century

has bought more missiles from the US in just two years than in the entire last century

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For months, Washington made Spain his example of disobedience within NATO. Trump came to threaten with punishment trade due to the “low” military spending, while Brussels and La Moncloa they defended their own pace of investment and warned that public accounts could not sustain an uncontrolled escalation. But behind that diplomatic struggle and there was something more to the reproaches exchanged. A “bill” that belittles both, and that reveals a very different story about how far Spain went to appease its most powerful ally. The tariff threat. It all started with an angry warning from the White House: Donald Trump, irritated for the rejection of Pedro Sánchez to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP, publicly stated “punish” Spain with tariffs. The threat, which occurred after a summit with Javier Milei in Washington, marked a new level of political pressure on a historic ally. The American president accused Madrid of “taking advantage” of NATO protection without contributing enough and, in a mix of bravado and electoral calculation, he hinted that he could turn the budget dispute into a commercial front. Behind the rhetoric there was an intention deeper: force Europe to finance the containment of Russia with its own resources and, in the process, prop up the military industry United States. The answer. Neither the European Commission nor the Spanish Government took long to respond. Brussels remembered that trade policy is the exclusive competence of the Union and that any attempt to penalize a Member State would have consequences. Madrid, for its part, took pains to emphasize that its military spending had grown more than double in just seven years (from 0.98% of GDP in 2017 to 2% in 2025) and that the debate was not about spending more as a slogan, but about doing it with a strategic sense and within the real capabilities of the country. At the same time, Spain insisted that it contributes to collective deterrence and that its budget increase, although more gradual than that desired by Washington, is part of a structural modernization of its Armed Forces. However, between the lines, the tension reflected something further: the fear that North American demands would end up conditioning the industrial and technological orientation of European defense. The silent turn. And neither one thing nor the other. The diary El País has published figures that confirm what until recently was just intuition: Spain has purchased more American weapons in the last two years than in almost a century. Between 2023 and 2024, the Spanish Government ordered military material for more than 4,500 millions of euros to the United States, a quarter of everything acquired since 1950. The contracts include Patriot systems, MH-60R helicopters and auxiliary equipment that represents the largest volume of expenditure with a single supplier in the recent history of Spanish defense. According to the DSCA (Defense Security Cooperation Agency), sales to Spain reached 2,907 million of dollars in 2024 and 1,682 million the previous year. In other words: while Washington was publicly denouncing the lack of commitment, Madrid was carrying out one of the largest purchasing operations in its history, channeling billions into the US military industry. The geopolitical context. The rebound coincides with the new cycle of European rearmament after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the same one has shot the military budgets of all of NATO. In this context, Spain has accelerated the modernization of its forces with additional spending of 10,471 million of euros in 2025, advancing the goal of 2% of GDP by four years. To finance it, the Executive has resorted to zero interest loans, industrial modernization programs and R&D items, a financial framework that allows keep spending without reform general budgets. However, this expansion has a reverse: the strengthening of technological dependence on the United States, which is consolidating itself as the main supplier of critical systems and reducing the room for maneuver to advance European strategic autonomy. Budget pragmatism. If you also want, the contrast between the Trump threats and the flow contract record with American companies illustrates the balance that Spain has tried to maintain: resisting the public discourse of punishment while, in practice, meeting Washington’s strategic demands and covering its own operational shortcomings. The result could not be more paradoxical. In the eyes of NATO, Madrid meets faster than expected, and in the eyes of its European partners, it risks weakening efforts to consolidate a common industrial base. The movement also redefines the bilateral relationship with Washington, which goes from rhetoric of reproach to the pragmatism of the transaction: while the North American president shows political muscleyour industry reaps the benefits. A lesson. The truth is that the history of these two years reveals how defense decisions, beyond percentages and headlines, are a geopolitical currency. Spain has demonstrated the ability to respond to external pressures without breaking its internal narrative, but the long-term cost (dependency, industrial coherence and technological autonomy) has yet to be measured. Thus, in essence, the question is once again the same as always: whether Europe can rearm itself without falling back into the old pattern of industrial subordination that for decades fueled the transatlantic divide. Spain, with its purchasing record to the American “friend” and his sovereignty speechembodies that contradiction today: that of a continent that seeks independence, but keep buying their safety on the other side of the Atlantic. Image | Kelly Michaels, BORN In Xataka | The US no longer has to worry about Spain or the rearmament bill in Europe. Germany had a plan B In Xataka | Spain committed to investing 2% of GDP in Defense but is not looking for soldiers: it needs 96,000 qualified employees

In the 19th century they were not particularly sad, but no one smiled in the photos. Although they had reasons for it

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It’s strange to come across a current photo in which no one is smiling. If we see her, we assume that something is happening: either she wants to give a serious image, or something happens that we don’t know about, or the intention is precisely to go against it, not to smile. However, there was a time in which the usual thing was not to do it, not to show the slightest emotion in the photographs. What is the reason for this attitude? Were they so sad in the victorian englandSpain at the beginning of the century and so on? Actually, there is a very simple explanation. The exhibition. We all know that in the early days of photography, that is, between about 1840 and 1880, cameras required people to remain completely still for several seconds, or even, in the most primitive photos, minutes. Maintaining a natural smile for so long was uncomfortable, and fatigue ended up turning a natural smile into a stiff grimace. Furthermore, any movement resulted in a blurry image, which ran the risk of the model appearing in the photo with a blur on his face like a specter from beyond the grave. Hence the much simpler and more accessible custom of remaining with a relaxed gesture. Decent photographs. But there came a time when photographs did not require more than a moment of exposure, and there were still models with long faces. What was it due to? In reality it was not a technical question, but rather a question of how photography was understood. Perhaps with a vision inherited from when a portrait was a canvas that took days to create, required effort for the painter and model, cost money and could not be reproduced, but rather remained a unique piece. For all this, the portrait was clothed with a certain solemnity. It didn’t matter that these new portraits were much simpler and faster to do: They preserved the aura of dignity and special occasion of the oil paintings. Example: the dead. The legendary photos of the deceased or post-mortem photography They are a perfect example to understand how the medium was perceived for a time. They were a surprisingly common practice during the 19th and early 20th centuries and had a very clear purpose: being still a medium that was not widespread, photography was the only opportunity that many families had to preserve a portrait of the deceased, since they had not been able to do it while they were alive (and with the high infant mortality rate of other times, even more so). Furthermore, with this aura of dignity and pomp that the photograph had, it was incorporated into the elaborate mourning process. Victorian. Smile bad. In the 19th century, smiling openly in public or in portraits was often associated with frivolity, lack of seriousness, or even drunkenness. Educated and respectable people maintained a serious composure. If you have ever seen material from the tone period, let’s say, libertineyou will see what contagious smiles. It’s not that in the 19th and early 20th centuries people didn’t know how to smile: it was the circumstance in which photos were taken. That is why photos have been found taken in more familiar settings, at parties with very close relatives or close friends, where some of this rigidity is lost and people smile widely. Smiling badly, part two. And if we started with a reason as prosaic as “it’s easier not to smile than to smile,” we ended up with another equally practical reason: smiles one hundred and fifty years ago were terrible. The dental hygiene It was much worse than today and the dentures were full of holes, at best. When it came to passing on to posterity, it was normal for the models to decide not to show their teeth. Photo of Lia Den in Unsplash In Xataka | A tractor engine and three floors: this is the Victorian steampunk house that is touring the United States

We are becoming the Japan of the 21st century

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Let’s start with the facts: Europe ages faster than any other developed regionespecially in the south. middle age is over 44 years oldand going up. The big technology companies that define our era are American or Chinese, with permission for South Korean or Taiwanese exceptions. Our industrial glories (Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson, Alcatel…) are today B2B suppliers or corporate zombies, invisible to the consumers who once loved them. We host two of the most important technology events in the world (MWC and IFA) but we are spectators of a spectacle that others dominate. And in the meantime, we regulate: GDPR, AI ActDMA, DSA. We legislate about innovations we don’t lead and impose rules on games we don’t play. There is an uncomfortable but quite precise parallel: post-bubble Japan. In the 1980s, Japan seemed destined to dominate the 21st century. Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Nintendo… Japan defined some of the technologies that dominated the world at the end of the 20th century: The game boy and the desktop Nintendo. The walkman and the discman. The Trinitron teles. The VHS that won the format war. The Canons and Nikons that captured our memories. The iconic Casio watches. The Toyotas and Hondas that redefined the word “reliability.” Even the word kaizen (continuous improvement) became a mantra for companies around the world. Japan, in addition to manufacturing great products, exported methodologieswork philosophies and visions of the technological future. Then came the bust, the stagnation, the deflation. And the worst: institutional nostalgia. Japan did not collapse, but began to stop creating the future. And it became a museum of how things were done, of when we were relevant. Europe is taking that same path, but faster. What is worrying is not so much the absence of large European technology companies with honorable exceptions, is the response to that absence: instead of creating conditions for them to emerge, we focus on aggressively regulating those that exist.. We act as if power resides in controlling other people’s platforms, not in building our own. It’s the mentality of someone who no longer plays: if I can’t win, at least I set the rules. But setting rules without the ability to enforce them is simply irrelevance disguised as principles. Japan took solace in its culture, its refined aesthetics, its exceptionalism. In Europe we console ourselves with our “values”. Data protection, sustainability, digital rights. Everything correct, everything noble. But insufficient. Because in the meantime, the technological architecture of the 21st century—the one that defines what is possible to do, think, create—is being built in California and Shenzhen. We set limits on systems that others design. The underlying problem is that Europe has internalized a narrative of managed decline. We no longer aspire to lead, but to “preserve our model.” Translation: manage decay with dignity. It took decades for Japan to accept its new role. Europe seems to have accepted it on the fast track. In Xataka | I increasingly like technology that doesn’t want anything from me: the one that has a purpose and leaves you alone Featured image | Tianshu Liu, Il Vagabiondo

In the nineteenth century, Spain made the strange decision to build its ways in Iberian width. Now they will be a gift for Renfe in Galicia

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Renfe can breathe calm. The company has a huge business in the Galician corridor. The volume of travelers Between Madrid and Galicia he has shot to the point that airlines are retreating. Time savings since high speed arrives is such that many are choosing to pass to the train due to pure comfort or time flexibility. The Galician corridor is part of the next package of liberalization of the roads, next to the trains with destination Asturias, Cantabria, Cádiz and Huelva. It will not be, at least, until 2028 when the competition is palpable on the tracks because Adif is not complying with the deadlines planned. But Madrid-Galicia has another peculiarity. It is very likely that in 2028 we will see competition on their ways. To find the reason we have to travel to the nineteenth century. The particular Spanish railroad Each new technology arrives with a good rosary of standards of all kinds. It has happened with electric cars and passed with electricity itself. Also with measurement standards or, as in this case, train tracks. The railroad had started in the early nineteenth century. Although the steam machine was already born in the 18th century, it was not until 1804 when Richard Trevithick built A prototype in which the concept applied to transport. The steam locomotive was born. That one of those huge irons with wheels will pull a kind of drawers and could move the goods faster than they had done seemed like a great idea. So great that it soon caught and in 1830 the first train line was opened with passengers. They were the famous 50 kilometers that separated Liverpool from Manchester whose first trip headed George Stephensonwho was the ideologist of the construction of those first route. Those first trains circulated through some roads of 1,422 millimeters, 4 feet and 8 inches. Shortly after, those same ways widen half inch until reaching the famous 1,435 mm. Then they did not know but they had just adopted the “international width”, which is mounted in most trains in the world. Those measures also served to establish Two categories: narrow path (below those 1,435 mm) and wide via (above). The good results of the first trains made the railroad make the leap to continental Europe and the United States. But, like everything in this life, there were those who thought the system could be improved and that it was worth trying. That person was Isambard Kingdom Brunelan excellent British engineer who would create the Great Railroad of the West, joining London with the southwest, western England and much of Wales. Brunel thought that the higher the width of roads, faster speed could reach a train because the greater the stability achieved. Thus, it extended the track width up to 2,140 mm. Then a war of standards began that ended up resolving the Commission of Railroad Widths in favor of Stenphenson and its width of 1,435 mm. It was 1845. In Spain, at that time, we were engaged in the same fight. Railroad yes, but … how? That doubt was the one that set fire in the middle of the 19th century. Observing the good results that were being achieved outside our borders, the Government began to receive requests for the granting of licenses that allowed them to exploit the roads. Aware that it was necessary to harmonize the matter, they consulted a commission of engineers led by Juan Subercase, number one in the Corps of Engineers, acting president of the Advisory Board and director of the School of Engineers since 1837. He was helped Calixto Santa Cruz, number one of his promotion of 1839, and José Subercase, who in addition to his son was also the number one in his promotion the following year, 1840. Together they drafted the report 17.10.1844, on the Madrid Railroad to Cádiz, which recommended to reject a concession to build a railroad from Madrid to Cádiz. This concession was requested by the French engineer Juqueau Galbrun, which was certainly ironic over the years. Explains J. Moreno Fernández in a document in which the whole story of that controversial decision tells that none of the mentioned engineers had left the country and known firsthand how the railroads were abroad. That, perhaps, was one of the reasons why it was omitted that France had opted for international road width. And it is that Subercase was a firm defender of a width of six feet Castilians. The 1,672 millimeters that would end up receiving the name of “Iberian Width”. The defense is that a higher track width forced to use more powerful locomotives. In those days they thought they could increase vaporization with a wider boiler and that this was essential to, in a mountainous country like Spain, to have sufficient power to move the train. They also defended that a higher track width allowed a more stable step per curve but the truth is that time showed that neither one thing nor the other were key. The international width has been versed enough to be used in mountainous areas and the largest boilers in the trains had the problem of increasing the weight so the gain was diluted. In the government they thought that Subarcase motivations They were correct and they didn’t care that in the neighboring country they bet on a narrower track width. To import, they did not care that our other neighbor, Portugal, also promoted their railroads with the international width. In 1844, it was finally decided that the Spanish measure of the six Spanish feet was the one that should be protagonist for its orographic peculiarities. However, that did not condition the government that gave the approval to two routes built on that international width that was quickly imposing. Portugal pressed to have a railway exit to France that Spain ignored. And that created an urban legend that remains until today First in a line between Barcelona and Mataró, projected from the beginning with that exceptional width for the Spaniards … Read more

France has tried by all means that CAF does not take “the contract of the century” of the Belgian trains. There is good news

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The contract continues. That is what the Belgian responsible for one of the country’s greatest tenders have said. The so -called “Century Contract” will therefore fall on CAF, the great Spanish rail giant. The Spanish company will be in charge of providing trains to the “Belgian Renfe”. Refused. The State Council of Belgium has spoken. And what has decided is that it rejects the last resort that Alstom had presented in the award contest to provide the CNS (the Belgian Renfe) of a huge battery of trains to modernize much of the fleet. In The mail They detail that the Belgian State Council had already rejected a resource for Siemens last week and now has been dismissed that of Alstom. The process has been especially long and complex with numerous resources presented, comings and goings and reconfirmations. “The contract of the century”. Given the enormous volume of money that will move this contract, it does not seem that the famous denomination of “the contract of the century” is left great. To start, the investment will be 1,695 million euros but if the deadlines and volume of deliveries are met, CAF could receive up to 3.4 billion euros. The amount will be paid for The supply of 500 trains Automotores including three car models with battery hybrid propulsion that will have the task of replacing the old diesel locomotives in those roads that have not yet been electrified. With the rejection of the latest resources, it only remains to negotiate the last details and sign the greatest contract in the history of CAF. Long and complex. Getting with this contract has not been simple for the Spanish company. At the beginning of the year, Alstom and Siemens resorted to the award of CAF to CAF, claiming that the motivations for it were not transparent enough. In April, a Belgian court recommended suspending the contest. During that time, Alstom took the opportunity to press by pointing out that his proposal was better because they have a plant on Belgian soil, emphasizing that the decision to take out this contract would harm the citizens themselves because they were not betting on local employment as a decisive factor. The process, however, continued. However, CAF has had to wait for the Belgian authorities to definitely reject the resource of Siemens and a second resource by emergency presented by Alstom, who insisted again on a supposed lack of transparency. Israel. During the last bars of all this bureaucratic framework, various voices rose to question the award of CAF. They defended that a company that was associated with the Israeli Shapir could not be hired to build and expand the red and green lines of the Light Jerusalem Rail. The project is problematic because it will be built on illegal Israeli settlements. That has caused the Basque company to have been indicated in an official UN report as one of the companies that take revenues from the country’s antipalestine policy. They specify that with this type of works these illegal settlements are helped. 500 million euros. That is what is estimated to take coffee If the Israeli project goes ahead. This is valued at 1.8 billion euros to lift 27 kilometers of roads and 50 new stations. With them we want to connect the West Bank settlements with those of West Jerusalem. The business for CAF does not remain alone in the construction of this light meter. It is also about to decide when it will participate in the management of the lines. At the moment, it is being assessed that its involvement is maintained between 15 and 25 years once between operation. CAF shields that the award of the contract is prior to the Israeli invasion of Palestine. Do not get into. At least that is what they say from SCNB. Appealed by up to four associations that rejected that CAF received this contest for its involvement with the project in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the Belgian operator has responded that it cannot “determine the foreign or commercial policy of the companies involved,” they collect in The mail. Its position is contrary to other companies in the sector. The Norwegian sovereign fund, for example, has retired its investments in Shapir (the partner of CAF in the Israeli project) for the genocide committed in Gaza and the Manager Storeband also took CA from its portfolio for its involvement. The Catalan company Comsa was also part of the consortium that had gained the award of the blue line of the tram to Jerusalem but In 2024 he retired from the project and The Basque Siner announced that it will not serve steel to Israeli companies. Photo | CAF and ABODI VESAKARAN In Xataka | Renfe wanted to renew his fleet in Cantabria and Asturias. Until he was wrong with the width of his trains

“Circular financing” between Nvidia and Openai can be the genius of the century … or collapse

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Nvidia has announced A “strategic investment” of up to 100,000 million dollars in Openai. But it is an investment with trap: Openai will use that money to buy Nvidia chips. The semiconductor manufacturer thus becomes the financier of its own most important client. Why is it important. This maneuver dangerously reminds the “circular financing” schemes that characterized the end of the 2000 Puntocom bubble. Companies like Lucent, Nortel and Cisco financed operators as Global Crossing to buy them equipment. We are not the first to see this simile At this stage of AI. When the bubble exploded, both suppliers and customers sank into a spiral of debts and overcapacity. The agreement will allow OpenAI to build data centers with a joint capacity of 10 gigawatts, equivalent to about 10 nuclear reactors. Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has acknowledged that this represents between 4 and 5 million GPUS: “double those we distributed last year.” Brutal scale In figures. The numbers are astronomical. According to Huang himself in August, creating a 1 Gigavatio data center costs between 50,000 and 60,000 million dollars, of which about 35,000 million are destined for Nvidia chips. With that logic, the 10 projected gigawatts would cost more than 500,000 million dollars. The bags have reacted with euphoria: Nvidia shares rose almost 4%, adding 170,000 million dollars to their stock market capitalization. Jensen Huang Broza’s company is already 4.5 billion dollars of valuation. Yes, but. Parallelism with the ‘Puntocom’ bubble is disturbing. These same schemes of ‘Financing vendor‘We already saw them in the final stage of the 2000 technological bubble. They did not end well for any of the parties. The difference is that current numbers are much larger, even adjusting for inflation. The key is whether the productivity profits of the generative AI will compensate for the spent money. Between bambalins. The agreement explains the current situation in the AI ​​ecosystem: OpenAi desperately needs computing capacity to maintain its competitive advantage over the 700 million weekly users of their products. But infrastructure costs are so high that it needs constant external financing. Nvidia, on the other hand, seeks to ensure the future demand of its most advanced chips. The agreement guarantees mass orders while consolidating its dominant position against competitors such as AMD and Intel. “It is a closed cycle: Nvidia gives OpenAi money, and OpenAi uses it to buy Nvidia products,” Summary Summary Javier Pastor. The threat. Anti -Ponopoopoly experts are already arched eyebrows. Andre Barlow, a lawyer specialized in competition, explained to Reuters that “the agreement could change the economic incentives of NVIDIA and OpenAI, potentially blocking the Nvidia chips monopoly with OpenAi software leadership.” The structure creates extra barriers so that competitors such as AMD in OpenAi chips or rivals in AI models can climb their operations. They paint basts. In perspective. The story is full of similar schemes that ended badly. Global Crossing, the telecommunications operator that broke in 2002it was funded precisely by the same suppliers that sold equipment. When it was discovered that the real demand was much lower than the projected, both Global Crossing and its financiers lost thousands. The key question is whether the demand for AI services will be sufficient to justify this billionaire investment, or if we are faced with the recreation of the same speculative pattern with even more exorbitant figures. As Stacy Rasgon concludesBernstein analyst: “On the one hand, Openai helps meet very ambitious infrastructure objectives. On the other hand, it will further feed concerns about ‘circular’ financing.” Outstanding image | In Xataka | Openai estimates that it will enter 200,000 million dollars in 2030. The figure, like everything in OpenAi, is extremely ambitious

Farmers expect one of the worst harvest of what is going on the century

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Pessimism is making its way in the grape sector. As the vintage season progresses in the different wine regions of our environment, the problems do not stop growing. The first was the price, with the farmers on a war for some prices that consider “ruinous”now, to this is added pessimism regarding the volume of the harvest. 34 million hectoliters. The 2025 harvest It is on its way to becoming In one of the worst views in recent years as the union of small farmers and livestock (UPA) recently stressed. Your concern is based on Estimates of the agro-food cooperative sector organization of Spain that indicate that this year’s wine production will be about 34 million hectoliters. As a contrast, The UPA points outan average season the wine production would be around 40-43 million hectoliters. From optimism to pessimism. The new estimate implies a remarkable cut with respect to the initial calculations, which trusted them to produce this year about 37.5 million hectoliters of wine and must. This fall is a reflection of an important change in the perception of what this harvest would be: of a optimism marked by the end of drought We have moved to a context in which pessimism predominates. Meteorology not so favorable. Meteorology has played an important role. The arrival of the rains seemed to bring new hopes to an agricultural sector punished by drought. However, hail storms, numerous this year, have taken its toll. He has also left his imprint in the harvest an extremely warm and drier summer than usual: the high temperatures of last month (in which we saw an intense heat wave) and the lack of rainfall have made a dent in the harvest, according to the UPA. More perhaps than meteorology, the sector also worries the climate: the UPA He also stood out The vulnerability of the sector to climate change, whose negative impact estimated at about 439,788 hectoliters, 1.4% of the harvest. The impact of the Mildiu. Another factor mentioned by the sector is that of Mildiu. This plants’ disease is a disease caused by fungi that infect plants and causes problems that end up being reflected in the productivity of the field. This Andalusia year, La Rioja, and Castilla y León have been the most affected communities according to the organization. A cGlobal RISIS. The volume of the harvest is just one of the problems that concern farmers. In its statement, the UPA also speaks of the uncertainty posed by the new US tariff policy, as well as the controversial reform of the common agricultural policy, the PAC. Although perhaps this year the great source of controversies has been economical. There have been several occasions in which farmers have protested because they consider that the prices offered by the wineries are not fair and that they focus on the crisis to their sector. To this we must add a structural problem in the sector, and that is that changes in consumption patterns have significantly punished the consumption of wine and many other alcoholic beverages. In Xataka | The Canary Islands banana is dead and does not know: Spain is an agricultural giant with mud feet Image | Mali Maeder

We do not even know if Trump’s ‘golden dome’ can be built, but there are already companies competing for the contract of the century

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At the beginning of the year we began to talk about the ‘golden dome’ or ‘Golden Dome’. It is the name of the antimile shield that Donald Trump wants to build For the United States. It seems that the thing is serious and that has intensified competition among many military technology companies that want a piece of the cake. The golden dome. Unlike antimile systems such as The Israeli iron domeTrump’s proposal is that he would use a satellite network capable of stopping Hypersonic missiles. Experts soon Show your skepticismarguing that it is not possible to create a shield that covers the entire territory as in Israel, a country 400 times smaller than the United States. The details of how it will be achieved do not seem to import Donald Trump, which in May assured that “we will have the best system ever built.” A very juicy cake. It is not clear how it is going to be built or if it is possible to do so, but the plan is that it is finished before this legislature ends, with the first test planned by the end of 2028. According to the administration, its construction will cost 175,000 million dollars, of which 25,000 million have already been invested. Business parade. As reported in the New York Timesmany companies are already doing tests to show their capabilities and be part of this project. This is the case of Varda Space Industries, the Californian startup created by Spacex former employees that was dedicated to manufacturing drugs in space. In May they did a test to demonstrate that they are not only able to track hypersonic missiles, they can also calculate their trajectory and that they can be intercepted. The Wild West. Companies that are selected will ensure a privileged position in the American defense. In statements to New York Times, Mark Montgomerydirector of a group of defense experts in Washington, said that “there are more than 100 companies with sensors, satellites or other devices that want to sell to the golden dome (…) this is the wild west, and it is a huge opportunity for those who are selected.” Several layers. The antimisile shield will have several layers, three land and one spatial, according to Reuters reported. The space shield will be the most complex part from the technological point of view and where many of these companies are focusing. In April we already talk about Spacex had proposed its technology for the creation of the golden dome. It is a network of up to 1,000 satellites to detect missiles and another 200 armed with missiles or lasers to destroy them before they reach their goal. Palantir Technologies and Anduril Industriestwo technological companies dedicated to defense, were also part of this initiative. Images | Wikipedia, Picryl In Xataka | The US has decided to try if Elon Musk was right. So he has placed two cybertruck in the desert as the target of his missiles

Japan sent the wrong creature to eradicate the snakes of an island. The disaster was so great that it has taken half a century to solve it

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Once again, desperate situations lead to extreme measures. Save a species Sometimes it implies “exterminating” another. We have seen it in South Africa and Your plan to annihilate miceeither Injecting radio -material material into rhinos hornscases of Wild cat huntor the plan for exterminate half a million owls. However, sometimes things do not come out as governments imagine. In Japan they know perfectly. The incident of 79. The story begins in 1979 on the Japanese island of Amami ōshima, located in Kagoshima Prefecture. That year, rediscover Amami’s rabbit (Pentalagus Furnessi), an endemic species and considered a “living fossil” due to its evolutionary seniority. Before the finding, it was thought that the rabbit was on the verge of extinction due to the loss of habitat and hunting. The discovery marked a before and after for the conservation of the species and highlighted the importance of protecting the natural environment of the island, home from many other unique species. An event that also underlined the need for higher conservation efforts in Amami ōshima, for example, trying to eradicate or control the population of snakes. A wrong “bomb”. Thus, within a few months, Japan launches a plan. Introduce about 30 mushrooms on the island With the intention of ending the population of snakes, specifically Habu (Trimeresurus flavoviridis), which represented a threat to local inhabitants. The idea, on paper, was a fissure plan: that mushrooms, which are natural snake predators, reduce the number of Habus and improve safety on the island at all levels. However, that project was far from infallible. The mushroom was not the ideal creature to eradicate snakes. In the first place, because they are active animals during the day, therefore, they could not catch the nightly hubs, who continued to inhabit the following decades without problem. What happened as a consequence had a huge ecological impact. A specimen of trimeresurus flavoviridis Depredation of endemic species. Thus, during the day, instead of focusing on the snakes, the mushrooms began to prey a wide range of native species, including several that had no natural enemies on the island until then. That seriously affected local fauna, especially endemic and endangered species, such as Amami’s same rabbit that had just announced happily months ago. Hundreds of thousands of mushrooms. The situation reached such a point, that the mushrooms, carried to eradicate a plague, had become even larger and more dangerous, one than reached around 10,000 copies At its maximum point over the year 2000. The truth is that Japan had already started a mushroom control project in 1993 that was expanding over time. As? About 30,000 traps were placed on the island to capture the animals and cameras with sensors to monitor them were installed. In addition, local residents formed the so -called Amami Mongoose Bustersa team specialized in the capture of mushrooms (they came to capture thousands). The end? In 2018 there was the last official capture of a megosta on the island. It happened in April, and since no creature has been captured for a long period of time, the panel of experts, which has the task of determining if the animal is eradicated from the island, estimated that the eradication rate It was between 98.8 and 99.8% In February of last year, reaching a preliminary conclusion that it is reasonable to say/think that mushrooms are eradicated from the island in current circumstances. Finally, on September 3, 2024, the Ministry of Environment of Japan declared The eradication of non -native mushrooms on the island of Amami-Oshima, declared a natural heritage of humanity by UNESCO. The statement was based on the opinion of the group of experts on scientific bases, taking into account that the capture of mushrooms has not been confirmed for more than six years since the last one in April 2018. A unique case. The Ministry itself did not hide the disaster that supposed the attempt to control snakes in 1979. In fact, and as the administration has announced, it is one of the largest cases in the world in which non -native mushrooms have been eradicated that had been established for so long. After the statement, the government explained that it will withdraw the traps that were placed on the island, although it will continue to watch with cameras to prevent a new group of these small creatures from between again. After all, if it took half a century to get them out of there, any contingency method is more than understandable. A version of this article is PUblicó in 2024 Image | Animalia, Tanaka Juuyoh, Patrick Randall In Xataka | We have just found a surprising remedy against Argentine ants pests: caffeine dose In Xataka | The mission impossible to control the invasive plague that is eating the European pine: biomolecules, piñones and citizen science

Anthropic is worth 183,000 million even though he invoices 5,000 million a year. Or it is the business of the century, or it is the madness of the century

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Anthropic has just closed A financing round of 13,000 million dollars that values ​​it in 183,000 million. The figure sounds like madness when we put it in context: the company invoices 5,000 million a year. The figures. Anthropic is valued 36 times. Google, to compare, quotes 6 times. Apple at 8. Microsoft to 14. They are mature companies in front of a startup, but none remotely approaches this multiple. The round F It has been led by ICONIQ Capital, with Fidelity and Lightspeed as co-investors. Heavyweights such as Blackrock, the sovereign background of Qatar and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan have participated. What has happened. In just eight months, Anthropic has multiplied its income by five: from 1,000 million to 5,000 million in August (annualized). It is one of the fastest growth in the history of technology. Claude Codeits programmers tool, generates 500 million in annualized revenues. It has multiplied its use in three months since its complete launch in May. The context. The AI ​​career has become a war of valuations disconnected from classical financial reality. OpenAI negotiates an assessment of 500,000 million. XAI of Musk looks for 75,000 million. Investors are betting Billions to these companies will dominate the future. Anthropic serves 300,000 business clients. Its large accounts (those that pay more than $ 100,000 a year) have multiplied by seven in twelve months. Yes, but. Developing elite AI models is very expensive. Anthropic depends on Amazon and Google for his computational infrastructure, and costs him billions annually. The costs are not going down, they are accelerating. Sam Altman, CEO of Openai, has said that his company will need to invest billions of dollars. The generative AI business remains structurally deficient for almost all participants. Nvidia always wins. Between bambalins. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has admitted in An internal memo that is not “excited” to accept money from sovereign funds of dictatorial governments. But says It is difficult to direct a business excluding “bad investors.” The company has promised to use 13,000 million to expand capacity, deepen international security and expansion research. It is also developing specific products by industry. The end of a dream. A few months ago We speculated that Apple could buy Anthropic to accelerate your entry into AI. With an assessment of 183,000 million, that option has been buried: it would be 60 times more expensive than Beats, Apple’s greatest acquisition in its history. Not even Tim Cook (who He was open to check) With 150,000 million in cash available, you can justify such a check before your shareholders. The big question. Are we facing the birth of the new technological giants or the greatest bubble from the Puntocom? With assessments that multiply by 36 income, the margin of error is non -existent. Investors are betting on Anthropic and their rivals will not only dominate AI, but the AI ​​will transform the entire global economy. If they are right, 183,000 million will seem cheap. If they are wrong, it will be a historical disaster. Outstanding image | Anthropic, Xataka In Xataka | People are celebrating funerals by the Ia withdrawn for a reason: they are not a “tool” but a support

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