decades

It had been collecting dust in a drawer for decades

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Modern paleontology right now has two large fields of work, one of them being expeditions in remote places and the other being museum shelves. And it is no wonder, since the greatest discoveries are not made by breaking stones under the sun, but by cleaning dust from drawers that have been closed for decades. This is exactly what just happened to an antarctic fossil which, after years stored in the United Kingdom, has revealed to be a key piece in understanding our planet’s past. A new test. We are not facing the “first dinosaur fossil in Antarctica”, but rather we are facing the first fossil of this type that has been identified after a long wait in a ‘drawer’ of a museum archives. The files. The history of this bone is, in itself, fascinating, since, as has documented the BBC, the fossil has been in the British Antarctic Survey collection. For decades, it remained in a taxonomic limbo and although its existence and its Antarctic origin were known, the anatomical scrutiny necessary to classify it accurately had not been carried out. Now, a new study has put an end to the mystery, as researchers have reexamined the morphology of the bone and concluded that it belongs to a titanosaur sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous. Your base. To reach this conclusion we did not start from scratch, but there were already previous records about the presence of sauropods in Antarctica. What is interesting about this new study is that it connects the dots, providing the formal and rigorous identification that this piece of the archive needed to enter the history books. A green Antarctica. Identifying a titanosaur in Antarctica raises a mental image that clashes head-on with the current landscape of the continent. Right now we know that titanosaurs were a group of sauropods that included the largest land animals to ever walk the Earth. But the question we ask ourselves is clear: What was an animal of these proportions doing in an ice desert? The answer is that the Antarctica of the Late Cretaceous period was nothing like today’s Antarctica. Specifically, about 70 million years ago, the continents were arranged differently, since South America, Antarctica and Australia formed intermittent land connections. This means that Antarctica was not covered by kilometers of perennial ice, but instead was home to vast forests of conifers and ferns, an ecosystem rich and temperate enough to support the migration and diet of these gigantic herbivores. Its importance. From a scientific and informative point of view, the value of this news does not lie in a recent heroic expedition under snow storms, but in the relevance of institutional collections. The BAS fossil catalog shows that we still have fragments of Earth’s history gathering dust, waiting for current scanning technology or expert review to give them their true meaning. This fossil, now officially recognized in primary scientific literature, is not “the first Antarctic dinosaur,” but it is definitive confirmation that, in Earth’s remote past, there was no barrier or latitude that could resist the footsteps of a titanosaur. In Xataka | We thought that human beings began to walk in Africa. This 7.2 million-year-old fossil says otherwise

Cancer in people under 50 years of age has been growing for decades. A macro study finally points to the big culprit: biological aging

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The increasing incidence of cancer in young adults is one of the most debated topics in recent oncology. In recent years, exhaustive reviews have warned of an increase in diagnoses in those under 50 years of agealthough medical science had long been searching for the underlying mechanism that connects the dots between modern lifestyle and the early onset of this hated disease. The answer. A new study recently published seems to have found a key piece of the puzzle, which is nothing more than that our cells are aging faster than our ID card. This is the conclusion of research published in the journal Nature that indicates that accelerated biological aging is associated with a greater risk of developing early-onset cancers, especially solid cancers such as lung, stomach and also uterine cancer. Two concepts. To understand the finding, we must first differentiate between chronological age and biological age. The first of these is immovable, since it is nothing more than the years that have passed since our birth. But biological age is flexible, since it is calculated by evaluating the physiological state of a person through blood biomarkers and metabolic profiles. It reflects how “old” our tissues and organs really are. How to measure them. To measure this, Tian’s team used models already consolidated in scientific literaturesuch as PhenoAge and the Klemera-Doubal method. With these tools, they crossed the data of more than 150,000 adults from the UK Biobank and approximately 10,000 program participants. All of Us of the United States. The result shows a dangerous imbalance. This means that those people born in more recent decades had a greater tendency to have a biological age higher than that corresponding to their date of birth. And this time “jump” has direct clinical consequences such as the appearance of cancer. To be more specific, it has been seen that every time we have a person with a biological age higher than their corresponding age, they have an 8% higher risk of having early-onset solid cancer before the age of 50. If we compare the extremes, individuals located in the tertile with the greatest biological aging have a 15% greater risk of developing the disease compared to those in the tertile with the least biological wear and tear. The context. The main thing is not to fall into alarmism, since, although it is true that cancer is increasing in the youngest people in society, it is also increasing in all remaining bands due to multiple factors such as general population aging and better screening methods that allow us to detect cancer earlier. However, the specific data on early onset are undeniable, since large studies point to significant increases in thyroid, breast, colon, kidney and endometrial tumors in the 20 to 49 age group. Colorectal cancer, specifically, is the one that worries the most due to its escalation in young adults. The lifestyle. That we are biologically aging much faster than we should is not magic, but rather it seems to be influenced by different factors related to lifestyle. These include rates of youth obesity, prolonged consumption of diets rich in ultra-processed foods, a sedentary lifestyle, and exposure to environmental toxins. What this new work provides is the quantification of the damage, since these risk factors accelerate the biological clock. We must keep in mind that the human body is exposed to pro-inflammatory factors for more years from early stages of life, which makes it easier for DNA damage to accumulate faster than cellular mechanisms can repair it. In Xataka | Experts agree about the sun and hair: “It is one of the most exposed areas and one of the most forgotten”

Spain has lost 17 factories in two decades

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Not too long ago, Spain had a powerful household appliance industry: Balay, Corberó, Fagor… Between the 1950s and 1970s, manufacturers proliferated that manufactured refrigerators, washing machines and ovens “made in Spain” that constituted the middle class’s access to the comfort of the modern era. That era passed away: in the last two decades 17 plants have disappeared (they have closed or relocated) and barely a dozen remain in the entire state, according to APPLIA datathe Spanish Association of Appliance Manufacturers and Importers. Their turnover is 4.5 billion euros per year and they employ 8,000 people, modest figures for a state the size of Spain. They are, literally, low and hanging by a thread. what’s happening. In a word: relocation. Manufacturing outside the old continent is more profitable than doing so within, where the costs associated with production, regulatory and environmental costs are higher. More specifically, there is a star location: Asia. La Vanguardia collects the statements of Augusto Río, spokesperson for APPLIA and sales director of the German company BSH in Spain: “There are certain regulations in Europe aimed theoretically at improving the European industrial environment, but their application makes it more complicated to manufacture within the EU.” An example: the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) taxes the steel necessary for these appliances, but does not apply to imported appliances that arrive already finished. In other words, if you import a ton of steel from Asia, they charge you the tax. But if you use that same ton of steel in Asia to make an entire washing machine there and bring it to Europe, the washing machine enters without paying that green tax. Why is it important. The first consequence is direct and obvious: losing jobs. The not so obvious one is to become strategically dependent on third parties for essential domestic goods. Keeping these companies alive and operational supports local economies under a stable and quality employment model. At least, more than the precarious service sector that usually replaces it. From a technological point of view, the R&D&i ecosystem linked to the industrial fabric is broken: without factories, technical knowledge goes outside and feedback on innovation is lost. Paradoxically, the loss of these industries does not respond to a crisis in consumer demand: according to Renub Researchthe European home appliance market will go from 112.33 billion dollars in 2024 to 147.98 billion in 2033, an annual growth rate of more than 3%. But in this forecast report prepared by Mordor Intelligence We see that the quintet that leads the appliance market is the German BSH, the Swedish Electrolux, the British Dyson, the North American Whirpoool and the Chinese Haier. Precisely another Chinese brand, Midea, was the one that acquired the Teka Group between 2024 and 2025. Context. Historically, the manufacture of household appliances in Spain was a reflection of economic developmentalism and the adaptation of the “American Way of Life” to mass consumption in the mid-20th century. The families established a relationship that went beyond the purchase: they acquired the devices, but they also manufactured them, generating a strong bond and worker identity. I don’t remember one of my student apartments in Zaragoza where there wasn’t something by Balay. The globalization of the late 20th century and early 21st century put an end to it: multinationals moved their factories to countries with lower labor and environmental costs. Added to this context of relocation are specific legal asymmetries: Spain requires three years of guarantee of manufacturing compared to the two required by general EU regulations. Likewise, it is mandatory store spare parts for a decadewhich generates inventory costs that in practice the import avoids. Europe’s (only) great asset. To survive the fierce competition in the Asian market, the strategy of the European industry that is still resisting is to abandon the price war and differentiate itself in quality, as the German Mittelstand serves as an example. That is the plan of the CNA group, owner of the Cata brand and with a factory in Torelló. Santiago Torrent, its executive president, details: “The challenge is not to grow, but to do so with more added value” and that they must focus on quality, innovation, durability and better performance. This also includes after-sales and repairs, two areas in which the European Right to Repair Directive It requires them to have increasing responsibility for the product life cycle. Yes, but. The problem with this value-added strategy requires time, investment and a market that is willing to pay more for a European product, something that does not have to happen. And even less so in an inflationary scenario like the current one. On the other hand, China has already publicly shown its discontent with the protectionist European tariff measures, responding that he will take “the necessary actions.” And Europe’s dependence on China goes far beyond washing machines: it encompasses semiconductors, batteries and rare earths, structurally limiting how far Brussels can squeeze without harming itself. In Xataka | Europe’s passenger car industry, in a revealing map that makes it clear who is the real “engine” of the EU In Xataka | Europe is divided in two: the devastating map of deindustrialization Cover | Homa Appliances and Mati Flo

We believed that air conditioning was the only way to beat the heat. A Mexican architect has been cooling houses with paint for decades

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In 1973, during the oil crisismany countries suddenly discovered that cooling buildings had become an energetic luxury. Bioclimatic architecture then returned to the center of the debate and many looked to old solutions: patios, thick walls, shade and cross ventilation. Curiously, decades before, an architect had already built houses following that logic, obsessed with something that today sounds strangely modern: that a home should offer serenity and refuge from the aggressiveness of the outside. Heat also enters through the eyes. For decades we have assumed that fighting the heat at home involves a almost automatic gesture: lower blinds and turn on the air conditioning. It is a mechanical, direct and, above all, solution. face. Long before that became the norm, the architect Luis Barragan Another idea was already working in Mexico City: that the temperature of a house does not depend only on its degrees, but on how the body perceives it. Its architecture, built between pink, yellow, blue walls and dense shadows, had spent decades exploring something that neuroarchitecture is beginning to support today: color, light and matter. alter physical sensation of space. They don’t cool the air, but they can cool the experience. House-Workshop of Luis Barragán Barragán understood the importance of color. In the Barragán’s workcolor was never decoration. Studies on his architecture show that he treated it the same as a wall or a window: as a structural tool of perception. Its pink, ocher or blue surfaces were designed to react to changing light of the day, transforming the depth, closeness and visual temperature of the space. A pink wall under the intense Mexican sun seems to radiate heat, while a deep blue patio prolongs the feeling of sky and distance. That rrelationship between color and light It was a central part of his work. The architecture moved with the sun, and with it the sensation of the inhabitant also changed. House-Workshop of Luis Barragán The house as a sensory laboratory. His best example remains the Luis Barragán Studio Housebuilt in 1948 and today protected by UNESCO. There everything is designed to modulate the bodily experience: thick walls, closed patios, interior gardens, water, darkness and color. UNESCO stands out precisely that deep dialogue between light, space and matter as one of the great contributions of the 20th century. The house is almost a manifesto of how a home can appeal to all the senses at the same time. Barragán saw it as a living organism, constantly evolving, and in that organism comfort did not depend on technology, but on balance. nterior of the Gilardi House, in Mexico City The half light as a refuge. Barragan distrusted of modern glass architecture and total transparency. While much of the 20th century celebrated large windows and abundant light, he argued for the opposite: the “half light”. He believed that human beings need spaces with shade and darkness to rest, think and concentrate. He said that too much light generates anxiety. In their houses, the windows are reduced, hidden or filtered with colored glass. The light never enters all at once; is dosed. This decision not only changes the emotional atmosphere, it also reduces the thermal load and softens the visual harshness of summer. It is an old and simple solution, almost forgotten in many contemporary homes. Patio of Barragan’s studio house The colors of the weather. The famous Barragán palette It did not come from an abstract theory. Its colors were born of the Mexican landscape. The pink of the bougainvillea, the red of the tabachin, the violet of the jacarandas, the ocher of the earth and the blue of the sky. Everything was part of a natural continuity between architecture and environment. In fact, the call “Mexican pink”developed together with the artist Jesús Reyes, became one of his most recognizable signatures. That color, present at the entrance to his studio or in patios like those of the Gilardi Housegenerates a feeling of calm and depth that continues to surprise those who visit it. Its architecture demonstrates that color can be an emotional regulator of space. Eduardo Prieto Lopez House Tradition already knew this trick. In reality, Barragán did not invent all this from scratch. Much of his work includes centuries of vernacular architecture in Latin America. Painted stucco houses, interior patios, thick walls and breathable materials were part of a climatic logic before electricity. Stucco, for example, allowed the walls they will breathe better in hot climates. Painting them prevented the glare of the white surfaces under the harsh sun. In many places, color not only gave identity, it also helped to better inhabit the heat. Barragán took that tradition and brought it to modern language. San Cristobal block Science explains it. Yes, because recent studies about emotional architecture and embodied perception help put words to what Barragán intuited. Today we know that light regulates circadian rhythms, affects mood and modifies thermal perception. We also know that certain colors can make a room feel cooler or warmer without changing its real temperature. The body first processes a sensory impression and then translates it into comfort or discomfort. Barragán worked precisely on that point. He designed spaces where perception and physiology intersected. An old idea for a new problem. Thus, in the era of air conditioning and skyrocketing thermometers, when cities overheat and energy consumption skyrockets every summer, Barragán’s architecture returns to read with other eyes. Their houses remind us that cooling does not always mean cooling the air. Sometimes means control the light, tame the shadow, reduce glass, use appropriate materials and choose a color well. Are slow solutionssilent and long before modern domestic technology. In that sense, his work seems less like an aesthetic relic and more like an open conversation with the present. Image | Anna BerthoFrancesco Bandarin, Ulysses00, Ymblanter, Steve Silverman, Sarunas Burdulis In Xataka | In 2020, a Chinese billionaire bought the most expensive and luxurious home in London. Then his nightmare began. In Xataka | In 1972 Italy wanted to put an … Read more

Jaén was the largest producer of lead in the world. Decades later, he wants to repeat the game with rare earths, but he has a problem: reality

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Somewhere between Linares and La Carolina there is a rusty derrick: the iron skeleton of what was, at the end of the 19th century, the largest producer of lead in the world. It is, obviously, the past, but in recent years many are completely obsessed with it being also the future. We have the latest example of this about 80 kilometers north of that derrick. There, in Aldeaquemada, an Australian company has just extracted a drill core and to announce that it is “a high quality area”. The question that hovers over Jaén these months is not whether there are minerals under its feet. We all know that. The question is whether all this dance of prospecting that we are seeing is something real or is it simply the expression of the desire of a province that continues to associate its ‘golden age’ with mining. What is happening? The last episode, as I say, stars Osmond Resources. In the SOR-08 survey has cut more ore than expected north of the province. We are talking about a project that covers 756 mining units between Aldeaquemada and Santiesteban del Puerto and search “titanium, zirconium, hafnium and rare earths” trapped in quartzites that hundreds of millions of years ago were beach sand. The ad has a trick, yes. What they have announced is a confirmation ‘during’ drilling. Laboratory analyzes (those that count) will take weeks. But, in reality, that is not what interests us. It is enough to do a small search on the internet to confirm that Jaén entire is being drilled with passion and enthusiasm for months now. And where does all that enthusiasm come from? In principle, three relatively independent engines. The first is geopolitical: in 2024, the European Union pressed the accelerator on ‘mineral sovereignty’ and approved a regulation on critical raw materials. The idea was to ensure that the extraction, processing and recycling of strategic raw materials carried out in Europe cover respectively 10%, 40% and 25% of EU demand. A project like Orión, oriented towards rare earths, is typical of something that in Europe (and in Madrid) sounds like glory. The thing about Madridor it is rhetorical. Just a couple of months ago, the Government approved a raw materials plan of 414 million euros which includes the largest mining prospecting campaign in Spain in more than half a century. Sierra Morena is expressly cited in it. Sara Aagesen he came to say that “with all certainty” rare earths will appear in the country. And then there’s the bag… That is the third engine. Companies like Osmond Resources live off the deposits, yes; but above all they live off the news cycle. After all, its market capitalization depends more on the ‘media battle’ than on the final results. In a field as complex as mining, failure is almost a given. And why is it important? Because behind all this noise there are a lot of small, aging towns those who are sold a new future. The mayor of Aldeaquemada It didn’t take long to celebrate Osmond’s results as a way to “generate jobs and wealth.” But the reality is that the Most exploration projects never produce. The energy transition has served as an alibi to look underground again, but the sector has changed so much that for the vast majority of actors, expectations are beginning to be more useful than reality. And that, in Empty Spain, is an existential problem. Image | Shane Mclendon In Xataka | Where there was lead before, now there will be rare earths: Jaén revives its mining past for the energy transition

We’ve been looking for aliens the wrong way for decades. The solution could be in the dust of the Moon

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It is possible that we are looking for the wrong traces of extraterrestrial civilizations. According to a study published recently by Oxford astrophysicist Brian C. Lacki, the mistake has been in looking for active technological signatures. That is, signals derived from extraterrestrial technologies that have been emitted directly. These signals are lost over time. On the other hand, technological signatures that passively act on the light of a star are easier to detect. And the best thing is that, if you can’t find them, you could always search in the middle of the lunar regolith. This all sounds very crazy, but it actually makes sense. Active or passive signatures? That’s the question. Traditionally, search projects for extraterrestrial civilizations, like SETIhave focused on the detection of possible radio signals coming from their technologies. These are not signals emitted on purpose so that we can find them, but rather the result of their own technological activity. The problem, according to Lacki in his study, is that, if they have followed an evolution similar to ours, they may not be broadcasting on the radio for more than 100 years. We ourselves have been replacing emissions in this range with fiber optics or satellites with directed emissions and very little “noise” that can reach “intergalactic gossip.” What leads us to think that they continue century after century using the same technologies? They may continue to emit, but no longer in radio waves that disperse into space. The Oxford astrophysicist proposes changing this position by searching for passive technosignatures. That is, signatures derived from the interaction of smart technologies with starlight. three types. There are three types of passive technosignatures: obscuring, flashing and diffusing. The former act in a similar way to an exoplanet passing in front of its star. When a large object, such as an artificial satellite, passes in front of a star, it temporarily obscures it. This could be confused with an exoplanetbut the idea is to look for concealments with unconventional shapes, that do not resemble anything known. In the case of flashing signatures, they would be those produced by devices with mirrors aimed at concentrating the star’s light. As if they had their own solar plants. At some point, these types of mirrors could generate flares observable from Earth. Finally, the diffusion signatures would spread the light in all directions, so that a fainter change would be observed, in the form of a color modification in the light spectrum. What if they are no longer there? If it is already difficult to find other intelligent civilizations, it would be even more difficult to find one that is contemporary with ours. We may simply find technosignatures of a civilization that has already died. In that case, or even if the technologies have simply been abandoned for another reason, there would no longer be intelligent beings in charge of maintaining the devices, so their orbit would end up shifting and they could collide with each other. If this happens, it is possible that very small fragments will be generated, which this scientist calls technograins. They are so small that the star’s gravity is not able to attract them any more than the stellar winds push them away. Therefore, they would end up swept away from their neighborhood and become a cloud of dust that our solar system could eventually encounter on its journey through the galaxy. The Moon comes into play. If all of the above occurs, Lacki considers that it could be that some of that dust settles on the Moon, where there is no wind nor are there geological processes that alter the surface, so it could remain for a long time. Therefore, for him, one way to look for technosignatures would be to inspect the lunar regolithlooking for dust that appears to have a technological origin. That, perhaps, could lead us to some intelligent civilization that has gone unnoticed by us. In short, according to the curious perception of this scientist, when trips to the Moon become more common than anecdotal, we could have an easier time finding technosignatures. Of course, for this, fewer telescopes and more sieves. Images | Leo Visions (Unsplash) In Xataka | TRAPPIST-1 was the most promising solar system to search for life. Now our joy is in a well

The world has been searching for the formula against the housing crisis for decades. There are those who believe that the answer is in Vancouver

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When you think about the residential market, price escalation and affordability of housing, more and more cities are looking up. The idea is very simple: build taller buildings and make more use of limited land, especially in the most sought-after neighborhoods. That philosophy is catching on, for example in Basque Countrywhere new apartments are proposed on buildings that already exist, or in Madrid, which aspire too to expedite procedures. In Vancouver (Canada) they have decided to go one step further and create a kind of ‘XL laboratory’ to answer a key question: Would the residential crisis be alleviated if we reduced bureaucracy and were more flexible with buildability? An impossible market. Living in Vancouver is not easy. Not at least if you don’t have a generous salary and you aspire to stay in a (more or less) well-located and (more or less) comfortable home. a study disclosed by Frontier Center shows that the British Columbia city deals with one of the least affordable markets on the planet. Canadian families who want to purchase a property need, on average, to invest the equivalent of 10.8 full years of gross income. And that for a ‘normal’ cost house. Globally, it is only surpassed by Hong Kong, Sydney, San Jose and Adelaide. The situation in Vancouver is actually worse than in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York or any other large conurbation in North America. The rental market does not offer much comfort either. According to Zillow Rentalsthe average income is close to 2,900 dollars and last year it was above 3,000. Against this backdrop, the authorities have set the goal of injecting into the market 83,000 new homes in the coming years. You will find more infographics at Statista And what is the reason? Beyond the imbalance between supply and demand or the arrival of immigrants with an investment mentality, a few days ago, in a column published in The New York TimesBinyamin Appelbaum mentioned another key factor: excessive bureaucratic rigidity and regulatory blockage, a problem that is not exclusive to Canada. “Cities have largely lost the power to approve projects. To prevent officials from acting against the public interest, we have taken away the power to act in its favor,” regrets Appelbaumveteran reporter The New York Times and specialist in economics and business. “We are so committed to justice that we have lost sight of the injustice of inaction.” “Restore affordability”. In his analysis, the expert recalls the construction limitations imposed in coastal cities like Vancouver in the 1960s, the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, the structural housing deficit (in 2023 it was estimated that Canada needed 3.5 million of extra homes by 2031 to “restore affordability”) and tension in the rental market. In the specific case of Vancouver, the geographical limitations of the city are added, constrained between mountains to the north, the ocean to the west and the border with the United States to the south. Also the characteristics of its urban planning, with a large weight of small properties. Houses, gardens… and skyrocketing prices. “The biggest problem is that Vancouver is a city of single-family homes. It has an imposing skyline in the center, but, if we see it from the air, the vast majority of the land is occupied by houses surrounded by grass,” comment Appelbaum. He is not the only one who highlights this peculiarity of the Canadian metropolis. In his chronicle he cites another expert, Alex Hemingway, senior economist at BC Policy Solutions, who questions this use of land in a city with residential m2 skyrocketing and rents through the roof. Appelbaum even cites specific cases in which apartment towers have given way to mansions, which further reduces the housing stock. A laboratory called Senakw. Despite this context, for a few years Vancouver has hosted a special project: in the heart of the city, near English Baythere is a wide strip of land 10.48 acres (just over four hectares) in which large apartment towers are being built. What’s more, the objective is to build one of the residential neighborhoods there with greater density from all over Canada: around 6,000 homes spread across 11 towers. His name is Sen̓áḵw and it is much more than theory or a plan drawn up on paper. The first building of the initial phase (which will encompass 1,049 homes spread over three towers of 27, 32 and 40 floors) is almost ready and the idea was for its first tenants to move in at the end of May. The Realist precise that the promoters want to finish the second block in the summer and the third before 2027. How is it possible? Very easy. Because Senakw is not just another real estate development. In fact (and this is the key) the 4.4 hectares it covers enjoy a special status that free it from the regulatory straitjacket that limits construction in other neighborhoods in Canada. The reason: that land does not depend on the Vancouver authorities, but on the Squamishan indigenous people who occupied the land long before the first Western settlers arrived. The land, located on the south bank of False Creek, was home to one of the 23 ancestral populations of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Stélmexw, but in 1913 the natives residing there were evicted “by force”. Although the British initially recognized the area as a native reserve, the value of the land led the provincial government to pressure their families to leave in the early 20th century. Their offer was very simple: either accept the payments offered or risk be left with nothing. Then the Government burned their homes. That episode gave rise to a decades-long lawsuit that ended in 2003when justice returned 4.4 hectares to the Squamish Nation. “More than buildings”. A decade and a half after that historic ruling, in 2019, the Squamish Nation voted in favor of developing a residential project on the land and thus creating “a legacy” for the next generations of natives. The result is Senakw, an ambitious project of 6,000 homes spread … Read more

For decades, companies have accumulated capital and talent. Satya Nadella Thinks They Need Something Else Now: Token Capital

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The reflections of the CEOs of large companies must always be taken with some caution since they are not usually simple reflections thrown into the air. They seek to give someone their ear: investors, rivals, users or to calm the waters among its employees. Satya Nadella, has published in their profiles of social networks a text in which he redefined, without much dissimulation, what a company should be in the era of artificial intelligence. It was not just a statement, but rather it almost pointed to become a manifesto in which the focus of the race was changed by develop the best AI model (an area where Microsoft seems to accept the Copilot’s defeat) and defines that the future of companies involves generating a third pillar to their structure: token capital. The company of the future needs a new type of capital: token capital. Nadella does not conceive AI as a substitute for human employees since, according to his thesis, human capital is the basis for turning AI into a truly disruptive tool that is nourished by knowledgethe criteria, the relationships and the reading of patterns that employees provide. However, it brings a new element to the business equation: token capital. This new element is formed by the AI ​​that a company builds and owns, not in the models that third companies rent to it. Currently, most companies use AI as a subscription service in which they pay for a model that they use to perform tasks with it. However, when they stop paying for it, all that knowledge and evolution is lost and the company retains nothing of all the knowledge. time and resources you have invested in fine-tuning its use. Nadella maintains that this path leads to transferring value to a few suppliers and the only ones who accumulate advantage are those who sell the models, the knowledge of each company ends up being the raw material that feeds others. The loop that becomes active. The Microsoft CEO’s idea revolves around what he calls a “learning loop”: a system that feeds back with each decision made and each workflow completed. That is, it is a knowledge base that makes the company’s memory permanent and not lost when changing the AI ​​model or employees. “This cycle becomes the company’s new intellectual property,” highlights the Microsoft CEO. “I look at it as a hill-climbing machine.” The key is that this asset, unlike what happens today, is evolutionary and is built based on training with real company data and internal measurements of its response. The more you use it and tune it, the more value it has. And, Nadella argues, the company that builds it will soon have something that can’t be bought in any AI model marketplace: a tool that has been “trained” to do a very specific job in a custom context. AI as a tool, not a monopoly. There is a paragraph in Nadella’s statement that is striking coming from the CEO of a company valued at three trillion dollars. Nadella compares the current risk with what happened in the first phase of globalization: entire industrial sectors were emptied by outsourcing. The macroeconomic figures of the countries they endured the loss of industrial fabric, but the social fabric ended up suffering by adding tension in the labor market. His warning leaves no room for interpretation: “If all value is concentrated in a few models, political economy simply will not tolerate it. There is no social permission for an AI future that destroys entire industries.” The goal, he says, has to be an ecosystem where each company can build its own learning, not be another cog in an AI monopoly. Actually, this is not new, since it is the same principle with which Microsoft built its platform business in Azure cloudwhich used Microsoft’s infrastructure for companies to generate more value than the platform itself had. The problem that the manifesto does not solve. However, Nadella’s words also raise a series of contradictions with respect to the latest movements of Microsoft and other large technology companies. The CEO maintains that human capital becomes essential as token capital grows since it is the employees who make a company’s AI learn. However, his own company has been half doing the opposite. Microsoft fired to more than 15,000 employees during 2025, and in April 2026 it offered voluntary retirement packages to some 8,750 workers in the US, something it had not done in its 51-year history, linking these layoffs to your commitment to AI. It is not an exclusive case of Microsoft. In the first quarter of 2026 they are already more than 92,000 layoffs among the employees of large technology companies and the argument that all companies repeat is the same: AI allows us to do more with less people. In Xataka | Jensen Huang enters the Samsung salary controversy: “Workers should earn as much as possible”

For decades we climbed this New York skyscraper without knowing that the screws that held it in place could not hold.

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The situation was more or less like this. For two decades, hundreds of thousands of people entered and left the doors of one of the largest skyscraper in New York City. These people, many of them workers, went up and down in the elevator completely unaware of the critical failure that the building had, terrifying in architectural terms, and that no one took into account. Rarely in the history of urban planning in large cities has there been a similar situation. The story dates back to the beginning of the 20th centurywhen the Lutheran church of Saint Peter was located on land of 53rd Streetbetween Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue, in Midtown Manhattan. By 1960, the church community was experiencing serious financial problems, which led the city council to sell the land. The negotiations were not easy and lasted years. Mainly, because the church demanded the creation of a new building separate from the apartment block in which it could continue its activities. In the end the project was given the green light. The developer accepted the conditions, and Citi Bank commissioned Hugh Stubbins & Associates to design the skyscraper. William LeMessurier was in charge of engineering. The final project consisted of a skyscraper, a church, a public space below street level and landscaping. The most important element was, of course, the skyscraper. The plan marked 46 floors that were to be distinguished from the rest of the city by the polished and anodized aluminum of the façade. In addition, between the panels there were rows of windows. It didn’t really look complicated, at least not like the roof and base of the building. The happy roof Thus, in 1977 the skyscraper was completed. By then it had grown larger, with 59 floors and a total height of 279 meters. An architectural work that dazzled at first glance on the city skyline, a colossal tower where its 45-degree inclined top stood out. The top of the roof resembles an isosceles triangle. The original plan was to build terraces and apartments, but over time the architects decided to install huge solar panels. LeMessurier, a professor and graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, carried out a series of tests to verify their efficiency. It turned out that the energy converted by the installation was insufficient. Eventually, the idea of ​​a small solar plant was abandoned. However, nothing like the base on which the building stood. Some “stilts,” as LeMessurier himself described, among which the then seventh largest skyscraper on the planet seemed to float. We are referring, of course, to those four gigantic pillars (34 meters each) that are located in the center of each side (rather than in the corners) of the base. It also had a single column in the center, in this case narrower, which housed the building’s elevator banks and provided additional strength to the frames. This design made room for the church under the northwest corner of the building, and gave the giant structure a brutal effectalmost as if he were levitating. In fact, it was exceptionally “light”, of only 25,000 tons (for reference, the Empire State Building was 60,000). The famous pillars The base became an architectural icon, as it made the space in the corners empty. LeMessurier had the weight of the skyscraper distributed to the exterior skeleton. Specifically, in a grid of triangular-shaped frames hidden under the façade. Interestingly, this structure was visible from the inside. The elements were not completely welded, but only fixed with bolted joints. Apparently, the steel frame designed in this way was intended to withstand perpendicular winds. According to the engineers, other types of wind should not pose a threat. Furthermore, municipal regulations did not require other air gusts to be taken into account in the design. The truth is that the architecture hid an important mechanism on the upper floors. The Citigroup Center had one of the first tuned mass dampers (TDM). It is a 360-ton concrete sphere embedded in oil. When vibrations from the ground or wind moved the building, the mechanism would oscillate in the opposite direction to the tilt of the building. The problems begin This swing was in turn balanced by hydraulic arms that support the sphere. With this solution, the skyscraper was able to “maintain balance.” As LeMessurier explained at the time, this piece was key, since its function was to cut the sway of the building in half by converting the kinetic energy of sway into friction. Once completed, the building was praised, but also the first doubts arrived. New York is not a major hurricane state, but it does have them from time to time. What would happen if, once every 50 years, the winds blew over 100 km/h? These winds can blow from different directions. The Citigroup Center opened in 1977 under the name Citicorp Center (which changed to Citigroup Center in 1998 following the merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group). But only a year after its inauguration it became clear that it could have a very serious defect structural. A year later, LeMessurier receives the call that no architect expects in life. It was Diane Hartleyan architecture student at the prestigious Princeton University who had studied the construction of the skyscraper for her thesis. The first of the calls was to ask him several technical questions about the design. Hartley’s professor had expressed doubts to him regarding the strength of a tilted skyscraper where the supporting columns were not at the corners. Hartley did some calculations of the building’s wind load. He then compared them with LeMessurier’s calculations and discovered that the construction engineers’ figures were incorrect. The student asked to be sent exact load calculations for different types of wind. Only received data related to perpendicular winds and guarantees on the solidity of the structure. What’s more, LeMessurier told him that the professor had no idea and that everything was in order. The geometry of the building’s frame worked perfectly with the pillars in such positions, … Read more

Triton has been looking like a strange moon for decades and the worst thing is that it seems to be entirely to blame

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Neptune It’s a strange planetboth for himself and for his environment. For starters, it’s tilted in a somewhat strange way. Its axis is 28º. It is not outrageous if we compare it with the 23º of the Earth. However, it is quite puzzling, because according to traditional planetary formation models, it should be much closer to zero. On the other hand, most of Neptune’s moons are very different from those of the rest of the gas giants. He only has one that could fit the predictions. But what about the rest? These questions have long intrigued astronomers. Now, thanks to two recently published studies, there are hypotheses for each of these phenomena. The curious thing is that both point to Triton’s guilt. A violent irruption. According to models recently made for the publication of two studies differentNeptune’s anomalies could have been due to the irruption of Triton into its satellite system. Possibly, during the dawn of Neptune, there would be several Moons rotating around it, all in the same direction. However, a passing Kuiper Belt object came close enough to be gravitationally attracted to Neptune. It was traveling in the opposite direction, so it violently burst into the window system, like a car bursting onto the highway in the wrong direction. Many moons shot out of the Neptune orbit. Others ended up directly destroyed. Only one, Nereid, stayed there, but with a much longer orbit. As for Neptune, its axis suffered that new inclination that does not fit with that of models of a calm planetary youth. Clues that didn’t add up. Neptune has 16 moons around it. The rarest is Tritonbecause it rotates in the opposite direction to that of Neptune and, due to its composition, it looks more like an object in the Kuiper belt than the Moon of a gas giant. Then we have Nereid, which is in an abnormally elliptical orbit, in which it takes 360 days to orbit the planet. The rest are much more homogeneous satellites, but too small and not very massive for what would be expected from the moons of a gas giant. Nereid, having such a rare orbit, has long attracted the attention of astronomers. When it was recently analyzed more closely with the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, it was found to be more similar in composition to the icy moons of other gas giants, such as Saturn or Uranus, than to a Kuiper Belt object. With all this in mind, it was decided to carry out a series of computer simulations, thanks to which we already have an answer. The most likely story. In 20% of the simulations, the result was a case unleashed by Triton. When it was attracted by Neptune, it destroyed the satellite system initial of this planet, as we have seen previously. Nereid held on without destroying itself or flying out of orbit. However, its orbit was deformed, giving rise to the strange orbit it has today. As for the rest of the moons, many of them became debris that regrouped under the effect of gravity, giving rise to the rings of Neptune. Furthermore, some of those fragments became the small moons that orbit the planet today. Triton, the cause of chaos, remained in a fairly stable orbit, becoming just another moon. Of course, a moon that rotates against the current, as a clue to the cosmic chaos that it unleashed at the time. A probe is needed to confirm. All this makes a lot of sense, but it is still a hypothesis with a not too high percentage of success in the simulations. The authors of the study insist that it will be necessary to send a probe to study Neptune closely and clarify the answers. Still, it is possible that Nereid is the only moon capable of truly telling us about Neptune’s past. It is a rare moon, but because it has endured a lot to be able to remain there. Image|NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Naomi Rowe-Gurney (NASA-GSFC) In Xataka | We have been deceived by the distances of the Solar System: the closest neighbor to Neptune is Mercury

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