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science details that it completely changes how we digest it

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White bread is one of the star foods of our gastronomy, since many people almost need it to have some lentils or in the morning. to make some toast. The ‘problem’ is that for many people it is a prohibited food due to its high glycemic index, which causes a very pronounced sugar spike after taking it. Although There are options to have less impact. Your metabolism. Our body, due to the refined flours used, causes its carbohydrates to be digested quickly, causing a blood glucose spike. However, for some time now a ‘biohack’ has been circulating on the internet that promises to change this with a simple gesture: put the bread in the freezer and toast it before eating it. Something that can be ideal especially for diabetics. Here the question is almost obligatory: is it an urban legend? What happens to the bread? To understand why bread changes its properties when cooled or heated, we must look at its main component, which it’s starch. In these cases, when the bread is baked, the starch gelatinizes, becoming easily digestible for our enzymes, and this causes the sugar to quickly pass into the blood. However, when we subject that bread to an extreme cooling process, such as freezing, and subsequently toast it, the molecular structure of the starch changes. What occurs here is a physical-chemical phenomenon known as retrogradation, which has as its final result the formation of type 3 resistant starch. A new starch. Type 3 resistant starch lives up to its name, as it resists digestion in the small intestine. The result is that, instead of being broken down into glucose quickly, it passes intact to the large intestine, where it acts in a similar way to dietary fiber, serving as food for our intestinal microbiota. What does science say? This mechanism is something that already It was tested in 2008 with the publication of an article that measured the glycemic response in healthy volunteers after consuming white bread subjected to different processes: Fresh white bread: 259 mmol min/l. Just toasted white bread: 193 mmol min/l. White bread frozen and then toasted: 157 mmol min/l. The important thing here is that frozen and then toasted white bread shows a significant drop in the glycemic index. That is, the simple act of freezing the bread and putting it through the toaster reduced the glucose spike by almost 40%. There is more evidence. In addition to this, there are other published studies that showed that frozen and reheated white bread generates a much lower glycemic response at all times measured after ingestion. In fact, already in 1988, another study showed that roasting reduces the degree of digestion, and subsequent work confirms that leave it frozen for a long time The amount of resistant starch progressively increases. It’s not magic. Although science suggests that toasted and frozen bread is metabolically better at keeping glycemic spikes at bay, there is fine print to keep in mind. One of these important points is that, in healthy people, reducing the glycemic index is interesting on a physiological level, but its impact on general health or weight loss is minimal if it is not accompanied by a healthier diet. Additionally, toasting bread increases its palatability. That is, it is richer, crunchier and not as filling as fresh bread, which can lead us to eat more, canceling out any benefits of resistant starch. The alternatives. If you want to continue eating bread but with a lower impact on your health, one of the options is to opt for whole grain bread that is 100% whole grain or made with long-fermented sourdough, since they have an inherently lower glycemic index thanks to their high fiber content. But we must also remember that the glycemic load of a meal does not depend on a single food. Combining bread with good sources of protein, healthy fats, such as extra virgin olive oil, and fiber flattens the glucose curve much more forcefully than the best toasted bread. In Xataka | Bread has always been a pillar of the Spanish diet. Now it is suffering a historic crisis and no one knows why

Europe has just taken a 180-degree turn in its nuclear policy and has left Spain completely out of the game

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The backdrop couldn’t be more tense. According to an official statement of the International Energy Agency (IEA)the crisis in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz have deteriorated crude oil markets to the point of forcing the release of emergency reserves. In the midst of this climate of urgency, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has broken a historical taboo. During the Nuclear Energy Summit held in Paris, Von der Leyen has intoned the continental ‘mea culpa’: “Europe made a strategic mistake by moving away from a reliable and affordable source of low-emission energy.” The Brussels diagnosis. According to German Wellepoints out that electricity prices in Europe are “structurally too high” and hamper competitiveness. In 1990, a third of European electricity came from the atom; today it is only 15%. In fact, the former Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson, warned of “serious problem” What it will mean for Europe to disconnect 98 nuclear reactors in the short term without solid support. 200 million euros for the atom. To correct this “error”, Von der Leyen has put 200 million euros on the table from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. But here we must make a fundamental stop to understand the debate: this money is not destined to build traditional macro nuclear power plants like the ones we know, but to the Small Modular Reactors (SMR). It is not nuclear as we know it. As detailed Spanish Radio Television (RTVE), the new strategy seeks to reduce risks for private investors and create “regulatory sandboxes” for these SMRs to be operational in the early 2030s. This nuance dismantles much of the current noise: Spain is closing traditional first and second generation reactors that have exhausted their design life. The EU is not betting on reviving that old model, but rather on financing SMR technology that is not yet commercially viable on a large scale. France: sovereignty on the lectern, protectionism on the border. The great winner of this turn is Emmanuel Macron. Coinciding with the 15th anniversary of Fukushima, the French president defended in Paris that nuclear power is Europe’s shield against hydrocarbon blackmail. However, behind this speech lies a fierce protectionist strategy, since France acts as an electrical “plug”. While Germany pays more than €100/MWh for electricity and Spain or Portugal register zero or negative prices due to their enormous wind and solar production, France blocks the Pyrenean interconnections. Paris needs to make profitable at all costs an investment of 300 billion euros in its nuclear park. Passing up Iberian solar energy would put downward pressure on its prices. Thanks to this wall, France has broken his record exporting 92.3 TWh to its northern neighbors, pocketing 5.4 billion euros, while criticizing the Spanish model as “unstable.” And the situation in Spain. On the one hand, the Peninsula is the continent’s gas lifeline. The country owns 35% of the LNG storage capacity of the EU thanks to its seven regasification plants. But this fortress has run into a diplomatic obstacle. Following President Pedro Sánchez’s refusal to support the military offensive in Iran (under the slogan “No to war”), the United States has threatened Spain with a trade embargo. Taking into account that the US supplied 44.4% of Spanish gas in January 2026, the consequences could be notable: analysts predict increases of up to 18% in the gas bill and 17% in electricity bills. To escape this fossil dependence and not waste renewable energy when prices fall to zero, Spain has activated a shock plan silent. In a single month (January 2026), Spain connected 57 megawatts worth of batteries to the electrical grid, more than in the previous three years combined, preparing to store its cheaper energy. The decline of the green agenda? Von der Leyen’s turn is not only energetic, it also has deep political significance. In an opinion column in The Countryjournalist Claudi Pérez accuses the president of the Commission of inoculating a “Trumpist virus” in the EU. By stating that Europe “can no longer be the guardian of the old world order”, Brussels relegates the green agenda and the rules-based international order to the background, moving towards a more militaristic and deregulatory vision. This discontent was highlighted with the protest of Greenpeace activists breaking into the Paris summit shouting “Nuclear energy fuels war.” Europe finds itself trapped in an unsustainable contradiction: it showers public money on nuclear promises for the next decade, assuming the risks of foreign uranium, while blocking its borders from the sun and southern winds that already produce cheap energy today. Image | Audiovisual Service and Clickgauche Xataka | Spain and Portugal would love to share the “free” energy they are generating these days. The problem is called France

OpenAI says its agreement with the Pentagon is completely secure. His way of convincing us: “Trust us”

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Don’t worry about anything, really. Trust us. Who says it is OpenAI, a company led by Sam Altman that has earned the reputation of saying one thing on one hand and doing another on the other. There are whole books written on that premise, and it is inevitable not to remember it now that this gigantic startup has signed a disturbing agreement. soap opera. OpenAI reached an agreement with the Department of Defense to integrate its AI models into government agencies, replacing Anthropic. They did so by indicating that they would impose requirements on the use of these models and would have red lines similar to those defended in Anthropic: no mass espionage, no development of autonomous weapons. That decision has cost Anthropic the contract with the DoDbut also has been tagged as a “risk to the supply chain.” Trust us. There are two problems here. The first, that OpenAI has never shown the contract that makes it clear that there are red lines to the use of GPT by the military. And the second and most serious, that according to OpenAI we do not need it because we only need to trust them. Altman himself tried to dispel doubts explaining that they had added amendments to the agreement to ensure that those red lines were not crossed. The wall of opacity. Despite promises of transparency, OpenAI refuses to publish the contract. The firm’s head of national security, Katrina Muligan, he came to affirm in that it does not feel “obliged” to share the legal language of the agreement. This has raised suspicions about what has really been signed behind the scenes. Holes everywhere. Brad Carson, who served as secretary of the US Army under Obama, indicated at The Intercept how Sam Altman’s legal language in his posts on X is suspect. The CEO of OpenAI mention for example that “the AI ​​system will not be intentionally used for domestic surveillance of US citizens.” That “intentionally” is, according to experts like Carson, a kind of blank check to allow data on American citizens to be captured while spying on foreigners “by accident” but systematically. As Carson explains, They are trying to confuse you with complicated legal terms that ordinary people think mean something completely different. But lawyers know what it means. And lawyers know that this is no protection. The human factor. The integration of OpenAI’s AI into DoD systems now falls under the direct supervision of Secretary of Defense Pet Hegseth and President Trump. This represents an ethical dilemma: the security of the system depends on the political will of figures who have traditionally had no problem eliminating restrictions on mass surveillance systems. Quo vadis, OpenAI. The 180º turn it’s clear for OpenAI. While in its beginnings the startup was defined With the message of creating AI systems “for the benefit of humanity” and prohibiting the military use of its technology, this agreement demonstrates that such premises no longer seem to exist. another bad sign. This way of acting by OpenAI has caused it to be openly criticized on networks, but there have also been internal problems. This is demonstrated by the fact that its director of robotics, Caitlin Kalinowski, has decided to resign from office over concerns about the company’s military negotiations. And an obvious question. The dispute between the Department of Defense and the Pentagon centered precisely on the fact that they did not want Anthropic to establish red lines. OpenAI claims to have established basically the same ones, so how is it possible that the DoD allows OpenAI to establish them when it has not allowed Anthropic to do so? It doesn’t seem to make any sense. What a mess. We are living a real soap opera with three protagonists. The US Department of Defense (DoD) – now renamed the Department of War –, the company Anthropic and its rival, OpenAI. The DoD, which used Anthropic’s AI for military operations, He demanded to be able to use it without restrictionsbut Dario Amodei, CEO of the startup, he flatly refused. That was the moment Sam Altman took advantage of to become the new ally of the DoDsomething that has been seen by many as opportunistic and morally reprehensible. Image | Xataka with Freepik In Xataka | The war between Anthropic and the Pentagon points to something terrifying: a new “Oppenheimer Moment”

Apple completely changes the architecture of its chips with a textbook “divide and conquer”

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The week started with a flurry of news from Apple, something we already expected after Tim Cook’s words stating that it was going to be a “great week.” And in addition to the new iPhone 17e and iPad Airtoday it was the MacBook’s turn. In this article we wanted to focus on explaining what is special about the new M5 Pro and M5 Max processors, chips that land at the latest MacBook Pro. The company follows the same pattern as always. First comes the base chip, the M5, which we already saw in the 14-inch MacBook Prohe iPad Pro and Apple Vision Proalong with the new MacBook Air, and then, they take advantage of their most capable equipment to welcome the most powerful variants. But this year there is something different, and that is that the company uses a new manufacturing architecture internal that Apple had not used until now in its Mac chips. We will tell you all the details. Apple’s M4 Pro and M4 Max SoCs, in numbers m5 pro m5 max M5 m4 photolithography 3nm (3rd gen) 3nm (2nd generation) 3nm (2nd generation) 3nm architecture Fusion Fusion A single die A single die CPU cores Up to 18 18 Up to 10 Up to 10 Supercores 6 6 4 4 performance cores 12 12 6 6 GPU cores Up to 20 Up to 40 Up to 10 Up to 10 neural engine 16 16 16 16 maximum unified memory 64 128 32 32 bandwidth 307GB/s 614 GB/s 153GB/s 120GB/s ray tracing Yes (3rd gen.) Yes (3rd gen.) Yes (3rd gen.) Yeah neural accelerator on GPU Yes (per core) Yes (per core) Yes (per core) No connectivity Thunderbolt 5 Thunderbolt 5 Thunderbolt 4 Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 codecs H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 H.264, HEVC, ProRes, AV1 memory integrity enforcement Yeah Yeah No No The big news: the Fusion architecture Perhaps one of the most striking aspects of these new chips is the call ‘Fusion’ architecture. Apple has designed this SoC (system on a chip) by combining two other chips manufactured in TSMC’s third-generation 3-nanometer node. The signature promise that the chips communicate with each other through very high bandwidth and minimal latency. Why this approach? As chips grow in number of cores and memory needs, Putting everything on a single piece of silicon becomes increasingly complicated and expensive. The solution of dividing it into two interconnected chips allows its capabilities to be scaled without sacrificing efficiency. Each of these chips integrates CPU, GPU, neural engine, unified memory controller, Media Engine (which are the cores dedicated to processing multimedia codecs) and controllers. Thunderbolt 5. It is, in essence, the basis that makes it possible for the M5 Max to reach figures that we previously only saw in desktop chips. A new CPU from top to bottom Both the M5 Pro and M5 Max share the same CPU design: 18 cores organized into two very different types. On the one hand there are the so-called super cores: six high-performance cores which Apple also incorporated into the standard M5. The company assures which are “the world’s fastest CPU cores in single-thread performance”thanks to the fact that they handle greater bandwidth, and have a new cache hierarchy and better branch prediction. On the other hand, the chip incorporates 12 performance cores completely new, different from the efficiency cores we have seen in previous generations. They are optimized specifically for multi-threaded workloads that require sustained power without skyrocketing consumption. The combination of both groups of cores allows, according to Apple, a jump of up to 30% in performance for professional tasks regarding M4 Pro and M4 Maxand up to 2.5 times more multi-threaded performance compared to M1 Pro and M1 Max. It will be interesting to see this performance improvement in action when we test the devices in depth. What the M5 Pro promises Your GPU scales up to 20 cores next generation, each with an integrated neural accelerator. Memory bandwidth goes up to 307GB/sand the chip can manage up to 64 GB of unified memory. Apple promises up to 20% more graphics performance compared to the M4 Pro, and up to 35% improvement in applications that use ray tracing, thanks to its dedicated third-generation engine included in the chip. The shading engine is also updated, incorporating second-generation dynamic caching technology and hardware-accelerated mesh shading. What this technology basically does is simplify complex geometries into more manageable meshes for when it’s time to render. In terms of AI, Apple claims that the M5 Pro offers more than four times the GPU performance for artificial intelligence compared to the M4 Pro, and more than six times compared to the M1 Pro. M5 Max: the ceiling of Apple laptops The M5 Max shares the same 18-core CPU as the M5 Pro, but doubles the graphics and memory resources. Your GPU reaches 40 coresthe unified memory bandwidth reaches 614 GB/s (twice as much as the M5 Pro) and can hold up to 128 GB of unified memory. In graphic performance, Apple assures an improvement of up to 20% compared to the M4 Maxand up to 30% in ray tracing applications. For AI tasks, the chip promises more than four times the peak GPU performance compared to its direct predecessor and more than six times compared to the M1 Max. With these astronomical figures, Apple puts on the table a tremendously capable chip for all types of professionals, from 3D artists to app developers, AI, etc. And in the end, having such an amount of bandwidth on a laptop makes tasks with large volumes of data much easier to digest. We will see in practice how they perform. The rest of the package: Neural Engine, Thunderbolt 5 and security Beyond the CPU and GPU, both chips incorporate a 16-core Neural Engine renewed, which promises a higher bandwidth connection to memory, ideal for functions of Apple Intelligence and other local AI applications. In connectivity, the M5 Pro and … Read more

An end of February with 20 ºC, haze and full reservoirs is not "good time": it is the sign of a completely misplaced meteorology

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If we take a brief look at how February 2026 is ending (the sun, the 20 degrees, the haze, the candy-like reservoirs), it is difficult not to say to ourselves: “Finally some good weather!” Above all, if we take into account that after these days of calm, a front will enter from the northwest, inaugurating meteorological spring in style. And yet, it is inevitable to raise an eyebrow. But let’s start at the beginning…. The arrival of a front from the northwest is not only synonymous with rain, but with a progressive drop in temperature and the return of the frosts after disappearing for a few days. Of course, the southern half is not going to notice it too much. Otherwise, the haze has been there for days causing problems (and locust rains in the Canary Islands) and, in the background, a DANA starts to give signs about what will approach Andalusia on Monday or Tuesday. In Xataka After the rains, Spain faces the same problem as a year ago: a devastating fire season Where is spring? If that’s the question, the answer is that it’s already here. Not just because this weekend ‘astronomic spring’ beginsbut because the meteorological dynamics have made everything accelerate in a strange way. Neither the processions deceiveneither allergies disappear. And that means the trap is already here. Because, although the reservoirs are full, they are not filled homogeneously. While Spain is at 83%, there are many basins with many problems (the Segura is at 47.2% and that of Júcar at 63.7%). And, starting in March, both evaporative demandas consumption (agricultural irrigation, urban peaks, tourism) skyrocket. Therefore, with the history of poor management that we have in the country and this feeling of “false security” that is spreading, having the reservoirs full unfortunately means nothing. Absolutely nothing. {“videoId”:”x7zoac4″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Climate change and the influence of humans”, “tag”:”Earth”, “duration”:”304″} More problems, many problems. To all this we must add that we do not know what is going to happen from now on. We will never know, it is true: but this precipitation scenario is so new and unusual that all scenarios are open. The only thing that is clear is that, if we do not start managing the forest, forest fires are going to mark the country as soon as the heat arrives. The new normal? That is the second big question because the pan-European studies agree that we are going towards an earlier start of spring compared to previous decades. But no one is very clear if this is an anomaly or a first step. What is clear is that, no matter what happens, this is especially noticeable here in the south. And that is the first big question: Are we prepared? Are we willing to do what we have to do? Image |AEMET In Xataka |In China they are deploying metal firefighters. Maybe they are more useful than robo-waiters (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news An end of February with 20 ºC, haze and full reservoirs is not “good weather”: it is the sign of a completely misplaced meteorology was originally published in Xataka by Javier Jimenez .

Spain had a completely saturated electrical grid. And then data centers arrived to blow it up even more

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Imagine a highway on which not a single vehicle can fit anymore. But the problem is not that there is a lack of asphalt, but that the cars do not know how to drive efficiently and keep kilometer-long safety distances. The Spanish electrical grid was exactly that. It had been operating for years at the limit of its administrative capacity, and suddenly, a convoy of trucks of industrial tonnage and voracious appetite has arrived at the access ramp: data centers. These megainfrastructures, pillars of artificial intelligence and the cloud, promise to water the economy of millions, but their brutal need for supply threatened to burst the seams of an already saturated electrical system. To avoid collapse and not let the reindustrialization train escape, the Government has had to react and radically change the technical rules of the game. Cascading capacity collapse. To understand the collapse we have to look at how our way of consuming energy has changed. The energy transition is profoundly reconfiguring the model throughout the national territory. Requests to connect to transportation and distribution networks have skyrocketed. In addition to the electrification of industry and renewable hydrogen, there is now massive consumption associated with data centers for artificial intelligence. The problem broke out when the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) established a “dynamic criterion” to calculate how much access capacity was available in the areas shared by several network nodes. As detailed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in his press releaseapplying this criterion means that a single access requested at a node can cause a “cascading effect that drains capacity in the rest of the nodes that share the area”, blocking requests from dozens of kilometers away. Basically, a large data center asks for passage and, automatically, the system administratively blocks neighboring nodes as a precaution, even if physically the cables have plenty of space. Investments in the air and the ghost of the blackout. The consequences of this traffic jam directly affect the real economy and national security. Real estate and industrial paralysis. The situation is so critical that, as we already mentioned in our previous coverage citing the Asprima employers’ associationlast year only 12% of connection requests for new urban developments were granted. There are 350,000 homes at risk simply due to lack of electrical power. The risk of an electrical “zero”. The Official State Gazette warns that the increase in installations that are not able to withstand “tension gaps” poses a very high risk. If there is a disturbance and these generators are massively disconnected, exchange flows are produced that are incompatible with Spain’s limited interconnections with Europe. As the diary recalls The Countrythe objective is to avoid at all costs a repeat of massive blackouts like the one suffered by the Iberian Peninsula on April 28, 2025. It is not enough to put more cables. In areas limited by this dynamic criterion, it is no longer possible to enable new capacity simply by investing money in reinforcing the network with “more copper.” The expert in the sector Joaquín Coronado sums it up perfectly: the demand must be 100% active; It must provide flexibility and commit to the stability of the system. The Government’s emergency surgery. To unclog this Gordian knot, the Government and regulators have launched a three-way shock plan: The new Royal Decree of MITECO. The Ministry has been brought to public hearing (until March 16) a standard that updates the technical requirements to connect to the network. The master key is that now it is required that the demands “withstand voltage gaps”, do not introduce adverse oscillations and maintain the quality of the wave. By forcing installations not to disconnect in the event of small disturbances, the number of nodes affected in shared areas is reduced. This simple technical measure could bring out 50% more capacity in about 900 knots of connection to the high-voltage network. The “flexible permits” of the CNMC. To put an end to the binary model (either I give you all the capacity or I deny it), the CNMC has proposed four new types of permits, as we already broke down in Xataka. These range from allowing consumption only in certain time slots, to “dynamic” permissions where the operator can remotely disconnect a data center if there is an emergency on the network. The “technical amnesty” for data giants. In parallel, the Ministry of Industry has been urgently removed the “off-peak” requirement. Previously, to receive aid, you had to consume at night, an absurdity for a data center (which operates 24/7) and for today’s Spain, where solar energy has brought down prices at midday. The citizen cost and the fine print. The Government’s maneuver not only responds to a national emergency, but also places Spain as a pioneer on the continent. The country is anticipating the update of the European network codes, deploying a battery of technical specifications simultaneously that is already considered a milestone worldwide, as detailed The Country. In this deployment, the new regulations also settle a historical debt with energy storage: batteries will finally have their own specific regulatory framework, no longer being administratively treated as simple “generation by analogy” facilities. However, this deep digitalization so that the network supports such a complex mode of operation will not come for free, and the bill for modernization will end up looming in the consumer’s pocket. Forecasts for 2026 They already estimate direct increases in citizen receipts, with a 4% increase in tolls and a not inconsiderable 10.5% in electricity system charges. And while citizens assume the technical cost, the data giants – recipients of this regulatory red carpet – prefer to remain cautious in the face of the eternal Spanish bureaucratic obstacle. The technology sector warns that a key piece of the puzzle is missing: If the Government does not expressly include the National Code of Economic Activity (CNAE) corresponding to “Data Processing” in the official list of sectors entitled to receive the million-dollar electro-intensive aid, all … Read more

23 years later, Western Europe’s largest swamp is completely full

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When in the mid-1950s, someone thought about building a dam in one of the driest areas of Portugal, the criticism was very simple: make a reservoir in Alquevassimply absurd: “it will never be filled.” And that prejudice meant that (for more than fifty years) the project was put in a drawer. But, at the end of the century, the Portuguese country decided to take it back and its floodgates closed in 2002. What happened next showed that those critics had no idea. A huge work of engineering. Of course, the skepticism was well founded. ‘Alqueva’ means precisely ‘fallow land’, ‘desert’. But that did not mean that it was meaningless, quite the opposite: that a much greater ambition was needed. And that’s what they did: with a total capacity of 4,150 hm³ and a surface area of ​​250 km², it not only regulates the Guadiana. It provides water to supply the consumption network (200,000 inhabitants), to produce energy (520 MW) and to irrigate hundreds of thousands of hectares (130,000, it seems). It is the largest reservoir in Western Europe. A monster that now has to be unpacked. That is what is striking, that had to unpack. Not because it’s the first time: between 2010 and 2013 he did it on several occasionsbut the deep drought of recent years meant that there was no fear that it would not happen again. Although it is happening: these days, Alquevas has been draining at the rate of an Olympic swimming pool every two seconds. Is there much left to do? Although seeing the monstrous Alquevas reservoir full it is inevitable to think about what more projects are still to be done, the truth is that we do not have much room for maneuver. The majority of “easy” reservoirs are already built and most of those that could be built would have great technical, social and economic problems to carry out. So we will have to go a little further: think about how we approach this possible “new normal” if it ever occurs. Image | Ceinturion In Xataka | Andalusia anticipates the storm and has already canceled in-person classes and activated the UME. The doubt is placed on the workers

Silver is completely out of control, so the solar panel industry has decided something: go independent

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Solar energy, promised as the cheapest and most abundant source of electricity in history, has hit a geological and financial roadblock of critical proportions. The photovoltaic industry is suffering what the Financial Times has baptized like a Silver Squeeze (silver strangulation), a suffocating pressure derived from the dizzying rise in the price of this metal. Manufacturers, who have been fighting for years against slim margins, are now “feeling the heat” of a raw material that has become unaffordable, forcing them into a frenetic technological race to eliminate it from their products. This is not a simple market rally. What we are witnessing is a “perfect storm” where real physical scarcity threatens to slow down the energy transition. According to Bloombergthe rise in silver has hit some solar panel manufacturers that were already burdened by losses after years of brutal competition. After five consecutive years of deficit, silver is no longer just a safe haven asset to become the bottleneck of the green economy. The figures are dizzying. According to the Financial Timesthe price of silver has risen 300% in the last year, breaking the psychological barrier of $100 and currently standing at $112 per ounce. This increase is fueled by three fires: geopolitical fear of possible US military intervention, the voracity of the industry and the massive entry of retail investors, for whom silver is “the poor man’s gold.” This speculative appetite has skyrocketed prices by 60% since the beginning of 2026 alone. The magnitude of the increase in prices is such that from investment portals such as Investing News have reported record prices of $93.77 in mid-January, but market reality has exceeded forecasts in just weeks. But there are geopolitical actors pulling the strings behind this scenario. China, the largest global refiner, has imposed strict controls to export by 2026-2027, shielding its strategic resources for its own renewable energy and Artificial Intelligence industry. Added to this is that India and Russia are aggressively buying physical silver, draining inventories in London and Asia and causing real shortages in Western markets. Financial drain and existential threat The impact on the cost structure of a solar panel has been devastating. According to data from BloombergNEFsilver has gone from representing 3.4% of the cost of a module in 2023, to 14% last year, to an unsustainable 29% today. Silver has dethroned polysilicon and become the most expensive component in manufacturing. For the giants of the sector, this is raining in the wet. Titans like JinkoSolar, Longi and Trina Solar They are posting quarterly losses consecutive in the midst of a “vicious price war.” Factories operate at just 50% of their capacity and, in many cases, sell modules below production cost. Jenny Chase analyst cited by Financial Timessummarizes the situation without hot towels: “It is very painful for solar module manufacturers, who are already having a terrible time and are expected to report losses by 2025.” The problem is that companies have their hands tied in passing on these costs. As explained in PV Magazinedue to excess capacity and weak demand, it is “almost impossible” to pass on the entire increase in the price of silver to the end customer. Although Chinese manufacturers have recently tried to raise prices between 1.4% and 3.8%, these increases are minuscule compared to the 180% or 300% increase in raw material prices. The long-term consequence is what experts call “demand destruction.” If prices remain at these levels, silver use in the PV industry could fall by 20% this year, not only due to efficiency, but because the industry simply cannot afford it. The great substitution Faced with financial asphyxiation, the industry has accelerated what they call “thrifting”, a race against time to replace silver with cheaper metals. The favorite candidate is copper. According to Investing Newscopper is trading 22,000% cheaper than silver and is much more abundant, making it the great hope for saving profit margins. Faced with suffocation, the industry has accelerated the thrifting (material savings) to replace silver with copper, which is 22,000% cheaper. The large Chinese manufacturers already they have made a move. Longi Green Energy will begin mass production of cells using base metals (such as copper and aluminum) in the second quarter of this year. Trina Solar is developing copper contacts to reduce its dependence, and Aiko Solar has already begun producing completely silver-free cells. The Chinese industry, which is more intensive in the use of silver than the European one, lead this forced transition. However, the change is not easy. As they warn in PV Magazine warns that not all solar technologies are equally suited: while heterojunction (HJT) and back contact (BC) cells facilitate the use of copper, the current dominant technology (TOPCon) requires high temperature processes that make copper vulnerable to oxidation. Here lies the greatest risk of this flight forward. Copper oxidizes and degrades faster than silver. Bloomberg alert about danger of launching copper panels on the market without sufficient longevity tests. Customers demand 20-year warranties; If new panels fail within 10 years due to copper corrosion, manufacturers could face massive liabilities that would put them out of business. As one precious metals expert points out: “Going too far too fast can be risky.” A future of scarcity and recycling The pressure on silver doesn’t just come from the sun. At this point we introduce in the equation Artificial Intelligence. The data centers necessary for AI consume enormous amounts of energy, which triggers demand for solar installations and, therefore, money. It is a vicious circle where technology devours physical resources. Furthermore, the electric vehicle (EV) enters like another big predator: An electric car consumes up to 50 grams of silver, almost twice as much as a combustion car. It is estimated that demand from the automotive sector could triple by 2030. In this context of shortages, some companies are taking desperate measures. He Financial Times reveals that Samsung Construction and Trading has skipped the middlemen and signed a two-year direct agreement with a mining company to secure its supply. … Read more

Google has decided to touch the heart of Gmail. Gemini aims to transform the inbox into something completely new

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Email has been there for decades, functioning almost silently, as a basic piece of digital life that we rarely question. We use it for studies, work, registering for services, coordinating our personal life and resolving procedures that continue to pass, to a large extent, through the inbox. Precisely for this reason, the changes in this section are usually minimal and prudent. Gmail has been a good example of that stability for years. Now, Google has decided intervene in a more profound way and do so relying on artificial intelligence. From the Mountain View company, the argument is clear: the problem is no longer just receiving emails, but managing the volume and context that accumulate in the inbox. Gmail was born in 2004 in a very different scenario, and today it coexists with endless threads, cross conversations and an information load that never stops growing. In this framework, the company presents the so-called “Gemini era” as a logical step, a way to turn the inbox into something more than a chronological file and begin to treat it as an active system to understand, prioritize and act on information. Google links a good part of these changes to Gemini 3the model that claims to be behind the new capabilities. Search less, ask more. The traditional logic of email has always been the same: search, filter and read. AI Overviews breaks that sequence by introducing a layer of automatic synthesis. When a thread gets longer, Gmail can generate a summary with the important points, avoiding having to go through message by message. And when what is needed is specific information, the proposal is even more direct: ask the inbox. Gemini interprets the query, reviews the relevant emails and returns a summarized response. Google separates the scope of these features: automatic thread summaries gradually roll out to everyone, while the option to ask inbox questions with AI Overviews is tied to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions. Write with help and understand what goes into each plan. Beyond reading email better, Google also wants to make writing it take less effort. Help me write is free and allows you to both polish existing messages and write them from scratch based on a brief indication. Added to that are the new Suggested Replies, which evolve the classic quick replies by taking into account the full context of the thread and the user’s own style. The most advanced layer, Proofread, adds grammar, tone, and style checking, but is reserved for those who subscribe to Google AI Pro and Ultra. According to Google, the rollout begins today in the United States and starts in English, with the promise of expanding languages ​​and regions in the coming months. The new inbox. AI Inbox is the most ambitious bet of this change. Gmail introduces an alternative view that transforms the inbox into a combination of task list and summary of active topics. Artificial intelligence promises to detect pending commitments, payments, appointments or responses and present them as suggested actions, while grouping long conversations together for easy catch-up. The idea is not to replace email, but to reinterpret it, making what is important emerge without the need to manually scroll through messages that, although relevant, are buried by the volume. At the moment, AI Inbox does not come as a function open to everyone. Google is testing it with “trusted testers” in the United States and only through the browser, with priority for personal Gmail accounts and not for Workspace accounts. Furthermore, the proposal still has visible shortcomings: there is no system to mark suggested actions as completed, which limits its usefulness as a task manager. Control in the hands of the user. New features powered by Gemini can be turned on or off, and the classic inbox is still available. However, that control is not completely granular: turning off AI also means you lose other smart features that many users already took for granted. Regarding privacy, Google states that it does not use Gmail emails to train its artificial intelligence models, a key guarantee so that this new layer does not generate distrust in such a sensitive space. This movement makes it clear that Google has decided not to stand still in a field that had been operating for years without profound changes. If this new way of understanding email proves to be useful on a daily basis, it is reasonable to think that other providers will end up following a similar path. In technological careers, not moving or reacting late usually has a cost. But email is also governed by a very different logic: if something works, touching it involves risks. Gmail now enters a real testing phase, where it will be necessary to see if this bet manages to simplify the experience or adds unnecessary complexity. Images | Google In Xataka | Alphabet has just overtaken Apple in the ranking of the most valuable companies in the world. The reason is in AI

The RAM memory crisis seemed to have its months numbered. Micron has a completely different perspective

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They say that there is never a bad time to do something you really want and that, many times, the only thing that stops us is finding the right excuse not to start. That idea can work in many areas, but today it doesn’t fit very well if what you have in mind is build your own PC. At least not without assuming that the current context clearly works against it. We are witnessing firsthand how the so-called “memory crisis” is pushing upand notably, the prices of NAND memories, key in SSD units, and of the DRAM used in computers and laptops. We have more and more reasons to be patient, because an actor as relevant as Micron already warns that the challenges for the sector will persist for quite some time. The memory crisis is still far from resolved The company has put a date on the table and it is not what many expected. In its communication of resultsSanjay Mehrotra, CEO of Micron, spoke of “tight conditions” in DRAM and NAND and said that they are expected to “persist through and beyond 2026“In other words, if today we are already seeing how memory is becoming more expensive, Micron is warning that it does not point to a clear return to normality in 2026. That nuance matters, because it changes the horizon of anyone who is thinking about building or upgrading a PC in the short term. There are numbers that help to understand why this phenomenon does not remain a simple market swing. The firm once again reported record revenues of $13.64 billion in the last quarter, compared to $8.71 billion in the same period of the previous year, driven by the push for AI. That does not mean that there is excess product in all segments, because capacity and industrial priorities do not adjust to the pace of demand. Micron says it expects to increase its DRAM and NAND shipments by 20% next year, but acknowledges that boost isn’t enough to catch up. To understand why the domestic market is more exposed, it is worth looking at the photo of the factory. Micron is pushing its business toward HBMa memory designed for high-performance systems in data centers, and that has an opportunity cost. It is a technology that uses three times more silicon wafers than conventional DRAM, which means that, with the same capacity base, fewer units can be produced for the rest of the segments. It is not that consumption memory disappears, it is that it has less priority. Micron is pushing its business toward HBM. The first consequence is already being noticed by those of us who look at prices to build or expand a PC. Memory is what is becoming more expensive and the effect is seen, for example, in DDR5 kits. From there, the tension begins to filter through the rest of the chain, not only due to price, but also due to availability. The decision with Crucial also fits into this shift in priorities. Micron will stop selling consumer products under that brandwhich means one less player in this market, and greater pressure for those who are still in the race in the domestic sector. If Micron makes one thing clear with its roadmap, it is that standardization is not around the corner. The company is accelerating investment and capacity, but with a calendar that moves in yearsnot in weeks, and that forces us to look at 2026 with another face. For those who are thinking about buying or building a PC, the prudent reading is simple: it is advisable to assume that memory will continue to be a sensitive component, both in terms of price and availability, for a good period of time. Images | Micron | Samsung In Xataka | RAM is so expensive that smartphone manufacturers already have a plan: return to phones with 4 GB of RAM

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