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Sweden was on the verge of eliminating banknotes as a payment system. Now it asks its citizens to save cash just in case

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Few countries in the world have turned their backs on cash with so much conviction as Sweden did in its day. For years it was the great global laboratory of digital money and a place where, paying in cash, It was almost a strange gesture. In the Nordic country, it is common to find businesses where “card only” signs are read without anyone protesting. Its financial system seemed to have resolved the future of payments once and for all. Now, that same country has just taken a turn that no one expected: recommending that its citizens save a certain amount of cash in case all their digital payments system collapses. From inventing banknotes to almost eliminating them. Sweden has a unique history with paper money. In 1661 it was the first country in Europe in introducing billsand it was also where the Riksbank, the central bank, was born oldest in the world. That pioneering vocation led her, centuries later, to lead the race towards a completely cashless economy. The numbers reflected it clearly: if in 2010 39% of Swedes said they had paid their last purchase in cash, in 2020 that percentage had fallen up to 9%. According to the Riksbank itself, currently only one in ten Purchases in Swedish stores are made with physical money. Anders Ohlsson, CEO of Deutsche Bank Corporate Bank, summed it up like this: “I don’t think right now people in Sweden know what the different currencies are like.” A central bank that asks you to keep banknotes at home. The Riksbank published some recommendations which were surprising coming from one of the most digitalized financial systems on the planet. The Swedish central bank asked all households in the country to keep at least 1,000 Swedish crowns in cash for each adult (just over 90 euros at the exchange rate), as a cash reserve for possible emergencies. “This amount should be considered as a reference and is intended to cover one week of essential purchases. Households may need more or less cash on hand, depending on the number of people in the household or their specific needs. Whenever possible, households are recommended to keep cash in various denominations,” the Swedish banking entity says in its statement. Too digital to be invulnerable. The underlying reason for making this peculiar call is not nostalgic but strategic. An economy that depends almost entirely on digital payments is also an economy exposed to power outages, cyberattacks or geopolitical tensions. The Visa and Mastercard networks, on which a large part of the Swedish payment system is based, are of American origin, which adds an extra layer of vulnerability in an increasingly uncertain international context. The Riksbank itself puts it bluntly in its statement: “Access to different payment methods improves people’s ability to make payments in the event of temporary disruptions, crises and, in the worst case, war.” It is not an unfounded threat. In recent months, several European countries have reviewed the resilience of your critical infrastructures before him security deterioration and the increase in uncertainty on the continent. Diversify so as not to depend on a single system. Beyond cash, the Riksbank’s warning to citizens is committed to a more diversified payment strategy. He recommends having access to at least two cards from different networks (a Visa and a Mastercard, for example) so that, if the systems of one of them fail, payments can be made with the other. It also advises having access to mobile payment services like swishthe popular Swedish application that operates on a different infrastructure than traditional bank cards. For whom use Apple Pay either Google Paythe Swedish central bank reminds that it is advisable to always have the physical card on hand and know the PIN, since the physical chip allows payments to be made even without an internet connection. All of this advice will be developed in more detail in the Riksbank’s 2026 Payments Report, due on March 12. Sweden, which for years led the way to paperless money, is now a reminder that no system is foolproof. In Xataka | If we want to know what the end of cash will be like, we only have to look at a country that is experiencing it: China Image | Unsplash (Tobias Flyckt, Emil Kalibradov)

In case of need, that AI is from the State

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The Pentagon dropped the bomb a few hours ago. Anthropic has until this Friday at 5:01 p.m. to agree to have its AI models used for whatever the Pentagon deems appropriate. It is something that is turning the conversation on its head upside down. ethical use of AIbut more important than that, it puts on the table a very clear intention on the part of the United States: that if they consider that all resources must be used in matters of national defense, all resources belong to the State. And that’s where artificial intelligence from private companies comes in. In short. Dario Amodei is the CEO of Anthropic. The name may sound more familiar to you. Claudeone of his models. These are very versatile, but they have a red line very clear: They cannot be used for mass surveillance of US citizens (be careful with the nuance). Nor for the development of weapons or the use of autonomous weapons controlled entirely by AI. And this is something that conflicts with what the Pentagon wants: to use Anthropic models without restrictions. Why Anthropic, you might ask? Well, because this company offered its tool to the Government for the symbolic price of one dollar, which earned them a contract of 200,000,000 dollars. The move did not go badly, and little by little their models were integrated with those of Palantir. Now, the US wants to have an ‘unleashed’ AI, but as my colleague Javier Lacort explainsthe laws and ethics of the United States Armed Forces are based on the fact that a soldier can and must disobey a manifestly illegal order. An AI can do whatever you want it to do. A lever from 1950. A 200 million dollar contract is juicy, but seeing the nonsense that is continually invested in AIit’s pocket change. Anthropic would have it as easy as refusing and clearing the way for someone else to take his place in the Pentagon, right? Well… it’s not that simple. And it is not for two reasons. The first is that it is already highly integrated into all the systems, processes and services that the Department of Defense uses on a daily basis. It is too big a ship for it to change course. He “knows” too much about the interiors of those systems that must be highly secret. But the most important thing is that the United States has a lever to take over whatever it wants. The only thing you have to argue is that it is due to a need for national security. In 1950, during the Korean War, the Defense Production Acta law that grants the president powers to secure supplies necessary for national defense. This, for example, gives the Government power to require companies to prioritize contracts with the State to allocate materials, services and facilities. Also allow aid to expand productive capacity and, ultimately, put the largest companies in the country to work depending on what is needed. Too powerful to be private. This document has been expanded and expanded over time, since the needs of 1950 are not the same as those of later decades, and in 2023 the Executive Order 14,110. It is one that forces the owners of the most powerful AI models to notify the Government when they train systems that may pose a risk to national security, the economy or public health. After him, other drafts have been signed expanding the demands on AI, but the truth is that the Pentagon does not need to publish anything new to pressure Anthropic. Under Title I (ordering that certain products or services be provided to the Government), the Pentagon could take over Anthropic’s AI to carry out its designs. The support is what we have already mentioned: that “national defense.” And, in practice, it is defined that, if the company does not want its AI to do certain things because of that kind of moral code, if it becomes the property of the Pentagon, the ethical barrier can be eliminated. Disciplinary punishment for the “AI woke”. And now, the big question. Can Anthropic say something like “look, you keep the 200 million and each to their own”? Well no. Or not in such a simple way. I have already commented that Claude is too deep into the Pentagon systems (to the point that he was used in the operation to capture Nicolás Maduro) and “knows” too much. She’s very integrated into the Pentagon’s classified systems, and as we can guess, they weren’t going to let her go that easily. And that’s where the figure of Pete Hegseth comes in. He is the Secretary of Defense, and he has qualified that Anthropic moral standard like that of an “AI woke.” Yes… Because Google, OpenAI and xAI allow that the Government uses its models in any “legal” scenario (for the Government, of course), but not Anthropic, and in addition to the lever of the Defense Production Act, the United States can harshly punish the company. If they do not “give in” to their requests, they could identify Anthropic as a company that puts the country’s supply chain at risk. It would be cLike the Huawei veto a few years ago, but to a national company. In practice, US companies would not be able to work with Anthropic. That is to say, the country has a couple of good “arguments” for Anthropic to hand over that moral bar. Learning. It won’t be that long until 5:01 p.m. on Friday, February 27, when we will know if Anthropic agrees by hook or by crook to the Pentagon’s “requests.” What is clear is that this is a lesson. Not so much for American companies that, in the end, operate under the umbrella of the Defense Production Act, but for those of the rest of the world. Specifically, the European ones. And I’m thinking about the space race. Europe, like China, Russia and the United States itself, has embarked on the new space race. They are … Read more

We have been telling ourselves since 1945 that we should drink “two liters of water a day.” Science is clear that this is not the case.

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One of the most popular rules in popular health culturewithout a doubt it is in the amount of water you have to drink per day. An amount that is located in eight glasses a day or what is the same: the immovable figure of two literss. We see it in fitness applications, in influencers’ advice and we hear it repeated like a mantra, but the reality is that there is quite a myth behind this. We are different people. A very common phrase within medicine is precisely “there are no equal people”, and not only because of the external physique, but because of everything that is inside. This forces the medicine Focus towards a more individualized idea in your medical advice that have to be given, included in nutrition or water consumption. This forces us to have to personalize the amount of water that each person should consume, because a person who is 2 meters tall and weighs 100 kg with a large amount of muscle is not the same as an elderly person who has a much slower metabolism. Logically, the two liters of water mantra cannot be established here. The origin of the error. To understand why we drink (or think we should drink) so much, you have to travel back to 1945. According to key review by Dr. Heinz Valtin in it American Journal of Physiology 2002, the myth of the “8×8” rule, that is, 8 8-ounce glasses to have almost 2 liters of water, probably comes from a misinterpretation of a guide from the Food and Nutrition Board. A guide that indicated that it was always recommended to have an adequate intake of 2.5 liters of fluids per day. But most people ignored the accompanying sentence that said, “most of this amount is in prepared foods.” What the institutions say. So the question is quite clear: how much should we drink per day? In this case there are different official figures, but they have fine print. We have one of the examples in the European Food Safety Authority Panel 2010 established adequate water intake at 2 liters per day for women and 2.5 liters per day for men. But here’s the key: the EFSA specifies that this refers to total water, that is, the sum of drinks plus food. And there are many dishes that have a large amount of water, such as soup, although fruits also have a lot of water inside. Even in the United States. If we move to the recommendations made in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the USA from 2005, suggests that the total water figures should be 2.7 liters per day for women and 3.7 liters per day for men. But again, it includes all the dietary intake that is made per day and not just glasses of tap water. The latest science. If we come more to the present, we also have scientific studies that have sought to dismantle a universal fixed figure set at two liters per day. One of the most important is the one published in Science in 2022 that used isotopes to measure water exchange in 5,604 people, and that showed that real needs vary enormously between people. One of the conclusions they addressed was that for most people in temperate climates and with sedentary lives, the real water intake needs are between 1.5 and 1.8 liters per day, far from the demands of wellness marketing. And it is reinforced. It is not a study that is isolated, but also in 2022 the magazine Scientific Reports, published research where this idea was reinforced: they predict necessary beverage intakes of about 1.6 L for women and 2.0 L for men, always depending on factors such as age, sex and body composition. Is more water better? One of the most repeated arguments by proponents of hyperhydration is that we should drink “before we are thirsty.” modern physiology, backed by scientific reviews and analysis of urinary osmolarity, refutes this fear that we may have. Specifically, the human body has an extremely sensitive osmoregulation system. When the concentration of solutes in the blood increases by only 2%well below clinical dehydration, the brain already activates the sensation of being thirsty and releases the necessary hormone to begin conserving water so that it does not ‘leave’ in the urine. There are exceptions. Unless you are an elderly person (whose thirst sensation is attenuated) or a high-performance athlete in the midst of intense effort, drinking when thirsty is the most accurate and scientifically validated strategy for maintaining water balance. When you should drink more water. That the “mandatory two liters” are a myth does not mean that water is not logically vital. The most recent systematic reviews and other clinical means confirm that increasing water intake has clear therapeutic benefits in very specific cases that are not universal. These can be the following: Having a kidney stone: here the “more, the better” applies since increasing urinary flow is key to preventing the recurrence of this disease. Urinary infections: a problem that mainly affects women, and that requires ‘overhydration’ to reduce risk of new episodes. Weight loss: Although the evidence is mixed, drinking water may help with satiety and, marginally, energy expenditure. Although it is not a magic solution against obesity. More common sense. The obsession with two liters is a perfect example of how an old and misinterpreted scientific recommendation becomes a cultural dogma. The reality, supported by decades of studies from Valtin to the latest isotopic analyses, is that we are not machines that need a fixed tank filling every 24 hours. In this way, our body’s water needs are dynamic. Water needs are dynamic. If you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, work in an air-conditioned office, and don’t run marathons every day, forcing yourself to drink 2 liters of extra water will probably only do one thing: interrupting your work to go to the bathroom more times. The situation. In this way we can understand that … Read more

The Angrois case reveals that it will not be quick

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Because? If there is a question that circulates today in Spain, in the offices of Renfe, Adif and Iryo, the Ministry of Transport, the newsrooms of the media, the unions and of course in the streets and bars, it is this: Why? How is it possible that a practically new train, which it didn’t reach four yearsderailed yesterday afternoon on a track renovated in spring, leaving dozens of victims? All these doubts (and some more) must be answered by a team of experts in railway accidents, a special ‘CSI’ that it won’t be easy. The Government already warns that the investigation will last at least a monthbut previous incidents (including the fateful Angrois accident 2013) show that final conclusions may take much longer to arrive. What has happened? It is (unfortunately) the news of the day, if not of the month. Yesterday afternoon, around a quarter to eight, a train from the Iryo operator that covered the Malaga-Madrid route derailed near Adamuz (Córdoba) with 289 passengers on board, in addition to four crew members and the driver. The incident would have been serious in itself, but fate would have it that part of the convoy (Fracciarssa model) collided with another train that was traveling in the opposite direction just at that moment, a Renfe Alvia that covered the route between Puerta de Atocha and Huelva. The result: 39 deceased (at least) and more than 100 injured. “Very strange”. The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, was quick to express his surprise at the accident. Not only because of the collision, but because of the derailment itself, since both the machinery used by Iryo and the railway infrastructure were modern. “The Iryo train is practically new, I don’t know if it is four years old, and the track is a completely renovated track, in which 700 million have been invested. Specifically on that section, the work to replace switches, detours… was completed in May,” commented. “The accident is tremendously strange, on a straight line. All the experts we have been able to consult are tremendously surprised,” added the owner of Transport. “It is strange, it is very strange, it is difficult to explain at the moment. We hope that the investigation will help us clarify what has happened.” Of course, to know these explanations we will probably have to wait. Minimum one month. Puente already warns that it will take experts at least weeks to collect the data, analyze it and reach conclusions. “We will not have the resolution of the investigation for at least a month,” the minister explained before remembering that the investigations will be carried out, as stipulated by the regulations, by an independent commission that must “shed light and clarify the causes of what happened.” Although each accident has its peculiarities and is not comparable, previous railway incidents have required considerably more time. At least to obtain the reports with the final conclusions. How long? Beyond the investigations that can be opened by other means, Transport has a special body to clarify accidents like yesterday’s: the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF), an entity activated at the end of 2007 that acts with “full functional independence” and focuses on the technical study of incidents recorded on the General Interest Railway Network. Its objective is to analyze all types of incidents (including events without victims) and write “technical reports” that include recommendations. In your website The CIAF itself details that this document must be made public as soon as possible and even sets a time horizon: “This report will in principle be made public within a maximum period of 12 months from the date of the event.” Right now the commission has six investigations in progress corresponding to incidents that occurred between November 2023 and October 2025. The oldest was a derailment that occurred on November 26, 2023 near the Madrid-Atocha Cercanías station that left 14 injured and in which there were no serious injuries or deaths. The CIAF clarifies that at first it opened a preliminary study, but after its findings it decided to move on to a “formal investigation.” Is that all? Yes. And no. The CIAF is in a way the ‘CSI’ of railway accidents (in 2024 the Congress approved create an authority that investigates railway, maritime and civil aviation accidents), but that does not mean that it will be the only one to analyze what happened. At least in part. The Country advances that Iryo has claimed and an urgent report to the manufacturer who commissioned the last inspection of the train that derailed yesterday in Adamuz. Its a priori objective is not to analyze what happened, but rather the latest railroad examinations. Reviewing the case of Angrois. Although the Government warns that the investigation will last at least a month, studies of other recent accidents have required much longer. Perhaps the clearest and most media example is that of Angrois derailmentwhich occurred on July 24, 2013 in Galicia and left 80 dead. The final diagnosis came in June 2014. And it was not without controversy. In 2016 the European Railway Agency prepared a report (at the request of the EC) in which he warned that the CIAF’s work had not been independent and reproached it for not having overlooked “key elements.” Complex processes. That’s only as far as the CIAF is concerned. The Angrois incident also gave rise to a long judicial investigation that lasted eight years and accumulated thousands and thousands of pages. The victims and their families had to wait years to see the first conviction. In other incidents the CIAF final report has also been delayed more than a yearas occurred with the accident recorded in 2016 near Vigo and which resulted in three fatalities. Images | Álvaro F. Heredia (X) In Xataka | More than 30 years ago, Spain decided to invest heavily in the AVE: today it is winning contracts in Vietnam thanks to it

They investigate whether it is a case of “Singapore washing”

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One day before the end of 2025, Meta announced the purchase of Manusthe Singapore-based artificial intelligence startup, for $2.5 billion. With this acquisition, Meta wants to strengthen its position in agentic AI, that is if the agreement comes to fruition. The Chinese authorities have something to say. What is happening. They count in South China Morning Post that the Chinese Ministry of Commerce is going to launch an investigation into the Manus purchase. Although the startup is registered in Singapore, the company developed its products in China, giving Beijing a legal basis to investigate whether moving personnel and technology to Singapore required an export license under Chinese law. Why is it important. The purchase of Manus can be taken as an example for other Chinese startups to follow: develop their product with Chinese talent taking advantage of the more favorable conditions, move the headquarters to Singapore and jump to the West, avoiding Chinese supervision. From China, this is perceived as a drain on talent and technology, as well as an uncomfortable fact: that the United States is a more attractive destination for AI companies. What can happen. At the moment the investigation has only been announced and it is possible that it will remain just that, but if Beijing concludes that Manus needed an export license, it is possible that they will influence the transaction. According to Financial Timesin an extreme case they could even force the parties to abandon the agreement. It doesn’t seem like it will go that far since, from China, Manus is not seen as a critical technology. Neither Meta nor Manus have commented anything on the matter. Manus. The company gained notoriety in March 2025 when it launched its AI agent. At that time the company operated in Beijing and Wuhan, but In July he moved to Singaporelaying off some of the Chinese staff. Their product is an AI agent capable of building web pages, developing apps and carrying out complex tasks, but does not have its own language modelbut works based on Claude and Qwen. Singapore ‘washing’. Manus is not the only company that has played the Singapore card to attract customers from abroad. It is a common practice known as “Singapore washing”although the most normal thing is not to move the entire company, but rather to open a second headquarters. It is a way to avoid possible sanctions and restrictions derived from the deterioration of relations between China and the US, ensuring access to financing and global markets. Image | Manus / Mariia Shalabaieva in Unsplash In Xataka | Some researchers created a company where all employees were AI agents. They didn’t even do a quarter of the work.

The creative death of Marvel’s MCU left a huge hole. One that in my case is filling WWE on Netflix

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Twice a week I like to live a cathartic experience, and it is something that I strictly adhere to since the beginning of 2025. WWE and Netflix they started a million-dollar collaboration (a decade at a rate of 500 million dollars a year) so that their star shows could be seen around the world. Gone are those weekend mornings in Four with La Bomba Batista, Rey Mysterio or Randy Orton who starred in the childhood of an entire generation, but thanks to the platform of streaming, nostalgia hits harder than ever by allowing us to experience nothing less than the farewell tour of the greatest of all time: John Cena. But beyond the trip to childhood, my religious weekly ‘Raw’ and ‘Smackdown’ have helped me realize that with a ring and a handful of wrestlers they are scratching the same part of the brain as I expected the MCU to activate during these last years. The interrelation of the character arcsinvincible enemies, unexpected turns of a hero and alliances on the horn is something that Marvel has lost since ‘Avengers Endgame’ and that I find almost every week in wrestling. All that is needed is a suspension of credulity that is generated by the cathartic nature of the slaps (choreographed, not fake) and by how dedicated the public is to an event that also has the added bonus of being held live. Perhaps it sounds ridiculous for those who have not known about this world for 20 years, or for those who have barely entered it, but once you are part of the wheel, it is difficult not to get hooked by multiple aspects: combats measured to the millimeter with a physical preparation from another planet, soap opera stories between the stars where the distance between reality and fiction is separated by a bad fall or a word out of the script, or demonstrations of aura with entrances like those of Penta either Roman Reigns. But everything has its dark side and, as often happens, being a woman places me (even more frequently) in a dilemma. 7 TRICKS to get the MOST out of NETFLIX Triple H is not spared either The eternal “separating work and author” that does not prevent the bitter taste in the mouth produced by wanting to see the new Woody Allen or Roman Polanski movie or refusing to continue reading to JK Rowling. And the WWE is an almost inexhaustible source of controversies that makes it very difficult to draw the line and be able to simply enjoy a high-quality show and wrestlers who give their all in vibrant fights. The WWE has suffered under the previous management of Vince McMahon and their continuous scandalsbut with the arrival in 2022 of Paul Levesque (known as Triple H for wrestling lovers, and also McMahon’s son-in-law) as the new content director, they wanted to sell a new post-Vince era, establishing a gender equality policy on the roster and moving away from wrestlers with whom racial stereotypes were promoted. Since the replacement took place, there is no doubt that the female presence has increased in WWE, and continues to do so year after year; In its annual report we can see that of its superstars a 40% are womenin front of the 35% from previous year. And not only does it increase in number, but in quality; offering us stories and combats that are often infinitely superior to those perpetrated by male stars on the roster. Names like Rhea Ripley either Becky Lynch They are the female reference and those who lead the way for new recruits. The combination of global streaming thanks to Netflix and the growing number of female talentshas been the key factor that has managed to boost the increase of this audience. And, already in the documentary ‘WWE: Unreal’, the creative director that high percentage stood out: “WWE women have become an integral part of what we do. 40% of our audience is female. So, when you start down the road to ‘WrestleMania,’ you try to approach it with them the same way you do with the guys, you approach the narrative in the same way. “However, at the same time, this reality is continually clouded by putting its stars against the ropes beyond the ring itself. And the figure of Triple H is not exempt from controversy either. It is not only that he has visited the oval office alongside Trump this summer to join the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, reminding us once again of the US president’s relationship with the world of WWE and, inevitably, being a reminder of what political side the company joins. Not in vain, when the worst of the pandemic forced bodies to pile up in refrigerated trucks, even in New York, the WWE was one of the first sports practices to resume thanks to an exemption from Republican Florida. But the bulk of the excesses during his mandate are directed at the female public. Wrestlers and female audience against the ropes The WWE, through a agreement with Saudi Arabia which began in 2018 with the celebration of one of its events in the Middle Eastern country, was added to the list of sports that participate in the sportswashing strategic to whiten the image of the regime. This agreement, reprehensible for all that it implies on a political and social level, becomes even more flagrant and uncomfortable if we highlight what it means directly for the women of the company. In those first three events since 2018, the participation of the women’s section was totally prohibitedneither could they compete nor, of course, were female audiences allowed. It seems that, therefore, with that agreement of 100 million dollars annually Triple H easily forgets about that high percentage of female spectators that he brags about. It was not until 2019 when the Saudi authorities, in a display of modernity, allowed female wrestlers to compete, as long as they wore wrestling clothing that completely covered their bodies. … Read more

What precautions should you take in each case?

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As prevention is better than cure, we are going to tell you a series of tips and precautions that we recommend you take with Christmas Lottery 2025. Thus, when purchasing and especially when sharing your tenth, you can ensure that you do so in a reliable and secure way. We are going to give you these tips in a list format, so that they are easy to understand, and at each point we will give you a simplified explanation. We’ll start with precautions when buying lottery tickets, and then we’ll move on to other tips when you’re going to share your numbers. Precautions when sharing Lottery Now we are going to continue giving you a series of tips and precautions when it comes to share Lottery numbers with other people. With them you will avoid misunderstandings, problems and someone taking all the money. Do it with people you know: It’s pretty obvious that the best way to safely share a tenth is to do it with people you trust. But what I mean by this is that you don’t share the tenths happily with people you don’t know, especially if they are the ones who buy it. Signed copies: If you purchase a ticket collaboratively, all participants must have a signed photocopy. It must include the name and ID of the depositary, who has the physical ticket, and who the participants are. The number of the tenth, series, fraction and draw must be included, and the amount that each person has played. Photocopies only for the record: The copies that are distributed can be of the receipt if you buy it online or a copy with both sides of the ticket if it is purchased physically. With these photocopies you cannot collect the number, that will have to be done by whoever physically has it, but by having written proof of who shares it you ensure that you have legal support in case there is a problem. If you play with clubs, let everything be clear: It is common for there to be clubs where people who are not so well known to each other make collaborative purchases. In this case, make sure that everything we have told you before is fulfilled and that everything is perfectly clear in writing. You can share it on WhatsApp: You can also send a photocopy of the number with all the data digitally. Whether you do it by email or WhatsApp, it will serve as proof as long as the details of the depositary, the participants and the participation of each one are included. All with the same photo or copy: Having a copy or a photo of the ticket with all the participants’ information does not guarantee you will collect it. Sometimes someone may claim that it is a fake photo and you will have to prove that the document is real. To do this, it is important that you all have the same photo or copy, since this makes it easier to prove that it is real, and do not forget that you must have the aforementioned data. Never post the tenth on social networks: NEVER share a photo of your lottery tickets or photocopies of participation on social networks. Come on, don’t let anyone see the complete number with its barcode, since they could try to charge it for you. If you want to share it anyway, delete or cover the barcodes and QR codes that appear. Don’t take too long to get paid: If you have had something, you should know that the tenth expires after three months, so don’t think about it too much. The sooner you collect it and distribute the money the better. Precautions when buying the Lottery Let’s start by giving you advice when it comes to buy Christmas Lottery. These are basic precautions to ensure that the purchase is safe and that you are not scammed, thus avoiding scams and deception. Buy on official sites: The first thing is to avoid buying the lottery from administrations that are not official. There are more than 11,000 official points of sale spread throughout the country, such as administrations. And if you buy it from an intermediary or from your trusted bar, always make sure it has a seal from the administration. Be careful with online purchases: If you are going to buy lottery from home, always do it from official websites or applications or from real lottery administrations. We have told you about several apps and pages in our article about buy Christmas Lottery. Be careful with individuals: Be wary of people who sell you tickets online, and who resort to scams such as sending them to you by PDF. Also always be wary of anyone who sells you a tenth below its usual price of 20 euros, because it will be false. When in doubt, it is best to always buy it only at official points of sale. Avoid suspicious websites: The advice from the previous point applies to second-hand buying and selling pages like Wallapop and similar. Never buy from those sites from individuals. For more peace of mind: We always use the example of a good website as YourLotero. There you will be able to buy lotteries from many administrations in Spain and search for specific numbers. If you want to buy online, it is always one of the best options. Be careful with payments: And if we have told you to buy from official or reliable websites, it is no longer just because they can scam you out of 20 euros. If you are going to take the risk and risk spending 20 euros on an unknown website, pay special attention to the payment gateways. Never give your security number along with the card number on those pages. Unless it is a well-known site such as large administrations, lottery services or similar, never enter your card information or 20 euros will be the minimum they steal from you. In Xataka Basics … Read more

We have found the oldest genetic evidence of incest in Europe. And it’s a case of father and daughter

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When we talk about endogamy in the historical worldthe truth is that it is easy to think about the royal dynasties or in island populations that were on the verge of extinction. But the truth is that this type of practice dates back 4,000 years, since it was only now that a team of researchers has found the first irrefutable biological proof of a sexual union. between a father and his own daughter in European prehistory. The study. Although it may seem crazy, the fact that a father and his own daughter were united beyond the family bond, the reality is very different. The research published in Communications Biology has reached this conclusion after analyzing some remains from a Bronze Age community in Calabria. The discovered. The finding focuses on the Grotta della Monacaan archaeological site in southern Italy used for both mining and burials during the Bronze Age (between 1780 and 1380 BC). There, archaeologists recovered remains of several individuals, but two of them powerfully called the attention of geneticists when analyzing your DNA. Specifically, an adult male with the code GMO022 and a pre-adolescent child with the code GMO007. The genetic material. It undoubtedly keeps a large number of secrets, and the fact that it is maintained over time to know all its details. By sequencing the genomes of these two subjects, the researchers They saw the kinship they had with great clarityand the subject with the number 22 was not only the father of the child. The analysis revealed that the child’s mother was also the daughter of subject 22. That is, child GMO007 was the result of a first-degree union between father and daughter. According to the researchers, led by paleogeneticists from the University of Bologna and the Max Planck Institute, this is the oldest evidence of this type of incest ever sequenced in Europe. Behind the discovery. How can researchers be so sure of this? The key is in a genetic measure called ROH or “homozygosity sections“To understand it, you have to know that when two parents are closely related, their offspring will inherit identical genetic blocks from both sides, and not different ones, as is normal in relationships with two genetically different people. The closer the relationship, the longer these blocks are. In the case of boy GMO007, researchers found unusually long stretches of identical DNA, occupying a massive portion of his genome. This through the computer modeling managed to rule out that it was a union between brothersand confirmed that the markers fit a father-daughter relationship. Habit? Without a doubt, it is the idea that can come to mind when seeing something that today can be a real aberration. In this way, looking for the reasons, it was seen that this community did not have a state of isolation that justified them having to procreate among their own relatives, since the population was about 5,000 individuals. In this way, there were many options available to not have to choose to have a father-daughter relationship. This leads the study authors to an important conclusion: this was not an accepted cultural practice. Unlike later Egyptian dynasties or the Incas, where royal incest was sacred, in this Bronze Age community the case of GMO007 appears to be a unique event. It wasn’t normal. In this way, it seems that this was a chance event or a violation of a taboo, which for some reason occurred in this family. The reasons are not known, but at that time it was not something accepted by social norms, despite talking about a community that was 3,700 years old. Its importance. Until now, evidence of first-degree incest (parent-child or full siblings) was almost non-existent in the European genetic registry outside of very specific cases. We had data on unions between siblings in Neanderthals or distant cases in the Irish Neolithic (Newgrange), but nothing so explicit between direct generations in this period. In this way, this study reminds us that the DNA of the oldest people even helps us see their most intimate details. Images | Sangharsh Lohakare In Xataka | They found a cube-shaped skull in Tamaulipas and thought it was a migrant. Science has turned history upside down

Reopening nuclear power plants sounds very spectacular, but Google has a plan B in case it’s not enough: solar energy

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Data centers for are insatiable monsters those who are responsible for them must feed. OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Anthropic and Google are burning money riding colossal data centers for training and management of artificial intelligence. But these installations are not expensive to set up: they are also expensive to maintain. They require a considerable amount of energy to functionand Google has just received a ‘shot’ of renewables. All thanks to a direct connection to the largest system in the United States. Renewables to power AI. Google and TotalEnergies have just signed a agreement of energy purchases for 15 years. The contract stipulates that the energy company will deliver 1.5 TWh of electricity from its Montpelier solar plant, in Ohio, to Google. The plant is still under construction and they estimate that it will have a capacity of 49 MW, but the most important thing is that it will be connected directly to the electricity system. PJM. It is the largest network operator in the United States. It covers 13 states and data centers are representing a relevant portion of the operator’s pie: in its last annual auction, the load of these facilities PJM capacity sale triggered at 7.3 billion dollars, 82% more. Astronomical needs. In the statement from TotalEnergies, the company that this agreement illustrates its ability to meet the growing energy demands of the major technology companies. The problem is that it is not enough. If we focus on Google, the consumption of its data centers was 30.8 million megawatt hours of electricity. The company has been focused on AI for years, but the recent ‘boom’ has made it double what its centers consumed in 2020 (14.4 million MWh). Currently, data centers are estimated to account for 95.8% of Google’s total electricity budget. But it’s not just Google: the International Energy Agency esteem that global data centers consumed 415 TWh last year, representing approximately 1.5% of global electricity consumption. It seems little put in percentage, but Spain consumed in 2024 231,808 GWh, or 231 TWh, in 2024. The data centers of a handful of companies alone consumed twice as much as an entire country. And the estimate is that this data center consumption will double by 2030, reaching 945 TWh. Renewables are not enough. Now, although renewables are a support for the total energy required by data centerssolar and wind power have two limitations: intermittency and variability. Generation depends on weather conditions and time of day, meaning it fluctuates dramatically even throughout the same day. This instability clashes head-on with the high reliability and availability requirements of data centers. These are installations that must operate continuously and cannot assume cuts or Unforeseeable drops in supplysince AI or cloud storage would suffer the consequences. These renewables require backup batteries, but it is complicated and expensive to have such a large number of batteries just to power data centers. Pulling the gas and looking at the nuclear. That’s where other sources come into play. On the one hand, nuclear. In October 2024, Google signed the world’s first corporate agreement to acquire nuclear energy from SMR reactors. The first will come into operation in 230 and it is expected that, together, they will be able to satisfy the technology company with 500 MW of capacity by 2035. On the other hand, natural gas. In October of this year, the Broadwing Energy Center project began, a new natural gas power plant that will have a capacity of 400 MW and is scheduled to come into play at the end of 2029. Decarbonization and pressure. And the big question is… doesn’t the use of gas for AI clash with the technology companies’ objectives of achieving decarbonization percentages for both 2030 and 2050? We have already seen that oil companies have been getting off the renewables bandwagon because they have seen that fossil fuels are still relevant in the technology industry, but in the case of Google, they rely on the fact that projects like the Broadwing Energy Center They will have CCS systems. This means that it will have carbon capture system that will be able to permanently “sequester” 90% of the emissions. It means burying the problem, literally, since the CO₂ will be stored a mile underground. In 2020, before the AI ​​boom, the company established the goal of operating with carbon-free energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week by 2030. It will be interesting to see how they plan to offset these emissions thanks to renewables, but the IAE estimates that the demand for data centers will not stop growing in the short term and that adds another problem: a increased pressure on the electrical grid which is added as another element to manage. Because the big underlying problem is that the demand for energy is growing at a faster rate than the capacity to generate new electricity, and it is something that has an impact on companies’ bills, but also in homes. Images | Unsplash, Google Data Center In Xataka | China does not have a spending problem with AI. What it has is a huge income gap compared to its main rival

In case there weren’t enough AI companies. Jeff Bezos has just returned from the shadows to raise another one, according to the NYT

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After leading Amazon for almost three decadesJeff Bezos left four years ago the highest position in the company that he created to focus on other projects. Personally, His wedding to Lauren Sánchez made headlines; professionally, His involvement with Blue Origin has been constantat a time when the space company rivals SpaceX like never before. At 61 years old and in a comfortable stage of his life, few would have imagined that Bezos would return to the CEO chair of a new company. But in Silicon Valley, where withdrawal is rarely final, nothing can ever be closed. The case of Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, is a good reminder: At the age of 70 he assumed the presidency and executive direction of Relativity Space. And now, according to The New York TimesBezos is back. Bezos returns to an operational position with a powerful bet The tycoon, who as of this writing appears as the third richest person on the planetaccording to Forbeshas set his sights on a new project. We talk about Project Prometheusa company that emerges with financing of 6.2 billion dollars, much of it contributed by Bezos himself. And, of course, it is a bet on artificial intelligence. The company appears at a time when artificial intelligence is experiencing accelerated expansion. It is no secret that the environment is dominated by names like Google, Meta and Microsoft, along with references such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Added to this dynamic is a growing number of startups seeking to differentiate themselves with more specialized proposals. That Bezos adopts an operational role in this context reinforces the relevance of the project and positions it from the beginning within the competition for the most ambitious advances in the sector. As detailed by the American newspaper, the first steps of Project Prometheus have not been particularly visible and there is still no confirmed date for the start of its operations. However, the type of technology that is being developed is known, focused on applying AI to engineering and manufacturing challenges in areas such as computing, aerospace and automotive. It is an approach that requires teams with high scientific specialization. For now, the location of the company has not been made public either, a fact that remains unclear. The company is focused on applying AI to engineering and manufacturing challenges in areas such as computing, aerospace and automotive. The sources consulted point out a relevant detail: Bezos returns to direct management by becoming co-CEO of Project Prometheus, a role that he had not held since leaving Amazon. Share that responsibility with Vik Bajajphysicist and chemist with extensive experience in applied research. We are talking about a profile that worked alongside Sergey Brin at Google X and later participated in the launch of Verily, Alphabet’s laboratory dedicated to life sciences. Project Prometheus is part of a broader trend within the sector. A growing number of companies are applying artificial intelligence to tasks linked to the physical world, from robotics to drug design or scientific research. This year, several researchers from companies such as Meta, OpenAI or Google DeepMind have abandoned consolidated projects to found new initiatives, such as Periodic Labsfocused on accelerating discoveries in physics and chemistry. It is in that environment where Prometheus begins to place itself. The interest in applying artificial intelligence to the physical world also responds to an important technical difference. Large language models learn from huge amounts of digital text, from articles to technical documentation. According to The New York Times, the new approach goes one step further: systems that can also learn from real experiments, run by robots in automated laboratories. Initiatives like AlphaFold have already demonstrated advances in areas such as drug design. It’s on that frontier, where software meets physical experimentation, where Prometheus wants to compete. The implementation of the project is also reflected in your team. Project Prometheus, sources say, has incorporated nearly a hundred employees, including researchers from companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Meta. This movement confirms the technical ambition of the company and the intention to advance quickly in a field where talent is decisive. Bezos’ decision to return to an operational role also comes at a particularly competitive time for the industry, adding even more attention to the company’s next steps. Images | Jeff Bezos | Igor Omilaev In Xataka | Apple steps on the accelerator towards the most important change of the decade: the succession of Tim Cook

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