danger

Every time the Vatican has warned of the danger of a technology, that technology has ended up changing the world. It’s up to the AI

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Let’s do a little memory. The 15th century was ending and The Christian Church found the printing press wonderful.almost providential. The adoption of that invention by ecclesiastical institutions was enthusiastic because it allowed them to amplify their mission. It didn’t take long for the discourse to change noticeably. in the bull Inter multiplies In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII praised it but warned of its risks: the same thing that served to spread the word of God, could serve to spread heresies and false ideas. It was then that censorship was introduced according to which no book should be printed without the approval of the ecclesiastical authorities. That laid the foundations for the future Index librorum prohibitorum which established a list of prohibited works for all of Christendom. That didn’t go too well. Martin Luther precisely took advantage of that divine invention to distribute your propaganda during the Protestant Reformation, and if this movement ended up being successful it was undoubtedly thanks to the printing press. It is not in vain that Luther is considered the first author of best-sellers of history. The encyclicals in the face of technological advances Let’s move forward. In 1891 Pope Leo XIII published his encyclical Rerum Novarumpossibly the most famous social encyclical in history. In it the pontiff focused on the rights of workers as response to the disturbing Industrial Revolution. He denounced the concentration of wealth and new technologies “in the hands of a few,” and warned that this was turning workers into slaves. Let’s keep moving forward. 90 years ago, Pius XI launched his act Vigilanti Cura (1936), dedicated exclusively to cinema. It recognized the technological progress that cinematography represented, but warned that if it was not strictly regulated, it would become the greatest instrument of moral corruption and mass manipulation in history. That message would be accompanied by the encyclical Miranda Prorsus (1957), by Pius XII, which extended that warning to both radio and televisionwhich had as much or more capacity than cinema to be beneficial but also toxic to humanity. There have been other social encyclicals related to technology: Pacem in Terris (1963) by John XXIII spoke of the atomic danger, while Evangelium Vitae (1995) by John Paul II was a wake-up call against eugenic biomedical techniques and embryo manipulation. The curious thing is that most of these encyclicals were published many years after certain technological advances had occurred. That would make one think that there are one or several encyclicals dedicated to the internet, mobile phones or social networks. There are not, although these topics have been mentioned by the last Popes in other messages. Arrives Magnificent Humanitas Therefore it is surprising that Pope Leo XIV has dedicated an entire encyclical to artificial intelligence. He has done it just three years after ChatGPT was launched, and he has also done it with a unique title: Magnificent Humanitas (2026). A fact: Robert Fracis Prevost, Pope Leo XIV, graduated in mathematics in 1977 from Villanova University in Philadelphia. This encyclical follows a very clear historical line of argument: on many occasions in which a disruptive technology appears, the Vatican adopts the role of “ethical brake” and tries to warn of something relevant: technical and technological advances must be subordinated to human beings. In Magnificent Humanitas the discourse is known and reasonable: warning that large AI companies They will end up imposing their moral vision on the entire planet. It is not just that hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) or companies like OpenAI or Anthropic dominate this market in the commercial section: it is that this dominance also translates into a form of influence that is even more worrying than cinema or television were (and are). The encyclical also warns of how AI is causing a “cognitive displacement” in which human beings end up preferring that algorithms think for them instead of making a reflective effort. The text is very long (40,000 words, which is approximately equivalent to a novel of about 150 pages) and ambitious, and covers many more areas, but the univocal message is that of a warning about the dangers of this technology. If one looks at this entire catalog of papal warnings from a historical perspective, it is impossible not to see the paradox. Most of the technologies that the Vatican once denounced as existential threats ended up, in the end, making the world a better, more prosperous and more connected place. The printing press democratized culture, the Industrial Revolution raised the global standard of living, cinema and television enriched the collective imagination, and biotechnology saves lives. History shows us that these bad omens of the Popes never came to pass completely, but we must be careful. The value of these encyclicals is not in their ability to predict the future, but in their function as ethical counterweights. It’s okay and necessary that someone warns about the risks, because those dangers were and still are real. Image | The Holy See In Xataka | Spain has been a Catholic country for more than 1,500 years. “The Change” now wants to turn it into an evangelical one

Wind turbine blades are a deadly danger to birds. The solution: paint them like poisonous snakes

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One of the great drivers of the global energy transition are wind turbines. Of course, they have been carrying a silent problem for decades: they kill animals. Wind turbines kill 368,000 birds a year in the United States and Canada alone, according to this study published in PubMed. The data for Europe is more fragmented and varies greatly by country and type of facility: in Germany for example place mortality between 100,000 and 250,000 birds per year and SEO/BirdLife esteem that between 1.2 and 4.6 million birds die per year (data from 2023). Given that the expansion of wind power seems unstoppable, the question is how to minimize these deaths, e.g. with self-adaptive speed blades. A research team from the University of Helsinki and the University of Exeter has just publish a proposal unexpectedly simple but effective (judging by its results): painting the blades with the colors of poisonous animals, appealing to one of the most solid principles of evolutionary biology. Those dangerous snake-painted wind turbines. The research team exposed birds to videos of turbines spinning in four color schemes: standard white, a black blade, red-white stripes, and a red-black-yellow biomimetic pattern that was inspired by coral snakes and dart frogs. The result was clear: the birds systematically avoided the blades with the biomimetic pattern and moved closer to the white ones. The remarkable thing about the discovery is why it works. It was not necessary for the birds to learn in the experiment to associate those colors with danger like Pavlov: They were already learned from home. The key is in aposematism, just the opposite of camouflage: signaling danger with colors, something that has been engraved in the nervous system of birds for millions of years. The team simply transferred that evolutionary signal to a huge steel structure. Why is it important. The United States Renewable Energy Institute calculate that per megawatt installed the turbines kill between two and six birds and between four and seven bats, figures that seem small but are considerable on a global scale: the world’s wind capacity already exceeds 1,000 GW installed, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. Reducing the death of animals is the main reason, a good practice that is even more relevant if the species in question has a small population. If the solution is also something as cheap as changing the paint color, the cost-benefit in terms of conservation is difficult to ignore. Context. Aposematism is a documented evolutionary mechanism for almost two centuries: The idea is that certain toxic or dangerous animals warn of their danger with bright colors. The winning combination to scare you is red-black-yellow, universally recognized as a sign of toxicity among vertebrates. What this study does is apply this principle outside of the natural world by projecting it onto an industrial infrastructure. It is not a pioneer: there is a previous investigation in Norway in which they tried painting a blade black to break the optical illusion of a “still hole” created by the spinning turbines and the results were already promising. This new study goes a step further by actively exploiting the perception of danger. How it works. The birds process color in a radically different way from humans. They have four types of photoreceptors instead of three, which gives them tetrachromatic vision and allows them to detect ultraviolet. In short: they appreciate contrast better than humans, so apostematic signals are extraordinarily striking to them. For the experiment they used touch screens designed specifically for birds, so that they interacted with them by moving closer or further away from the stimuli, thus allowing them to precisely quantify how they behaved in response to each pattern. The biomimetic pattern was the most avoided of all. Yes, but. As the research team acknowledges in the paper, all tests were carried out in the laboratory, with birds in front of screens, not with wind turbines spinning in the open field. Perception distance, approach angle, flight speed or weather conditions are variables that the experiment does not replicate. Taking it to the real world can be a very different story. Furthermore, the study was carried out with a limited number of species. Aposematic responses depend on the evolutionary history of each lineage and whether that group has coevolved with those dangerous species in its territory. Come on, what may be useful for birds native to an area may be useless for migratory raptors or for species affected in specific wind farms. In Xataka | There are cannibalistic rabbits on a farm in Valladolid. His rancher is clear about the reason: wind turbines In Xataka | Spain’s bats live in uncertain times. The reason, according to the CSIC: the wind turbines Cover | Gonz DDL and David Clode Alfonso Castro

We just discovered a new island in an oceanic “danger zone”

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In February 2026 the SWOSan international team of 93 science professionals, embarked on the icebreaker Polarstern from Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) toward the northwest Weddell Sea with a mission: study what the flow of water and ice was like in the Larsen Ice Shelf to determine its influence on the planet’s ocean circulation. Neither more nor less. However, a strong storm forced them to seek shelter, changing the course of the expedition. What they found when they turned aside was an island of solid rock that did not appear on the maps. There is a new island on the map. The island is in the northwest of the Weddell Sea, in the vicinity of Joinville Island, near the Danger Isletsan area that fulfills what its name promises: it has dense ice, part of which is hidden beneath the surface, and the navigation conditions are extreme. Its dimensions are approximately 130 meters long, 50 meters wide and it rises 16 meters above sea level, more or less like the Polarstern, whose length measures 118 meters. Despite being a full-fledged island, the island had no name or coordinates nor did it appear in international cartographic databases in the area, vaguely defined as “a danger zone for navigation”, as explains Simon Dreutterfrom the AWI Bathymetry section. The few charts that hinted at its existence did not even locate it well (deviation of one nautical mile, about 1.85 kilometers). Although it doesn’t have a name yet at the SCARYes, we know how to place it on the map. Why is it important. From a geological point of view, this finding shows that although we are immersed in space exploration, there are still corners of our planet to discover. World cartography is incomplete and the Wedell Sea is precisely one of the territories with the most candidates to harbor surprises: it has difficult access and little data coverage, in addition to the interpolation systems that generate bathymetric maps such as the IBCSO can literally erase unregistered objects physically, as the entity itself warns. Simply put, the island may have remained invisible for decades simply because no ship had boarded it with the right tools. Its discovery is also a reflection of the retreat of sea ice in the region since 2017, attributed to warming surface waters. The retreat of the ice has made a previously impenetrable area navigable, which raises the question: was the island always there or has it emerged recently? From a biological point of view, it is a virgin laboratory: its flora and fauna are completely unknown, which constitutes a magnificent opportunity to understand adaptation to that environment. Context. The Weddell Sea is a key piece of global ocean circulation. That is where the Antarctic bottom waterone of the densest and coldest masses of water on the planet. This mass of water feeds the bottom currents of all oceans and regulates the exchange of heat and carbon on a planetary scale, as documented in oceanographic literature. Altering its dynamics, as is happening due to the retreat of the Larsen Ice Shelf, has consequences that spread thousands of kilometers. The SWOS expedition was designed precisely to quantify these changes and so far what they have discovered is how much the thickness of the ice varies: up to four meters on the western continental shelf, where the tides compress and deform the ice, and just five feet to the east, where it comes from the Ronne and Filchner ice sheets, which are subject to less pressure. Antarctic bottom water is formed in the Antarctic Ocean as a result of the cooling of surface water in polynyas.Wikipedia How they discovered it. That storm that forced the Polastern to seek refuge in the shelter of Joinville Island. It was then that Simon Dreutter detected an anomaly in the charts and went up to the bridge. There he saw what looked like an unusually dirty iceberg. Like it was a rock. Approaching with caution, always keeping at least 50 meters of water under the keel to minimize the risk of hitting ice, the team confirmed that it was an island. The ship surrounded it at a distance of about 150 meters and took the opportunity to map both its seabed (with a multibeam echo sounder) and its orography using a drone. They already had the first elevation model of the island. What’s going to happen now. Once the official naming process is complete, the team will publish the coordinates of the island and all that information will be incorporated into the International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean and international nautical charts, so that its existence will no longer surprise anyone again. As a curiosity, due to maritime tradition, whoever discovers such a geographical feature has the privilege of proposing the name in a process that can last months. Beyond the name, the island opens up a new scientific range: rock samples will determine its lithological composition and age and biological studies will help understand how Antarctic ecosystems respond to climate change. In Xataka | A century ago Denmark built an island to defend its capital. Now it is full of tourists and is sold for ten million In Xataka | China prepares a pilotable “floating island” for marine exploration: for whatever reason, it resists nuclear explosions Cover | Alfred Wegener Institute / Christian Haas

Today the green turtles are finally out of danger

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Halfway between South America and Africa, in the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean, a small volcanic point emerges that is the ascension island. For centuries, this piece of land was the scene of a systematic massacre, but today it represents one of the greatest success stories of marine conservation in the 21st century, culminating last October with a historic announcement that the green turtle has officially gone from being “endangered” to being classified as “least concern.” His story. To understand the magnitude of the Ascension phenomenon, you must first understand the journey since each season, thousands of green turtles They travel 2,300 kilometers from the coasts of Brazil to this remote island to spawnthat is, release their eggs. But… How do they manage to find this small island in an ocean as enormous as the Atlantic? A GPS. The famous biologist Archie Carr proposed in his day that these creatures use a kind of “olfactory GPS”, with which they were capable of find chemical fingerprints dissolved in the ocean currents that emanate from the island. Although the exact mechanics remain the subject of study, since genetic analyzes based on mitochondrial DNA leave no doubt that there are perfectly differentiated Atlantic populations and that of Ascension has a unique signature. In fact, studies indicate that turtles born in Ascensión travel throughout the American continent, representing between 43% and 47% of those captured on the coasts of Uruguay and entering the Patagonian Sea. A dark past. Since its discovery in 1501, Portuguese and British sailors saw Ascension not as a sanctuary, but as an all-you-can-eat buffet, as has been masterfully documented. in works as Ascension: The Story of a South Atlantic Island by Duff Hart-Davis. For centuries, common practices were “flipping” where sailors literally turned turtles over on the beach, immobilizing them to keep them alive with their fresh meat for months. Here there are historical testimonies such as that of chaplain John Ovington in 1691 who recounts the industrialized slaughter of these reptiles, which were sent alive to England to satisfy the demand for “turtle soup.” Something that brought the species to the brink of extinction. A turning point. It arrived in 1977, and coincides with the moment it began control and monitoring of this species on nesting beaches, reversing centuries of human impact. And the results indicate that while in 1977 3,752 nests were counted annually, today the island hosts more than 25,000 nests each year. Images | wirestock on Freepik In Xataka | We have been thinking for 40 years that Spain escaped Chernobyl because it was far away. AEMET has discovered that it was pure luck

We have been terrified of superbugs for decades. The real silent danger is “superfungi”

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When we talk about the antibiotic resistancemany people are already aware of the great problem that not having medications against superbacteria poses for public health, since today there are many antibiotics that have no effect on bacteria. But the WHO launch an alert very important to expand our field of vision also to the “super mushrooms“. Growing danger. If there is a protagonist in this new threat, it is Candida auris, precisely because, unlike other fungi that have been with us for centuries, this one has recently emerged as a global public health problem by causing serious infections, especially in people who are admitted to hospitals or nursing homes, who already have other associated diseases. A genomic macro-study in which the Carlos III Health Institute has participated analyzing more than 300 isolates from patients in 19 countries, has drawn the map of the evolution of this multi-resistant fungus. And the reality we face is that it is capable of spreading rapidly among fragile patients, and worst of all, it is very resistant to the anti-fungal drugs that we use on a daily basis. It is very complete. As experts point out, the enormous expansion of C. Auris is not only focused on the ability to evade the first-line antifungals that we have, but also on its ability to form biofilms on hospital surfaces or medical devices. This causes an object used by several patients to become ‘infected’ and spread the infection among them. It was suddenly. The reality is that today there are many fungi from the Candida family that coexist with us by being on our skin naturally, and without causing problems. The trigger comes when our defenses fall because we are sick, immunosuppressed due to a transplant or naturally because we are older. And this is where this fungus goes from being a being that lives with us ‘in peace’ to completely invading us and causing disease. The culprit. Paradoxically, our efforts to kill bacteria have part of the blamesince here the experts point to a structural problem of abuse of broad-spectrum antibiotics that “sweeps away” the natural bacterial flora of our body. In this way, if bacteria that colonize our digestive system are destroyed, for example, it creates free ‘holes’ that can be used by fungi without control. Added to this is a serious pharmacological problem, since right now we do not have many medications to fight fungi. And the problem is that its structure is quite similar to the surfaces of our own cells as it contains cholesterol in many cases. This means that drugs that destroy the fungus without producing a toxic effect on the patient are not very abundant. There is more. Although we focus on C. auris, there are other threats in this same kingdom, such as Scedosporium prolificansa multiresistant fungus that, through unique evasion mechanisms, causes very high mortality rates in immunosuppressed patients. The solution. Right now, science indicates that we cannot address the crisis of superfungi and superbacteria with patches, but rather we must create a unitary strategy that encompasses human, animal and ecosystem health. And right now the massive use of fungicides in agriculture causes the fungi in the environment to resist our medications that we use in the most serious patients. Images | Adrian Lange In Xataka | Faced with the need to look for weapons against superbacteria, science has opted to send viruses into space

China was the power that launched drones. Now he has realized his danger with a decision: close the sky to them

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Exactly 10 years ago an unprecedented event occurred. A small drone landed without authorization in the White House garden after its operator loses control. It didn’t have explosives or sophisticated cameras, but it was enough to activate a complete security protocol and put the authorities on alert for hours. That apparently trivial incident was an announcement to sailors. The drone empire closes its sky. It remains a paradox that China, the great dominatrix of the global drone market with millions of devices in circulation and leading companies like DJI, be the same power that has started to drastically restrict its use within its borders. Yes, I counted a few days ago the new york times that the new rules require register each device with real identity, link it to personal data and transmit real-time flight information to the government. Flying without authorization can lead to fines, confiscations and even prison sentences, and in cities like Beijing the ban is almost total, to the point of preventing the sale or entry of drones into the capital. Total control of airspace. Thus, the regulatory tightening It has turned what was once a recreational or professional activity into a terrain full of obstacles. In practice, much of the urban space is left out of use, with permits having to be requested in advance and rarely granted. In fact, users throughout the country have denounced interrogations, sanctions and confiscations even on flights that they consider legal, while some claim to receive calls from the police as soon as they turn on their devices. The result is a paralyzing effect: the sky is still full of drones in theory, but in practice fewer and fewer take off. Security, fear and Ukraine and Iran. Behind this shift is an easy-to-understand key factor: modern warfare. has shown that drones are no longer toys, but combat actors of first order. Recent conflicts have made it clear that even cheap models can monitor, attack or alter critical infrastructuresomething that especially worries Beijing in terms of internal security. The possibility of these devices being used against sensitive infrastructure or even political leaders has accelerated a response that seeks to eliminate any margin for improvisation in the air. The economics of low altitude. Paradoxically, the Times said that the tightening comes just when China wants to expand the commercial use of drones in what it calls “low altitude economy”. The objective is to turn them into key tools for logistics, agriculture, industrial inspection or light transportation. But to achieve this, the government considers it essential to first impose absolute control of airspace, like someone reorganizing a city before opening it to mass traffic. The problem: that this previous order is suffocating the ecosystem that it aims to promote. The final dilemma. If you like, the result is a contradiction that is difficult to resolve in Beijing: the nation that raised and built the global drone industry is limiting its use by the danger they perceive to the point of stopping innovation, business and adoption. Companies see sales fall, the second-hand market grows and entrepreneurs abandon projects due to the impossibility of operating. Meanwhile, some experts warn of another unexpected consequence: restricting access too much may prevent training future operators, just when the world is heading towards wars and economies where knowing how to handle a drone will be a strategic skill. Image | Infinity 0 In Xataka | China just showed the world what comes after the combat drone: 96 drones with a science fiction launch In Xataka | 200 drones in the hands of a single soldier: China is advancing very quickly in a type of war that seemed like science fiction

Apple is dying of success with the MacBook Neo. So much so that its manufacturing is in danger

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Apple has a problem with MacBook Neo: You are selling it too much. The first Mac with an iPhone processor is being an overwhelming success, and it hits the keys that mobilize the average user: it is cheap, it can be used for practically all uses and… it is a Mac. The problem? That this laptop has the Apple A18 Pro It is no coincidence, and that it is selling so much is a problem for the supply chain. Why the A18 Pro. Apple is not manufacturing new A18 Pro chips for its MacBook Neo, it is recycling processors from the original production. If we look at its technical details, the MacBook Neo incorporates a five-core GPU and not six. When processors are manufactured in batches, not all of them work perfectly. Some may have specific failures in one of the CPU or GPU cores. Instead of throwing them away, Apple deactivates that defective core and can sell a trimmed version of it. This allowed Apple to create a laptop whose processor was practically at zero costa pillar for the profitability of the product. The problem. The demand for the MacBook Neo is exceeding Apple’s expectationsand the stock of the A18 Pro is starting to come to an end. According to Tim Culpan, production of this device is divided equally between Quanta and Foxconn, with an initial plan to produce about six million units. As of today, suppliers are not clear about being able to produce more MacBook Neo with the stock of A18 Pro processors. The dilemma. The Apple A18 Pro is manufactured in TSMC’s N3E process, three-nanometer technology, a chip whose production capacity is practically exhausted. Among Apple’s options would be to pay a premium to order urgent batches from TSMC, something that would allow production to resume but would end the key to the Neo: manufacturing an economical product with a profit margin. The second plan involves reallocating the wafers that Apple uses for other devices to the production of the Neo, another solution that does not seem ideal. If we add to this the current storage and RAM costs, the production of the Neo becomes complicated. No solution in sight. If demand for the MacBook Neo remains above expectations, Apple will have a decision to make. Raise Neo prices? Eliminate the budget 256 GB option? Offer new colors to revitalize the product? Be that as it may, the Neo makes one thing clear: the strategy of selling MacBooks at the lowest possible price works. And even more so when we are at that point where a mobile processor is, literally, a PC processor. In Xataka | The MacBook Neo is the biggest existential threat to the Windows laptop market. And the manufacturers have no answer

If you think that renovating your house is urgent, think about this building in Ukraine. Its hole is so big that it is a danger for Europe

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He Chernobyl accident released so much radiation that some areas they remain uninhabitable almost four decades later. In fact, the plant continues to house materials capable of remaining dangerous for thousands of years. Therefore, keeping them under control is one of the greatest engineering challenges ever faced in Europe. A challenge that a drone has put to the test. It was to last a century. The story we tell it a few months ago. The gigantic steel arch built over Chernobyl reactor 4 was conceived as a definitive solution to contain the worst nuclear accident in history for at least a hundred years, a colossal structure designed to isolate the ancient “sarcophagus” and buy humanity time. More than 100 meters high and capable of housing entire monuments inside, this system had to resist extreme conditions and allow the safe decommissioning of the reactor, encapsulating hundreds of tons of radioactive material that remain active decades after the disaster. The impact that changed everything. But everything changed in February 2025when a drone attack in the middle of the night pierced that shell seemingly invulnerable, opening a breach in the structure and exposing a system that was never designed to operate in a war environment. Although there were no immediate leaks or casualties, the damage compromised critical functionsespecially ventilation that controls humidity and prevents corrosion, introducing a silent but growing risk that could degrade the structure in a few years. What is still hidden under the steel. Under the damaged arch remains an environment extremely unstable: remains of the reactor, tons of nuclear fuel and melts of highly radioactive materials that continue to react slowly. The old “sarcophagus,” hastily built in 1986, was never structurally reliableand is actually completely dependent on the new cover to maintain the insulation. In other words, if that balance fails, the risk is not immediate, but potentially devastating, with the possibility of release radioactive dust that the wind could disperse throughout Europe. A “reform” as expensive as it is complex. System restore will not be neither quick nor easysince it involves working in conditions of high radiation, with strict limitations on time and exposure for operators. Temporary solutions barely contain the most urgent damage, while full restoration will require rebuilding highly specialized internal layers within a structure designed as a technical “sandwich”. We are talking about an estimated cost that exceeds 500 million of euros, a figure that reflects both the technical complexity and the hostile environment in which repairs must be carried out. The war enters Europe’s greatest nuclear risk. If you like, the incident it is not isolatedbut part of a context in which nuclear infrastructure have become exposed elements within an active conflict. Paradoxically, the Chernobyl exclusion zone that we had to protect from any danger has been the scene of military operationstroop movements and constant overflights of missiles and drones, which multiplies the risk of new impacts, whether accidental or intentional. In that scenario, even a technical failure or trajectory error could trigger consequences continental in scope. A reminder of what never ended. They remembered in a special from the Financial Times this week that, decades after the accident, Chernobyl remains the same latent threat, one that requires constant vigilance and international cooperation, and the drone impact has revealed the fragility of the systems designed to contain it. The infrastructure that was to definitively close the disastrous episode of 1986 now faces a new type of risk, thus demonstrating that nuclear safety depends not only on engineering, but also of geopolitical stabilitya (and common sense). In that delicate balance, each crack is not just a structural failure, but a warning about the limits of our ability to control the consequences of our own creations. Image | EBRD In Xataka | Drones in Ukraine have mutated into a system reminiscent of the Alien universe: an exoskeleton turns troops into super soldiers In Xataka | Iran is exploiting the US’s weak point: it is not its F-35s or its Patriot missiles, it is the bill every time they take off

A Brazilian has shown that having Internet in mid-flight is possible with Starlink. It has also shown that it is a real danger

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If the Internet does not reach the plane, let the plane reach the Internet. One of the Azul Linhas Aereas travelers must have thought something like this, who along with another hundred passengers began to discount the first minutes of their flight. A flight that began on the ground but has not yet ended. And our protagonist tried to connect to the Internet during takeoff using a Starlink antenna and a battery that far exceeded the maximum allowed capacity. The flight has landed but is not over. And the company is now investigating what happened. On Instagram. It’s where the Azul Linhas Aereas traveler has published his invention with the following text: “Who hasn’t suffered the frustration of getting on a four-hour flight and not having Internet? When you get on the plane and the WiFi doesn’t work… Your problems are over.” The video briefly shows how the passenger places the Starlink antenna on the window and hooks it to the window blind. From it, a cable hooks up to a large battery stored in the pocket of the front seat. Click on the image to go to the original post What is Starlink? Starlink is a internet service through satellite connection designed by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company. The system is simple, with thousands of satellites orbiting around the earth, the service seeks to ensure that a small antenna can provide Internet to anyone anywhere in the world, no matter how remote it may be. To do this, the customer mounts the antenna and points it towards the sky. From there a signal arrives that is interpreted by a router included in the pack to, in turn, multiply the signal so that we can connect to the network. Its latency is high compared to fiber optics, so it is not a system to compete with home connections, it is designed to provide Internet to areas without 4G or 5G coverage. And does it work on a plane? Of course, the operation is exactly the same as if we placed the antenna on the ground. In this case, what the airline passenger did was put the antenna in the window pointing outside to improve signal reception. For the rest, it works exactly the same as if we contracted Starlink to have Internet at home. In fact, Starlink service is being offered to airlines. And although it has been the trigger between the latest tantrum between Elon Musk and Michael O’Leary (CEO of Ryanair), the truth is that Starlink will be offered this year on Iberia, British Airways or Vueling flights. And the first tests with United Airlines They were already very satisfactory. Starlink improves what is already known because, although a plane also connects via satellite to offer Internet on its flights, the bandwidths that customers demand and its applications are increasing, which has been reducing the speed of data transfer that each device on board can enjoy. But it’s a danger. However, what this passenger has done is a real danger that is being investigated by the airline. In the Brazilian State Post Office They explain that the Starlink antenna was powered by a 60,000 mAh portable battery. Its 222 Wh capacity is far from the 100 Wh maximum that can be carried on board a plane according to Brazilian aviation regulators. Large power banks can be a danger on board, so Aeronautical authorities limit them in size and number. And it is that batteries can self-combust if a thermal leak occurs, which may be caused by overheating or a blow that results in a short circuit. The problem is already huge if we are on land But it can be much more serious if the plane is fully operational because lithium ion batteries are very difficult to turn off and, in addition, they release gases that are harmful to our health. That is why the size of the battery is limited and if an incident occurs, it is manageable by the crew. Photo | Wikimedia and Fallon Micheal In Xataka | Airlines are beginning to regulate and restrict the use of power banks on airplanes: South Korea leads the way

Relying on US AI is a strategic danger

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When DeepSeek R1 It was presented a year ago now, caused a real earthquake in the technological world. What was surprising was not its capabilities, but that China had managed to reach that level despite the blockades and setbacks of the United States. DeepSeek was proof that AI can be done without the United States and now it is Europe that needs to replicate this success. Tensions and dependence. Relations between the United States and Europe they are going through their worst moment. Trump’s obsession with take control of Greenland and the response of several European countries that They have sent their troops to the region have caused an unprecedented clash. Amid the threats of invasion, the deployment of troops and tariffs, there is also the issue of technological war, a war in which Europe is in a position of strong disengagement from the US. The US executed and Europe regulated. Far behind. If China lags behind the US in AI, Europe is light years away. While American companies were developing the models and infrastructure to train their AI models, in Europe regulation was reinforced with the AI Act. The European Union itself understood that this approach was leaving them behind in the AI ​​race and recently They greatly simplified the rules. It was late, the technological gap was already enormous. Dependence. The United States not only controls the language models, it also controls the chips to train them, the data centers and, above all, the investment to get all this going. Miguel De Bruycker, head of the Brussels Cybersecurity Center, is very forceful: “Europe has lost the internet (…) If I want my information to be 100% in the EU… keep dreaming,” he told the Financial Times. In the current context, this dependency puts Europe in a very vulnerable position and becomes a major strategic risk. The US could use its dominance as a pressure point in negotiations or, in the worst case, restrict access to its services. A sovereign AI. They count in Wired that the concern to create a European AI is growing and there are already several projects underway to achieve it. The best known model is the French one Mistralbut there are others like Apertus in Switzerland or ALIA in Spain. In Germany they are developing SOOFIa project that aims to launch an open source language model with 100 billion parameters designed specifically to reduce European dependence on the US. Chinese inspiration. The US seemed unattainable, but DeepSeek showed that it was possible to achieve competitive results without having the best GPUs or the largest data centers. The fact of bet on open source It also gives an advantage since it allows creating a larger user base in less time, in addition to more actors can participate in the developments. There is also talk that Europe could encourage its companies to use its own AI, a strategy similar to that followed by China with the use of national chips. Image | Karola G, Pexels. Engin Akyurt, Unsplash In Xataka | The ASML-Mistral alliance reveals the European plan B: if we cannot manufacture chips, at least we will control how they are manufactured

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