clear

A year ago the world’s largest olive oil company was clear that it was going to continue expensive. Now he has just shown up

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In 2022 deoleo, the largest marketer of olive oil in the world, He won 5.5 million euros of benefits. In 2023, lost 34. It is the best metaphor of the earthquake that the olive oil industry has lived in recent years. Above all, because we are not talking about a lost oil mill in Sierra Morena, we talk about the bottling brands such as Hojiblanca, Carbonell or Koipe. Therefore, if we are interested in olive oil, we must follow them closely. One year of transition. During 2023, drought, a short harvest and the increase in costs (derived from the situation in Ukraine, the inflationary scenario and high interest rates) caused a very serious problem in the oil. We know that well. The problem is that, although They themselves recognized that they had transferred “partial (mind) to customers the increase in prices experiments throughout the chain”, it had not been enough. And that deoleo was (at least, on paper) one of the marketers that More margins had for the ‘premium’ positioning of its brands. 2024 was, then, the year of transition. What happens is that ransition has been faster than anyone expected. In fact, I was not sure what was going to happen. And, at some point, they bet because prices They were going to stay up. His analysis said that if prices at origin did not fall sufficiently, the industry would have to contain the decrease of finalist prices (or expose to bankruptcy). That It is something that has happened: prices at origin have collapsed, while in supermarkets the descent is being very soft. However, with estimates that They tell us 1.4 million tons They have already realized that there is no way to contain the price in the medium term. Preparing for 2025. Hence Víctor Roig, general director in Spain of Deleo, has explained that “the logical thing is that this returns the price of the Aove to levels similar to those of 2021 and 2022, standing between three and four euros per liter.” In this context, the battle has begun to be another. Recover the oil culture. In the last decade, the consumption of olive oil It has been falling year after year. Crisis after crisis (and with the mediation of A deep cultural and gastronomic change), wide layers of the population have dropped from olive oil and the vast majority of them have not returned. It is true that demand has not fallen into that same proportion That prices have grown. But consumption has decreased 44.5% Less in the last three years and, following the previous logic, nobody knows if the industry will recover it. And if in recovering from the losses there was a short -term survival of the industry, in bringing all those consumers back is the future. Image | Vincent Eisfeld | Senate agency In Xataka | Spain faces its greatest agricultural challenge of the century: turn 1,901,529 hectares of olive grove before it is late

The war between the Azores anticyclone and Iceland depression will have a clear winner in the coming weeks: Spain

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If there is any field in which what was said by the famous physicist Niels Bohr that “it is difficult to make predictions, especially of the future“That is meteorology. Although it is not always the case. There are times that, with all the uncertainties we want, “we see them come long before normal.” And that is what just happened: the main prediction models in the world They say we are going to a negative nao stage. Something that, in the face of spring, can be excellent news. What is NAO? ‘Nao’ are the acronym in English of ‘North Atlantic oscillation‘And basically refers to the’ dance ‘between the Azores anticyclone and the loss of Iceland, the two great atmospheric phenomena that govern the meteorology of the North Atlantic. When the index we use to “measure who is winning” is negative, the anticyclone of the Azores is weaker than normal and, therefore, cannot block the deep storms of the Atlantic. The direct consequence is that, they circulate further than normal: in our latitudes. Kristian Strommen et als. (2021) The news is that, indeed, it seems that we are going to Noa negative. Both the NOAA American and the European ECMWF They coincide in which “we are at the gates of a Nao phase in descent.” And what consequences would this have? The combination of a negative nao and a large mass of stagnant polar air in the continent would cause the circulation of deep storms to pass us over and, therefore, the weather conditions are stirred. A summary of the situation. In the short term, we are in the midst of that cyclogenesis festival that we have already talked about, but when the stability will be installed again. That means that nocturnal temperatures will lower, the frost will return and the fog will return. From then on, if the NOA phase change is confirmed, the situation becomes difficult to predict. The good part of this type of diagnoses is that it is very solid (that is, it is quite likely to pass); The bad is that the details become more complex: it can be triggered from a sudden stratospheric warming that froze everything that caught its path to almost nothing. It is reasonable to wait for rain in one way (deep storms) or another (retrograde danas), however the prognosis is in the air. Image | Tropical tidbits In Xataka | In the next few days, Spain will be in the middle of a hall of Atlantic storms. It is good news, but not for everyone

Germany was the great European automobile power. Now, more and more manufacturers are clear that it is the place to avoid

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“Germany is the place where the car was invented.” This clear and forceful are shown in the Verbandes Der Automobilindustrie (VDA)the German automobile industry association. An organization that estimated that in 2023 they worked in this sector 779,700 employees throughout the country. To get an idea of ​​the size of the automobile industry in Germany, in 2023 they manufactured 4.1 million passenger vehicles and almost 200,000 commercial vehicles. In Spain, the second largest vehicle producer in Europe, we manufactured half a million commercial vehicles but we stayed at 1.9 million passenger cars, according to data collected by Expansion. In fact, Germany is also the first country in Europe and the second largest producer in the world of electric cars. In 2023 they manufactured 1.27 cars moved by this technology. It would be expected, therefore, that with this experience it would attract more and more interest of new companies that intend to settle in Europe. Nothing is further from reality. A gigantic problem However, Germany faces a huge restructuring problem in the automobile industry. Their companies are in a process of conversion to the electric vehicle that points to thousands of layoffs but, in addition, the new companies seem clear that Germany is already the place where not to mount their factories. The last to position has been controversial. Asked about a possible polestar factory in the country, Michael Lohsccheller, general director of Polestar, responded to the newspaper Welt that “Germany It is not precisely the cheapest place For car production. Everyone knows what the general conditions are at the moment. “ With that last sentence, Lohscheller referred to the loss of German competitiveness in the automobile industry. Stefan Bratzel del Center of Automotive Management (CAM) I pointed to DW This same month of January that the country suffered with “high labor costs, including medical care expenses and extensive holidays” of its workers. To that same medium, Dirk Dohse, of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IFW) made it clear that German engineers were still among the best in the world but that the lack of flexibility prevented them from attract new talentsespecially from Asia. The country has been in a Institutional and economic internal crisis which is being deeper in the automobile industry. This loss of competitiveness has led manufacturers to warn that There are 190,000 jobs at stake If the industry does not find a solution. An output that looks more and more complicated if you consider that its manufacturers are drawing much more exports performance to China of electric cars than of combustion vehicles. This is a problem because the latter can get much higher per yield per vehicle sold than to electricity but also have a much lower competition than in the electric car market where the customer is turning to the local product. With the pressures of European policies to hug the electric car, the industry has undertaken a conversion in its factories. However, until 2024 technology Keep growing at a paid in EuropOh In China they see the European car as a outdated product. The latter is especially important in a country that houses a huge labor force of Volkswagen, Mercedes or BMW, whose world sales volumes They are especially sensitive to Chinese purchases. With bad results, Volkswagen has tried to fire tens of thousands of employees In Germany but, above all, the country sees How are production of vehicles or batteries to places like Spain, with lower labor and energy costs. A good example is the plant of Volkswagen in Sagunto to nurture Ford and Martorell. But, in addition, Germany is not attracting new investments. Northvolt’s project in Germany did not go from the theory while Spain has received Catl’s support, Byd has settled in Hungary and Leapmotor already produces cars in Poland and, It is rumored, that in Spain. Besides, Morocco and Türkiye They press to show themselves as especially attractive countries to produce cars as cheap as possible. Photo | Volkswagen In Xataka | Germany demonstrates the dependence on the aid that the electric car has: 100,000 vehicles are taking dust

It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no “normal” body temperature.

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If you ask us what the “normal” temperature of our body is, the instinctive answer will be 37º Celsius. When the thermometer exceeds that mark, we usually talk about fevermild or high depending on how far we move away from the figure. However, over time health experts have realized that the reality is a little more complex. The body temperature issue It is not a mere curiosity. Fever is an important response of our body to many diseases or disorders, generally to infections. The fever It is a double-edged sword: our body raises its temperature to try to kill viruses and bacteria that may be damaging it, while activating our body’s immune response; However, in the process, fever can also put the proper functioning of our organs at risk and cause other problems such as dehydration. Since fever is a common response to various illnesses, it can also cause us serve as a diagnostic toolto narrow the circle on the possible conditions that affect us. Answering the question of what is the “normal” temperature of our body is difficult. And the reasons behind this are several. Firstly, because, over the last century and a half, the estimated average temperature of the human body has been reducing. The notion that our body temperature It is at 37º and dates back to the mid-19th century. In 1868, the German doctor Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich conducted a study using 25,000 patients and more than a million temperature measurements. From these data, he calculated that the average temperature was 37ºbut also observed certain deviations. However, more recent studies have observed lower average temperatures. A recent example of this we found it in a studio Made in the United States and published in 2020 in the magazine eLife. The analysis indicated that Americans’ body temperatures had been dropping at a rate of about 0.03º Celsius every decade. A previous study conducted in the United Kingdom and published in 2017 in the magazine B.M.J.estimated an average temperature of 36.6º in its sample of more than 35,000 participants and 250,000 measurements. We don’t really know why body temperature has been reducing over time. A possible explanation It lies in the improvements in hygiene and immunity, which would imply a lower incidence of infections in the population and therefore lower average temperatures. But this is just one of the various hypotheses that seek to explain the phenomenon. Wunderlich himself observed in his study that men and older people tended to have lower body temperatures, while women and younger people had higher temperatures on average. Which brings us to the second reason why establishing a “normal” reading is especially difficult. And it depends. Sex and age are two of the factors that can make what is “normal” for one person not “normal” for another. But other factors can also alter this figure. a study published in 2023 in the magazine JAMA Internal Medicine measured the degree to which these factors affected body temperature, but also added new variables such as height, body mass, and the time of day at which the measurement was taken. Among the sample of 618,306 observations, the average temperature was at 36.64º Celsius. Among the participants, the average readings for each individual ranged between 36.24º and 36.89º. It is also worth remembering that there are different ways to measure body temperature (tympanic, oral, axillary…) and that each one It presents some slight associated deviations. So at what temperature fever comes? As is evident after what we have read, the answer is that it depends on each person and situation, although fortunately, with the variations being less than one degree, the interpretation of the results of a thermometer may not be as different from the conventional one as to affect decisions such as whether or not to stay home during a cold. However, for health experts, having better knowledge about these variables can be of great help. That is why new studies have also investigated this question. One published in November of last year in the magazine Scientific Reports by South Korean researchers, analyzed the body temperature of 9,195 hospital patients through tympanic temperature measurements (the tympanic temperature It is usually half a degree above the oral measurement and about one degree above the axillary measurement). The team estimated an average temperature of 36.91º Celsius, and a limit of 37.81º for fever. In Xataka | What to do when we have the flu: what measures to take and in which case we should ask for help Image | Polina Tankilevitch

‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ on PS5 or on PC? We talked to the director of this one to clear the doubts

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He Remake of ‘Final Fantasy VII’ In three deliveries it is one of the most ambitious projects that Square Enix has faced throughout its history. A Reformulation of the classic RPG that recovers his legendary characters and that unforgettable story through which everything happened, but that adapt your mechanics to the new times and open your world admirable. A year ago the second installment, ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’, arrived at PlayStation 5, and this week finally lands on PC. We have had the opportunity to talk to the game director, Naoki Hamaguchi, so that this renewed version for PC works and what we contribute to what we already saw in console. And of course, our first question could only be what it feels like to see legendary characters in the world of PlayStation on computers and what personal relationship has with the franchise. Hamaguchi tells us that he has “been a fan and player of ‘Final Fantasy VII’ ‘when I was a child. If I look back now that more than twenty years have passed, I am still surprised by the fact of having developed’ Final Fantasy VII Remake ‘ , ‘Rebirth’, and now the third and last game of the trilogy. “ But let’s enter into technical level, Does this version for PC elements contribute to the game that were omitted in consoles? Hamaguchi tells us that they have varied, above all, “the rendering parameters, so that they can adjust to graphic quality and the processing load in a more flexible way. Specifically, ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’ kept LOD’s gradations limited ( level of detail) of the modeling, with a few different degrees. what keeps stable the FRAME RATE“ This novelty is important to adapt to all types of PCs: “This allowed us Enjoy a stable game that maintains a good level of quality, and if you have a team that meets the requirements of the ultra level, you can enjoy a graphic quality even higher than that of the PS5. Steam Deck And we have been verified by Valve. “ More than technology So, is the technical part as relevant to this PC adaptation? Many times, computer ports stay in mere technological muscle exhibitions and we wanted to know if this is also the case. Hamaguchi clarifies: “It should say that the highest resolutions, the highest frame speeds and the improvements in the quality of resources are part of the appeal of the PC version, but what I really want people to see It is how We have redesigned the lighting with respect to the PS5 versionwhich has greatly improved the charts of the characters. “In fact, these changes will follow the reverse path:” PS5 players have asked us to update lighting as on PC, and although I cannot promise anything definitive by the moment, we are studying possible updates. “ Another of the essential differences between the console and PC version is in the controls, of course. Hamaguchi also enters that matter, telling us that the game “has many different mini -games, so we had to think a lot about how to adapt the configuration of the keys. For example, the minigame to touch the pian form that they imitate the keyboard of a real piano. “The PS5 version continues to offer you a complete and satisfactory experience, but it is true that the PC version is The best way to enjoy ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ with the highest graphic quality Possible, “concludes Hamaguchi. Now the decision is in the hands of the players: Punta technology or classic formats? We already have something to think about until the arrival of the third installment. Header | Square Enix In Xataka | Someone set out to record a whole ‘final fantasy’: he got it three years later and just before the closing of the game

Trump has made it very clear that he wants to conquer Mars. Now NASA has the enormous problem of not being called SpaceX

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Trump made just one space promise during his inauguration speech, but it was no small feat. The Martian dream. Between cheers and jumps of enthusiasm of Elon Musk, Donald Trump pointed out Mars as new “manifest destiny” of the United States. The newly inaugurated president promised to take astronauts to the Red Planet and plant the American flag in Martian soil. Trump stated: “We will pursue our manifest destiny to the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the flag on the planet Mars.” His words are not coincidental and have a clear influence, but they seem to mark a change of priorities for NASA that leaves the future of the Artemis lunar program. The influence of Elon Musk. “We’re going straight to Mars, the Moon is a distraction,” wrote the CEO of SpaceX two weeks ago. No one quite understood the scope of that tweet, since SpaceX has a very important contract with NASA to build the lander for the Artemis III and IV lunar missions, but now that message resonates on Capitol Hill. There, President Trump focused on Mars. It could just be a rhetorical statement (slowly, but surely, we have to get to Mars before China does), but with Elon Musk as a key ally, the new government could really be preparing a radical shift in astronautics strategy. The current Artemis program. It was precisely Trump’s first term that shaped NASA’s current lunar program. The then administrator, Jim Bridenstine, managed to put the United States’ return to the Moon on track with an architecture that combined NASA’s internal developments (the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft) with commercial spacecraft from private companies (SpaceX’s Starship HLS and the lunar module Blue Moon by Blue Origin). In turn, Bridenstine promoted a series of unmanned lunar missions and the creation of the Artemis Accordswhich already has 53 signatory countries, for international cooperation in future missions to the Moon, including the construction of a lunar base, the commercial exploitation of the satellite and everything that comes after (Mars, comets and asteroids). The Moon is a cruel lover. Artemis is not at her best. Manned missions have been delayed for problems on the Orion ship and delays in Starship development. Furthermore, the insane cost overruns of the SLS rocket have put a good part of public opinion against the current architecture of the program, which could be reconfigured with the support of SpaceX’s new Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets. To make matters worse, the first two commercial missions associated with Artemis (CLPS‑1 and CLPS‑2) failed to reach the Moon or lie down when landing on the moonwhich has precipitated the cancellation of other more important missions such as NASA’s VIPER rover. But until Trump’s speech, there was nothing to predict that the Artemis program would be in danger. Is it really? From the Moon to Mars. Until now, NASA’s plan was to establish itself on the Moon throughout this decade and the next (or at least in the Gateway lunar station in orbit with the satellite) to prepare for the jump to Mars in the 2040s. Prioritize the Red Planet I would leave three scenarios to the foreseeable new administrator from NASA, Jared Isaacman: A reduced lunar program, without aspirations to create a large lunar base like the one proposed by the ILRS program led by China. Thus, the United States would continue in the race to put the first woman on the moon without stopping to focus on Mars. In exchange, he would cede lunar land to his opponents A bifurcated program with parallel lunar and Martian missions that do not throw away everything that has been developed so far. It would be the logical step if NASA’s budget were unlimited, but with the huge investment what the lunar program entails, adding a Martian program seems impossible A total redirection to the conquest of Mars. Following Elon Musk’s vision: the Moon is a distraction from the ultimate goal of become a multiplanetary civilization. Even with a majority in Congress, it is the option in which giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and even New Space lose (Blue Origin has several lunar contracts). It seems complicated for congressmen to agree on a clean slate, but it is not totally impossible How would the United States get to Mars? There would be a public tender, but one option immediately comes to mind. NASA could adopt the SpaceX Mars program as your own. Elon Musk said SpaceX planned to launch five uncrewed Starships to Mars in 2026 and, if they managed to land, the first crewed mission to Mars in history in 2028. The experts agree at a crucial point: a mission with astronauts to Mars in the next four years is technically impossible if it is to be done with guarantees, since the scientific and technological challenges are monumental. But there were also many people convinced that Trump would not win the election again while Musk bet money that yes I would. Image | The White House, NASA In Xataka | Artemis has entered into crisis: NASA remains silent about the Orion spacecraft and rumors of cancellation of the SLS grow

China is very clear about what it has to do to free itself from US pressure: achieve technological self-sufficiency

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The geopolitical scenario in 2025 is, if possible, even more uncertain than in 2024. The two protagonists are unquestionably USA and China because they are the two great powers that are disputing world supremacy. And each one of them leads a side with notable allies with whom it shares an evident alignment in the economic, technological and military fields. China’s technological development has been deeply conditioned for more than two years now by the sanctions that the US is deploying and his allies. These bans primarily seek to stop the development of China’s semiconductor industry, but their implications reach many other industries due to the omnipresence of chips, such as the military, robots, electric cars or telecommunications, among others. others. China needs to achieve technological self-sufficiency at any price China’s medium-term economy is at stake. And the world leadership for which it competes with the United States, too. The Government led by Xi Jinping is fully aware of how important it is for its country to put an end once and for all to the dependency that still exists today of many foreign countries from a technological point of view. Precisely this dependency has been taken advantage of by the US to prevent Chinese integrated circuit manufacturers from accessing the most advanced lithography equipment it produces. the Dutch company ASML. “By managing our own affairs well, we can promote the stable and healthy development of China’s economy.” This is the situation in which The Chinese Administration has promoted the holding this Monday of a meeting in which the country’s political and social leaders urged industry executives as a whole to dedicate your resources to the technology sector. Its dual purpose is to materialize new engines of economic growth and promote China’s technological independence under the leadership of the Federation of Industry and Commerce, which will be the institution that will guide the private sector on this path. “By managing our own affairs well, we can promote the stable and healthy development of China’s economy,” has declared Premier Li Qiang. During 2024, the gross domestic product of this country has grown by 5%, and several intensely industrialized regions, including Zhejiang province, aim to grow by at least 5.5% during 2025. The fact that the meeting among Chinese leaders was celebrated on the same day that Donald Trump has returned to the White House It has a marked symbolic character. A fact that is worth not overlooking is that at last Monday’s meeting, in addition to the political and social leaders of China, several very prominent people participated. from the field of science and technology. One of them was Liang Wenfeng, the founder of the investment company High Flyer Quant that backs the startup of artificial intelligence DeepSeek. Wei Hongxing, founder of AUBO Robotics Technology, also participated in this event. What is still not entirely clear is how China is going to act in the face of a probable escalation of the tariffs imposed by the US under the mandate of Donald Trump. We probably won’t have to wait long to check it out. More information | SCMP In Xataka | Historical record for China: its chip industry has produced more than ever in 2024 despite sanctions

there is no clear or agreed plan to reach the AGI

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The call Stargate Project It’s going to be a lot to talk about in the coming years. The colossal bet to make the US a leader in AI will focus on the construction of data centers in that country. And yet the proposal faces enormous challenges. Money galore.The investment of 500,000 million dollars in the next four years It is simply overwhelming. That figure represents approximately 30% of Spain’s GDP in 2023 (1.62 trillion dollars), and it certainly represents spectacular support for the North American country’s ambitions. Objective: achieve an AGI. In the official announcement, project participants explained how “all of us hope to continue the development of AI—and in particular IAG—for the benefit of all humanity.” General artificial intelligence (IAG or AGI for its acronym in English) is the holy grail of the discipline, and OpenAI, which will have operational responsibility for Stargate, has been pursuing it for some time. The diffuse meaning of AGI. The problem with this objective is that it is very diffuse. To clarify the issue a little, OpenAI and Microsoft wanted to define it in economic terms and indicated that an AGI will be when it achieves 100,000 million profits. Theoretically, these systems will equal or surpass human intelligence in all fields, and the social and economic implications could be colossal. But we don’t know if we will achieve it. Much more important than giving a definition is actually achieving that artificial superintelligence, and here there is a critical problem: no one knows how to achieve it. Technology companies and AI startups—such as created by Ilya Sutskever either that of Francois Chollet— are following different paths to reach that goal, but it is not at all clear that any of them has the key to an achievement of this type in their hands. And we don’t know how they want to get to it. None of the companies working on the development of an AGI clarify how they are planning to reach that objective, and the feeling is that they are experimenting without knowing very well whether the chosen path will allow them to achieve that objective. Meta made his intention clear a year ago, OpenAI and especially Altman are especially optimistic about itand the same thing happens with Musk and xAI. Mustafa Suleyman, head of AI at Microsoft, is more cautious and he prefers not to make predictions about when we will reach it, although he sees it as feasible. In AnthropicApple and Google seem equally reserved on this issue, but it is inevitable to think that they are also working to not be left behind. Hyperinvestment for hyperpromises. This gigantic investment is to a certain extent contradictory, especially when several experts warn that there is some AI slowdown and scaling—more power and more data to train models—doesn’t seem to work anymore, or at least it doesn’t seem to work as much. There are certainly promising trends such as AI agents or the models that “reason”but is building beastly data centers what we need? Is brute force enough? This also implies equally enormous energy requirementsand it will be interesting how the US resolves these new needs. But that large investment will allow companies to continue talking about how close AGI is, when we have no idea if it is close or simply is not and will not be. An American AGI with Japanese and Arabic money. Especially curious is that the entire project is dedicated to turning the US into an AI leader and manages to develop an IAG, but the money comes partly from other countries. SoftBank, led by Masayoshi Son (on the right in the image), will be the main initial support and will immediately invest 100,000 million dollars, it is Japanese. And MGX is an investment fund from the United Arab Emirates that participated in the investment round recent from OpenAI (like SoftBank) and which also has an alliance with Microsoft. That means that these companies (and perhaps their countries) certainly have a prominent role in this project and its potential benefits. Image | Wikimedia |Wikimedia In Xataka | OpenAI presents its new lucrative structure. Their mission: raise tons of money to develop the AGI

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