believed

We believed that the success of artificial insemination was a genetic lottery. Turns out it depended on your shopping list.

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When we consider having a child, the truth is that there are many factors that can intervene such as real obstaclessuch as age. This means that science is focused on looking for different variables that can be ‘altered’ to tip the balance in our favor and favor fertility. And the last one that has been known is related to the much loved Mediterranean diet. A new investigation. In a recent published study in the magazine Food & Function, A Spanish research team has come to the conclusion that it is not about eating healthily, but rather that we need a set of nutrients that the Mediterranean diet gives us, which directly modulate the ecosystem of bacteria that our body has and that prepares it for a successful pregnancy. The bacteria. On many occasions we see them as our enemies by causing very severe infections, but the reality is that they play a fundamental role within our body. In this sense, we have spoken on many occasions of the intestinal microbiota, but there are also large bacterial colonies in the vagina that protect against a large number of infectious diseases. In this sense, the research team analyzed vaginal samples from 104 women between 18 and 38 years old who had been diagnosed with primary infertility and were undergoing artificial insemination processes. What they saw here is that the success of fertility treatment depended largely on who “governed” the patients’ vaginal microbiota. The results. After crossing the samples with the patients’ diet, it was seen that those who followed a Mediterranean diet had a microbiome dominated by bacteria of the genus Lactobacillus. These microorganisms act as a protective shield and are strongly associated with a higher rate of successful pregnancies. On the contrary, a poor diet left the door open to bacteria such as Gardnerella vaginalis. This pathogen is not only linked to the annoying bacterial vaginosisbut the study directly relates it to implantation failures and failure of artificial insemination. Because? Here the Mediterranean diet stands out for the micronutrients that foods contain and that we ingest almost without realizing it when we follow this dietary pattern that is so common in our country. Here vitamins A, C, D and E, along with beta-carotene, calcium and zinc, act as protectors of the vaginal ecosystem. These elements not only nourish the patient, but selectively nourish the Lactobacillus, strengthening defenses against bacterial vaginosis and creating the perfect uterine and vaginal environment for insemination to thrive. It is becoming more and more important. Although this study details for the first time this interaction between diet, vaginal bacteria and artificial insemination, scientific literature has already been warning that the refrigerator matters a lot in fertility. But previous studies already indicated that women who followed a Mediterranean diet in the months before undergoing in vitro fertilization had success rates that were up to 68% higher. In this way, you can see that it is increasingly important to keep in mind that what you are going to eat is essential for even a new life to take shape. Images | drobotdean in Magnific jcomp In Xataka | If we want to increase human fertility, mice have something to tell us: fecal transplants

20 years ago someone believed they had the key to decongesting Madrid. Today it is gaining strength again with a name: M-70

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In 2005, someone put on the table that, perhaps, the time has come to decongest Madrid from transit trips. That is, those that start outside Madrid and end outside Madrid. The idea is not new by any means. The M-30 or the M-40 They were born with the clear objective of keeping cars away from the city center. More kilometers for the driver but with the promise of taking much less time to reach our destination. The problem is that the municipalities and neighborhoods adjacent to the M-40 are enormous in Madrid. Some even merge with the city itself. As a result of this problem, the M-50. The highway finished being consolidated in the early 2000s. It has a total length of 85 kilometers and with it you can go from Las Rozas on the A-6 to San Sebastián de los Reyes, already on the A-1, surrounding Madrid on its southern side. It serves as a connection to the entire southern belt of the city, passing next to Móstoles, Leganés or Getafe but also next to Pozuelo, San Fernando de Henares or Barajas. The connection, however, is not closed in the north. That is, there is no direct connection A-1 and A-6 or vice versa, it is necessary to surround the entire southern framework because right now no highway crosses that space. The closest is the M-40 which, as we say, is next to the capital. But what if we go further? What if we try to eliminate traffic in Madrid with a radial highway that links all the provincial capitals that surround Madrid and without having to go through this autonomous community? This is what was proposed more than 20 years ago and now they want to recover. The M-70, an old Castilian desire Although it sounds utopian, the truth is that carrying out the Pentagon Project or the M-70, as the idea has been known since 2005, this idea has been raised more or less seriously. In fact, that year it was included in the Strategic Infrastructure Plan for Madrid just as they collected in 20Minutes and was considered of General Interest of the State as it was part of the Strategic Infrastructure and Transportation Plan (PEIT) 2008. The crisis, however, wiped out any reference to the project. That name of “Project Pentagon” It is because its construction would create a road network with this shape by joining Segovia, Ávila, Toledo and Guadalajara, passing through other municipalities of considerable size such as Ocaña, Maqueda or Tarancón. The name M-70 would not exist as such at the moment because, really, the objective would be to connect highways between said capitals in a kind of Frankenstein that would allow movement between all the radial roads near Madrid but without the need to enter said autonomous community. The last consistent reference to the project is a statement by Emiliano García-Page in 2024 who made reference to the fact that the connection of Cuenca with the A-5 through an extension of the A-40 would make the latter the M-70 of the city. And at the time of projecting that future M-70, it was already projected that the A-40 would be the road that would largely structure the project. This road, the A-40 It is a connection that aims to unite Ávila with Teruel. At the moment, on the west side, the road has been passable since 2012 between Maqueda (on the A-5) to Mocejón (past Toledo). At that point the highway is cut off as it passes through Aranjuez (the only point where it touches the Community of Madrid) and extends again from Ocaña to Cuenca. At the moment, that Madrid section and the connection from Maqueda to Ávila is in the study phase. And to finish this old dream of the Castiles, it would be necessary to extend the highway to Teruel from Cuenca, whose preliminary project has already been completed and approved. The concept of M-70, however, would be realized with the existing connection between Ávila and Segovia and, most complicated, the connection of the latter with Guadalajara. The “simplest” thing (yes, in many quotes) would be to create a connection between Segovia and the A-1 and reuse the latter in the direction of Madrid to unfold the possible ring road taking advantage of the route of the N-320. The latter connects the A-1 highway with Cuenca passing through Guadalajara. However, this Segovia-Guadalajara connection seems really complicated given the geographical accidents along the way. Despite this, as we said, a hypothetical M-70 ring road It would be an amalgamation of different highways or linked highways, not the construction of an entire ring road. It would, however, be a possibility to alleviate some traffic on the east-west and west-east routes without passing through Madrid. The A-40 wants to be that solution in the south but there were already those who dreamed 20 years ago of carrying it out also in the north. Photo | Command on Wikimedia and Google Maps In Xataka | The great artery between Madrid and Valencia had been awaiting renovation for years: 500 million euros will end the wait

For decades we believed that extreme nausea during pregnancy was caused by “hormones.” A large study found the real culprit

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The beginning of pregnancy for many is associated with horrible nausea and vomiting that have become almost an inevitable and deeply annoying toll in pregnancy and that many women fear. And the reality is that, for a percentage of these women, nausea becomes a big problem and evolves into a very serious form called hyperemesis gravidarum. What was believed. At first, the most classic reviews They pointed squarely at the ‘hormonal dance’ that pregnant women experience while the placenta is forming. Here the peaks of human chorionic gonadotropin (which is the hormone that pregnancy tests detect), along with estrogens and progesterone, were the main responsible for this discomfort. However, in clinical practice, the exact cause remained uncertain, since it was not understood why some women only felt mild morning sickness and others ended up hospitalized due to the severe dehydration caused by vomiting. And the answer was in the DNA. A great study. Here science has dotted the i’s with an article published in Nature which has analyzed the data of almost 11,000 cases of hyperemesis gravidarum and contrasted it with more than 420,000 women who did not have this problem. The result. He targeted ten genes associated with this severe form of extreme nausea, but among all of them the GDF15 gene emerged as the main culprit. And here the different experts point out that the developing fetus and the placenta produce the hormone GDF15, which is produced from the gene that we mentioned before and sends it directly to the blood, causing this nausea. Although the key is not just how much hormone is produced, but the degree of prior exposure the mother had to this hormone before pregnancy. In this way, women who had low levels of GDF15 before becoming pregnant turn out to be much more sensitive to the sudden surge of this hormone from the fetus, which triggers the most severe symptoms of nausea and vomiting. A discovery with evidence. Despite the forcefulness that accompanies this evidence, the study suggests that the gene GDF15 It is the main cause, but not the only one. The fact that there are other genes involved demonstrates that hyperemesis gravidarum is a multifactorial condition so calling it the “sole cause” would be scientifically inaccurate, but classifying it as the most determining genetic factor is, today, a fact supported by the best peer-reviewed literature. What does it mean? Identifying GDF15 as the main biological switch of this problem is undoubtedly the first step to be able to apply a treatment that can help these future mothers who suffer from significant vomiting during pregnancy, and especially in the first trimester. Although it is true that this does not explain many other symptoms of pregnancy, such as heartburn or that some things begin to feel bad ‘just because’. Although there is still a lot of research ahead to discover them. Images | tirachardz on Freepik In Xataka | We have been sending pregnant women to bed for decades as a precaution. Science has just proven that it is a big mistake

They believed they had found jobs in large companies. In reality they were being deceived: this is how the trap works

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Looking for a job is already hard enough without having to be suspicious of every message that arrives in your inbox. And yet, that is exactly what the campaign that has warned about proposes. NordVPN: a trap set up to look like a real opportunity. We are not talking about a clumsy email or a sloppy website, but rather something much more refined, with names like Meta, Disney, Coca-Cola or Spotify as a claim. That’s the key to everything: they play with the illusion of those who believe they may be on the verge of an interview or a new job, when in reality they are entering into a fraud. The investigation alerts of a campaign of phishing specifically aimed at job seekers. The attackers have set up an attack chain in several phases that impersonates large brands and seeks to take the victim to a very specific point: a false login screen with which they intend to keep their Facebook credentials. Let’s see in detail the strategy of these cybercriminals. The mechanics behind fraud that imitates real selection processes It all starts with cold recruitment emails, carefully written and with a professional tone that seeks to resemble real human resources communications. It is not a minor detail that some of these shipments are made through legitimate services such as Google AppSheetbecause not only can that help you avoid spam filters, it also helps make the scene more believable to the person on the other end. The trap, at least at the beginning, is not presented in a crude way, but with a very careful appearance. From there, one of the most peculiar pieces of the entire chain appears: the so-called “HUB” domains. According to the investigation, these are pages that do not show their most sensitive content to anyone who enters directly. If a security analyst or an automated system visits that domain without coming from the specific link included in the email, what they find is a generic website, with hardly any visible activity. The truly important part is only activated when the visit arrives from that specific reference, which acts as a key and reveals the next step of the deception. The next move of the campaign is to give the victim exactly what they expect to see after a convincing recruitment email: a website that looks like a job portal. The research explains that, after that first access, the user lands on a intermediate domain which simulates a legitimate job offer portal and where you can consult positions that seem real and associated with the company whose identity they are impersonating. The more the scene resembles a normal job search, the easier it is for the person to interpret everything that comes after as a logical part of the same process. Campaign replicates legitimate job pages and uses Facebook login as hook The decisive moment comes when the victim clicks on “Request” or “Send request”. That click does not open a job form or a next phase of the supposed selection process, but rather a phishing page that asks you to log in with Facebook to continue. That’s where the trap stops insinuating itself and begins to execute its true purpose. All of the above was designed to lead to that exact point, one in which the request may seem like another simple verification within the application, when in reality what is being delivered are the account credentials. The supposed job opportunity was nothing more than the decoration of an operation with a much more specific purpose. According to the research, the final objective is steal Facebook credentials and thus obtain access to the victim’s account, with the possibility of also compromising other services connected to it. That’s why it’s a good idea to stick with a practical idea: before entering any credential, you should check the URL carefully, check that you are on the official domain, and be wary of any strange login. Images | Xataka with Grok | NordVPN In Xataka | AI is crucial for the US military. So he’s naming OpenAI and Palantir leaders as lieutenant generals

We always believed that the Mediterranean was “closed” with an apocalyptic waterfall in Gibraltar. 50 years have qualified it

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If we travel to the past and stand in the Strait of Gibraltar 5.96 million years ago, we would see how it was closed and not open as is the case right now. This is something that left a Mediterranean isolated from the Atlantic, causing its water to begin to evaporate and leaving only a kilometer of salt on the bottom in an event known as the ‘Messinian salinity crisis‘. But now, the method by which it was ‘opened’ to give rise to the Mediterranean that we know today has undergone different nuances. What we knew. Until now it was thought that hundreds of thousands of years after this closure of the strait, a tectonic collapse occurred that reopened the passage, causing what is known as ‘Zanclian Megaflood‘. This was nothing more than a large waterfall in Gibraltar which supposedly filled the entire sea in a matter of months or a few years. In anyone’s mind this may be something great and like a real Hollywood movie, but the reality is that science is beginning to show many doubts that this exists. The origin of the myth. This mental image of the Strait of Gibraltar did not come out of nowhere, but in 2009 the magazine Nature public a study that modeled how the Atlantic would have breached the Gibraltar barrier, carving a deep canyon and pouring water at great speed. Without a doubt this was the perfect scenario to explain the erosive scars on the seabed. Although he was not alone, since later studies were added to this that, although they clarified how the salinity was stabilized after the event, they continued to find clear evidence in the geology that pointed to yes there were flooding episodes very abrupt and a violent flow of water that would make sense with this large waterfall. The problem is that this great phenomenon was oversimplified when complexity is its great characteristic. There are changes. Fifty years after the first hypotheses were raised, a large study published in 2025 pointed out that the connection between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean could have continued to exist for much of this period of time. But this is something that makes us raise another question: how is it possible then that kilometers of salt accumulated on the bottom if the sea did not dry completely? This is where the ‘‘paradox of the Mediterranean’ which suggests that changes in precipitation and the immense contribution of fresh water and sediment from European and African rivers allowed certain water levels to be maintained. That is why that scene of a completely dry Mediterranean is not so true, since only a little water was lost and it effectively made the water very salty. And more tests. Besides, studies on the Arch of Gibraltar demonstrate that the reduction in connectivity was due to a constant tectonic tug-of-war. That is why the pass never became a hermetic wall of solid rock that would break overnight, but rather a system of thresholds that allowed continuous leaks. The reality. After all, the question we must ask ourselves is whether there really was a flood or not, and here science suggests that the truth is somewhere in the middle. The latest evidence tells us that the total disconnection was real, but very brief in geological terms, since when the Atlantic finally regained definitive control over the Mediterranean basin, the filling was undoubtedly rapid and spectacularly rapid, although not necessarily through a single and apocalyptic cataract in Gibraltar. A scene that in the end can be much more boring for many. Images | wirestock In Xataka | 4.5 billion years at a glance: the amazing map of the moon that translates every impact and volcano into fascinating code

We believed that procrastination was a time management problem. Neuroscience has shown that it is a survival instinct

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Almost all of us have been in the situation of being faced with a task that must be done no matter what, such as studying an exam or handing in an assignment. We know that it is something important, and that we should start addressing it now, but suddenly we are doing something totally different and insignificant like reorganizing the drawer or watching a video on YouTube. What seems so common is what we call procrastinationand we understand more and more why we do it. The context. For decades, popular culture has told us that procrastination is a time management problem or, worse yet, simple laziness. However, neuroscience has a very different message when it points out that procrastination It is not an organizational failure, it is a crisis of emotional regulation. The brain. To understand procrastination, we must first look at the anatomy of our brain, which often functions as a large battlefield divided into two sides. On the one hand we have the limbic system, which is one of the most primitive parts of the brain and whose function is simply to keep us alive, away from pain and seeking immediate pleasure. On the other hand, we have the prefrontal cortex, which is the most evolutionarily ‘modern’ area, located right on the forehead. This is where we have rational thinking, long-term planning and logic. What is known. Already a 2021 review pointed out that these areas are activated when you have to do a task that generates anxiety, boredom or insecurity, such as studying an exam. And it is no wonder, because the limbic system detects this situation as a “threat”, and automatically hijacks the prefrontal cortex to prioritize immediate emotional relief by looking at Instagram over the long-term benefit of starting to study to pass. We know more. Now, this year, a new study has taken a new step to understand this brain system, by identifying in primates a specific neuronal circuit that functions as a “brake” for motivation, and that connects two parts of the brain: the ventral striatum (VS) with the ventral pallidum (VP). The researchers discovered that when we face tasks associated with discomfort or the possibility of failure, this VS-VP circuit is activated, inhibiting the action, as if it were an emotional protection mechanism taken to the extreme. The most striking thing about the study is that, by interrupting this circuit in the laboratory, the subjects immediately restored their motivation, “releasing the brake” and tackling the difficult task. It’s not laziness. This new line of research is consistent with previous research that associated procrastination with stress, fear of failure, and anxiety. In this way, when seeing a blank document or a very complex Excel sheet, the amygdala activates a flight response. In fact, it has been seen that chronic procrastinators tend to have worse connectivity between the amygdala. the anterior cingulate cortex, which makes them less able to filter negative emotions and distractions. In short, the brain will procrastinate to protect itself from the psychological discomfort caused by a task. Hacking. Seeing how complex this all is, blaming yourself or calling yourself “lazy” is of no use. But it is true that you have to follow a strategy to be able to hack our perception of stress and reward, starting to break up the work, making it so that, instead of setting out to “write the entire work”, you should opt for “write only the title and the first paragraph for five minutes” to trick the amygdala. It is also possible to block sources of easy dopamine with a blocking system on your computer or mobile phone that makes it difficult to access Instagram or YouTube to watch a video. This way, if the immediate reward requires an effort like going to the next room for the phone, the prefrontal cortex has time to intervene and put us in concentration mode. Images | Ashkan Forouzani In Xataka | Procrastinating is a death trap for your brain in the form of anxiety. The problem is that we don’t know how to avoid it.

We had always believed that evolution had been arrested for thousands of years. The redheads were telling us the opposite

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Evolution has been one of the great allies that has made us get to where we are right now, but there is also an idea that haunts the minds of some people when they point out that comforts, agriculture or the best technologies have made this natural selection stagnates in humans. But… Is this true? A myth. The answer is no. And to demonstrate it, a group of researchers has recently published a new article in the magazine Nature, breaking this myth, pointing out that evolution has not only stopped, but that the invention of agriculture made it step on the accelerator. Here the research team has achieved what until recently seemed impossible, namely tracing the footprint of natural selection over the millennia. How it has been done. It’s not easy to look back into such a long past, but here researchers have used a new method baptized as AGESwhere they have ‘only’ had to process 16,000 ancient genomes from Western Eurasia. In this way, the results have shown that there are 479 genetic variants that have experienced great selective pressure, which is why our biological adaptation has accelerated following the advances that have made humanity as it is now. Some examples. That there have been changes in our genetics is phenomenal, but sometimes we want clear examples of why this is the case. One of these points out that when the populations of Eurasia abandoned nomadism to settle, cultivate the land and domesticate animals, their diets, exposure to sunlight and social dynamics changed radically. This translated, for example, into an increase in genetic variants associated with light skin or red hair, the latter being something linked to mutations in the MC1R gene. And its meaning lies in the need to adapt the body to absorb enough vitamin D in climates with little sunlight, although it is also suggested that these genes could share different very relevant adaptation functions. And also aesthetic. Far from how functional it may be to have a greater absorption of vitamin D, the studies also provide curious data about our evolutionary aesthetics by pointing out that natural selection favored the reduction of baldness in these populations. Here the discussion is served, since it can be thought that it is related to sexual selection or even that it is the consequence of other changes in genetics that opened the door to fewer cases of baldness and also rheumatoid arthritis. Images | Johannes Plenio Gabriel Silverio In Xataka | We have just discovered that 20% of our DNA comes from an unknown hominid population: Population B

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

We believed that data centers in space were a thing of the future. Kepler has already activated the largest orbital cluster

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For years, talk of data centers in space sounded like the kind of idea that always seemed a few years away. The conversation existed, of course, but almost always supported by long-term plans, ambitious announcements and an industry that had not yet shown much real muscle in orbit. That is why what has just emerged deserves attention. TechCrunch explains that Kepler Communications has already launched the largest computing cluster currently operating in space, a sign that this race is beginning to leave the field of promise to enter, little by little, the field of infrastructure. What has Kepler put into orbit. It is not a large facility suspended above our heads, but rather a distributed cluster made up of 10 operational satellites. Together they add up to around 40 Nvidia Orin processors aimed at Edge Computingconnected to each other by laser links. That set, launched in January of this year, as we say, is today the largest active computing cluster in orbit. The company itself also frames this network as a constellation designed to move data in space almost in real time. What it really is. So we are not facing a massive orbital data center that replicates the Earth model, but rather a distributed architecture that combines connectivity and processing in the full space environment. This difference matters because it allows us to separate two plans that are often mixed: one thing is the large-scale vision defended by actors like SpaceX or Blue Origin, and quite another is this first step, much more attached to immediate uses and specific needs of missions in orbit. The immediate business. If this orbital computing is starting to be interesting, it is because it addresses a fairly clear problem: it does not always make sense to send all the data to Earth to process it later. The initial value of these systems is in working with the information right where it is generated, something especially useful for more advanced sensors and for applications that require a faster response. Kepler also maintains that its network can serve as a basis for future processing and connectivity services between different space assets, and the media adds that the company already transports and processes data uploaded from the ground, as well as information collected by payloads hosted on its own satellites. Sophia Space. Here a startup comes into the picture that wants to upload its proprietary operating system to one of the satellites in the constellation and try to deploy and configure it on six GPUs spread over two ships. In a terrestrial data center that would be almost routine, but it would be the first time we would see something like this in orbit. For Sophia, in addition, the test has a clear risk reduction value before its first launch scheduled for the end of 2027. And we are not talking about a minor detail: the company is developing space computers with passive cooling, a way with which it seeks to attack one of the big problems in this sector: avoiding overheating. Kepler doesn’t want to be that. In the midst of so much noise around orbital data centers, the company itself is trying to position itself in a somewhat different place on the map. Your corporate presentation insists in a mission much more linked to communications, with a hybrid optical constellation designed to modernize the flow of data in low orbit and beyond. In this sense, it does not define itself as a data center company, but as infrastructure for space applications. The journey has begun. If this step by Kepler makes anything clear, it is that orbital computing no longer belongs only to the realm of great presentations. SpaceX wants to deploy a massive network of satellites for AI, Google prepares in-orbit tests with solar-powered chips and Blue Origin has announced a constellation of more than 5,000 satellites. In parallel, starcloud already launched a satellite in 2025 with an Nvidia H100 GPU and Aetherflux targets 2027 for its first node. Images | Kepler Communications | Sophia Space In Xataka | The mystery of the misinflated balloon: the more we calculate the size of the Universe, the less sense it all makes

The wine industry believed it had its new El Dorado in China. Until China asked its officials to stop drinking

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a few days ago Dynasty Fine Winesa wine company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, had to share the class of information that makes shareholders’ coffee (or wine, as the case may be) choke: their 2025 profit forecast has plummeted more than 50% with respect to 2024. The news might not have interest beyond its board if it were not for the fact that it connects with a larger trend: changes in the Chinese market that have led to the Asian giant ceasing to be the inexhaustible gold mine that the sector imagined in his day. And in part it is due to the guidelines on morality by Xi Jinping. What has happened? That the Western alcohol industry’s dream of finding a new big gold mine in China seems to be slowly receding. And this is especially noticeable in wine cellars. After years of accelerated growth, in which the Asian giant seemed increasingly interested in wines from Australia or France, demand has started to slow down. The signs are clear. has fallen per capita consumption, imports, production and there are companies such as Treasury Wine Estates, Pernord Ricard, Diageo or Dinasty Fine that have seen how it gets complicated the panorama in the country. China is no longer in the news for increasing its world import quota from 1 to 8% in record time to make headlines for the drop in demand. What does the data say? There are many indicators to pull from. Of all, perhaps the most eloquent is the one published by the Interprofessional Wine Organization of Spain (OIVE), based in turn on Chinese customs data. The organization recently revealed that in 2025 imports suffered a decline of 26.7% in volume, although the increase in the average price reduced the fall to 14.6% in terms of value. The “prick” affected exporters like France or Chile. Is it the only indicator? Not at all. Another producing country that has also suffered the ups and downs in the Chinese market is Australia. Although the wineries there received good news in March 2024when Xi Jinpuing lifted the tariffs that penalized his wine exports, the joy was short-lived. A few months ago Wine Australia published a report in which it recognizes that shipments of merchandise to other countries were reduced by 6% in volume and 8% in value in 2025, a decline that is partly explained by the fall in two markets: the United States (-12%) and especially the Chinese one, which contracted another 17%. Are only imports falling? No. Just a year ago the University of Adelaide published a study which shows that the changes in the Chinese wine market are much deeper and more complex. Per capita consumption, for example, skyrocketed during the first decade of the century, then registered fluctuations until 2016 and from that year on it suffered a decline that extends at least until 2022, the last year analyzed. The production curve is not good either. “We have seen how the (Chinese) market has completely dried up,” he complained recently in statements to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) the owner of a winery that exports wine from New South Wales, Australia. Your case is illustrative. Until 2019, 40% of its profits came from China. The collapse in sales in that market has now translated, however, into a surplus that will force him to let 30% of his grapes rot this year. Has the market changed that much? It seems so. In November 2025 the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post (SCMP) published an extensive report which made its premise clear from the same headline: “European wines stay on the shelves while China looks for cheaper drinks.” In the chronicle he talks about a contraction in the consumption of both premium wines and traditional spirits, while other options such as craft beer seem to be gaining ground. The information is accompanied by a graph that reflects the fall in wine imports between 2017 and 2023. If there were any doubts about whether the trend only affects European or Australian wineries, a few weeks ago The New York Times public another report in which he explains how the drop in demand affects the distilleries of Maotaiin China itself, dedicated to the production of baijiua powerful liquor. Why is demand falling? There are several factors. Influences the economic slowdown and the hangover real estate crisiswhich have in turn affected spending on alcohol, especially when we talk about expensive imported wines. There are also analysts who they point to a change in consumer habits, especially among the youngest. Recently Global Timesa Chinese newspaper linked to the communist government, published a report in which he told precisely how the new generations show less interest in drinking. In that aspect they connect with other societies that live the same phenomenon. Is it the only reason? No. There is another. And although a priori it may seem minor or secondary, it is relevant enough for WSJ I related it directly with the decline of the wine market. Which is it? The position of the Chinese Government. A few months ago the Executive headed by Xi Jinping issued a strict guideline in which it prohibits the serving of alcohol, luxury dishes or cigarettes at official meals. The objective: end excesses. “Extravagant banquets and excessive alcohol consumption were a regular part of official life in China. But such excesses, long criticized by the public, have come under increasing scrutiny. As part of a new push to ensure discipline, China has imposed a widespread ban on alcohol at official receptions,” it proclaims. a statement published in May 2025 by the Information Office, which warns: “Excessive alcohol deteriorates the image of officials.” And is it being fulfilled? Although it cites the rest of the economic and cultural factors that influence demand, WSJ points out the government guideline as one of the factors that explain the change in trend in China. He even shares a concrete example: last year during the conference of a state-owned … Read more

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