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The El Niño numbers are so strong that they are beginning to make half the world nervous. We have to be able to differentiate risk from hysteria

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“More than 1.80 degrees, 3.46 standard deviations“These two figures simply summarize the enormous El Niño problem that is upon us. And yet, they say much more than they seem. Because, while social networks are filled with phrases like «2026 will be the year when we look back and say: “there, that was when the relatively stable climate system that we have had for 10,000 years really broke down”», are just the data that two of the largest agencies in the world have just retired. Let’s start with what we are clear about. The El Niño of 2026 is real and is coming (very) strong. After an almost testimonial Niña and as we have been counting these months, the Pacific has stepped on the accelerator and on June 11 it made an appearance. The CPC The NOAA estimates that the event is “very strong” between November and January at 63%, the highest since 1950. So, anyway, the figures cannot surprise anyone either. The problem is that they are inflated. That +1.80 with which the text began is the traditional Niño 3.4 index, the absolute. In short: it is the index that measures how far the Central Pacific is from its historical average. And it’s the index we’ve been using all these years. The problem is that there was one small detail that clouded the data and that, sooner or later, we had to address: climate change. In an ocean that warms with each passing day, both La Niña and El Niño start from different places than in previous decades. We were inflating Los Niño and deflating Las Niñas without meaning to. For this reason, in 2026, NOAA adopted the RONI, a relative index that discounted the effect of climate change. And, in this sense, the data circulating on the internet is true and worrying, yes; but incomplete. And does the photo change much from the ONI to the RONI? Since we don’t have updated data, let’s go to April: according to NOAAthe ONI marked +0.23 °C, while the RONI was at −0.24 °C. That is to say, the difference is considerable, but the situation is much less critical. So… the system isn’t broken? The reaction to the runaway ONI hits the mark, but misses the mark. Evidently, El Niño has not gone crazy: it is a mechanism with thousands of years behind it that works on a relatively new world. We could see an obvious example this June: the warmest observed in the global ocean, one in which marine heat waves covered 82% of its surface. And now…. what? In the short term, an increasingly stronger El Niño. It is true that in Spain we are relatively safe from what happens in the Pacific; but, sooner or later, we are going to notice it. As half the world is already noticing. Image | BenBaso In Xataka | We are already seeing the first most destructive effect of El Niño in living memory: rising sea levels

“The death of the star is not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter”

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The future of the Sun it is written. Like any star its size, it is expected that there will come a time when it runs out of fuel, swelling and becoming a red giant. Then, later on, it will expel its outermost layers and its core will collapse under the effect of gravity, becoming a cold and dense white dwarf. It will be a process that will take about 5,000 million years to occur and that, logically, will influence the planets that revolve around it. Including Earth. That’s why scientists are so interested in studying exoplanets around white dwarfs. They want to “travel to the future” and see what will become of our own planet and its neighbors. The problem is that, while many of these exoplanets have been found, it is generally very difficult to delve into their atmosphere and study their history. Until now, it had been impossible, but the James Webb Space Telescope has arrived to change that trend. Colder than expected. A team of scientists from several American universities has used the James Webb to enter the atmosphere of WD 1856bsimilar to Jupiter in orbit and size, which is currently orbiting a white dwarf. James Webb is not capable of solving the reasons why it is so complicated to study these exoplanets. However, thanks to the development of new analysis models, these researchers have been able to analyze its atmosphere. The composition, in reality, has not caught their attention too much. On the other hand, its temperature has. If we compare it with Jupiter, a temperature of -113ºC would be expected. However, 126ºC was measured. It is too hot, both for an exoplanet around a white dwarf, and for an exoplanet with the characteristics of Jupiter. Chronicle of a death foretold. In its early stages of life, a star remains “on” while It fuses hydrogen nuclei and transforms them into helium. While this happens in the core, there are two forces that remain in balance. On the one hand, gravity, which pushes all the material inward. And, on the other hand, the radiation pressure, which is generated by the effect of fusion in the stellar core and pushes outward. So far so good. The problem is that hydrogen is not infinite. When spent in the core, the forces are no longer in balance. Gravity overcomes radiation pressure, so the core is pushed inward and compressed. It heats up so much that the helium that remained in the core acquires the ability to fuse, becoming a new fuel, which will be transformed into carbon and oxygen. All this heating also “ignites” the hydrogen in the outer layers, which until now remained inactive. It begins to merge as well and the star grows outward. We have a big, hot red giant. The process repeats itself, but there comes a time when these new layers that form are expelled by the stellar winds and only the core remains, now cold and very dense. We have a white dwarf. Logically, it is a process that has consequences on the planets that orbit the star. In the case of the solar system, it is known that Mercury and Venus would perish. With the Earth things are not so clear, but it does not look good. What exoplanets around a white dwarf tell us. Numerous cases of exoplanets have been detected around white dwarfs. Studying them is opening a window to the future of the Earth and its neighbors. However, it is not something easy to study. Generally, the atmosphere of exoplanets is studied during transits. That is, when the planet passes between its star and our telescopes. At this time, light from the star is filtered through the planet’s atmosphere, so the resulting spectra can be analyzed and its chemical composition understood. The problem is that, normally, exoplanets are much smaller than their star, but that is not the case with those that orbit a white dwarf. This exoplanet, for example, is seven times larger than its star. Therefore, if normally the atmosphere of a transiting planet is completely on the disk of its star, in this case only a small part is. It was necessary to refine the analysis methods with the James Webb to be able to analyze the atmosphere of WD 1856b. too hot. The wavelength at which objects emit light can also give us clues about their temperature. Therefore, this procedure was used to calculate the temperature of the exoplanet. As we have already seen, it turned out to be too hot. The hypothesis. It is not known for sure what causes these inconsistencies, but the study authors have some hypotheses. They consider that the planet possibly reached its maximum temperature billions of years after its star became a white dwarf. Then, far from cooling as it would normally have, it was affected by a nearby binary star, whose tidal influence not only warmed it. It also moved it away from its orbit. All this took him away from what was expected, but above all it kept him alive. As explained in Science Alert one of the authors of the studyRyan MacDonald, this planet, like all exoplanets around a white dwarf, demonstrates that the death of the star is not the end of the planet, but a new chapter. Earth may not be influenced by a binary star, but there are many factors that can keep it alive. There may no longer be humans to see it, but perhaps there will be a new form of life. If humanity has not destroyed the planet beforeneither may the collapse of the Sun. That’s good news. More or less. Image | NASA, ESA, CSA, R. Crawford (STScI) In Xataka | What astronomers thought was going to be a boring supernova has revealed an enigma of galactic dust

“It is partly favored by the beginning of a new El Niño phenomenon”

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The oceans continue to increase in temperature and set records. We have the latest data from June 21, when unprecedented temperatures were reached, and it is not any type of sensor or satellite calibration error. And when two of the most advanced and precise climate measurement systems on the planet issue exactly the same warning, science leaves little room for doubt: Earth’s oceans are warmer than ever for this time of year. Double confirmation. What is truly relevant about this milestone is not the number on the thermometer, but the solidity of this data. On the one hand, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which It is the European referenceaimed at 20.86 ºC on June 21. On the other hand, Copernicus Marine Service frame on this same day 21 ºC. Its importance. In climatology, it is crucial that two metrics with different methodological approaches converge on the same result. This double confirmation drastically reduces the probability that the record depends on a single measurement method or an instrumental failure. The Child. This ocean thermal anomaly does not occur in a vacuum, but already at the end of May and beginning of June, the World Meteorological Organization warned that the probability of El Niño developing was unusually high, urging governments to prepare their impact mitigation plans. The suspicions were confirmed on June 11, 2026 when the Climate Prediction Center of the US NOAA issued its ENSO Diagnostic Discussiondeclaring officially that El Niño conditions were already present in the equatorial Pacific and that the phenomenon had developed strongly during the previous month. An important nuance. As experts point out, the fact that record temperatures coincide with the onset of El Niño does not imply complete causality. It must be taken into account that El Niño is a natural phenomenon that warms the tropical Pacific, but by itself it does not explain why the North Atlantic or the southern seas are burning. What we are experiencing is a dangerous temporal coincidence, as El Niño is overlapping a relentless background global warming trend, driven by human-made emissions. Anthropogenic warming has raised the “base temperature” of the planet and, if you add to that artificially high base the natural peak caused by El Niño, the result is the breakdown of global thermometers that we are seeing this month. Its effects. The sea acts as the Earth’s great thermostat, absorbing approximately 90% of the excess heat from the climate system. But this buffering capacity has limits and, above all, severe consequences. For example, a warmer sea evaporates more water and this means more atmospheric “fuel” to trigger extreme storms and more intense hurricanes. The experts. If we turn to the voices of third-party researchers who have interpreted these results, Sergio Moreno, technician at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, in statements to SMC, states the following: Regarding the implications of these observations, as the authors already mention, the trend of increasing sea surface temperature, which has been experienced for years, seems to be accelerating, partly favored by the beginning of a new episode of the El Niño phenomenon. Although there is always a certain degree of uncertainty in any prediction, everything seems to indicate that temperature records will continue to be broken in the coming months and years, accompanied by more intense and less predictable weather phenomena. In Xataka | Global warming has stepped on the accelerator at an unprecedented rate and we are getting closer to the point of no return

Spanish oil is changing radically and we are only now beginning to realize it

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There was a time when some olive oil jugs came with an anti-theft alarm. Those were the years in which the liter was close to ten euros and analysts wondered if the EVOO culture was dead. Traditional producers were drowning between meager production and falling demand. That was all two years ago. Now things have changed. Now prices are at rock bottom and, as a consequence, more than 75% of the Spanish olive grove, according to the association of olive municipalities, already produces below costs. The data is accurate; the producers are still drowning; The panorama is desolate. However, none of this means what it seems. The 75% figure. The assembly of the AEMO (Spanish Association of Municipalities of the Olivo) met in Adamuz and advanced its cost study for 2026. According to its calculations, the price at origin is 3.51 euros and that means that More than 75% of the olive growing area is already producing at a loss or at the limit of profitability. It makes sense. The AEMO does a more subtle job than we usually see and elaborates not “a cost” but sevenone for each cultivation system. As soon as we start to think in those terms, the olive grove stops being a ‘sea of ​​olive trees’ and becomes a very complex agro-industrial system. To give us an idea, the costs of the traditional mountain olive grove are about 5.31 euros per kilo, while the irrigated hedge is 3.07. Thus, with the average price of 3.51 euros, the hedge gains money and the traditional mountain hedge loses almost two euros. The hunger games. To be fair, we have to recognize that the AEMO is ‘part’ in this discussion (it defends the traditional olive grove) and, furthermore, has not yet published the entire report. However, the figures fit with what we already knew: no matter what happens in the olive oil market, the result is always the same: the irrigated olive grove wins. This is so clear that there is a whole mad race for make all hectares irrigated that they can (at all costs at a social, economic and environmental level). The current situation… It has to do, above all, with excess oil: after some bad seasons, we have gone from around 666,000 tons in 2022/23 to around 1.4 million in the last two campaigns. As there is a type of olive tree that can continue to be profitable at very low prices, there are no real incentives to contain the supply and that exposes a good part of the industry to having to assume the losses to stay alive for another season. And why should we care about olive farmers now? In our country (and without going into speculation about how good or bad the sector is), the olive grove has a key role in the economic, labor and industrial structure of Empty Spain. It is a discreet and underappreciated role; but that undoubtedly forms part of the basal structure of a good part of the country. It is not an accident that the association that is moving this is of municipalities: the traditional olive grove is an issue of great territorial importance. Because we must not be fooled. We talk about surface, not production. The irrigated olive grove is much more productive and is increasingly important. What we are seeing is a change of model within the sector and, linked to that, we are beginning to see the consequences it will have in the medium term. Spiler: they will not be good for most of olive-growing Spain. Image | Maximo Lopez In Xataka | Spain faces its greatest agricultural challenge of the century: converting 1,901,529 hectares of olive groves into irrigation before it is too late

“To say that it is a bubble is a blasphemy against AI, this is just the beginning”

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Bubble yes, bubble no. Nobody agrees. On one side are those who see a clear parallelism with the dotcom bubble and They believe that the explosion is imminent. On the other hand, the most optimistic They see AI as a source of inexhaustible wealth (one that we haven’t seen yetthey say that because we don’t know how to measure it). Guess which side the CEO of SoftBank is on, who only last year put in no less than $40 billion in OpenAI. What bubble? They count in Reuters that, during the last annual results conference, the CEO of the company Masayoshi Son He was blunt with those who see an imminent apocalypse in the AI ​​boom: “I think that saying that it is a bubble is a blasphemy against AI (…) This is nothing more than the beginning. The potential of AI is yet to be discovered.” Are did not rule out a fall completelybut he predicted “many golden days” even if that happened. His position fits with that of other business leaders like Jensen Huangwho believes that we are facing the largest infrastructure construction in history, or Satya Nadellawhich says that it would only be a bubble if no one uses AI, which is not happening. Interests. To understand this very forceful position, it is enough to know that SoftBank is the largest investor in OpenAI. In total, the Japanese conglomerate has committed to investing more than $64 billion, and more importantly: they are not investing in other AI companies. At the moment the bet is going relatively well for them and in the first quarter of the year they recorded profits of 25 billion dollars, which skyrocketed their share price, which has already risen 216% in 2025. However, it is no less true that the future of the company is strongly linked to the success or failure of OpenAI and the AI ​​boom in general. If the bubble punctures, they puncture with it. blind faith. They counted on Bloomberg Recently, many SoftBank executives were concerned about the strange fascination that their CEO showed for Sam Altman. At a time when Rivals like Anthropic are already worth morethe internal leadership is concerned about the risk of “putting all their eggs in one basket” and then Altman not keeping his promises. It is something that It already happened to them with the bankruptcy of WeWork and that repeats the same ingredients: charismatic leader and aggressive investment. Several of these executives have asked Son what would happen if OpenAI failed, but the CEO always dismisses the doubts abruptly, so they have chosen to remain silent. The IPO. OpenAI is planning its IPOprobably before the end of the year, so this gain is still on paper. If the operation is successful, SoftBank can make a significant amount of profit, but it is also exposed to heavy losses if it goes wrong. Recently the analyst Ed Zitron leaked data on OpenAI’s financial status and the losses are so high that they make you dizzy. Despite everything, investors continue to believe in OpenAI and the company It’s already worth a whopping $852 billion. Contrast. The perception of leaders like Masayoshi Son contrasts with the growing concern of the American population. It is estimated that the total investment in AI is already has exceeded one billion dollars and citizens are not clear that it is the gold mine that technology companies promise. According to a recent Haystack News survey54.9% were “very worried” that a bubble is forming in the technology industry because of AI, while only 21.2% said they were not worried at all. This adds to the growing rejection of the construction of data centersmainly because the pollution it generates in nearby towns. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | The CEO of NVIDIA has returned from the future with a warning: there are seven or eight years of astronomical investment in AI left

AI fever is beginning to take its toll on companies

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Oh, the tokensthose small units of text that have become the currency of the AI ​​boom. A few months ago, Silicon Valley companies jumped into arms of the tokenmaxxing: Spending tokens like there was no tomorrow, because that meant you were being more productive. Well, there are already companies putting on the brakes because it is costing them a fortune. The tokenomics. There are already several technology companies that are showing concern because spending on tokens is being excessive and they have even begun to introduce usage limits to control it. Meanwhile, they count on Wired that others like 8×8 and Baseball Lifestyle 101 continue with the tap open, although with nuances, such as that the use of more expensive models must be justified. It is the new obsession of the sector: tokenomicswhich we could translate by tokenomics or, if we want to be clearer, token economy. Who runs a lot, soon as the saying goes. Of the tokenmaxxingsuddenly we went to tokenwasting and there are companies in serious problems because of this phenomenon, like the company that “accidentally” spent $500 million on Claude in a single month. We also have the case of Meta, which went from unbridled use to a strict management and rationing policy because the bill rose to billions annually or the Royal Bank of Canada, whose use of tokens has increased by 500% so far this year. A growing concern. A year ago, it was rare to hear the word token in an earnings call, but today it is among the main financial concerns of companies. According to data from Wired, in April and May at least 300 companies expressed concern about the issue, while in the same period last year only 93 companies mentioned it. During Cisco’s earnings call, CEO Chuck Robbins he said it very clearly: “Token usage is getting pretty, pretty crazy.” Behind this statement there is constantly fluctuating prices and increasingly more powerful models (and also more expensive) where we come from. In March of this year, Jensen Huang started talking about AI tokens as a productivity indicatorgoing so far as to say that he would be concerned if a high-level engineer did not spend at least half of his salary on AI tokens. What followed were companies encouraging their employees to consume more tokensriding internal competitions (that some rigged) and a bill that kept increasing. What we are seeing now is how that “spend as much as you can” is transforming into “spend wisely.” The question is whether in the middle of this game there is someone really measuring the value of the work that is produced. Image | Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | Claude is banned in China. That hasn’t stopped Chinese users from creating an amazing black market for tokens

The super Niño of 1877 wiped out 4% of the world’s population. The one that is already beginning to form promises to be worse, but what does that mean in 2027?

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In the last week, El Niño has become suddenly real. Media like Washington Post, BBC or countless media in Spanish have begun to compare what is coming to us with El superNiño of 1877, the event that “wiped out 4% of the world’s population.” And, stated this way, it is no wonder; The story is simple: “a Child Godzilla is coming and no one knows if we are ready.” That is why it is important to know what exactly we are talking about and if, in short, “we are all going to die.” How serious is the matter? As we said a few days ago, between March and May the reliability of ENSO forecasts is usually worse than normal (because the equatorial Pacific anomalies go through their transition phase). That makes everyone go with “lead feet”; but the data is worrying. Ben Noll of the Washington Post broadcast on May 8 that the North American Multi-Model Ensemble projected “the strongest El Niño on record” between October 2026 and January 2027, with a peak of +3.1 °C in November. They are big words. Above all, because the ECMWF is along the same lines. In the words of Diego Restrepo, “El Niño is rapidly intensifying, and now 8 out of 10 models point to a super event and four project the strongest one on record.” And this looks like 1877? That is Noll’s thesis and it has been repeated a lot in recent days. However, the comparison is misleading. First, because, although the models are pointing to a historical ENSO, they are still models. That is, we still have no idea what is going to happen. And, to be strict, until the models recover their full potential in June, we will not know well. Second because, as argued by Kimberley Reid, from the University of Melbournethe intensity measured in the central Pacific does not translate linearly into impacts. Taking into account everything that has changed in this century and a half at a climate level, the impacts may be completely different. And thirdly because El Niño of 1877 was not the cause of that catastrophe. Yes, it is true that he set the conditions for it to occur but, as noted Mike Davis in “Late Victorian Holocausts”what killed throughout that quarter of a century were colonial policies. And what happened in 1877? A strange combination between a superNiño, the Indian Dipole and a tremendously warm North Atlantic between the years 1876–78 caused a global drought. The problem is that, in a world governed by imperialism, grain exports did not stop and, as local resilience mechanisms had been dismantled, a famine occurred that killed some 50 million people. But the consensus is clear: no matter how intense El Niño was, it caused the problem of its management. And that, although it may not seem like it, is good news. A few years ago the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published a report with a clear warning: “climate-related disasters” have increased since the 1970s. Specifically, they have multiplied by five over the last five decades. According to their calculations, in the 1980s, 1,400 incidents were recorded – their tables include extreme weather, climate and water phenomena – and in the 1990s, just over 2,200. In the first decade of the 21st century, 3,500 were reached and during the last decade, which spans from 2010 to 2019, it was close to 3,200. Curiously, this increase in the number of disasters has coincided with a decrease in the number of victims. The WMO data is clearalso: from more than 50,000 deaths in the 1970s (incidents basically related to climate and water are taken into account) it went to less than 20,000 in 2010. From an average of 170 a day in the 70s and 80s, it dropped in the 90s to less than a hundred a day and to 40 at the beginning of the 21st century. What will happen? As Restrepo also points out“despite having more information and knowledge, today we have warmer oceans, much more vulnerable ecosystems and collapsing biodiversity. This could generate impacts on health and risks for food, water and energy security.” However, we are more prepared and more importantly we have time to prepare. The ball is in our court. Image | Ben Noll In Xataka | There are more and more extreme weather events. In return, they are leaving fewer victims than ever

The current that warms Europe will weaken by 51% before the end of the century. And Spain, according to experts, is already beginning to notice

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“The 5% chance just became 50%.” This quote from Stefan Rahmstorf, the world’s leading expert on the collapse of the AMOC, describes the change it introduces the study just published by the University of BordeauxIt’s this April 15th. But the story goes beyond the number: it is the latest installment of the great climate debate of the decade. A debate that, whoever wins, we are all losing. What exactly is AMOC and why do we care? The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is the North Atlantic branch of the thermohaline circulation. Since the sun does not heat the sea equally everywhere and freshwater flows reach the ocean at very specific points, this is the basic mechanism by which the oceans balance differences in temperature and salinity. The AMOC is a good example of this regulation. After all, as explained from AEMETit is an “Atlantic basin-scale north-south ocean flow that begins with cold sea water sinking to the bottom off Greenland, subsequently flowing south, and being replaced by warmer water flowing at the surface from the south, transferring heat from the tropics to the east coast of North America and the west coast of Europe.” Therefore, it is a key mechanism and if it stops, as studies began to say a decade ago, the problems for Europe would be enormous. Huge? “Without it, Western Europe and eastern North America would cool significantly, with a host of potential adverse effects,” said Sánchez Laulhé. We talk about a “widespread cooling throughout the North Atlantic and northern hemisphere in general” that would collapse the temperature in Europe would drop several degrees and cause a “strengthening of winter storms, with more and more powerful explosive cyclogenesis” and a “greater proportion of precipitation falling in the form of snow throughout Europe.” However, scientists do not fully agree. In 2021, the IPCC said the AMOC was “unlikely” to collapse. In 2023, the Ditlevsens not only said that it was a probable scenario, but that they set the first date for the collapse. In 2024, 44 signatories They asked to take the problem seriously. But in January 2025 Terhaar, Vogt and Foukal said which, in short, had not weakened since 1063. Now, the University of Bordeaux states that the AMOC will weaken by around 51% by the end of the century with a confidence level of 90%, under the intermediate emissions scenario. What can already be seen. French researchers they are right in which the most recognizable observational signal of the weakening of the AMOC is the “cold spot” of the subpolar Atlantic south of Greenland. In the midst of climate change, “the only point on the planet that has cooled in the last century.” However, we are also not clear what that really means. And there is the key. So will Europe freeze? Probably, but that’s not what’s interesting. Throughout the history of the Atlantic it has been passed many times. The question is whether it will be soon, if it will be our fault, if we can avoid it and what consequences it will have. Be that as it may, Spain will not be the most affected, but it will be. It is being. Stefan Rahmstorf, for example, said last year at the Autonomous University of Madrid that “the slowdown of the AMOC is already having impacts in Spain.” You just have to know how to read the signs. Image | Xataka In Xataka | We have been fearing the fading of the AMOC current for years. We have good news

There are only 66 cases in the world and science is just beginning to understand it

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Night rest can be interrupt due to many factorssuch as the need to go to the bathroom constantly to drink water before going to sleep, but there are other cases, such as painful sleep erectionswhich right now is emerging from ignorance, and that is why every time you get to know more of this problem which, fortunately, is quite infrequent. What is it? Although you may think that this is a problem related to the penis, the truth is that it is classified as a parasomnia. And it is no wonder, because what happens to the man here is that he has multiple erections during the night while he is in the REM phase of sleep that are so painful that it makes you wake up with a jump out of bed. But the curious thing is that the problem does not lie in the penis tissue itself, but rather clinical reviews point out that this disease is closely linked to hypertonicity or contracture of the bulbocavernosus muscles of the penis and the pelvic floor. Added to this are alterations in the central nervous system, such as instability during REM sleep, a peak in activity of the sympathetic nervous system and abnormal processing of pain and hormonal stress signals. It’s a challenge. At the level of cases diagnosed with this problem, the reality is that we speak of a “phantom disease” since it barely there are 66 cases documented worldwide, and there are almost no articles in the medical literature. This is something that translates into a situation of underdiagnosis, since in daily practice specialists see very few cases throughout their career. As a result, patients suffer a medical journey that delays diagnosis for years, and in desperation, and in the absence of answers, many end up assuming erroneous self-diagnoses based on chronic stress or prostatitis. Science tries to advance. Historically, the lack of cases made it difficult to create treatment protocols with the steps that doctors had to follow to solve the patient’s problem. However, recent clinical research has shed light on highly effective therapeutic approaches. That is why right now the use of muscle relaxants such as baclofen has proven to be a turning point for patients, since by relaxing the muscles of the penis an improvement is achieved in patients with this problem. In addition, diseases that are below this problem should also be looked for, such as sleep apnea or insomnia in general, which may be related to this pathology. Although there is still much to be done to investigate this disease, which a priori is quite unknown. Images | gpointstudio on Freepik In Xataka | Before colonizing other planets, humanity must solve a problem: erections in space

The price of diesel is beginning to fall, but it is still far from what it cost before the war: what can we expect now

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Last Wednesday, April 8, the announcement of a temporary ceasefire two weeks between the United States and Iran, conditional on the partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, triggered an immediate reaction in energy markets. The barrel of Brent oil accumulated a weekly drop of 13.77%the highest in nine months, placing the price more than 15 dollars below the level at which it was trading just a week before, when it was still above 110 dollars. That shock has arrived, with a dropper of course, to Spanish gas stations. What you see at the pump right now. On Friday, April 10, the average price of diesel in Spain was around 1.87 euros per liter, with a drop of 1.67% in the next 24 hours compared to the previous day. A still timid drop if one takes into account that diesel was quoted at an average of 1,881 euros per liter during the week of March 27, the highest price since it came into force. the fuel tax reduction approved by the Government. And filling a 55-liter tank of diesel cost about 103 euros, according to data of that same period. Why oil has fallen. The key is in the Strait of Hormuz. Around 20% of the world’s oil passes through it, and its blockade since the beginning of the war had skyrocketed crude oil prices to almost $146 per barrel at the worst times. When talks between the US and Iran were announced for the start of a truce, the price plummeted from $110 to $94 in a matter of hours. Why does it take so long to be noticed at the gas station? Here comes into play what we have been explaining these days in our coverage: the rocket and feather effect. When oil rises, the price of fuel at the pump reacts almost immediately; when it goes down, the correction arrives weeks late. Distribution companies quickly transfer crude oil increases because they anticipate that replenishing fuel will cost them more. But when the price drops, they claim to have stock previously purchased at higher prices, thus delaying the drop. According to Bloomberg Linein Spain the movements in the price of gasoline have been minimal, even upward at times, with variations of less than 1% despite the sharp decline in crude oil. How long do you have to wait? The deadlines vary depending on the source, but there is consensus that the drop will not be immediate. Just like they count From Autopista, the most favorable purchase prices take between 14 and 28 days to reach gas stations significantly, and after four weeks. But of course, all this in case nothing else happens that affects the price, something that we unfortunately do not know about. The tax reduction what we have in Spain. The Government approved fiscal relief measures that have acted as an extra cushion. The first vice president and Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, wait that the fall in oil prices “will also end up resulting in a drop in fuel prices”, after the reactivation of maritime activity in the Strait of Hormuz. However, the European Commission has warned Spain that the reduction in VAT on fuel from 21% to 10% has failed to comply with Community regulations, which adds uncertainty as to whether this aid can be maintained. What can happen from now on. The most favorable scenario, and also the most fragile, depends entirely on the ceasefire holding. Matt Smith, of business analytics firm Kpler, warns that “there will be a lot of reluctance and caution when passing through the strait because it seems that Iran will still be patrolling it,” which will delay the normalization of maritime traffic and, with it, the sustained drop in crude oil. As if that were not enough, oil production in the region fell more in March than in the worst times of the pandemic, and recovering that productive capacity will take time. The American EIA (Energy Information Administration) foresees that the price of crude oil could begin to moderate in the second half of 2026, as long as the international situation stabilizes. But there is no guarantee. What we must not lose sight of. Although the current trend points to a downward correction, current prices are still much higher than before the conflict. The price of fuel in Spain had been relatively stable at the beginning of 2026, with gasoline at around 1.45-1.50 euros per liter, before the escalation of the war changed everything abruptly in March. Returning to those levels is not something that will happen overnight, so for now it seems that we will have to stay alert to learn more information about the situation. Cover image | Roberto Rodríguez and engin akyurt In Xataka | With oil skyrocketing, Japan has resurrected an old idea to extract infinite energy from the ocean

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