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This is how a supermassive black hole wakes up

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A team of scientists led by Riccardo Middei, from the INAF Astronomical Observatory in Rome, has monitored the step by step of a black hole “resurrecting” after “taking a break.” After monitoring for six years the galaxy that houses ithave been able to see how, after a clear decrease in its brightness, its activity increased significantly. This has allowed them confirm that some standards of physics were very well calculated. However, it has also been detected that some may not have been entirely correct. It’s actually more than six years.. All part of the observations of the Seyfert galaxy ESO 511-G030 that were made in 2007 and 2019 during the mission XMM Newton. It was found that the brightness of the center of the galaxy was 10 times weaker in 2019, whether measured in ultraviolet or when X-rays were detected. A previous detection indicated an increase in 2012, but since there were no measurements between 2012 and 2019, it was not possible to know exactly what happened in that period. The authors of the study that has just been published They wanted to have continuous monitoring, so they took regular data with the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory from 2019 to 2025. Thus, they saw that, indeed, in 2019 the black hole at the center of the galaxy had practically fallen asleep. However, in 2021 a recovery began to be detected, first in the brightness measured in ultraviolet and then in X-rays. The black hole was waking up. An active galactic nucleus. The Seyfert galaxy is a galactically active nucleus. That is, it emits a brightness higher than that which would correspond to the sum of all its stars. This is because at its center there is an active supermassive black hole. This attracts all matter that gets too close to it. In fact, from a boundary known as the event horizon, not even light can escape. Throughout this process of falling into the black hole, a lot of radiation is emitted. Knowing this, we can see two parts in the black hole. On the one hand, the accretion disk, a rotating ring of hot gas and matter falling into the black hole. During its rotation, it emits optical light and ultraviolet radiation. On the other hand, on this disk is the corona, composed of hot plasma, whose emissions are mainly X-rays. This is the reason why, to measure the activity of a black hole, data are taken in both ultraviolet and Step by step. The reactivation of the black hole occurred in two parts. First of all, the brightness in the ultraviolet clearly increased, between 2021 and 2023. Then, between 2022 and 2023 it was the turn of the X-rays. Therefore, it can be said that first the activity increased in the accretion disk and then in the corona of the black hole. size doesn’t matter. By eliminating the contribution corresponding to the stars of the galaxy, the brightness corresponding to the black hole increased by 20 to 30 times. It was a radical increase in activity, which came at just the right time. And scientists calculate that the transition occurred at just under 1% of its Eddington rate. This is a theoretical figure that describes the universal threshold at which a black hole can accrete or attract matter before radiation pressure expels the incoming gas. For it to truly be a universal figure, as predicted, it would have to be equivalent for both very large black holes and stellar ones. In the stars it has already been measured. Now, in this one, which has a mass equal to 17 million times that of the Sun, the figure is practically the same, so it can be considered universal. What doesn’t add up. The limit from which the black hole “falls asleep and wakes up” seems to coincide with the theory, but there is something that does not fit so much: the speed at which it does so. Both the fade and the recovery occurred too quickly than estimated in the standard models. Therefore, it is clear that the models still have a lot to perfect. To be able to do this, it will be necessary to study more galaxies like this one. Comes into play Vera Rubin Observatoryin which so many astronomers are placing their hopes. Thus, based on observations, the missing piece may be found. Image | POT In Xataka | We already know in which region of the solar system Planet 9 must be (if it really exists)

If you’ve ever wondered how much a massive black hole weighs, the answer is that the Sun next to it looks like a marble.

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“What am I going to have for breakfast today?” when will this heat pass” and “how much does a black hole“are those three questions that you will surely ask yourself every day when you wake up. For the first two the answer is uncertain, but for the third a group of researchers from Carnegie Science in California has the answer. Because they have just measured, for the first time, the mass of an inactive black hole that dates back to the early universe and they do not give the answer in tons because it is a figure that escapes human understanding. But they do give the mass compared to the Sun and… well, it’s still not something we can assume. The weight of a black hole. The results HE they published this past Thursday in Science magazine and they are clear: a black hole located in the center of the galaxy MRG-M0138 has about 6,000 million times the mass of the Sun. The mass of our star is 2 × 10^30 kg, equivalent to 332,946 times the mass of the Earth. Does this leave you calmer? Surely not because it is like when they tell us that one company buys another for 75 billion dollars: These are such absurd quantities that it is very difficult to get the idea of ​​what it entails, but this thing about weighing bodies around the universe makes sense. Fascinatingly, MRG-M0138 is a massive galaxy whose light has traveled to our sensors from a time when the universe was only about 3 billion years old. This galaxy is no longer forming stars and the central black hole is “quiet.” The scale spacel. To achieve the measurement, the team at the Californian center used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to track the movement of stars around the cosmic giant. It is not the first time that the mass of a black hole has been calculated, but it is the first time that it has been done with one that is so far away (10,000 million light years from Earth, 15 times further than the previous measurement record) and, in addition, it is the first time that an inactive black hole in a galaxy of the early universe. This speaks very well of the benefits of the JWST, which with its sensors allows a very defined image of extremely distant bodies, opening up a huge range when it comes to studying what surrounds us. The problem with sleeping black holes is that they are invisible. It does not emit light, so it cannot be observed directly. So, to “weigh it,” the researchers used a technique that had already been used before: stellar dynamics. Basically, they look at the speed at which stars move near the galactic center and compare that speed to that of more distant stars. In this way, they infer the mass of the black hole. So that. To continue knowing what surrounds us, basically. Because it is not just about measuring the mass of something so distant, but about understanding the formation around it. Thus, this discovery offers new clues to researchers about black holes and galaxies that were born in the early universe. A look at the future by looking at the past. Because, until not long ago, it had been difficult to prove whether there was a close relationship between the central black holes of these very old galaxies. Recent findings suggest that those denser galaxies were sites of rapid black hole growth early in the history of the cosmos. Furthermore, this research will be the basis for future work that will delve into this relationship and, above all, it will also be the basis for analyzing the data collected by the JWST in other similar galaxies. In fact, although the JWST is a good cosmic “magnifying glass”, in Chile the observatory is being expandedThe Bells‘ which is supported by Carnegie Science and will allow studying stellar movements in distant galaxies in much more detail than what JWST offers. In the end, it is about continuing to understand the universe and studies like this allow us to test theoretical methods to understand how massive black holes formed, grew, shaped the evolution of galaxies and, ultimately, became silent giants. Image | Navid Marvi/Carnegie Science In Xataka | We had always believed that galaxies preceded black holes. James Webb has discovered something else

Mexico wanted to end telephone anonymity. SIMs are already being sold with someone else’s identity on the black market

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He Mexican government made the decision to end the anonymity of cell lines and thus put an end to telephone extortion. The goal is for each number to be linked to a person by June 30; after that date, all unregistered lines will be disconnected. The problem is that on the black market there is already a way to circumvent this rule. What is happening. They tell it in Xataka Mexico following a newspaper investigation Millennium. In the historic center of CDMX anyone can buy a SIM card already activated under the identity of another person, without having to leave their personal data. It costs 200 pesos and can be done in minutes. He modus operandi. The official process To register a mobile line, you must provide your identification document or passport and perform biometric identification using a selfie video. The sellers of these SIMs take a photo of the barcode on the card and send it via WhatsApp. In a few moments, the fraudulent registration is done and they even offer a guarantee if there is a problem. All for 200 pesos: 100 pesos for the SIM and 100 pesos for the procedure. A striking detail is that the majority of SIMs sold with this method are from Movistar. Deepfakes. Although it is not clear how registration is carried out, it has already been confirmed that the identification system is not infallible. As reported in The Countrythe system cannot distinguish between a real person or a deepfake made with AI, so registration can be done on behalf of anyone simply by having their data and a photo. False lines have even been registered using the senator’s data Gerardo Fernández Norona. Fear of identity theft. There is another problem with line logging related to trust. Many citizens flee from the registry for fear that their personal data will end up on the black market. It is not an unfounded fear, it is something that already happened in a previous attempt to create a database with mobile phones in 2008. The initiative was called Renaut and ended up being eliminated in 2011 after complete databases were leaked and sold on the black market. Later, in 2022, the Supreme Court invalidated another attempt because it considered it violated the right to privacy. Massive line losses. This distrust has had an impact on telephone companies’ numbers. Many prepaid users have preferred to let their lines die rather than comply with this obligation. Taking into account that in Mexico more than 80% of the market is prepaid, this translates into massive line losses. In the first quarter of the year, AT&T Mexico lost a whopping 577,000 lines, while Telcel lost 483,000. With contract users there is not so much resistance since when signing with the operator the personal data has already been delivered. An unreal goal. The government is putting pressure with advertising campaigns to get registration done before the deadline, but it does not seem realistic that they will achieve it. As of May 19, there were registered 49.5 million lineswhich represents 30.7% of the total, which is about 160 million lines. As we said, if the plan continues as planned, all lines that have not been registered before June 30 will be disconnected. Image | PublicDomainPicturesedited In Xataka | Not content with flooding your email, spam and scams are now arriving in your mailbox.

We have small and giant black holes, but the intermediate ones do not appear. Now some scientists have designed a method to search for them and they already have two candidates

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Today astrophysicists have a lot of information about black holes. They have even been photographed. However, there are only two types of black holes for which a multitude of evidence has been found: supermassive black holes, which are colossal in size, and stellar black holes, which are formed by the collapse of a star when it runs out of fuel. Supermassive ones usually have masses between 100,000 and 10,000 million solar masses. The stellar ones are much smaller, with approximately a mass equivalent to that of 3 to 100 suns. So what happens in the intermediate range? Don’t black holes of intermediate mass exist, between 100 and 100,000 solar masses? This is a question astronomers have been asking for a long time. Theoretically, they could exist, but no evidence has been detected. Now, a team of scientists from Yangtze University in China, has devised a method which could be useful to find them once and for all. Gravitational microlensing of fast radio bursts. These scientists have used a method that is based on searching for fast radio bursts that have experienced a gravitational microlensing deformation. These deformations are caused by massive objects that stand between the path of the blast and the Earth. By studying the effects of these disturbances, its mass can be calculated. For this reason, these scientists have analyzed a catalog of these bursts, looking for those that may have been distorted by gravitational microlensing and have been left with two candidates whose mass would correspond to an intermediate black hole. The best? They also fit with primordial black holes, so they could even serve to better understand dark matter. Clarifying concepts. Now let it be understood. Fast radio bursts are short bursts of radio waves, which come from far away, beyond the Milky Way. There is no consensus on its origin, but many have been detected, it even seems that there are a large number in a single day. For their part, gravitational microlensing are formed when a very massive object comes between a light source and the Earth. It is so massive that, due to the action of gravity, it doubles space-time and, with it, the path of light that reaches Earth. As a result, multiple and/or magnified images may form. The point is that fast radio bursts themselves can be altered by gravitational microlensing when a very massive object crosses their path. Gravitational microlensing Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). This is a Canadian radio telescope initially designed to map the presence of hydrogen in large fractions of the observable universe. Thanks to its large collecting area and field of vision and its bandwidth, over time it was seen that It was also very useful to detect fast radio bursts. They are very fast, but when observing so much sky at once they do not go unnoticed. For all this, the authors of the study that has just been published have analyzed the CHIME catalogwith special attention to bursts that at some point have suffered a disturbance by gravitational microlensing. Two candidates. Of all the distorted bursts they found, there were two whose size matched possible black holes of intermediate size. One had between 539 and 609 solar masses and the other between 1,544 and 2,571 solar masses. Curiously, there were no galaxies or galactic clusters around it. When black holes form through physically well-known collapse processes, they are usually in the centers of galaxies. However, when they are isolated, as is this case, what is expected is that they are primordial black holes. That is, black holes that formed in the early stages of the Big Bang, before there were even stars that could collapse. something unexpected. These scientists expected to find intermediate black holes, but they may also have found evidence of the origin of dark matter. One of the hypotheses about this mysterious matter that makes up most of the Universe is that it is partly composed of primordial black holes. The problem is that the existence of primordial black holes has not been proven. With this new study, two birds could have been killed with one stone: demonstrating that intermediate mass black holes and also primordial black holes exist, in turn helping to unravel the dark matter mystery. Without a doubt, it is a cosmic carom that is worth continuing to investigate. Image | THAT | POT In Xataka | Stephen Hawking made a prediction about black holes in 1971. A new signal has proven him overwhelmingly right

Searching for extraterrestrial life has an unexpected new enemy: neighboring black holes

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At the time of search for habitable exoplanetswe usually take into account factors such as whether they are within the habitable zone of their star or whether they have a sufficient amount of water. However, there is another parameter that has not been taken into account until now and that, according to a recently published study, may be decisive: the presence of supermassive black holes in the vicinity of the planet. Even distant black holes. This study, published in The Astrophysical Journalpoints to two types of winds generated by supermassive black holes. Some driven by moment and others driven by energy. The former are lighter, but the latter can be intense enough to leave a nearby exoplanet without an atmosphere. Since the atmosphere is indeed an essential ingredient for life, we should be paying much more attention to large black holes. In fact, if these winds are sufficiently energetic, an exoplanet could be affected even by a black hole located at a great distance. Much more than a living area. Generally, to search for habitable exoplanets, it is taken into account that they are within what is known as the habitable zone. This is a region that is at the right distance from its star so that it is neither too hot nor too cold and therefore the water can remain liquid. In recent years, much more specific factors have been taken into account, such as the proximity of supernovae. These stellar phenomena release so much radiation that it can sterilize life on a planet. They also emit shock waves so large that they can destroy their atmosphere. Since supernovae may be key, the authors of the recently published study also wanted to explore the role of black holes. What they found is very relevant to the future search for habitable planets. Active galactic nuclei. This study focuses on active galactic nuclei. That is, supermassive black holes, with masses billions of times greater than that of the Sun, that are actively feeding. That is, they continue absorbing matter into themselves. But, as is well known, black holes do not only absorb matter. There is also some radiation and particles that are released abruptly, giving rise to something known as jets. The movement of these particles also forms winds that can affect what happens around them. Based on the hypothesis that these scientists had, the more massive a black hole of this type is and the more it is feeding, the more energy it must release, so that the atmosphere of possible nearby exoplanets heats up more, its molecules move faster and escape more easily into space. Therefore, the atmosphere breaks down faster and its probability of habitability is lower. Unlike supernovae, which release energy much more abruptly, in this case it would be done in a sustained manner, so there may be more consequences. The two types of wind. Through the development of simplified models, it was observed that galactic nuclei release winds that, upon impact with the interstellar medium, divide into two streams. If they cool, they cannot expand, so they will have almost no energy. These do not propagate efficiently and have a limited effect on the galaxy. On the other hand, if these winds do not cool, they expand like a bubble, releasing a large amount of energy that can sweep the galaxy and affect the atmosphere of exoplanets along the way. These are the truly problematic ones, so it would be necessary to take into account whether there are any in the vicinity when choosing exoplanets that are candidates for hosting life. Also the ozone layer. It has been seen that these black holes can also release nitrogen oxides that affect the ozone layerin case a planet has it. If this is the case, it does not mean that there is not necessarily life, but it would be limited to the oceans. It would be another factor to take into account. With all these parameters, we can get a much more precise idea of ​​which planets could truly be habitable. Searching for life in the Universe seems to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But the more we know, the smaller that haystack will become. Images | NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman, cmglee In Xataka | The James Webb has broken another historical record: a supermassive black hole older than expected

The energy jets from black holes are so powerful that they can reshape entire galaxies and now we know how to measure it

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It is always said that black holes They gobble up everything that comes close to themfrom matter to light. However, this is not entirely true. In some cases, there is a fraction of particles and energy that, instead of falling inside, does the opposite. It is ejected in the form of jets, known as jets. Although there are some hypotheses about this, the reason why this occurs is not completely known. What is known is that these jets are so powerful that they can even influence the evolution of galaxies. The problem is that it is known that they are very powerful, but not how powerful. Until now, no one had been able to directly measure the power of these jets. However, an international team of scientists has achieved measuring these jets around a specific black hole, thereby opening up a very interesting range of possibilities. The data. These scientists have studied the Cygnus X-1 systemcomposed of a black hole and a blue supergiant star orbiting each other. Using a very novel method, they have discovered that the energy of the jets leaving the black hole is equivalent to that of 1,000 suns. They have also observed that they move through space at a speed of 540 million kilometers per hour and that 10% of the energy that is initially formed in the fall towards the black hole is converted into jets. The background. Until now, no one knew how to measure the power of a black hole’s jets. The only thing that was done was to measure the scars they left in space using calorimetric methods. When freed, they can leave in their wake hot spots and holes in the intergalactic medium. However, As explained in an article by Interesting Engineeringthis is something like wanting to measure the power of an engine by observing the treads of the car’s tires. The important thing is to directly analyze the machinery. And that is precisely what has been achieved now. Indirect measures. In systems formed by a black hole and a star, the black hole feed little by little gas surrounding the star. As it approaches it, the gas begins to rotate faster and faster, generating a lot of heat and energy. Part of that energy does not fall into the black hole, but instead jump outward, forming the jets. In turn, the star releases very intense flows of particles, which give rise to what is known as stellar winds. Those stellar winds can interact with the jets and bend them. And there is the key. The jets cannot be measured as such, but the resistance they offer to being bent by stellar winds can be measured. For example, we can know how strong a person is by analyzing his or her ability to beat someone whose strength we do know in an arm wrestling match. Trajectory changes. The overall trajectory of the jets depends on the momentum flux of both the jets themselves and the winds. Since the momentum flow of the wind can be calculated, it is enough to analyze the trajectory to solve the unknown. The data can also be further refined with a series of computer simulations. The result is a fairly rough estimate of the power of the jets. There are limitations. The biggest limitation of this study is that only one black hole has been analyzed. The procedure would have to be repeated with more jets in more black holes to check if there is a trend and, therefore, if the method is valid. Galactic evolution. Since jets from larger black holes can significantly affect galactic evolution, this method could be very useful to better understand how galaxies form. That is why it is important to move on to the second step and check if the method is reproducible, especially with larger black holes. Image| A supermassive black hole ejects a jet of plasma 3,000 light years long, traveling at almost the speed of light. NASA artist concept In Xataka | We thought that the heart of the Milky Way was an immense black hole. Mathematics has changed this idea for us

Anthropic does not offer its services in China. So China has invented a black market for Claude tokens

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Claude has become in the most desired model by the most demanding developers and engineers, but it is not available in mainland China for regulatory and safety reasons. The demand there remains notable, and to satisfy it, an underground token economy has emerged that allows local developers to access models such as Claude Opus 4.7, avoiding all the measures imposed by the blockade. No paying with Alipay. One of the measures that Anthropic imposes to prevent the use of its models in China is to only accept international credit cards such as Visa or Mastercard. Their payment gateways reject local payment methods like Alipay or Wechat Pay, giving Chinese users a first and important hurdle. One that they have already overcome. Virtual cards. What they are doing in China to overcome this problem is using virtual credit cards (VCC) like DuPay or WildCard. With these services it is possible to obtain Hong Kong or US credit cards financed with cryptocurrencies or through local transfers. This makes it possible to deceive the billing systems of Anthropic and other companies that offer banned services to Chinese users. SMS verifications They are also solved through “SMS farms” that also avoid this problem and even others such as identity verification that also have implemented in Anthropic. The “Transfer Stations” arrive (中转站). Another problem is that even overcoming that first barrier, latency and micro-cuts mean that the use of Claude in China is affected by continuous connection problems. To avoid them, so-called “Transfer Stations” have emerged, which are nothing more than servers that act as a bridge between foreign servers and Chinese users. These gateways receive requests from China and forward them to Anthropic servers as if they were coming from an authorized location. The latencies are also relatively low, which means that for Chinese users the experience is basically identical to that of a user in the US or Spain, for example. These stations are publicly known and do not only appear in listings on GitHub: there is a ranking with the best. Claude is almost free in China. The surprising thing about these methods is that they don’t just give Claude access in China: they do with ridiculous prices which can be 10 and even 5% of (growing) original price of the service thanks to those transfer stations. The question, of course, is how it is possible to access Claude at those prices. The almond tree trick. Thanks to the transfer stations, developers can access Claude at a price of 1 yuan for every dollar of tokens, or in other words, up to a 90% reduction in the official price. It is something that is discussed publicly and that makes it clear that several methods are used to achieve this: Mass purchase of capacity, Use of accounts created with stolen or fraudulent cards, Use of promotional credits, and A simple hook: providers lose money with Claude, but they manage to attract developers to whom they then sell more profitable local models like DeepSek. Am I really using Claude? One of the growing risks in the cheap token market is direct fraud. Some Chinese resellers have been caught red-handed offering what they call the “Claude API” when in reality what they were providing were much cheaper and mediocre models. For a user to detect this type of deception it’s very difficult unless you are working with complex tasks or you have already used models and know more or less what to expect from them. For victims, the effect is clear: they believe they are paying for the intelligence of Opus 4.7 when in reality they are receiving answers from a low-end AI model. Goodbye to privacy. When a user purchases tokens at one of these transfer stations, they completely give up the confidentiality of their data. All queries and responses end up passing through the intermediary’s servers, which can and apparently does use them to sell them to AI companies that use them to post-train their models. So everything they do and say when using these models is filtered and used as training data without the user knowing. A double business. For these providers, this business of reselling conversations is especially interesting in the face of the famous “distillations” of US models that take advantage of this data to “copy” the capabilities of those models and apply them to Chinese models. Anthropic can read us, but (theoretically) it doesn’t. It is true that the conversations we have with Claude (from Spain, for example) are also stored on Anthropic’s servers, but the company makes it clear in your privacy policy that does not use that data. In fact, we can even explicitly prohibit the company from using them in the privacy settings of Claude’s account. The game of cat and mouse. At Anthropic they know very well what is happening and they are trying to prevent it. For example, they have begun to intensively block IP ranges associated with VPN services or data centers known to be used in these transfer stations. Even so, Chinese providers usually respond with an “elastic” architecture that allows IPs of domestic residences to rotate, making the traffic appear completely normal. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | There is a thing called “Ornn price index”, it is out of control and it is bad news for everyone

We had been searching for the origin of the most massive black holes for years. The answer is a cosmic carom of extreme violence

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All black holes They are the fruit of a very violent activity. However, there are some for which the known processes are insufficient. Now, an international team of scientists has discovered how the most massive black holes in the Universe form. It is a process so violent that it needs a huge star cluster to support it. Two groups of black holes. This team of scientists has analyzed the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC4), which includes 153 detections of black hole mergers through gravitational waves. By analyzing all the available data focusing on the spin of black holes, they have seen that all of them can be divided into two large groups. On the one hand, black holes of lower mass, which arose from an ordinary stellar collapse. On the other hand, very massive black holes, arising from secondary mergers in the environment of dense star clusters. Okay, now that you understand. Generally, black holes are formed when a very massive star that has already run out of fuel collapses. This gives rise to an explosion in which the outer layers of the star are expelled, leaving only a very dense core. It is so dense that it generates a great gravitational pull and nothing can escape from it. On the other hand, there are such massive holes that do not fit with this process. They are believed to be second generation black holes. That is, two black holes they merge and then the result merges with another black hole, becoming much more immense. That would be the second group that has been detected in the GWTC4 catalog. Something doesn’t add up. This black hole merger process is so violent that, as soon as the first merger occurs, the result would fly away like a rocket For it to stay in place and merge with a third black hole, something is needed to retain it. These scientists have discovered that these are densely populated star clusters. There are so many stars in them that the gravitational attraction of all of them keeps the black hole still in place. And what does spin have to do with it? Spin is a parameter that refers to the spin of black holes. When formed in the conventional way, the spin is predictable and perfectly aligned with the star that gave rise to the black hole. On the other hand, when they are formed by a process as violent as these consecutive fusions, the spin takes a random direction, but a value predictable from the sum of the spins of the rest of the black holes. These scientists, therefore, saw that all the data coincided with that hypothesis: consecutive mergers in the environment of a very populated star cluster. A forbidden zone. On the other hand, these scientists found a forbidden strip of stellar size in which black holes could not form. There are small or huge ones, but not medium ones. Although this is something that was intuited, the complete set of data they have obtained gives a twist to what is known about the formation of black holes. Relationship with nuclear physics. As explained by these scientists, this detected mass limit seems to be related to a series of nuclear reactions that take place inside stars. Stellar nuclear reactions are nuclear fusion. Humans have learned to control nuclear fission, but it poses risks that would be solved if we also mastered nuclear fusion. Until now It is being a complicated challengebut perhaps these new findings, obtained thanks to gravitational wave analysis, could shed a little more light on this research. Everything adds up. Image | NASA, ESA, STScI and A. Sarajedini (University of Florida)/NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) In Xataka | What happens if you fall into a black hole, explained simply in an overwhelming NASA simulation

How the Black Death caused Europe to become obsessed with the act of sneezing for centuries

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Hebrew tradition tells that, just before biting the apple, Adam sneezed. At that moment it seems that he didn’t care much, but after the incident with the fifth piece of fruit a day he ended up interpreting it as “a sign of evil and a harbinger of death.” The noise stayed there, of course, and when the very old Jacob was worried about not getting to see his son, he begged God to change the natural order of things lest a bad sneeze take him to the other neighborhood. That’s where it comes from (collected or perhaps invented anew by medieval tradition) that we desire “health” in Spain, “saúde” in Portugal or “Gesundheit” in Germany to someone who has just sneezed. As if to ward off bad omens; that life is not enough to play with dice. However, because it is common, I still find it surprising how much a simple sneeze has come to mean. Aristotle, explains García-Morenowas convinced that, compared to flatus or belching, the sneeze was the only one that had a ‘sacred nature’ because it came “from the main and deepest and most divine of the organs, the one that contains the spirit.” Hippocrates, on the other hand, although he did not decide on the goodness or badness of sneezing, he did describe the principle of reciprocal inhibition by pointing out that sneezing was, mind you, the best remedy for hiccups. As I said, the history of sneezing in the West cannot be understood in all its complexity without the Black Death. It was then that the “health” of the Jewish tradition or the “Jesus” of the Christian tradition became popular again as a way of wishing that this ‘achís’ was not the doorway of the damned plague. The “God bless you” that still resonates in English formulas (‘bless you’) comes, it seems, from one of the many plagues that struck medieval papal Rome. In contrast, in many other places, sneezing was considered a good thing. Fantastic. Traditional Hindu medicine used to provoke it as a way to balance internal humors and treat illnesses while the more archaic African medicine used it protopsychiatrically as a way to cure mental illness (supposedly caused by the existence of worms in the brain). To finish, to finish at some point, the Aztecs used it for headaches. What is a sneeze really? In reality, a sneeze is something very simple. It is a reflex actionsudden and compulsive, whose purpose is to expel large amounts of air through the nose and (sometimes) also through the mouth. It is, therefore, a physiological reflex that the respiratory system uses defensively. Therefore, it usually occurs when certain foreign particles irritate the nasal mucosa. And yes, I have used “usual” with all the intention in the world. As it seemsand these are average estimates, before each sneeze we inhale about two and a half liters of air. That is the first phase, the inhalation phase. At that moment, the abdominal muscles tense the diaphragm to increase the pressure in the lungs and force the air to come out through the nose at dizzying speed: between 70 and 130 kilometers per hour. The saliva that is usually expelled when sneezing can cover an area of ​​up to 8 square meters. And that is precisely what makes a sneeze one of the worst vectors of disease spread in the world. However, sneezing is most popular precisely when it is most harmless: in spring, summer or autumn. When it is caused by ‘allergic rhinitis’. A classic, indeed. This type of rhinitis, caused by pollen from trees, weeds and grasses, becomes the great recurring character in the lives of practically a third of the population. It is unbearable, unbearable, a cross. But, still, there are worse sneezes. Between 18 and 25% of the population sneezes suddenly when exposed to bright light. This is what is known as ‘photic sneeze‘and it’s an old acquaintance (and a cause of disability) of aviation pilots. Apparently it is hereditary and is produced by an anatomical proximity between the second cranial nerve (the ocular, responsible for carrying visual information to the brain) and the fifth (the trigeminal, which seems to be responsible for sneezing). When there is very bright light, excitation of the optic nerve can cause excitation of the trigeminal nerve. This signal is interpreted as irritation of the mucous membranes and releases a beautiful, annoying and enormous sneeze. Something similar (although this time linked to the medulla oblongata) may be behind people with a natural tendency to sneeze after eating, when they see something pleasant, or even during orgasm. It is already a bad idea, although used well (and even Aristotle would agree with this) it can be seen as a “wonderful” way to improve communication in the bedroom. In Xataka | We have been believing for years that yogurt was the best probiotic. Science is now crowning kefir In Xataka | There are people who sleep four hours a day and are still functional. It’s the closest thing we have to genetic “superheroes” Image | Pexels

The chip industry has its own Lego black market. ASML created it by accident

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Rick Lenssen works as a data analyst at the Dutch company ASML and builds Lego models on the weekends. It could have remained there, a mere hobby shared with his children if the company that employs him did not design and manufacture the lithography machines necessary to produce microchips, one of the key elements of current technology and one of the key suppliers of TSMC, Samsung or Intel. Now, his Lego designs imitating the original machines reach four-digit figures on eBay. 380 million in 851 pieces. It appeared in the ASML online store at the end of November 2024: a Lego model called TWINSCAN EXE:5000, measured 35 centimeters long and cost $227.95. It reproduced the high numerical aperture extreme ultraviolet (High-NA EUV) lithography machine that the company delivered to Intel in late 2023 and that allows chips to be printed from its 2 nanometer node. The actual equipment weighs 165 tons, has more than 100,000 parts and had to be transported in three Boeing 747s. The Lego set reproduced it in the style of the popular toy brand, it included a purple ray that represented ultraviolet light and a minifigure with the full clean room suit that technicians wear. The product sheet, perhaps anticipating what was to come, already warned that multiple orders from the same customer would be cancelled. Brick Lenssen. This is the nickname given to Rick Lenssen, a 39-year-old company employee who became interested in Legos. by chanceafter taking his children to a toy fair in the Netherlands. His first personal project was an exact replica of the ASML campus in Veldhoven: two years of work, 2,500 euros out of his pocket and 25,000 pieces, with details as obsessive as the peregrine falcon that nests on a roof of the complex, accompanied by a pigeon that, according to him, acts as food. He designed everything first on the computer and assembled it in the attic of his house. Where do I put this. Lenssen then encountered a drama that will be familiar to any Lego fan: what to do once you finish building the set. He offered it to the campus itself, but they didn’t want it. Lenssen wrote to ASML’s CEO on a Friday night, and within hours he wrote back saying he loved the set. To get the model out of the attic, it had to be dismantled piece by piece (like the real ASML machines), and company workers loaded it into a van. Today it is the first thing visitors see when they arrive at the company’s reception. It’s official. The jump to merchandising officer arrived later, with a model of the skyline of the campus in charge of promoting an internal app, and then the two models of machines. He was not the first: Jeroen Ottens, an ASML engineer who had worked at Lego, I had modeled a previous version. The cheapest model in the current range, the TWINSCAN NXE:3400C, at $166.70, was not born as a commercial product either: it started as internal training tool before becoming a special edition open to the public. It took Lenssen a few weeks to design the current two sets, one with a 61-page instruction manual. Your only compensation is a copy of each model. Employees only. The sales policy is one unit per person and verified ASML email is mandatory. For weeks, some fans managed to place orders bypassing that restriction due to a security hole in networks, and measures had to be taken: in December 2024 ASML began canceling orders from buyers without an actual corporate email. The EXE:5000 file even disappeared and can only be consulted today through the Wayback Machine. The same corporate email restriction covers the rest of the merchandising of the company, yes, much less coveted: sweaters, mugs, pins and Christmas decorations. eBay fever. Of course, speculation was not long in coming, as It usually happens with Lego sets that disappear from the market. Individual sets of those designed by Lenssen have been seen for $600, while the complete collection reaches $4,500. Before closing that section of the store, ASML sold 1,355 units of the latest model (there are 44,000 company employees, possibly not all of them interested in building with toy blocks). Although the comparison is absurd, only six of the real machine have been sold. In Xataka | The great fear of the US is that ASML’s UVP machines will continue to arrive in China. So he is going to intensify his trade war

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