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build submarines. The last one weighs five tons and works

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Zhang Shengwu is 60 years old, he is a farmer and has not studied naval engineering, although throughout his long life he has had other jobs that can be assumed to be a handyman, such as a carpenter, welder or in the shipping industry. Back in 2014, Shengwu saw a person on TV building his own submarine and, just like you and I ventured to make a cod pil-pil after seeing Argiñano do it effortlessly (spoiler: it goes wrong), the farmer made the determination to build it for himself. As China Daily tellsnot even his family’s warnings about the risks or the cost stopped him. Just over a decade later, in early July 2025, Zhang Shengwu showed the world his creation with a successful test dive of his “Big Black Fish”, a homemade submarine weighing five tons capable of submerging eight meters, the latest of his creations. It is neither the first submarine he has made nor is it almost certainly the last. Some play petanque, I make submarines. The idea of ​​building a submarine from scratch caught his attention, so he invested 5,000 yuan (approximately 642 euros at the exchange rate) to buy sheet steel, a motor and a battery. In about six months he had built his first prototype, a submarine six meters long, 1.2 meters high, weighing two tons, how Sixth Tone collects. The bad news is that there was a leak. The good news is that the design of its prototype obtained a patent, a formal recognition by the Chinese state of the technical validity of the project. Obviously it didn’t stop there. He then built a surface ship that also got a patent. As Shengwu himself acknowledges, his head is never idle, so he already had the following project in mind: invested 40,000 yuan (just over 5,000 euros) to create the second generation of his submarine, which would later become the Big Black Fish. First submarine built by Zhang Shengwu. CCTV News His masterpiece: he Big Black Fish. He improved and lengthened the hull to seven meters and 1.8 meters high, so that its cabin now seats two people. For more stability, Zhang poured approximately two tons of concrete into the hull as a counterweight and mounted two ballast tanks at the bow and stern: “The tanks collect water to submerge and empty it to float,” explains for Sixth Tone. He didn’t want any more leaks like his previous project, so he welded every joint and installed circular hatches. This boat is capable of reaching speeds of up to four knots and Zhang is especially proud of its performance. So, details that “a small battery and a motor can propel this huge structure underwater. And it can submerge for half an hour without a single drop of water entering, it can even recoil.” Context. For someone to assemble something as complex and unintuitive as a submarine at home sounds exotic, but the reality is that in China it happens relatively often: in 2009 another inventor named Li Yuming Up to five homemade submarines were manufactured. In 2014 a former prison officer named Zhang Junlin He also developed a tourist submarine that he tested in the South China Sea. In 2015, a Shaanxi villager He borrowed 200,000 yuan to make a 9.2-meter one. Why is it important. It is no coincidence: the Chinese government has been betting on rural talent for years. Thus, in 2020 was fixed The goal is to have one million “innovation leaders” and 15 million entrepreneurs in rural areas by 2025. In fact, in Anhui, the province where Zhang Shengwu and the prison officer – inventor come from, these profiles can qualify for a one-time initial subsidy of 5,000 yuan if their activity remains stable for more than six months. Shengwu fits that profile: without a college degree but with a lot of time and persistence, he has successfully executed complex technology. Obviously not at the level of the Chinese army and its submarinesbut in a functional way: it submerges, navigates and rises. AND already have His next submarine in mind, the third: it will be larger and with more autonomy. In Xataka | A Chinese farmer wanted to take his pigs down the mountain by drone. What followed was a ten-hour blackout. In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has launched an underwater creature into the sea that defies naval engineering Cover | CCTV and Gemini

build submarines. The last one weighs five tons and works

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Zhang Shengwu is 60 years old, he is a farmer and has not studied naval engineering, although throughout his long life he has had other jobs that can be assumed to be a handyman, such as a carpenter, welder or in the shipping industry. Back in 2014, Shengwu saw a person on TV building his own submarine and, just like you and I ventured to make a cod pil-pil after seeing Argiñano do it effortlessly (spoiler: it goes wrong), the farmer made the determination to build it for himself. As China Daily tellsnot even his family’s warnings about the risks or the cost stopped him. Just over a decade later, in early July 2025, Zhang Shengwu showed the world his creation with a successful test dive of his “Big Black Fish”, a homemade submarine weighing five tons capable of submerging eight meters, the latest of his creations. It is neither the first submarine he has made nor is it almost certainly the last. Some play petanque, I make submarines. The idea of ​​building a submarine from scratch caught his attention, so he invested 5,000 yuan (approximately 642 euros at the exchange rate) to buy sheet steel, a motor and a battery. In about six months he had built his first prototype, a submarine six meters long, 1.2 meters high, weighing two tons, how Sixth Tone collects. The bad news is that there was a leak. The good news is that the design of its prototype obtained a patent, a formal recognition by the Chinese state of the technical validity of the project. Obviously it didn’t stop there. He then built a surface ship that also got a patent. As Shengwu himself acknowledges, his head is never idle, so he already had the following project in mind: invested 40,000 yuan (just over 5,000 euros) to create the second generation of his submarine, which would later become the Big Black Fish. First submarine built by Zhang Shengwu. CCTV News His masterpiece: he Big Black Fish. He improved and lengthened the hull to seven meters and 1.8 meters high, so that its cabin now seats two people. For more stability, Zhang poured approximately two tons of concrete into the hull as a counterweight and mounted two ballast tanks in the bow and stern: “The tanks collect water to submerge and empty it to float,” explains for Sixth Tone. He didn’t want any more leaks like his previous project, so he welded every joint and installed circular hatches. This boat is capable of reaching speeds of up to four knots and Zhang is especially proud of its performance. So, details that “a small battery and a motor can propel this huge structure underwater. And it can submerge for half an hour without a single drop of water entering, it can even recoil.” Context. For someone to assemble something as complex and unintuitive as a submarine at home sounds exotic, but the reality is that in China it happens relatively often: in 2009 another inventor named Li Yuming Up to five homemade submarines were manufactured. In 2014 a former prison officer named Zhang Junlin He also developed a tourist submarine that he tested in the South China Sea. In 2015, a Shaanxi villager He borrowed 200,000 yuan to make a 9.2-meter one. Why is it important. It is no coincidence: the Chinese government has been betting on rural talent for years. Thus, in 2020 was fixed The goal is to have one million “innovation leaders” and 15 million entrepreneurs in rural areas by 2025. In fact, in Anhui, the province where Zhang Shengwu and the prison officer – inventor come from, these profiles can qualify for a one-time initial subsidy of 5,000 yuan if their activity remains stable for more than six months. Shengwu fits that profile: without a college degree but with a lot of time and persistence, he has successfully executed complex technology. Obviously not at the level of the Chinese army and its submarinesbut in a functional way: it submerges, navigates and rises. AND already have His next submarine in mind, the third: it will be larger and with more autonomy. In Xataka | A Chinese farmer wanted to take his pigs down the mountain by drone. What followed was a ten-hour blackout. In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has launched an underwater creature into the sea that defies naval engineering Cover | CCTV and Gemini

how to build an atomic bomb at home

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Almost half a century ago, when there was obviously no Internet and geopolitics revolved around the cold waran event occurred that set off alarm bells in society. In reality, that was the preamble to what would later be enhanced by the networks: using public material and information available to anyone to develop weapons. With one exception: it was in contention to build an atomic bomb in the storage room at home. How to become a legend. Year 1977. An undistinguished student at Princeton University surprised the world entire (and the FBI) ​​with an academic project that, under the revealing title of “How to Build Your Own Atomic Bomb,” detailed with chilling precision the steps necessary to make a functional nuclear weapon. Its author, John Aristotle Phillipsa 21-year-old young man born in Connecticut, was the son of Greek immigrants and studied physics without standing out at all: he had repeated courses, almost failed, and was best known for your mascot costume football than for his academic achievements. His transformation into an internationally famous figure came hand in hand with an unexpected combination of obsession, stubbornness, the ability to seek out information, and the challenge of impressing a legendary professor. The academic challenge. Phillips was faced with a final task proposed by the famous physicist Freeman Dysonwho taught at Princeton after having worked with figures such as Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe in some of the most complex projects of the 20th century, including the development of the atomic bomb within of the Manhattan Project. Dyson had suggested that his students do a project on nuclear proliferation, and Phillips, aware of his lack of academic brilliance, wanted to stand out with a provocative proposal: recreate the design of a bomb similar to that of Nagasakiusing only public sources. Dyson, surprised by the audacity, humorously accepted the challenge, promising an outstanding grade if he achieved it, but also that he would burn the work after reading it. An obsession. For weeks, Phillips worked tirelessly between the Princeton library and his room, collecting information from declassified documents from the National Technical Information Service, physics textbooks, government communications, and consultations with the Du Pont company on implosion principles. Without using a single classified source, he managed to assemble a 40 page document where he explained step by step how to make a nuclear bomb. He handed in the work, got the highest grade and, far from being destroyed as Dyson had suggested, his project began to circulate by word of mouth until it reached the ears of professional physicists and the media. A national celebrity. The dissemination of the work attracted the attention of experts such as Frank Chilton, a physicist specializing in nuclear engineering, who stated that Phillips’ design was technically feasibleexcept for access to plutonium, the only obstacle to its materialization. The news broke out in the media: the boy with no academic future became forever in “The A-Bomb Kid”a media figure who symbolized both unexpected brilliance and the dangers of uncontrolled disclosure in the nuclear age. The fame reached a tipping point when several so-called Pakistani scientists approached Phillips offering money in exchange for the document. The FBI intervened immediately: confiscated the job and a model that the student had built, and classified the material as sensitive information. The contradictory inheritance. Far from taking advantage of his sudden fame to continue in the academic or scientific world, Phillips published in 1979 with David Michaelis the book Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kidwhere he narrated his experience and the journey of his unusual rise to fame. Over time, his awareness of the risks of nuclear proliferation led him to become an anti-nuclear activist, spending years warning about the ease with which certain knowledge could fall into the wrong hands. In fact, and in a turn of events that no one expected, his career finally led to in politics: He ran as a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1980 and 1982, although without electoral success. The truth is that didn’t come back to media fame, but he did build a business career long and successful in the political technology sector. Died in 2020. A warning in the middle of the “era”. The Philips story couldn’t be more relevant now that the world seems more convulsive than ever. In fact, the case of Aristotle set a precedent disturbing: a student without access to classified materials managed to design, using only public sources, a functional nuclear device. In a global context where technological proliferation has only increased, its story continues to be used as an example in debates about information security, scientific education and the ethical limits of knowledge. Although he never physically built the bomb, his work demonstrated that danger does not always come from professional spies or enemy governments, but also from curious minds with plenty of time, access to libraries… and a typewriter. Ironically, today none of the three keys are possibly needed. A version of this article was published in April 2025 Image | RawPixel In Xataka | Iran always thought it would need a nuclear bomb to defend itself against the US: it has discovered something more powerful in Hormuz In Xataka | The US’s stick to Europe has been to withdraw soldiers near Russia. The carrot is going to be the nuclear bombs

We thought that sleeping was only good for rest. It actually helps us build new muscle.

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We spend a third of our lives sleeping, and although to some people it may seem a waste of time because literally while we sleep we are not ‘producing’, the reality is quite different. And it’s not just about resting, but our brain hides a real neural “switch” that, during sleep, dictates whether our body will build muscle, burn fat or, on the contrary, enter a state of metabolic emergency. What was seen. Joint research from the University of California and Stanford University, published in September 2025 in the prestigious magazine cell, managed to map this mechanism. The researchers identified a specific neuronal circuit in the hypothalamus composed of two fundamental players: the GHRH neuron, which acts as the “accelerator” of growth hormone, and somatostatin, which functions as the “brake.” Its balance is essential to regulate how much growth hormone is released during sleep. And it is not something that should be left in the background or only for children who are growing, but this hormone is essential to be able to build muscle, break down fat or even regulate glucose. In the first half of the night. Not all moments of the night are worth the same, since approximately 70% of daily growth hormone secretion occurs during the first cycle of deep sleep, also known as the N3 phase. In this way, if we shorten our hours in bed and miss that key rest, deep quality sleep is not achieved and the desired peak of growth hormone does not occur. What this directly leads to is accumulating fat and losing muscle tissue. The hunger. The muscle is not the only one affected, but our diet also suffers chemical sabotage. Here research has shown that little sleep drastically alters our appetite-regulating hormones. A large meta-analysis published in the journal Obesity Reviewsthat analyzed 21 studies with 2,250 participants, pointed out that short sleep causes leptin, which is the hormone that sends the signal of satiety, to decrease by 18%, while ghrelin, the hormone that triggers hunger, increases by 28%. This makes us have a greater appetite and prefer to consume more calories if we do not sleep enough hours. The metabolic risk. The impact of not sleeping goes far beyond hunger and the scale, since at a metabolic level, sleep restriction reduces insulin sensitivitywhich directly increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. More and more data. If you still had doubts about the benefits of sleeping correctly, we already know that having a good sleep allows us to be more productive and better integrate the different knowledge that we learn in our brain. But to this is now also added the ability to ‘create’ new muscle, making the smartest decision to be sleeping, although for some it is not very productive. Images | Slaapwijsheid.nl Anastase Maragos In Xataka | Hitting the gym every week is great, but it all depends on what you do right after you leave the gym.

Spain has so many reservoirs that it practically cannot build more. So in Aragon they are expanding them

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The town hall of Fraga (Huesca) has started the necessary works to raise the dam of the 190,000 m³ reservoir that supplies the city by two meters. It may seem like a detail, something almost anecdotal in a country with 1,200 reservoirs and more than 56,000 hm³. And it is. However, it is also the perfect metaphor for the enormous problem that is brewing at the bottom of our swamps. The end of the Spanish miracle. For practical purposes, Spain does not build new dams because it already has 1,200. It is, in fact, one of the countries in the world with the most dams and, although there are some areas that could be ‘usable’, these are increasingly scarce, smaller and most unsustainable at an environmental level. That is to say, even if we wanted to, we could not grow our reservoir capacity much. And there is no shortage of examples of this: Mularroya, in Zaragoza, has the dam completed, but with a nullity sentence for failing to comply with the Water Framework Directive; Biscarrués, in Huesca, is still under studybut the controversy over its environmental impact is enormous; Almudévar, although it has been completed for years, cannot be filled due to lack of pumping capacity. Building a dam in the 80s was already almost impossible and the situation has only gotten worse. In fact, in the last 15 years, Only 20 reservoirs have been inaugurated, totaling 803.6 hm³ A problem that is little talked about. The country loses about 100 hm³/year due to clogging while the CEDEX projected falls runoff of -11%/-14% in the next 40 years. In other words, the real problem with Spanish reservoirs is not that we cannot build more, it is that the mud and sediments are robbing us of storage capacity. Mequinenza has already lost 10% of its capacity And what do we do? That is the big question and it is where the example of the Fraga town hall is most interesting. Because many engineers have been arguing for years that, if we cannot create new dams on virgin valleys, we can still grow existing dams. In Yesa, between Navarra and Aragón, the work (the most emblematic of this approach) would allow up to 1,079 hm³ to be added. More than the 803 of the other approach. Right now, as far as we know, the work is stopped due to some allegations. Where it has been carried out is in Santolea, Teruel, adding 81.75 hm³ to the original reservoir. And why isn’t the process accelerated? Largely because many people believe that the dam model has reached its peak and believe that we must kill the culture of the reservoir: The storage capacity already exceeds the available water and adding more empty glasses does not create the water on its own. The water war is one of the fiercest battles in the Spain of the future. And I don’t think anyone knows how to sign a peace treaty. Imagwn | Yoann Laheurte In Xataka | Our reservoirs have a serious structural problem. And experts have been warning us for years.

Spain will dedicate 719 million to build an “AI Gigafactory” between Madrid and Tarragona. It will have little giga

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While the world debate about control of models like Claude Fable 5the Government of Spain has moved to try to gain positions in the race for technological sovereignty. The Council of Ministers has authorized a public investment of 719 million euros with one objective: to create an “Artificial Intelligence Gigafactory”. The investment is notable for a country like Spain, but it is a drop in an ocean absolutely dominated by large US technology companies. The political signal here is strong. The European Commission wants to mobilize 20,000 million euros to develop AI projects. That money is reserved for gigafactories, and presents these data centers as a bet so that Europe does not depend only on external actors. Here Spain not late at allbecause it already has “AI Factories” linked to the EuroHPC consortium, and the MareNostrum 5 The BSC is precisely one of those reference centers. The Spanish project “will compete with a multi-site candidacy that includes the locations of Móra la Nova, in Tarragona, and San Fernando de Henares (Madrid), to house the gigafactory,” explains the official announcement. Many unknowns. The announcement mixes things like public investment with the promise of strategic infrastructure. The problem is that it is one thing to “approve” the plan and another to build those data centers. We still need to know the final composition of the consortium that will provide the funds, the deadlines, and above all the fine print that clarifies who will have access to these data centers and who will manage them. The description of its scope is also ambiguous. There is talk of a service to the “Spanish AI ecosystem”, but it is not clear if this infrastructure will be available to end users or will be exclusive to public organizations and large companies. Perspective puts everything in its place (for the worse). In the United States, private investment in data centers is skyrocketing. Only that belonging to venture capital companies reached 45.7 billion dollars in 2025. But as we know, the capex of large technology companies, dedicated almost entirely to AI, will reach 2026. the 673 billion dollars. In China the ambition is also colossal, and the country is already preparing an investment of about 295 billion dollars in the next five years to create data centers throughout the country. China-Spain, compared. There are several ways to compare this data, and China is a good way to size this news: China is 19 times larger than Spain in surface area In addition, it is about 29 times larger in population China will invest more than 400 times Spain’s nominal investment, although it is true that the Chinese plan is five-year. In China, about 195 euros per person are invested, while in Spain about 15 euros per inhabitant are invested. China invests about 14 times more for each citizen. Chinese investment (again, five years) represents 1.5% of its GDP (0.3% per year). In Spain the figure would be close to 0.05% of GDP. Chinese investment could be considered six times higher in terms of GDP. Who will have access. To understand who will have access to this gigafactory, the best mirror to look at is MareNostrum 5, which is not “public” in the sense of free use by any citizen. This, like other centers in the EuroHPC consortium, is supposed to be available to European researchers, industry, SMEs and startups. All of them can theoretically take advantage of this infrastructure with access requests to resources. This is not like someone who connects to chatgpt.com and starts working: whoever wants to use those resources must justify it and go through a bureaucratic process. The data center is from Spain, its chips are not. Although the Government’s message is that of avoid dependency of foreign technology, the reality is obvious: those data centers may be in Tarragona and Madrid, but the chips with which the data will be processed They will be from the American company Nvidia and will be manufactured by the Taiwanese company TSMC. Europe and Spain are making efforts to try to mitigate this dependence, yes, but the reality is overwhelming: We continue to depend on these and many other companiesand it is not likely that we will stop doing so in the short or medium term. Promises and realities. The approval of the project is undoubtedly good news, but once again this is at the moment more of a promise to act than an immediate initiative. There are no estimated dates or clear details about the execution of the project, and once again in both Europe and Spain It seems to be more important to say things than to do them.. Let’s hope that this investment soon crystallizes into a real project: the intention and purpose are good. Now it remains for them to come true. In Xataka | I have decided to become independent from all US technology and embrace European technology. This is how I’m getting it

China will build the world’s largest AI network with its own chips, although they are not enough

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The Chinese Government is launching a project that seeks to invest $295 billion in five years in the deployment of a national network of data centers of artificial intelligence (AI). In the current scenario of confrontation in the technological field between the US and China, this plan is not surprising at all. However, we cannot ignore the fine print: at least 80% of the underlying technology, including AI chips, must come from domestic suppliers, such as Huawei or Cambricon. Early October 2024 the Administration sent Chinese AI companies were given a recommendation asking them to use chips produced in China as much as possible. Ten months later, this recommendation became a requirement. The Chinese government forced state-owned data centers across the country to use at least 50% Chinese integrated circuits in their servers. Now, as we have just seen, this figure rises to 80%. Be that as it may, this scenario clearly favors three companies: Huawei, Cambricon and Moore Threads. Nvidia and AMD no longer count for China Huawei invests more than 25 billion dollars annually in developing your hardware for AIso presumably it will not take long to match the performance of the GPUs produced by Nvidia or AMD. However, this company faces an enormous challenge that will probably prevent it from meeting the demand for AI chips from the Chinese market in the short term. In mid-June 2025 Jeffrey Kessler, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security at the US Department of Commerce, made this statement in Congress: “Our assessment indicates that Huawei’s Ascend chip production capacity by 2025 will be 200,000 units or less, and we anticipate that most or all of that production will be delivered to companies within China.” This limitation has a specific technical basis: yield per wafer The integration technologies used by the Chinese semiconductor manufacturer SMIC to produce Huawei or Cambricon chips have a very wide room for improvement. The per-wafer performance of SMIC integration technologies has a very large room for improvement SMIC already has the capacity to manufacture 6nm integrated circuits, and will soon also be able to produce 5nm semiconductors, but is limited by the performance of the deep ultraviolet lithography equipment (UVP) that you have in your possession. It is commendable that SMIC and Huawei engineers have managed to refine their integrated circuit manufacturing processes enough to be able to produce 5, 6 and 7 nm chips with ASML’s UVP equipment, but a priori it is very unlikely that with these machines they will be able to go beyond 3 nm. And it is because the technique of multiple patterningwhich is what they are using, imposes important limitations. A note: this strategy broadly consists of transferring the pattern to the wafer in several passes with the purpose of increase resolution of the lithographic process. Its problem is that it usually has an upward impact on the cost of chips and a downward impact on production capacity. For Huawei, it is a big problem not to have the necessary technology to produce cutting-edge semiconductors comparable to those manufactured by Intel, TSMC or Samsung, which is why it is working on the development of its own equipment. extreme ultraviolet photolithography (EUV). This scenario has caused the Chinese semiconductor industry to question whether national hardware can maintain the pace demanded by the Government. SMIC co-CEO Zhao Haijun has warned that this hasty addition of capacity can leave data centers idlecomparing this situation to building highways before there is traffic. In addition, several Chinese executives in the chip sector have recognized separately that his country is five to ten years behind in the cutting edge in silicon for AI data centers. In the current situation, the decision has its logic. Another thing is whether China can comply with it. Image | Cambricon Technologies More information | Tom’s Hardware In Xataka | NVIDIA has to deal with the absolute distrust of several US legislators. Your plan in China is in danger In Xataka | The US wants to end Chinese AI chips sold abroad. And China knows how to defend itself

It took an engineer 17 years to build the Lamborghini Countach of his dreams from the basement of his house. The problem was getting it out.

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There are motor fans. And then there’s Ken Imhoff. And this engineer from Wisconsin was not satisfied with having a poster of the Lamborghini Countach on his wall or with saving for years to buy one. He decided to make it himselfby hand, in the basement of his house. It took him 17 years. a movie. It all started in 1990, when Imhoff saw ‘Cannonball Run‘ (1981), directed by Hal Needham and featuring a Lamborghini Countach LP 400 S. Imhoff was amazed enough to make a decision that, seen from the outside, sounds crazy: build his own Lamborghini from scratch. How to build a Lamborghini in a basement. Imhoff began the project by erecting a wooden structure that served as a mold to shape the body panels. To work the aluminum he used an English wheel, a forming tool that allows you to create complex curves in sheet metal. He had to learn the hard way that welding too much at once causes deformations in the metal, so he perfected the technique with short, controlled welding points. The chassis is made of steel tube and the body is entirely made of aluminum. The model he used as a reference was the 1982 Countach LP 5000S. Details. To make the result as faithful as possible to the original, Imhoff incorporated authentic Lamborghini parts, such as the taillights, position lights, windshield and emblems. He even had replicas of the original wheels made from scratch. Where he did have to improvise was in the engine. And without the possibility of fitting an Italian V12, he opted for a Ford 351 Cleveland block, with forged pistons, polished cylinder heads and a more aggressive camshaft. The result was 514 horsepower at 6,800 rpm, according to collect CarBuzz. The transmission is a ZF five-speed and the suspension comes from a C4 Corvette. The whole thing weighs about 1,220 kilos, significantly less than a production Countach. The finish, almost at the level of a professional workshop. The body was painted in pearlescent metallic gray, a finish that has its own because it is usually more sensitive to any imperfection. The painting process was done in a professional paint booth, piece by piece (33 in total) because there was no way to get the booth into the basement. Each panel came out of the basement, was painted and carefully brought back down. Final sanding was done with 1,500 and 2,000 grit sandpaper, followed by three passes of the polisher. Just like point YouTube channel Wonder World, the shine achieved was difficult to distinguish from that of a factory car, according to those who saw it. Getting it out was an issue.. After 17 years working in the basement, Imhoff was faced with the task of removing the completed car from there. And one may wonder… Why wasn’t the project done outside or in the garage of his house? Well, according to Wonder World, Imhoff decided to do it there because the winters in his town are extremely cold, so he preferred to spend time in the basement, which is warmer. To get it out, they dug a dirt ramp outside, removed part of the basement wall and, with the help of a backhoe and some chains, pulled the car out by pulling it up the ramp over an improvised metal structure. It was the first time in 17 years that Imhoff was able to see his work in sunlight. On sale. Years after removing it from the basement, Imhoff noticed that the car was beginning to show signs of corrosion and concluded that he was not taking the proper care of it. “I’m doing you a disservice” and “actually it probably belongs to someone who may appreciate it more than I do,” counted Imhoff in words collected by the channel. So he put it up for sale on eBay with a starting price of $75,000. The bid reached 77,600, but the reserve price was not reached, so it did not end up selling on that occasion. Imhoff had invested around $65,000 in the project over almost two decades, as he confirmed. Ultimately, the car ended up selling to a Florida buyer for approximately $89,000, according to Wonder World. Since then, the car has continued to increase in value, as the Lambocars site public in 2023 that the current owner asked for $229,000 for it. It may seem absurd to have spent so much time building something and for the outcome to have been this. However, Imhoff ended up being honest with himself and decided that the value was not in having it, but in having built it and fulfilling his dream. In Xataka | This Aston Martin DB9 was sold for $57,000, but the craziest thing is not its price: it is the two flamethrowers it hides

A scientist wants to build a space shield against solar storms. Your secret weapon: lithium and barium

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Predict the arrival of very strong solar storms It is important for many reasons. Not only to keep an eye out and not get lost the most beautiful auroras. Also because these could affect satellites or terrestrial communications systems, so it is important to take precautions. The problem is that, no matter how much prevention methods have improved, we cannot do much more than be prepared for what is coming. Today there are no ways to stop these solar storms. However, a scientist from Boston University has announced that it is working on a method to strengthen the Earth’s natural shield against this type of phenomena. A stronger shield. The scientist in question is called Brian Walsh and is working in what he himself has called a wall against solar storms. Its objective is to send six ships to strategic points in a geostationary orbit, so that they release chemical elements capable of strengthening the magnetic field. These should be elements such as lithium or barium, since they are easily converted into positively charged ions when solar ultraviolet radiation hits them. At that point, the cargo released by the ships is converted to plasma. Precisely, what reaches Earth with solar storms is also plasma. However, there is a big difference. The one that comes from the sun consists of charged particles that move at very high speed, with great energy. On the other hand, what would be released into the magnetosphere would be cold, static plasma, which acts as a kind of wall, preventing this high-speed plasma from passing through the magnetosphere. A good shield when the activity is not too intense. The Earth has a great shield against solar storms. Generally, our magnetic field prevents these charged particles from the Sun from crossing into our atmosphere. This is because the magnetic field generally acts as a kind of rail on which the plasma circulates. The electrically charged particles are retained on these rails, but do not cross to the other side. They can only reach the atmosphere at the poles, where the inclination of the magnetic field lines acts as a kind of funnel. Even so, the charged particles that come from the surface of the Sun may already arrive somewhat weakened there. They interact with the gases in the atmosphere, exciting the atoms and causing the release of the light that makes up the auroras. But there are usually not very detrimental effects on communications. On the other hand, if the solar storm is very intense, the particles may be able to deform the rails of the magnetic field, filtering at the poles, but also in other places in the magnetosphere. Historical consequences. The consequences of these types of events have been seen numerous times throughout history. The most dramatic case was possibly that of Carrington eventwhich took place in 1859. It is considered the most powerful solar storm that has been recorded in history with consequences on Earth. Because of this large release of plasma from the Sun, auroras were seen in places as far from the poles as Hawaii and Cuba, but there were also less noticeable consequences, such as the burning of telegraph lines in many parts of the world. Another very notorious and dangerous case took place during the Vietnam War, in 1972, when a solar storm caused the accidental detonation of several magnetic underwater mines. And much more recent is the Gannon Storm, which in 2024 affected the GPS systems of planting tractors in several locations in the United Statescausing losses of 500 million dollars among farmers. But the situation could be worse. It is estimated that a major storm like Carrington’s could occur once a century. There hasn’t been one this big since then, so it could happen in the not too distant future. And today we depend much more on technologies than then. It is estimated that the losses could be more than 2 billion dollars. A natural process. This artificial wall that Walsh wants to create is inspired by a process that occurs naturally. And the thing is that, from time to time, small fragments of the Earth’s atmosphere break off and join the magnetic field, reinforcing it before the arrival of charged particles from the Sun. Lithium and barium would do something similar, artificially. Simulations only: For now, Brian Walsh has only made simulations of his invention, he has not tested it in space by any means. He himself recognizes that it is a complex process, so it must be done perfectly so that it causes more benefits than problems. Releasing ionizable elements at random could be harmful if not done in the right place. In addition, ways must be found to put ships in the correct place in their orbit before the storm arrives, so it is important to speed up the process while improving prediction methods. Handicaps. Although it may seem like a lot of mass is required to carry out this procedure, Walsh insists that the payload needs fall within current launch capabilities. However, he recognizes that it is an expensive process. Therefore, it would be necessary to look for ways to optimize it so that the necessary investment is not so large. For example, you want to work on pulsed release so that ionizable material is not wasted. In short, this method of controlling space weather is not at all something that will be used imminently, but it is clear that in the future we will need something like this. If not this method, another, but we greatly need something that protects us from the harshest elements of the Sun. Image | NASA | Walsh et al. In Xataka | A sunspot 17 times larger than Earth caused red auroras across half the world. It is a very rare event

35 billion dollars to build the largest airport in the world

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95,192,160 passengers. This is the number of travelers who registered at Dubai International Airport (DXB) in 2025, according to data from Airports Council International (ACI). A figure that elevated it to second place in the world for passenger traffic, only behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in the United States. This last location has been repeating for three years asThe busiest airport in the world and last year it moved 10 million more passengers than Dubai, breaking the barrier of 106 million passengers in a single year. A figure that, year after year, Dubai wants to reduce to become the airport with the highest passenger traffic in the world. And it has a $35 billion plan to achieve it. An airport like no one ever conceived As we said, so far Dubai has remained below 100 million passengers per year. However, the ambition is to break this barrier in just two years. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, assured Time Out that they aspired to break this ceiling soon and that by 2031 they want to reach 113 million passengers. These figures would predictably make them the busiest airport in the world but it has a problem: the current Dubai International Airport (DXB) and remodeling it would cost as much money who, directly, prefer to get a new one. At least that is what they maintain from the Emirate. And in 2010 the Al Maktoum International Airporta space that until now has operated at half throttle and is a ridiculous size compared to its Dubai brother. But in 2024 an expansion was approved to position it as the largest airport in the world with the capacity to handle 260 million passengers in a single year. That is, almost the same passengers as the three busiest airports in the world right now: adding Haneda in Tokyo (third in the world) to those mentioned in Atlanta and Dubai. According to the voices that have defended the project, the problem is that the current airport is so large that maintenance work drives up costs and, they say, it is cheaper to build a gigantic expansion of the current Al Maktoum International Airport than to renovate the famous Dubai International Airport. For this, it has been planned to invest 35,000 million euros to make the current Al Maktoum International Airport the center of the Dubai World Central (DWC), the most ambitious mobility hub in the world. This space has been planned as a megacity with residential spaces, hotels, golf courses… and, above all, the largest airport in the world built by man in its history. Specifically, has been projected that the renovation of the new airport costs $34.85 billion. This figure reflects the ambitions to multiply the size of the DBX by five, building five 4.5 kilometer long landing strips separated by 800 meters. It will have four main concourses and more than 400 doors to operate flights. The intention is that, operationally, the new airport will be operating at higher performance by the end of the decade to make the complete move from the current DBX to the renovated Al Maktoum International Airport in 2032. That year they hope to manage the traffic of 150 million passengers in one year. That is, about 44 million more passengers than the current Atlanta airport, the busiest in the world, handles. These passengers will be distributed across three terminals. The intention is that one of them is dedicated solely to the operations of the Emirates Group and another to international flights. The third will concentrate low-cost flights. In addition, a parking lot with 100,000 spaces is planned for workers only. The intention is to build a high-speed train between both airspaces but to transfer the bulk of the operations to the new construction. Of course, its surroundings and all its services are not expected to be built until 2050. By then, Dubai intends to be able to operate flights with the capacity to move up to 260 million passengers. That is, it should be able to manage half the population of the European Union in a single year. To consolidate this mega-move, the Dubai airport is already working with new biometric recognition and baggage management systems using artificial intelligence as a test before the airlines arrive at the new space. Obviously, the intention is scale operations to mitigate the risk of collapse. Consolidation as the largest mobility hub in the world is not only understood with commercial flights. Dubai wants this new space to be the best place in the world for landing flights. Airbus A380the largest passenger plane in the world, but also the best place to carry out your maintenance and repair work. Likewise, it wants to consolidate itself as a key place for the transportation of goods and have restricted space for the landing and takeoff of private flights to which it will be offered all kinds of luxuries with a huge range of auxiliary services such as the aforementioned hotels, shopping centers and leisure spaces. Photo | DWC and Adam Khan In Xataka | European airlines are taking advantage of the Iran crisis to accelerate something old: making your trip even more complicated.

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