and 7% respectively, terrified by the imminent increase in fuel costs. Moving crude oil today is a high-risk sport. The daily cost of renting a supertanker has skyrocketed by an unusual 600%, reaching $200,000 a day, as Alex Longley warns in Bloomberg. Insurance must be added to this bill: France 24 reports that premiums against war risks They are going to become between 25% and 50% more expensive for those who dare to enter ground zero. The paradox of OPEC+. The next market movement looked askance at the offices. According to the official statement from OPEC+the cartel agreed to inject an additional 206,000 barrels per day starting in April to stabilize prices. However, this measure is, in practice, a logistical mirage. As analyst John Kemp explains: in your column for Finance TimesOPEC+ has excess capacity of more than 3 million barrels per day, but almost all of that capacity is inside of the Persian Gulf countries. In other words, no matter how much extra oil Saudi Arabia or Iraq promise to pump, if the ships cannot cross the Strait of Hormuz, that oil does not exist for the rest of the world. The analysts of wood Mackenzie, collected by oil price, They have been more forceful: “If traffic is not restored quickly, the barrel will pierce the $100 barrier.” The nuances that will define the crisis. Despite the drama, the world has some escape valves that did not exist in the oil crises of the 70s: Lifesaving pipelines: As Kemp explainsSaudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can bypass the strait by exporting some of their crude oil through pipelines to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Oman. However, countries like Iraq and Kuwait are trapped: they are 100% dependent on Hormuz. Global shock absorbers: Analyst Javier Blas shells in Bloomberg that the shale revolution (shale oil) in the United States gives Washington unprecedented control over supply. Furthermore, China lIt has been filling to the brim for years its strategic reserves, which would soften the blow in the short term. The big beneficiary: Ironically, the blockade is excellent news for Vladimir Putin. As Blas points outa sustained rise in prices makes it easier for Russia to sell its sanctioned crude oil on the Asian black market with much juicier margins. The world holds its breath. At the moment, the global economy is paralyzed waiting for what a few ship captains decide. Maritime transport giants such as Maersk have already announced the temporary suspension of all their transits through the area, how to collect France 24. Laden ships will remain idle, “avoiding drama,” in the words of a shipping broker consulted by S&P Global. Today, the fate of global inflation is decided not on Wall Street or central banks, but in the tense waters of Oman and Iran, where a swarm of steel giants have decided to shut down their engines and pray for the storm to subside. Image | MarineTraffic Xataka | Tension in Iran is so high that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. And that will have consequences when you go to refuel.

The last barrier against AI is good taste. The problem is that an entire generation is growing up without developing it

The new normal in three acts: You open X and find a clearly AI-generated image trying to look legitimate. But it’s not bad, it complies. You go to LinkedIn and find a piece that reeks of ChatGPT, but you get the idea that its author wanted to convey. In GitHub You find code that works, but that no sensible programmer would write like that. You let it go. welcome to the era of “good enough”. Generative AI has made it easy, fast, and free to produce “acceptable” things, and that has moved the collective bar for quality. Not upward but towards “functional”. The worrying thing is not that AI produces mediocrity, but that it is accustoming us to accepting it. Before, if we needed an image for the article, we had to look for it or – for those who had ID – order it. There was friction or there was cost. Now we generate it in fifteen seconds (wink), and since it “serves”, it stays there (wink, wink, nudge). Even if it is generic or has that artificial veneer that we all recognize but no one talks about anymore. The problem is that when something acceptable costs nothing to produce, we stop asking ourselves if it is worth doing. We’re just wondering if it meets the minimum. AND meeting the minimum is not the same as doing something good. In development this is also very noticeable. An experienced and talented programmer instantly recognizes whether a code has been written by an AI. Even if it works (we already take that for granted), you can tell by the verbiage, because it is redundant, because it is not very elegant. It does what it has to do, but no senior He would be proud to have it bearing his signature. What is going to happen to a generation that is going to learn to program using AI from day one? If you’ve never written bad code and then understood what makes it good, how are you going to develop judgment? Good taste does not come standard. It is built by seeing many bad things, many good things, making mistakes. AI saves you that path by giving you something that works from the first try. But without going down that path, you never develop the eye to distinguish. Therein lies the risk. AI has raised the floor (anyone can produce something decent), but the ceiling is still just as high. At least for the majority. Creating something exceptional requires the same things as always: talent, effort, judgment. Only now it is buried under tons of slop and mediocre but functional content. And since creating it is free, we produce it non-stop. Human value remains in taste. Knowing how to look at something and say “okay, it’s good, but it’s not good”. But that criterion is only formed with practice. If an entire generation grows up consuming and producing what “just delivers,” how are they going to learn what is excellent? If you have never seen the difference, that difference does not exist for you. We are heading towards a world where it will be normalized that “good enough” is the only standard because we forget how to recognize when something will be done well. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka with Nano Banana

We have so many satellites orbiting the Earth that they have become a barrier for someone: telescopes

For years, the astronomical community has looked at the sky with considerable concern from Earth. And it’s normal. In recent years, the number of satellites that we have put into orbit has grown exponentially, highlighting above all starlinkwhich promised to bring the internet to the entire planet in exchange for fill our nights with “trains of lights”. But this is only hindering our ability to continue investigating the universe where we are immersed. Trapped in a cage. The telescopes that we now have closer to Earth to do their work logically have to look towards our sky. The problem, as the research points out led by Alejandro S. Borlaff, is that they are going blind. Specifically, the low orbit (LEO) space telescopes that are not only not safe, but they are trapped in a real cage that prevents them from seeing further. Until now, it was possible to think that satellite traces could only affect terrestrial observatories. However, orbital reality is pure geometry: most large space telescopes like Hubble They orbit at about 540 km high. A height at which the internet megaconstellations that are located above or in the layers that range from 340 km to 8,000 km. Because. Satellites do not emit any type of light and should not cause problems. But the problem comes when they reflect sunlight, and when this happens in the new coverage satellites that have a large size, we find that even if it is night on Earth (or wherever the telescope is), at a hundred kilometers high the Sun continues to illuminate the satellite. And the lighting and telescopes they get along very badly. Space telescopes are designed to look at objects that are “still” at infinity (stars, galaxies). To capture its faint light, the telescope must fix its gaze on an exact point and not move. However, satellites move at thousands of kilometers per hour in relation to the telescope and since the camera shutter is open for a long time (long exposures of minutes or even hours) to capture weak light, the satellite crosses the entire frame during the photo, being recorded not as a point, but as a continuous line or “scar” of light. A problem. In this way, if a telescope is 540 km high when pointed at the sky, it will encounter an increasingly dense network of space traffic in the form of satellites. Specifically, there are currently about 15,000 satellites in orbit, but requests to different regulators suggest that we could reach half a million satellites by the end of the 2030s. Something that would leave large space observatories unusable. To put specific cases, we have the NASA Hubble that right now 3–4% of the images it captures have satellite trails. A figure that will increase to almost 40%, causing one in every three photographs of the most famous telescope in history to have a ‘light scar’. We have another case in SPHEREx which is the future explorer of the origins of the universe and which will have almost 100% of its catchments contaminated. Its impact. It is undoubtedly incalculable. Missions like ARRAKIHS (of the European Space Agency, with strong Spanish participation) or SPHEREx depend on taking very wide-field images to map the structure of the universe. By having such a large field of view, the probability of dozens of satellites being “snuck in” in a single shot is 100%. For him Chinese Xuntian Telescopewhich orbits lower, the situation is much worse. Being “below” most of the Starlink, Kuiper constellations and the Chinese networks themselves such as Guangwang You’ll have a harder time dealing with nearly a hundred bright lines crossing every image you take. The solution. Orbiting telescopes were a solution to this problem that was occurring in terrestrial telescopes. Now history repeats itself. Experts point to the need to define precise orbits so that telescopes can avoid satellites in a simple way. But this requires great international coordination to share this information and, above all, to regulate the number of launches that are carried out. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | Which telescope to buy to enjoy the nights and stars: 20 telescopes, binoculars, gadgets, accessories and more

The biggest barrier to improving your running times is not your body: it is your worn-out shoes.

I don’t want to put pressure on anyone, but there are 24 days left until the Valencia Trinidad Alfonso Zurich 2025 Marathon. It is, probably, the most important event of the year for marathoners on the national scene. Valencia has become a reference inside and outside our borders for the most advanced runners. But it has also become the perfect showcase to continue gaining followers in a world where groups of runners for all levels multiply, specialty coffee shops with running clubs and, phone in handthe new followers of a religion that seems not to reach its ceiling. New faithful who are bombarded with new training plans, with the benefits of the Norwegian methodclothing brands that have understood the concept with a clear turn towards design and fashion or with YouTube channels in which the latest shoe, the latest revolutionary foam and the most complex carbon plate are analyzed. And among numbers that already exceed three figures, the next generation GPS watch and the t-shirt that weighs 35 grams, sometimes we forget that running, which is running, is run with our feet. And what we wear is key to avoiding injuries. This is what Marta Molina, a doctor in traumatology, maintains, who in statements to ABC warns: we must change shoes every 700 kilometers. A big “it depends” “Each runner has different biomechanics. Detecting imbalances or poor support technique can prevent future injuries (…) The most frequent injuries that we see in consultation during these weeks (prior to the Valencian appointment) are Achilles tendinopathies, overloads in calves, plantar fasciitis or discomfort in the knee and hip derived from excessive training or inappropriate footwear” As a runner with a decade under my belt, I will say that I have gone through each and every one of those concepts at some point. In the form of injuries or discomfort, but I have not missed any of those diagnoses along the way. And what’s worse, I have the feeling that most of those who start in this sport go through some type of discomfort of this type. It shouldn’t be like this but usually we don’t realize the mistake until we have hit the wall. Molina talks about inappropriate footwear and change it after 700 kilometers. And yes, it is a common problem. Either for investing little initial money or for wanting to stretch the gum of a product (that of running shoes) whose RRP has settled above 150 euros in a good part of the market. Dani Navarro, a worker at Bikilaone of the most renowned stores in the country. “Our feedback from customers is that training shoes usually last between 700 and 900 kilometers. There can always be exceptions due to pure biomechanics, runners who do not reach that mileage or who, due to having a very refined technique, far exceed them.” In Runneaa media specialized in this sport, echoed a study in which they pointed out that training shoes began to lose part of their properties and effectiveness after 400 kilometers but that runners did not perceive the decrease in performance until 640 kilometers. The problem is that the first warning is usually discomfort. Navarro also points out two important details. The first thing is that it talks about “training shoes”. The second thing is that it puts the focus on the foams. “The mileage could be extended a little if the shoes are rotated, especially for those who run daily. This way the materials don’t wear out as much and they don’t crush the materials as much.” These two points are key, especially with the arrival of the new foams that offer a much softer and more reactive touch but whose useful life is also in question. The so-called “training shoes” are recommended for people who are starting out in sports because they are the ones that protect the muscles the most and are the most comfortable for going at slow paces. They are also used by experienced runners when they want to accumulate kilometers in preparation. The lower the weight and the better the technique, the more kilometers you can get out of the shoes. The catalog is very wide and varied, from the classic Saucony Triumph or Brooks Glycerin with a slightly firmer feel to the ubiquitous and very soft Nike Invincible, which have earned a place in hearts for their endless padding. But both Molina and Navarro agree on the same point: exceed mileage of shoes increases the risk of injury. The shoe is more likely to become more unstable and the joints and muscles will face a greater challenge. In addition, you have to take into account what you buy and why. Navarro remembers that there are “mixed sneakers” designed to run a little faster, face training plans with series or changes of pace (the famous fartleck). These shoes are predicted to have an average useful life of about 600 kilometers. Sneakers among which we find classics such as the Adidas Adizero Boston, the legendary Nike Pegasus or the more modern New Balance Fuelcell Rebel. At the higher end in price and muscular demand are “competition shoes”, items designed to perform to the maximum of our possibilities but with a very short useful life “of 300 or 400 kilometers” estimates the Bikila expert. The maximum representative of this last option were the Adidas Adizero Pro EVOsneakers weighing 138 grams with which Tigst Assefa breaks the women’s marathon world record and that the German company itself warned of a useful life of a single competition and the prior filming for the adaptation of the runner. Starting price: 500 euros and limited units. A category that was previously dominated by aggressive flyers with half-toe midsole and where now foams of wild sizes reign and carbon plates, a new trend that was inaugurated by the Nike Vaporfly and that competitors have replicated with the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro, the Saucony Endorphin Elite or the most striking Hoka Cielo X or the galactic Puma Fast R Nitro Elite. … Read more

The fastest car on the planet is electric, Chinese and touches the 500 km/h barrier

Byd already has a new notch in its revolver. A little over a month ago that the Chinese company presumed to have the faster electric car in the world. Its Yangwang U9, an electrical hyperdeportivo of 3,000 hp of power already looked through the rearview by any previous brand with its more than 470 km/h of peak speed. Today, Byd can already boast another milestone: he has the fastest car in the world. Yangwang U9 Xtreme, previously known as Track Day The “electric” surname of its record has been removed by raising up to 496.22 km/h peak speed. Yes, they have managed to beat Bugatti. Byd has the fastest car on the planet. I had to arrive It was almost a matter of time for an electric car to be done with the tip speed record. Electric cars have become vehicles with the fastest acceleration in the world but, in addition, with the right battery they had in their hand to take the fastest car title in the world. Keep in mind that Yangwang U9 is a Electric hypercocheor 1,288 hp. It has the latest byd technologies, such as the intelligent control of your body that allows you three -wheel either hop To avoid obstacles. Yes, jump. But in its Xtreme version, this hypercoche raises the power of its four engines up to a total of 2,978 hp. That makes it an authentic missile to which only he can stop his battery. However, with the appropriate accumulator the “fastest car in the world” title was going to fall yes or yes in an electric car sooner or later. In this case, we talked about the first car with a structure of 1,200 volts (the most advanced right now on the street have 800 volts) and an energy accumulator more dense than the rest of the cars that Byd has on the street. That is why it is able to accumulate more electricity in the same space. That battery, however, is huge and despite lightening weight in other elements, we talk about a 2,480 kg car. Solution, with its 3,000 hp of power they have managed to get into a ratio of 0.82 kg/cv. He has defeated pure gross power to Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+, which in 2019 reached 490.48 km/h. The almost 500 km/h of the byd model have swept the European model but have been made in a unidirectional pass in the oval of the oval of ATP Papenburg Circuit in Germany. At the moment, the SSC Tuatara remains the fastest vehicle in a bidirectional past, with 455.3 km/h on average. However, the milestone is important. Bugatti has been ensuring that he had reached its limits. The Chiron Super Sport 300+ has a brutal W16 capable of reaching 1,600 hp and had put on Michelin’s roof Its ability to break a new record. Marc Basseng, the pilot on which the record of the record fell, said that it has only been possible because “the U9 Xtreme has incredible performance. Technically, something like that It is not possible with a combustion engine. Thanks to the electric motor, the car is silent, there are no weight changes and that allows me to concentrate even more on the track. ” New horizon? Obviously: be the first car that exceeds 500 km/h of peak speed. There is a new race to get it and Byd has been about to throw the door down. Photo | Byd In Xataka | Bugatti Veyron was a jewel that cost 1.7 million dollars: Volkswagen lost 6.7 million with each one that sold

The Arctic cold was the ideal barrier against invasive species. Now that barrier is falling

The Arctic Ocean is one of the hot points as far as climate change is concerned. Separated from the surface by polar ice, this ocean is a place with its own characteristics that go beyond its icy temperature. The barrier falls. A new study headed by researchers at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) He has found evidence of the arrival of an invasive species of Percebe to the waters of the Canadian Antarctic. This has led the team to conclude that the barrier that previously represented the low temperatures of the polar ocean is falling. Amphibalanus Impherevisus. The species in question is a type of Balánido sometimes known as bay’s percebe (Amphibalanus Impherevisus). These crustaceans are disturbed in a distant way with the common perclabes (Cornucopia policipes), but its presence is considered a problem and not A food source. The species has already become a regular of the waters of Europe and the Pacific Ocean, where it causes problems when attached to ships, pipes and infrastructure of different types. However, until now it had remained absent in the waters of the Canadian Arctic. EADN. The detection of the invasive species was carried out thanks to the study of the bars coding of the Environmental DNA (Edna). Living beings are leaving our genetic imprint in our environment: detached cells, waste and other biological remains. This technique allows to detect the presence of a species (or several) without finding a single specimen, only through environmental samples, in this case, water. The details of the study were Published in an article In the magazine Global Change Biology. Climate change, the great suspect. The Arctic is one of the regions most affected by climate change. There are two factors, both related to the increase in temperatures in this region, which have contributed to the expansion of this percebe. The first factor is the increase in maritime traffic of the Arctic associated with the thaw and the opening of new routes. Generally, the team explains, these invasive species usually arrive in the ships of the ships or in their ballast tanks. The second factor is that the waters of the Canadian Arctic no longer present such hostile conditions for the proliferation of foreign species. “Climate change is really in the nucleus of this problem. The ships are increasing in number because the reduction of sea ice has opened new nautical routes. It adds to this that the invasive species that the ships bring to the Arctic also are more likely to survive and establish populations due to the warmest temperatures of the water,” explained in a press release Elizabeth Boyse, who led the study. An issue to clarify. According to the team responsible for the study, there are still details to corroborate with respect to the spread of this species in the Canadian Arctic, starting to know if the DNA detected responded to larvae in transit or a more stable and fruitful population. To know this type of detail, it will be necessary to complement the study with other techniques, such as direct observation of animals. In Xataka | A group of Dutch came up with watering the Arctic could be a good antidote against thaw. It is working Image | Ansgar Walk, CC by-SA 3.0

Mafalda has been international 50 years, but he had a barrier to overcome: the English language

Published For the first time in 1964the sharpness of his observations, his tragicomic vision of the world and the microcosm of children’s characters that he developed made it a Comic icon in Spanish. However, until now I had not been able to make the leap to another of the most widespread languages ​​on the planet due to a mixture of fear that their stories were very local since it would lose grace with translation. But the universal dimension of the character has finally reached the bookstores. ‘Mafalda’ was a relatively brief series for what are usually the successful comics, only nine years of life: he was born in 1964 and died in 1973, when its quino creator (about which, by the way, it premieres An excellent documentary today in Filmin) He decided that he was going to end. Despite the innumerable reissues and new incarnations (next year we will have Netflix animated series Directed by the Oscarized Juan José Campanella), he has never been continued. Mafalda was born, in fact, a year before his first publication, such as part of an advertising campaign for some appliances that never got to. But Quino liked his creation and recycled it for the pages of the weekly ‘First Flat’. In his stories he told the Simple experiences of a girl, Mafalda, from a series of friends of her age (Felipe, Manolito, Susanita and Miguelito) and the adults around him. As in ‘Peanuts‘,’Calvin and Hobbes‘Or many others, the children’s environment hid the most adult of the reflections. In the case of Mafalda, dyed of sharp social criticism. The development of Mafalda was deeply marked by the tense political situation that Latin America lived in general and Argentina in particular after the coup d’etat of 1976. The unwavering Mafalda’s pacifist position made it an antiauthority symbol, and some of its vignettes (such as Mafalda pointing out the porra of a policeman and saying “This is the stick of abolloing ideologies”) pages, and became symbols of the protests, even appearing with the victims of the tragic San Patricio massacre. 30 languages ​​… less English Mafalda’s international success, which became a reference for the political comic (to such an extent that Quino had to exile for the content of his vignettes) It led her to be translated into 30 languages. And until today ‘Mafalda’ had been read in Poland, Greece, Italy, France, Taiwan and, of course, in all Spanish -speaking countries. However, English was resisted. 50 years later, the ‘mafalda’ strips are going to be published in the United States in a comprehensive collection translated by Frank Wynne, which has faced some problems it details In this interview: Of course, there are word games (milk cream leads Mafalda to wonder about the controls of Birth), but also the political context of the moment. Peronism or the situation in Latin America must be explained to the new readers, although others (Mafalda continually spoke of the Vietnam Guera) possibly relative to them. However, those responsible for this new edition say something we already knew: Mafalda’s concerns are eternal and transcend borders. The brutality of the powerful to submit to the humble, the inequalities, the imbalance between genders … all that is in ‘Mafalda’ and remains valuable today. Anglophones readers will discover it now, but it is never too late for Mafalda to give you some lessons, as a good sabihonda that always was. In Xataka | ‘The Eternaluta’ is a masterpiece of science fiction, but the story of its creator gives him an absolutely unique background

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