Breaking

2,000 years ago the Romans sold perfumes in glass doves that could only be opened by breaking their necks.

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Despite their great efforts, the cities of the Roman Empire they didn’t smell good and well, it makes sense: they lived in conditions of high fecal contamination and also they used feces as medicine. Of course, to Caesar what belongs to Caesar: they had bottles to store their ointments and oils that, like the best current perfumes, promised a lot. Without going any further, the two bottles you see above these lines date from the 1st century AD, are from the Roman Empire and belong to the MET collection. Because from then on they knew that the (good) smell, coming from anointing oneself after bathing in hot springs, from incense from temples or from burials, was something more: it could be a language of status, identity and power. So for those smells they needed a container at their height that would turn the task of perfuming themselves into almost a ritual. For example, a dove. Dove-shaped jars. The ointments of the Romans were, in a nutshell, something like today’s ampoules: small ceramic or glass containers where they stored oils, commercial products or substances for funeral practices. blown glass arrive In the 1st century BC and 200 years later, the Romans were true virtuosos of glass manufacturing both in quality and quantity: according to the Penn Museummanufactured up to 100 million containers a year. These curious zoomorphic specimens in the shape of a bird and the size of which fit in the palm of the hand became so popular that they constitute a subcategory in themselves within their unguentary and it is common to find it in deposits. The method of use was practically identical to a vial: you have to break that small neck to access the contents inside. In this case, literally breaking the bird’s neck. In addition to its aesthetic value, they met their goal when storing valuable ointments: it protected the contents from excessive exposure to oxygen and helped to dose the amount poured. Why is it important. Converting ointment bottles into something more sophisticated in the shape of a bird constitutes one of the first and most striking cases of packaging and user experience (imagine that unboxing of an influencer of the time). Have a glass jar and also with this type of shapes It was a status indicator.as witnessed by the art of that period, where we see men and women perfumed after a visit to the hot springs. On the other hand and leaving aside the shape, these jars are the vestiges of the imperial commercial network: spices from India, resins from Arabia and locally grown flowers were used to make perfumes and ointments. If they also go to the laboratory, they constitute a valuable source of chemical data on Roman civilization and its customs. Without going any further, a laboratory analysis allowed identify a primal patchouli in an exhibition in Carmona (Seville). Context. Among these zoomorphic glasses the dove was the star: archaeological evidence suggests that the dove was one of the first birds domesticated by humans, so people learned its habits and characteristics and used it for messaging. On the spiritual level, they introduced it into their religious rituals and mythology. Thus, the dove was the sacred animal of Venus and she was often represented in statues with a dove perched on her hand or on her head. However, this relationship is much older: already in the Bronze Age, in Sumerian Mesopotamia, consists the association between doves and the mother goddess. Storing perfume in a container in the shape of your sacred animal is a fully conscious and coherent act. Yes, but. Many of these readings of the dove-shaped glass jars are hypotheses based on what we know about the Romans, but we don’t know for sure: these perfumes could well be for everyday use or for funeral rituals. Likewise, they were not exclusive objects of the wealthiest classes: the simplest ointments were within the reach of the popular classes and their shapes were refined over time. In short, the dove could have different meanings depending on who had it and what for. In Xataka | The fall of the Roman Empire has obsessed us for centuries: some economists believe they have the answer in 400,000 coins In Xataka | Almost 2,000 years ago a Celtiberian soldier visited the most remote frontier of the Roman Empire. Then he returned to Soria with a souvenir Cover | MET

Zeekr comes with the very complicated challenge of breaking prejudices. You have reason to believe it

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When someone asks me, I am very clear about where I think Chinese brands can hurt Europe: the “cheap” car. I put the latter in quotation marks because it’s not just about cars under 20,000 euros, I also think they have a chance in that type of product that gives a lot for less money than its rivals. Although, in that case, we are already talking about figures close to 50,000 euros. but there are some nuances here. It is clear to me that the bulk of sales of Chinese manufacturers in these first years They will arrive with models with a combustion engine. Either because they can make volume in markets like Spain, with a high rate of sales of low-end vehicles or because, due to the particularities of the tariffs imposed by the European Union, they offer very competitive cars in the triangle formed by price, equipment and electric range. Yes, I have more doubts in the electricity market. First, because these cars are subject to tariffs, which makes it difficult for them to compete on price. Secondly, because European manufacturers are starting to get their act together -heh- and the offer in all types of sizes, range and price is already more than interesting. Third, because the more the price of the car rises, I have the feeling that the customer takes less risk and the more he values ​​staying with the “old-fashioned” brands. Zeekr will play in a very complicated league. And yet, he has reason to think that he can gradually gain ground. We shouldn’t wait an emergence like that of BYD (four of the 10 best-selling electric cars last year in Spain were theirs) or Omoda/Jaecoo, which are building its sales around cars with combustion engines. I think they themselves are aware of them. But they have the muscle and the product to allow themselves a slow landing but with a view to prospering in the future. “We make exclusivity accessible,” said Lothar Schupet, CEO in Europe, in his presentation. A good starting range Zeekr arrives in Spain in the middle of a new expansive wave across Europe. If we have said that our country has been the perfect gateway for manufacturers who fight over price, the case of Zeekr is completely different. The company has been selling its cars for some time in the Nordic countries or the Netherlands, where electric sales are more advanced. Now it is time to make the leap to less consolidated markets, such as Spain. This has an advantage. The company is already rolling in Europe and has waited until sales have started to pick up more strongly. But they also have other incentives. The range already consists of four cars, of which only one of them will arrive in the coming months. The other three can now be purchased. This range also touches several styles. Zeekr He Zeekr It is a very interesting electric compact. During our contact with the company we had the opportunity to briefly ride it. It is a 4.43 meter car that has three versions. The basic one costs 37,137 euros and has a 49 kWh battery with 272 HP of power. Above there is an intermediate version with 340 HP of power and a 61 kWh battery. The most ambitious reaches 496 HP of power that is combined with a 69 kWh battery. The latter already stretches to 46,242 euros. The first two batteries are LFP and the largest is NCM. The last two steps move between 405 and 415 kilometers of autonomy, which allows you to travel with some peace of mind. The access version is limited to the city with its theoretical 330 kilometers of autonomy It is an agile car that does not feel as soft or as artificial as many other Chinese cars. It is complemented by an interior feel in the materials that is pleasant in general lines but above all with rear seats and a trunk that make it a very attractive proposal for families who move in an urban environment and who take one or two long getaways throughout the year. Despite its 400 volt architecture, it can go from 10 to 80% in just 18 minutes. Furthermore, there is something that I really liked about this car and that is its aesthetics. Its design differs from other Chinese cars that may be more similar to each other and this Zeekr X does seem to me to have a clear and defining image by itself. Above, the Zeekr 7 It is the family model. It is an SUV that is committed to interior spaciousness, especially in the rear seats, and that raises the level in terms of the interior appearance of the materials. It is a car that we were not able to test but it comes with 75 kWh LFP and 100 kWh NCM batteries. ITS 800 volt architecture allows it to go from 10 to 80% charge in 13 minutes and promises 615 kilometers of autonomy in its largest version. Inside, the Zeekr 7X is also committed to offering the best image in terms of quality perception. It is a car that will arrive loaded with technology with the latest active infotainment system, similar in format to what we see in Tesla. It is a car that starts at 52,500 euros with its single-engine (421 HP) rear-wheel drive version. Above, it combines this motor with the large battery, which would be the most balanced option or the longest autonomy (615 approved kilometers), costing 54,425 euros. The jump to all-wheel drive (two engines totaling 646 HP) means increasing the price to 62,250 euros. He Zeekr 7GT It is the car that will arrive in a few months. It is a sportier version with a family or style body. shooting brake. However, it will be a car that is slightly lower in price, starting at 45,675 euros in its cheapest option, with a 75 kWh battery and 421 HP of power and reaching 59,235 … Read more

There are people so extremely competitive in ‘Tetris’ that they are literally breaking the game

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He ‘Tetris‘ for NES has been in circulation for 35 years. Most players who try this or any of the other home versions still operate it with their thumbs, like in 1989. But in the competitive scene (where the NES port is the most common version), however, the grip of the Nintendo controller is different. And it continues to evolve: for a few years now a new technique has been making it possible for the game’s classic records to be pulverized one after another. So much so that the first human to “beat” ‘Tetris’ did so with this new technique. ‘Tetris’: The End. The NES ‘Tetris’, released in the United States in 1989, has an ending. More or less: upon reaching level 29, the falling speed of the pieces doubles so abruptly that it is considered impossible to react in time to rotate and move them. The score counter also freezes when it reaches 999,999 (the so-called maxout). It’s not exactly impossible to overcome, but it’s difficult enough that it’s always been considered that way. For years, it was considered the ceiling of the game The best players in the world competed in the annual Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) with the goal of accumulating as many points as possible before level 29 stopped them. That was the way to determine a winner: maximum points before level 29. The considered best player in the world was Jonas Neubauer, with seven titles in nine consecutive finals. The controller was held as it has always been done, pressed at the speed that human thumbs would allow, and level 29 was the limit. DAS: the lifelong technique. DAS is the acronym for Delayed Auto Shift and it is the traditional way of playing. This is the standard behavior of the game when the D-pad is held down: although the pieces fall at maximum speed, there is a short delay before the piece begins to move, and that speed is around 10 Hz (ten moves per second). Competitive players who use the DAS technique do not simply hold the button down: they have perfected the pressure times to take advantage of that delay and throw pieces to the side with maximum efficiency. Between 2010 and 2017, the early years of CTWC, DAS players dominated the scene, but the deadly level 29 held everyone back equally. However, as we will see, this form of control has become outdated although today, the tournament has created its own category (the DAS Jonas Cup) to preserve this technique within the official competition. A sign that it is a classic wood technique, but it also indicates to what extent it has been displaced by more modern ones. Hypertapping is coming. This consensus was broken in 2011. Thor Aackerlund demonstrated that level 29 could be overcome with a different technique: instead of holding down the D-pad to take advantage of the delay of each piece, he pressed the controller repetitively and very quickly, pressing the D-pad at full speed. He hypertappingas this technique is known, allows the pieces to move at about 12 Hz, bypassing the DAS delay. Aackerlund thus reached level 30, and the community adopted the technique immediately. Problems and glory of hypertapping. Without a doubt, the big problem with the technique is how physically demanding it is: counterintuitive gripping positions on the controller, continuous muscular effort and, therefore, a real risk of injury. In 2018, 16-year-old Joseph Saelee defeated seven-time world champion Neubauer in the CTWC final using hypertapping. The effect was immediate: in a very short time, the hypertappers They took the records to levels that no one had reached: Saelee reached level 31 in 2018, and for 2020 the best hypertappers They had reached level 38. The ceiling was rising, but it was still a ceiling. The drummer. In November 2020, Christopher Martinez designed a new technique. Instead of pressing one finger on the pad at full speed, he placed one static finger on top of the pad and tapped the back of the controller with the others. When pressing from the bottom up, it was the crosshead that pressed the finger, so to speak. The result was up to 30 beats per second, the technical limit allowed by the framerate 60 Hz of the NES. Or put another way: double what the hypertapping faster. Martinez was inspired by techniques of tapping fast developed by speedrunners. Justin Yu, CTWC 2023 champion, described the principle as “you don’t have to use a single muscle; you use all your fingers to push the controller into your hand.” The ergonomic advantage is important: the hypertapping exhausts, but the rolling It distributes the effort between several fingers, in a way that the players themselves have compared to the way in which pianists and drummers optimize the effort of their arms and hands to reach high speeds. And it’s completely legal in tournaments. Stratospheric levels. The breaking of the invisible ceiling that until the arrival of the hypertapping had been at level 29 moved on. In August 2022, the player EricICX reached level 138, where the colors of the pieces are corrupted due to a bug in the original code: the developers had never planned for anyone to get that far. And then, Willis Gibson, known online as Blue Scuti, only 13 years old and with two years of experience playing ‘Tetris’, reached level 157 in a 38-minute session and the game crashed. He became the first person to “beat” the NES game. The post-rolling era. He rolling It is also changing how competitive players train. Instead of starting from level 1, they work directly from level 29 (which was previously the limit), because if you master the fastest level as your usual starting point, the previous ones lose all difficulty. CTWC co-founder states that, possibly in a few years all the finalists will reach level 28 with the score at the maximum and continue up to 50 without much difficulty. The last frontier. Level 255 was the theoretical … Read more

For centuries price has been a sign of quality. Generative AI is breaking that rule in dozens of sectors

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For centuries, price has served as a cognitive shortcut. If something costs a lot it is because, for one reason or another, it must be worth a lot. An Armani suit, Bang & Olufsen headphonesa McKinsey report. The number has always served to convey certain information to us before seeing the product. It was compressed reputation. With the arrival of generative AI, that is ending in many sectors. Today a logo can cost 15 euros or 15,000. And be the same logo. A market analysis can come from a consulting firm with offices on three continents or from a guy in pajamas who knows how to wear Deep Research. The report may be indistinguishable. In fact sometimes the second one will be betterbecause the guy in pajamas understands the sector and the consultant assigned the junior who was free. AI is breaking the link between production cost and final result. Something very similar to what Antonio Ortiz, AI popularizer and former final boss of this house, in “Artificial Intelligence and unlinking effort and result“. If anyone can generate in minutes what previously required teams, weeks, and invoices with many zeros, price no longer communicates much about quality. It’s starting to be noise. and this will force a signal migration. From ‘how much’ to ‘who’, to ‘how’ or ‘why’. The questions that will matter are going to be “who signed this?”, “what process followed?”, “what human decisions were behind it?” That is, the process will become the product. It is already beginning to be seen with design studios that They obsessively document any iterationor consultancies that not only sell you the deliverable but also also access to the reasoning of their partners. More and more we are digital artisans who charge for showing how we work and not only for what we deliver. AI has made production almost free, so we are being flooded with digital content of all kinds, so scarcity shifts to criteria. Knowing what to ask for, what to discard, what makes sense and what doesn’t. to good taste. AI can do almost anything, and what it can’t, it will learn next year. Deciding well what to do and what not to do is still expensive. There, for the moment and luckily, there is no shortcut. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | The AI ​​of 2026 brings an uncomfortable truth: the most useful will be the one that watches us the most

SpaceX is not only breaking records in space

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The Bloomberg Millionaires Index has moved its figures on great fortunes with a fact that is difficult to ignore: Elon Musk has become the first millionaire to exceed $600,000 million in estimated assets. According to he Bloomberg Billionaires IndexMusk’s fortune now amounts to about $638 billion, an unprecedented figure that places him in a completely new league within technological capitalism. The leap has been neither minor nor gradual. In a few weeks, the estimate of his assets has skyrocketed by more than $205 billion, driven, above all, by the expectation generated around the SpaceX IPO. SpaceX: Musk’s new gem. With a Tesla that seeks its place to define itself between an automotive or robotics company, the main engine of Musk’s fortune has moved towards the aerospace industry. SpaceX, majority controlled by Musk, has been one of the most valuable private companies in the world for years. The information about a possible IPO have revived investor appetite and valuations have skyrocketed internal of the company taking it up to 800,000 million dollars. With this, the valuation of Musk’s fortune has also increased. Bloomberg estimates that the company is already worth several hundred billion dollars, and Musk owns around 42% of capital, in addition to reinforced voting rights. Tesla, xAI and the rest of the Musk ecosystem. Although SpaceX makes headlines, It is not the only asset that supports Musk’s fortune. Tesla continues to be the other major pillar and, despite moving in a more complex context for the electric car and increasing pressure from Chinese manufacturers, the company maintains a stock market capitalization that is progressively recovering from reputational disaster What did the participation of its CEO in the cuts that DOGE carried out at the beginning of the year. Added to this are other less visible but relevant participations: xAI, the artificial intelligence company promoted by Musk, is consolidating itself as a business ecosystem highly concentrated in its figure, which amplifies any market movement, both up and down. Fortunes are not exact figures, but estimates. It is worth, however, putting the numbers about Musk’s fortune in context. Great fortunes are not balances in a checking account, but estimates based on the combined value of each millionaire’s business interests, properties and financial assets. And those estimates They vary depending on who calculates them and with what methodology. This is where the differences between indices appear. While the Bloomberg Index locates Musk’s fortune around $638 billion, Forbes offers a figure substantially lower: about 509,000 million. The gap is explained by several factors, including how SpaceX is valued. In other words, neither figure is “correct” in absolute terms. Both are reasonable approximations to an extremely complex heritage, but they serve to determine trends and a comparative value between great fortunes. One step closer to the first billion. Beyond the specific figure, this new record reinforces an idea that has been circulating for some time: Elon Musk is one of the clearest candidates to become the first billionaire in historythat is, being the first person to accumulate a fortune of one million million dollars. Yes SpaceX completes its IPO With the valuations that are being used today and Tesla manages to sustain its weight in the market, the jump to the billion is no longer an extravagant hypothesis and has become a plausible scenario in the near future. Musk’s milestone not only redefines the ranking of the richest in the world. It also underlines the extent to which economic concentration is occurring around a single person or company. In Xataka | Carnegie built libraries, Gates sold them on CD-ROM, Musk locked them in an AI: the history of knowledge control Image | SpaceXFlickr (Gage Skidmore)

Your race to modernize is breaking what has always worked

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The promise of Windows 11 was to deliver a modern operating system, but four years later, that modernization feels like a permanent work in progress. While adoption of the system remains slow—although reached Windows 10— some users face an experience weighed down by patches that often turn into bugs. An invisible change that breaks things. From 2023Microsoft accelerated an under-the-hood migration: abandoning the classic and efficient technology that drew windows, to embrace WinUI and the XAML-based Windows App SDK. The goal is to unify the design, but the execution is taking its toll. WinUI introduces changes which, if not optimized perfectly, make the system suffer: it chokes waiting for data in the same thread that draws the interface. This explains why the browser feels heavy or why the start menu and taskbar they disappear after security updates. In fact, in a community meeting which you can see on YouTube, confirm their mission to migrate legacy surfaces to WinUI 3 to modernize the OS, admitting the difficulties that have arisen. It’s not just design. Beyond the UI layer, the latest version of the OS has been a minefield where Microsoft has had to constantly rectify. The result is components that have been failing, both due to WinUI and for reasons unrelated to it: The interface: contextual menus were born slow and cluttered, forcing Redmond’s redesign them now to fix the usability problem they created. Even their own managers have admitted publicly that the Start Menu “is very annoying” and needs corrections. Stability: we have suffered since updates that caused blue screens for processor incompatibilities to specific performance issues on AMD chipspassing through surreal glitches where the file explorer overlapped to other windows. Security: the renewal of the OS has reached disrupt vital functions such as “Local Authority Protection” (LSA), unintentionally disabling it with a patch. The community acts as a patch and resistance. Given the slowness to fix latest visual bugusers have taken control. The discovery is revealing: disabling the modern command bar (based on WinUI) using tools not only eliminates white flashes, but speeds up program loading and reduces RAM consumption. But this community has also been reluctant to Windows 11: they use tools like Rufus to bypass the TPM requirement (controversial at launch) or modified versions like Tiny11 to clean bloatware. It seems that the advanced and enthusiastic user prefers to modify the system rather than accept Redmond’s official vision. The nostalgia cycle. All this fuels the eternal debate about the “good” and “bad” versions of Windows. Today many idealize Windows 10 for its stability, forgetting that in its first years it suffered fierce criticism for forced updates and privacy. Windows 11 seems to be stuck in that difficult phase of the cycle, aggravated by requirements that left out many functional PCs. Open Source to the rescue? As Microsoft pours resources into the ARM revolution and Copilot+ PCsthe desktop does not finish fine-tuning. The company seems aware and recently announced plans to make WinUI open sourcein order to accelerate the improvement of the base technology that currently hinders the system. Perhaps involving more developers will help make this interface development framework cleaner and more stable, although it does not imply that the bugs in Windows 11 (proprietary code) will be fixed because of this. However, the developer community is skeptical, pointing in specialized forums that WinUI has performance issues. Until Microsoft manages to make this new element as solid as the classic, and satisfy the enormous hardware park that installs it, Windows 11 will continue to pay the toll of modernity with some occasional instability. Cover image | Composition with images by Pepu Ricca and Javier Penalva for Xataka In Xataka | The ghost of IBM: Satya Nadella’s great challenge is to prevent Microsoft from becoming a technological fossil

Breaking the console market seemed impossible. The Steam Machine has the potential to do it: Crossover 1×31

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The arrival of the Steam Machine It took us all by surprise a few days ago. The console and PC hybrid developed by Valve may become a real meteorite for traditional consolesbut be careful because not everything has been said. Valve, which became famous after the development of the mythical ‘Half-Life’ended up becoming the great PC video game distributor of our time thanks to Steam. Although they already tried to attack the gaming PC market with their Steam Machines a decade ago, now the approach is very different. That first attempt came too soon, but things have changed a lot since then. Valve has made its Steam OS operating system (based on Linux) an excellent alternative to the one offered by Windows on PCs. Above all thanks to Proton, the layer that allows you to play Windows games on Steam OS as well as on Windows… or even better. We have seen the first clear example of the experience that Valve could offer in this sense in the Steam Deckwhich have been a modest success (about 6 million consoles sold), but which have sparked interest in portable consoles that even Microsoft has decided to manufacture with partners like ASUS. Now the Steam Machine proposes to be a promising alternative to the Xbox Series S/X and the PlayStation 5 and combine the best of both worlds: a console-type experience and almost the entire catalog of video games available in the world of Windows PCs. The only question is whether he will make it, and that’s where enters the price factor. It is a fact that we will know at the beginning of 2026, and it will be from then on that we will know if this machine works or not. We are talking about all of this precisely in this Crossover 1×31we hope you enjoy it! On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | The question is not whether Tim Cook will soon stop being CEO of Apple, but who will succeed him: Crossover 1×30

We have left Moss out for nine months in space at the mercy of vacuum and radiation. He’s back alive and breaking records

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Life is much more tenacious than we usually think, even when we take it out of its cradle and expose it to the most hostile environment we know: the emptiness of the outer space. And to carry out this test, a team of scientists has decided to take a moss and expose it to conditions outside of Earth, giving a result that opens a path for us on how to create new ecosystems on other planets. The protagonist of this story is Physcomitrium patensor better known as primitive moss. And there were a series of Japanese researchers those who wanted to check What would happen if this little primitive moss was left outside the International Space Station. The logical a priori thing would have been that he would have died instantly, since he did not have oxygen, the environment was really aggressive, with a lot of direct radiation as he did not have the protection of our ozone layer and logically he was not in his natural habitat. But the reality is that he has managed to endure the absolute emptiness and the cosmic radiation for 283 days. But not only has it survived these conditions, but upon returning to Earth it has been planted and germinated. Without a doubt a great surprise in the face of the resistance that these organisms have. A round trip. The research, led by biologist Tomomichi Fujita of Hokkaidō University and published in iScience, started from a premise that seemed like science fiction: can a primitive land plant withstand prolonged exposure to cosmic elements without protection? To find out, in March 2022 they launched hundreds of samples aboard the ship Cygnus NG-17. Once on the ISS, the astronauts attached these samples to the outside of the station, orbiting at about 400 km altitude from the Earth’s surface. There they stayed for nine months, exposed to constant cycles of light and shadow, extreme cold, and relentless ultraviolet radiation. In January 2023, the samples returned in a SpaceX capsule (mission CRS-16) and when analyzed in the laboratory, the results perplexed the researchers. More than 80% of the spores had survived and were able to germinate. Not everything is the same. Just as two humans may not be equally resistant, something similar happens with mosses. In this research, we tried to verify the resistance of three types of fabric, but the winner was undoubtedly the sporophytewas the hardest fabric. Something that was already suspected, but the litmus test that this was was missing. In terrestrial laboratories, stress is usually tested separately. That is, in a season an organism is exposed to heat, or cold, or high radiation. But in this case everything happens at the same time, and that is why it was expected that his survival would be null with this combination of factors. But the reality is that the spores protected within the sporangium endured. And although the scientists noted a degradation of one type of chlorophyll due to visible light, the structural and genetic integrity of the plant remained intact enough to be “resurrected” upon returning home. Its importance. Growing a moss on the surface of the ISS seems insignificant and a silly waste of money. But the reality is that this finding has two very important readings. The first looks towards the stars and the terraforming process. It must be taken into account that mosses were the first plants to colonize land on our planet 500 million years ago. It can be said that they are natural pioneers thanks to the fact that they can settle on bare stones and then when they die, they generate soil where more complex plants later emerge. In this way, if they can survive space travel and withstand extreme conditions, they could theoretically be the biological vanguard. in lunar or martian bases to help modify its atmosphere and ecosystem. Something more urgent. Right now, our goal has to be to create crops that are more resistant to the extreme weather conditions we face on our planet. And the solution may lie in these spores and their genetics. Understanding the mechanism that gives them this great resistance is vital so that we can modify seeds of other crops with the aim of conferring the same resistance. A vital step to face everything that may be yet to come to our planet. Images | Mike Frandson POT In Xataka | Fungal spores and other microorganisms are candidates for surviving on the surface of Mars, according to NASA

Who will compensate Renfe for its investment in AVRIL trains that are breaking down?

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AVRIL trains are at risk of cracking. At least that is what happened in one of those that provided service on the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed corridor, which has forced it to take all its trains out of circulation and cancel the AVLO service. But now, who pays the dishes Broken buggies? a fissure. It all began in July 2025. At least, the nightmare of what promised to be a peaceful, uninterrupted sleep began. At the end of the month and with the entire summer campaign ahead, Renfe suspended the sale of AVLO tickets between Madrid and Barcelona overnight. The reason soon became known: one of the trains had presented a fissure that forced him to stop full. Without being very clear about how to act, Renfe suspended the sale of these options low cost in the busiest corridor in Spain. Then he chose to make high speed… a slightly slower transportation, limiting maximum speed to avoid problems. Finally, ended up suspending the service completely. A setback. Preventively removing AVRIL trains from circulation in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor is a setback for Renfe since it will not compete with an option low cost in this space and leaves the way clear for Ouigo and Iryo. A space that, in fact, Ouigo had started to give way a few months ago. And although Renfe has room for maneuver because This line is the most expensive in Spain and the least sensitive to offers, the truth is that Renfe no longer competes on price in it. The setback comes, above all, because the results of Talgo’s S106 trains, known as AVRIL, are proving problematic. His arrival was already marked by the bad reviews and the turn of the year caused a widespread breakdown on the trains. Half a year later, when everything seemed forgotten, the trains break down (literally) on the Madrid-Barcelona route. Why are they important? When Renfe commissioned Talgo to produce 30 AVRIL trains, it did so thinking about its ability to lower prices. The trains allow access to a greater number of people and promised top speeds of 300 km/h, which they are not being able to take advantage of. But, above all, the batch of AVRIL trains is key because they are flexible. The trains can “jump” from the Iberian gauge to the international gauge. This allows Renfe to be the only one to be able to operate on the Galician high-speed corridor without having to transfer in Ourense. It is expected to be a differential advantage for competitors do not consider entry in said corridor when it opens to the rest of the competition. Who pays for this? Aware that poor performance of AVRIL trains is a setback for the company, Renfe has already started looking for trains in Germany. But, in addition, the relationship between Talgo and Renfe is not in the best moment. To begin with, because Renfe has already been claiming since last year more than 116 million euros compensation to Talgo for delays in the deliveries of its AVRIL trains. If it is confirmed that the problem with AVRIL trains is structural, new economic demands can be expected from Renfe. In Talgo, however, they defend themselves and assure that the real problem is in the infrastructure. In September they already pointed out Adif as the culprit of the cracks in its trains, alleging a “poor state of maintenance of the line (…) the horizontal leveling problems on that line and the vertical accelerations they cause on the rolling can, by repetition, cause the failure mode due to cracks in the bogie frame.” Adif has defended itself by ensuring that the line is correctly maintained and that it has all the necessary approvals so that the services are provided normally. Not happy with the answer, in The reason they explain that Talgo has already hired an external audit to determine what caused the crack in the four affected trains. Designated. What Talgo wants is obvious: to put the ball in Adif’s court. The company already had to reserve more than 100 million euros last year in their accounts to pay the compensation they owe to Renfe for delayed deliveries. Incurring more expenses because of a productive mistake can only damage your accounts further. On the other hand, Adif is the other big one. They explain in The reason that the main union of train drivers (Semaf) also points to the track management company as guilty due to insufficient maintenance. Criticisms that are not exclusive to this corridor since in Andalusia A lack of investment has also been pointed out worrying as the main cause of summer breakdowns. In that case, It was Ouigo who pointed out Adif as responsible for an incident that left more than 300 people completely stranded in the middle of the field for one night. Photo | Talgo In Xataka | Spain thought that Spain could manufacture the perfect trains for Spain. The reality: Spain is already looking for trains in Germany

The US investigates 2.9 million cars for breaking the rules

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Tesla continues to push for its FSD to reach Europe. At the moment, the company still does not have its semi-autonomous driving system available (requires paying attention while driving) on ​​our continent. In recent months they have intensified their messages but now they have a problem. One that concerns 2.9 million cars. FSD. Full Self Driving. It is Tesla’s most advanced driving assistance system. The company sells this system in the United States that allows you to take your hands off the wheel and let the car take all the reins. The system can even be activated within a town with the car taking various exits or reacting to traffic agents such as pedestrians or improperly parked cars. The system, for now, is still awaiting approval on our continent. The deadlines have been extended but, at the moment, the only cars that allow you to drive without hands on the steering wheel are those equipped with Ford BlueCruise and as long as the route has been previously mapped. Click on the image to go to the original tweet More and more pressure. Since last summer, Tesla has been pushing for the European Union to allow this system to be used on its roads. Last June, Elon Musk asked in X the support of his followers so that the European Union speeds up the processes. And, furthermore, He went so far as to say that the FSD “will save lives”. The tweet was preceded by two other publications aimed in the same direction. From the official Tesla account, the company shared videos showing how its cars equipped with FSD circulated normally through cities like Rome or Paris. In the latter, even entered fully into the chaotic roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe Parisian and behaved completely normally. 2.9 million. With this idea on the table, the NHTSA, in charge of traffic safety in the United States, has opened a preliminary investigation into 2.88 million Tesla cars equipped with its most advanced autonomous driving system, advancing in Reuters. The reason is simple: they violate traffic regulations. In total, NHTSA has been informed of at least 50 violations while the FSD was active. Nearly two dozen warnings have been reported after cars ran a traffic light or stalled after it had already opened. Other warnings reflected that the car did not take cross traffic into account and was rushing to pass an intersection with other vehicles already performing the maneuver. They remember in Ars Technica that these investigations are not unknown to Tesla. In fact, this is already the third time that the NHTSA has opened an investigation related to Tesla’s driving assistance systems. like a human. For better and worse, Tesla cars appear to have been configured to behave like a human. Elon Musk already pointed out that their fleet of cars allows them to collect data in real traffic scenarios much faster than their competitors and this allows them to improve autonomous driving skills much faster. However, it was noted a long time ago that this “more human” and less robotic behavior sometimes passed for violate certain traffic rules. And with the launch of the first robotaxis onto the streets, it was proven that this human behavior, even, could be translated into braking in case you see the police. Clue. The problem for Tesla is that FSD approval is key. First because it has been one of his great promises: buy a car today that, tomorrow, you will be able to drive alone. Promises that, on the other hand, have not been fulfilled. But, also, for Tesla the FSD is really very important. First, because it is a source of income that I hoped to make profitable over the years, either with a significant income at the time of purchase or with recurring payments to activate and deactivate it through updates. And, second, because it would allow regain a leadership position within the industry. Right now, except for the specific case of Ford and the Mercedes level 3 applicable in very specific circumstances, no one can drive without having their hands on the wheel. If Tesla obtained this approval it would turn the system into an added value that could tip the balance in its favor when choosing a new car. Photo | tesla In Xataka | Tesla unlocks one of its most advanced functions in Europe. And incidentally confirms that we will have the least autonomous Teslas of all

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