decades

the result of decades of veto by the US and Japan

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China has just become the first country in the world to mass produce T1200 grade carbon fiber, the strongest synthetic material ever manufactured on an industrial scale. The milestone is led by the state group China National Building Material Group (CNBM), which presented it on March 11 at JEC World, the most important composite materials fair in the sector, held in Paris. We tell you all the details. What exactly is the T1200. In the world of advanced materials, the number that accompanies the T is a tensile strength rating. The higher the number, the stronger the fiber. T1200 has a resistance greater than 8 gigapascals (GPa), ten times more than conventional steel, and yet its diameter is ten times smaller than that of a human hair. Chinese media CCTV exposed the example that a rope less than two millimeters thick, made from 120,000 twisted T1200 filaments, is capable of towing a bus with 54 adults on board. And it weighs a quarter as much as steel. dhe laboratory to the factory. Zhou Yuxian, president of CNBM, counted that it has taken the country about 20 years to move from its research and development to mass production. The plant has a projected capacity of about 100 tons per year. Compared to that of Toray Industries, the Japanese company that leads the global market with 29,100 tons per year, it is laughable. But be careful, Toray announced in 2023 that it had developed its own T1200, also with 8 GPa resistance, but to date they have not offered details about a supposed mass production. China has beaten them to it. Mbeyond engineering. Industrial carbon fiber is a material that can be used for endless applications: from civil (aeronautics, electric vehicles, hydrogen storage, drones, medical devices, elite sports equipment) to military (fighter aircraft, missiles, satellites, fuselage structures). Precisely for this reason, Japan and the United States They have been strictly controlling their exports for decades through mechanisms such as the Wassenaar Agreement. China, which for years has depended on imports or has been forced to obtain the material through alternative means, just remove that dependency. The same has happened with semiconductors, since the foreign blockade has served to amplify their technological self-sufficiency. How China has accelerated in just a few years. Toray launched the T300 in 1971 and took 43 years to introduce the T1100. China didn’t have its own T300 until 2008. However, in just over a decade it has climbed from the T300 to the T1200, a cadence that the entire industry is watching closely. The key has been a model that China has already demonstrated with previous grades of this material: combining state capital, university research and industrial capacity in the same ecosystem, with continuous improvement cycles until reaching mass production. Who else competes in this race. The global carbon fiber market is an oligopoly with few relevant players. Mitsubishi Chemical (Japan) advertisement in December that it plans to double its production capacity in Japan and the United States between now and 2027 for sectors such as aeronautics and supercars. The South Korean Hyosung Advanced Materials aims to reach 24,000 tons per year in 2028. On the other side of the globe, Hexcel, an American composite materials company, defines itself as the world’s largest producer of aerospace carbon fiber and the main supplier for United States military programs. But the geographical trend has already changed. And according to the report Future Markets’ Global Carbon Fiber Market published in February, Asia-Pacific has surpassed North America and Europe as the world’s largest consuming region. Cover image | CCTV In Xataka | Japan has a rare earth megadeposit: 700 years of consumption to challenge China

Iceland, Norway and Switzerland have been boasting independence from the EU for decades. Global chaos is about to change everything

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The war between the United States, Israel and Iran is shaking the foundations of the historic independence of the nations that make up the European Free Trade Association (EFTA or EFTA). Faced with an increasingly volatile geopolitical panorama, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland find themselves at a crossroads and look, each at their own pace, towards the European Union in search of refuge. The question that now haunts European parliaments is no longer just political, but purely industrial: are they willing to sacrifice parts of their sovereignty in exchange for the protection and stability that Brussels offers? As explained to the newspaper Five Days Sophie Altermatt, economist at Julius Baer, ​​these countries face external pressures from increasingly interventionist superpowers. The United States has become a much less predictable ally on trade and security, while China’s growing ambitions endanger European industrial competitiveness and create vulnerabilities in supply chains. The rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, who has even suggested his intention to annex Greenland, has acted as a powerful catalyst for this change in mentality. As the magazine warns The Spectatorquoting a maxim from Mark Carney: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” The return of hard power politics is forcing middle powers to reevaluate their place in the world. From the European side, the door is open. As detailed by the Icelandic public broadcaster RÚVEU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has stressed that the current geopolitical context is fundamentally different from the past and that EU membership offers “an anchor in a bloc based on values, prosperity and security.” Are we facing a real approach? Moving towards greater integration implies sitting at the table where decisions are made, but also assuming a clash of sovereignties. Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide, leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party, acknowledged in a parliamentary debate collected by Five Days that remaining outside the Union generates enormous vulnerabilities, since their country remains “on the margins of everything we want to enter into.” However, the price of admission is high. Political analyst Thomas Vermes explains in the Norwegian middle ABC Nyheter that the EU is transforming towards a federation where supranational organizations assume more and more authority. Entering means submitting to decisions by qualified majority – where large countries have more demographic weight – and growing pressure to eliminate the right to veto on key issues. In addition, it would imply assuming joint economic burdens, such as the common debt of 90 billion euros contracted to help Ukraine. In fact, the possible entry of Ukraine would radically transform the bloc’s economy. According to the same Norwegian mediathe incorporation of the 41 million hectares of Ukrainian agricultural land would flood the markets and force rural aid to be restructured. Three countries, three different rhythms The answer to this dilemma varies drastically depending on the resources each nation brings to the table. Iceland: The direct path and the referendum in sight The Icelandic government has stepped on the accelerator and passed a resolution to hold a referendum on August 29, 2026 on resuming EU membership, a measure supported by 57% of the population. Iceland would provide the EU with a vital logistics position in the emerging Arctic trade routes and strategic supply: already is the fourth largest supplier of aluminum of the block, material that accounts for more than half of its exports to Europe. Nevertheless, as reported RÚVthe Minister of Foreign Affairs, Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, has drawn a non-negotiable red line: she will not sign any agreement that involves ceding control over the island’s precious natural resources to the EU. Norway: The fractured debate Although the country rejected joining the EU in 1972 and 1994, the debate has been resurrected. According to The Spectatorthe conservative party (Høyre), now led by the determinedly pro-European Ine Eriksen Søreide, is “clearly a yes party.” Polls show an increase in support for accession, rising from 27% in 2023 to 41% in 2025. However, the current Labor government of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is strongly opposed. Despite not being a member, Norway is Europe’s absolute energy guarantor after the invasion of Ukraine: it supplies 51.8% of the pipeline gas and 14.6% of the crude oil consumed by the EU. Precisely for this, the internal opposition is fierce. Columnist Hans Christian Hansen warns in the financial journal Finansavisen that the EU is losing technological ground to the US and Asia. According to Hansen, while the US uses energy to attract industry, the EU uses it to “self-regulate with increasing rigor” and promote projects of uncertain profitability such as offshore wind. The question he asks his compatriots is brutal: “Do we want to link our energy policy, our industry and our future to a team that is already losing?” Switzerland: The pragmatic path and bilateral agreements Unlike the Nordics, Switzerland does not contemplate full accession so as not to compromise its historical neutrality, but it is making progress in its economic and technological integration. President Ursula von der Leyen and Swiss President Guy Parmelin They signed the “Bilateral III” package. This framework modernizes agreements on transport and free movement, and adds crucial pacts on health, food security and Swiss participation in the European space agency and the Horizon Europe and Erasmus+ programmes. In addition, it will allow it to fully enter the internal electricity market in the EU. The objective of the Federal Council is “stabilize and future-proof the proven bilateral track“. The Federal Council approved the sending of this package to the Parliamentor, proposing to subject it to an optional referendum to guarantee its democratic legitimacy on sensitive issues such as salary protection. Switzerland’s weight is undeniable: in 2023, bilateral trade in services reached €245 billion, representing almost 9% of the EU’s total services trade. Forecasts in sight? The geopolitical board will continue to move. If Iceland eventually joins the EU, the pressure on Norway will be immense. As conservative leader Søreide arguesNorway would be in a “completely different situation” if its EFTA partner makes the leap. For its part, Switzerland … Read more

The metro has been splitting Rivas in two for decades. The city council has a plan to cover it up and has already presented it to Madrid

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The Rivas Vaciamadrid City Council has registered before the General Directorate of Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid its project to cover 2.5 kilometers of Metro Line 9B. This is a project that aims to transform part of the town’s urban layout, and the deadline for issuing its technical report has already opened. We tell you all the details. What exactly is this about? Just like they count From the town hall itself, the project consists of burying or covering the section of road that runs above ground through Rivas Vaciamadrid between the Cerro del Telégrafo Sports Center and the Rivas Futura station. They are 2.5 kilometers long and 30 meters wide which, if covered, would stop acting as a physical barrier that divides the municipality in two. On the surface, it is planned to extend the Linear Park, creating a corridor with green spaces for public use. The project also includes the construction of a fourth Metro station in Rivas, located on José Saramago street. Deadlines. The City Council had a technical meeting on February 27 with the General Directorate of Infrastructure, where it presented the solution. A week later, on March 4, it was officially registered, and now the Community of Madrid has three months to decide whether to move forward at a technical level. According to collect El Diario, the council has expressly requested “agility” from the regional administration. Tpolitical background. The fourth season brings them. And it is that according to Diario de Rivas, the Community of Madrid has already pointed out on more than one occasion that this infrastructure “is not justified on a technical level.” The City Council, for its part, insists that the project “is the result of months of rigorous and reliable technical work and that it meets the necessary requirements to move forward towards its execution.” The General Directorate of Infrastructure, for now, has limited itself to confirming that there was a meeting. What the data say. The City Council supports its position to move forward with the project through a survey in which they say that 78% of Rivas residents recognize the importance of this project. The organization frames it within its Rivas 2030 Urban Agenda, where it appears as one of its most notable projects to reconfigure its urban model. What happens now? The ball is in the court of the Community of Madrid. Before the end of June, the technical response from the General Directorate of Infrastructure should arrive. This report will determine if the project can move forward as planned, if it needs modifications or if the proposal (especially the new station) encounters obstacles from the regional administration. The Town Hall has expressed his confidence that the Community “facilitates the progress of an action long awaited by the citizens of Rivas”, but it seems that we will have to wait to find out if it finally materializes as the city council wants. Cover image | Google Maps In Xataka | BYD is already studying entering Formula 1, according to Bloomberg. And it is not a whim, it is a necessary step

We have not understood for decades why chronic pain punishes women more. Finally we have the answer

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Historically, medicine has grappled with an undeniable gender gap in which women Women suffer chronic pain more frequently than men, and on top of that their pain flares for much longer. This is something that many doctors have considered ‘normal’ and has been dismissed with psychological biases. But now science has seen that an explanation should not be sought in the mind, but in the immune system. Against pain. This is the objective that medicine has right now, since it is undoubtedly a situation that for many people can be unbearable. That is why the magazine Science Immunology publish now a new study that offers a paradigm shift in our understanding of the biology of pain. The result of this is that he has managed to find the key to some types of white blood cells called monocytes and in its direct relationship with testosterone. What’s happening? When an injury is suffered, such as a blow, the body tries to defend itself with an inflammatory response. One of its components is pain, which is a necessary alarm signal to warn that something is wrong, but once the tissue begins to heal, it is logical that this alarm goes off. But this is where the body’s defense cells come in, monocytes, which act as ‘firefighters’ by releasing proteins called interleukin-10. Here the research team has been able to see that this interleukin-10, abbreviated as IL-10, acts directly on sensory neurons to “turn off” hypersensitivity and therefore pain. The problem, and here lies the importance between sexes, is that men resolve this inflammatory pain much faster because they produce a greater amount of this protein. The reason. Testosterone. This male sex hormone stimulates monocytes to produce higher levels of IL-10 after injury, and therefore pain can be better reduced. But in women this level of testosterone is much lower, and therefore the production of this natural ‘painkiller’ is lower, which causes the sensory neurons to take much longer to stop giving the signal that generates pain. Your demonstration. Beyond doing so in animal models, the research team has been able to validate the experiments with human data from the AURORA studiowhich is a project that evaluates patients who have suffered traffic accidents and severe trauma. Here the clinical data confirmed the laboratory’s suspicions, since they saw that the elimination or reduction of IL-10 activity in monocytes significantly delays the resolution of pain in both sexes, validating that this hormone-mediated immunological difference is exactly the same in humans. In the future. This discovery is not just another biological curiosity to close a historical debate, but it has important therapeutic implications. And right now the severe pain crisis has to be treated with opiates on many occasions, which have a long list of side effects. But upon discovering this cellular mechanism, the researchers tried administering Resolvin D1a compound that promotes the resolution of inflammation. Here it was clearly seen how pain was reduced equally in both sexes. This is why we are at the gateway to a new generation of non-opioid therapies that specifically modulate the immune system. But what is most important about this study is that it highlights the need to leave behind the “one size fits all” model in medicine to move towards more personalized medicine. Images | Redd Francisco In Xataka | Medicine has been using opioids to relieve pain for centuries. Science finally has an alternative

Iran has spent decades excavating its “missile cities.” Satellite images have just revealed that they are a death trap

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For years, Iran has shown the world tunnel videos endless tunnels dug under mountains, with military trucks circulating between missiles lined up as if they were cars in an underground subway. It was understood that many of these facilities extend kilometers underground and are part of one of the military fortification programs. most ambitious in the Middle East. What almost no one knew until now is to what extent this gigantic hidden labyrinth could become a key piece of the current conflict. The cities, but with missiles. Yes, for decades, Iran has excavated an extensive underground base network known as “missile cities”, complexes hidden under mountains and hills intended to protect its enormous ballistic arsenal against air attacks and guarantee the regime’s retaliation capacity even in the event of open war. There are numerous videos Officials released in recent years where we could see long tunnels illuminated by artificial lights, windowless corridors and convoys of trucks loaded with missiles ready to move to the surface, an entire military architecture designed to hide thousands of short and medium range projectiles away from spy satellites and enemy bombers. Some installations even incorporate silos dug into the rock or mechanical systems on rails to move missiles within underground galleries, a perfectly assembled choreography reflecting a strategic project conceived to ensure arsenal survival Iranian in a protracted conflict. The images that reveal the paradox. However, the war has begun to show the unexpected reverse of that strategy. Recent images from space have revealed Smoldering remains of destroyed launchers and missiles near the entrances to several underground complexes, a sign that systems hidden underground are becoming extremely vulnerable at the moment when they must go outside to shoot. It makes sense. American and Israeli surveillance planes, armed drones and fighters They patrol constantly over the areas where these facilities are located, observing the entrances to the tunnels and attacking the launchers as soon as they appear on nearby roads or canyons. In other words, what for years was a system designed to hide mobile weapons It thus becomes a relatively predictable pattern: tunnel entrances, exit roads and deployment areas that can be monitored from the air and destroyed as soon as activity is detected. From strategic refuge to death trap. They remembered in the wall street journal A few hours ago this change has revealed a structural problem in the very concept of missile cities. Underground complexes are very difficult to destroy from the air, but they are also fixed installations whose location is known by Western intelligence services. In practice, this means that much of the arsenal remains stored in specific places while enemy planes continually fly over the airspace, waiting for the moment when the launchers come out to act. Many military analysts summarize the dilemma in a simple way: What was previously a mobile and difficult to locate system is now concentrated in fixed points, which facilitates its surveillance and reduces its capacity for surprise. Commercial satellite images themselves show destroyed launchers As soon as they left the mouths of the tunnels, fires were caused by leaked fuel and access to facilities bombed with heavy ammunition. Missile base north of Tabriz in Iran. The image on the left belongs to February 23, the one on the right from March 1 after the first attacks The air offensive against underground infrastructure. As the first week of war approaches, the military campaign has begun to focus increasingly on these infrastructures. They told Reuters that the first phase of the attacks focused on destroying visible launchers and surface systems capable of firing at Israel or US bases in the region, while the second stage aims straight to the bunkers and buried warehouses where missiles and equipment are stored. Israeli aviation, with American support, has attacked hundreds of positions and has managed to drastically reduce the number of launches, while an almost constant air offensive that hits targets continues. both in Iran and Lebanon during the same missions. The stated objective is to progressively degrade Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles and drones until it is completely neutralized. Missile base north of Kermanshah in Iran. The image on the left belongs to February 28, on the right it belongs to March 3 A gigantic arsenal underground. The actual scope of these facilities remains difficult to determine. There are military estimates that place the Iranian arsenal before the war between about 2,500 and up to 6,000 missilesstored in different facilities throughout the country, many of them excavated under mountains or in remote areas of the territory. Despite the attacks, Iran has managed to launch more than 500 missiles against Israel, US bases and targets in the Gulf since the start of the conflict, although many have been intercepted and the pace of salvos has decreased rapidly. That drop suggests that attacks on launchers and storage centers are beginning to erode the country’s ability to respond. The strategic dilemma. The result is a strategic paradox that is just beginning to become visible. Missile cities were designed to protect the core of Iranian military power and ensure its ability to retaliate, but in a scenario where the enemy dominate the air and watch constantly the entrances to these complexes can become choke points for the arsenal itself. Iran has spent decades excavating these underground bases with the intention of making its missiles invisible. But satellite images of the war are showing something very different: that this labyrinth of tunnels, designed as a shelter, can become one of its greatest vulnerabilities when the launchers are forced to surface under the look constant flow of planes, drones and satellites. Image | X, Planet Labs In Xataka | We had seen everything in Ukraine, but this is new: neither drones nor missiles, bulldozers have reached the front In Xataka | You’ve probably never heard of urea. The missiles in Iran are destroying their production, and that will affect your food

Two decades ago, dogs flooded Spain with souped-up motorcycles. Today, they sell them for a fortune

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If you know what a Yamaha Joga Aerox or one Piaggio ZipI’m very sorry: you are already old. Between the 90s and 2000s, young Spaniards could obtain their moped license from the age of 14, and the 49cc scooter became an object of worship… and souped-up. With the tightening of European regulations, this type of motorcycle has practically stopped being sold. But there are those who are making a killing on second-hand platforms. The fall of the 49cc. The moped market has completely changed. At the end of the 2000s, nearly 200,000 units were sold per year. Two decades later, sales fell more than 90%. Currently, mopeds represent a minimal part of the market: in Spain there are barely more than 20,000 registrations per year, while 125 cc motorcycles dominate sales thanks to the fact that they can be driven with a car license. The fall of the 49cc coincided with key factors such as: The 49cc fever. The thunderous and (for many) unpleasant hum of this type of motorcycle was no coincidence. Preparations were the order of the day: exhaust, cylinder, variator… Mopeds with a tiny engine surpassed many of the current 125cc scooters in performance. In fact, the homologation regulations on paper prevented these mopeds from exceeding 45km/h. The reality? Even the slowest one could double this figure straight out of the factory. It was enough to remove some stops in a matter of minutes, and if we dared to carry out a simple preparation, it was easy to make them touch (or exceed) 100km/h. The pasta. A classic like the Yamaha Jog cost just over 2,000 euros in 2005. 20 years later, it is easy to find units in good condition on Wallapop from 1,200 euros to more than 2,500. Of course, prepared to the brim. In fact, it is practically impossible to find a moped of this style that is not souped up. A safer time. Between the 90s and 2000s, it was common to see minors driving this type of motorcycle. The accident rate per kilometer was very high, and the risk multiplied compared to adults on motorcycles with larger displacements. Today the panorama is very different. The 50 cc has been relegated to a niche, the 125 cc dominates the urban market and electric scooters are beginning to gain ground. But for an entire generation, the metallic sound of a Jog or an Aerox remains the soundtrack of adolescence. In Xataka | I was about to buy the best-selling Chinese motorcycle in Spain. Until I read the fine print

We have been wondering for decades if being vegetarian prevents cancer. We already have a very clear answer

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There is a endless diets in different parts of the world, conditioned largely by local society and culture, such as in Spain, where the Mediterranean dietwhich is varied. But the focus of the debate is on what is the best diet to maintain good health in the long term. And here the vegetarian diet has a lot to say. Giving answers. For years, we have known that reducing our consumption of processed meat is beneficial for our health, but a new macro study led by the University of Oxford has put compelling data on the table about how dietary choice directly impacts the risk of developing different types of cancer. The work published in the magazine British Journal of Cancer is consolidated as the further analysis performed to date on this topic. And it is no wonder, since researchers have been able to analyze the histories of 1.8 million women and men who participated in nine prospective studies across three continents. A shield. Until now, previous studies they were already pointing that vegetarians had a lower oncological risk, but there was not the necessary statistical power to refine the data and make this categorical statement. But this study has come to change this, since researchers reveal that vegetarians have a significantly lower risk of suffering from five types of cancer compared to people who eat meat regularly. Results. Obviously, there are many other factors that influence this matter such as weight or lifestyle, but even adjusting the data, a clear result has been seen, which is summarized in the following risk reductions: 31% lower risk of suffering from multiple myeloma. 28% lower risk of kidney cancer. 21% lower risk of pancreatic cancer. 12% lower risk of pancreatic cancer. 9% lower risk of breast cancer. But the curious thing about these data is that for ten other types of cancer studied, such as lung cancer in non-smokers, science has not found a significant difference. And this opens the door to seeing why this diet is so specific for specific cancers. The small print. Not everything is so positive with this diet, since the study has shown that vegetarians have almost double the risk of developing esophageal cancer compared to people who eat meat in their diet. Because? According to researchers, the benefits of a vegetarian diet in cancer are explained by the greater intake of fruits, vegetables, fiber and the absence of processed meats. But the fact that they have a higher risk of having esophageal cancer is related to the nutritional deficiencies that vegetarians may have. And the lack of certain exclusive or more present nutrients in foods of animal origin could be weakening the natural defenses of this tissue. The rest of the diets. In addition to the war that may exist between meat and vegetables, researchers wanted to go further to look at the rest of the diet. In this case, the pescetarianswho do not consume meat, but do consume fish and seafood, had a lower risk of developing breast, kidney and colon cancer. But when we talk about vegansis where there are certain important nuances, since it has been seen that they have a higher risk of suffering from colorectal cancer. However, the researchers themselves point out that there are still not enough statistical cases to accurately evaluate the impact of veganism on rarer cancers. The recommendations. Given this study, everything that had been done in oncology is maintained, since the norm is to prioritize whole grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables in the diet, limiting the consumption of red and processed meats. Although logically always ensuring that all nutritional needs are met and following medical advice. Images | amin ramezani In Xataka | Having a beer or a wine at 65 seems like a harmless indulgence. We have more and more evidence to the contrary.

IBM has been living for decades that no one could kill COBOL. Anthropic has other plans

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IBM shares fell about 13.2% yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange for a simple reason: Anthropic advertisement that its AI model, Claude, can be used to modernize systems that are based on the legendary COBOL programming language. And that is something that seemed virtually impossible. The immortal language. As Anthropic itself indicates, it is estimated that COBOL manages 95% of all transactions made at ATMs in the US. A 2022 study revealed that there are 800 billion lines of COBOL code that continue to operate in production systems on a daily basis. That almost no one uses anymore. Faced with this reality is another equally powerful one: almost no one programs in COBOL anymore, because this language has been with us for 65 years and has ended up being replaced by modern programming languages. The question, of course, is who is in charge of those millions of lines of code if there are almost no human programmers who can do it. Anthropic itself made it clear: “the number of people who understand COBOL decreases every year.” AI to the rescue. That’s where Claude, Anthropic’s family of generative AI models, comes in. According to this company, Claude is now capable of “modernizing” COBOL despite how difficult and expensive it was to carry out something like that. IBM has been trying for years and in fact applied that same recipebut its AI (Watson) does not seem to have managed too much progress. Claude helps, but there must be a human expert supervising. At Anthropic they promise that their AI model is capable of reading the entire code base of a COBOL project, identifying entry points, execution paths through subroutines, mapping data flows and documenting dependencies. They highlight, however, that with the supervision of a human expert this can help modernize and polish all types of COBOL-based systems. Critical systems. Of course, the question is whether AI will actually deliver on that promise, especially when we’re talking about absolutely critical systems used in financial transactions. According to Anthropic “the modernization of the code legacy It has been stagnant for years because understanding it cost more than rewriting it. “AI reverses that equation.” COBOL is no longer IBM’s ace in the hole. It’s hard to know how much of IBM’s business depended on COBOL systems, but it’s certainly a relevant part. In 2025 the company achieved revenue of $67.5 billion. About 45% comes from software. The rest is consulting and infrastructure, and this last division is where the IT business is included. IBM Z mainframesclosely linked to COBOL systems. It’s reasonable to think that revenues dependent on mainframes and COBOl are around 20% of IBM’s revenues (and probably more in profits). AI and the SaaSpocalypse. What happened with IBM and COBOL is the latest case of a software that seemed to have a long-term future but with AI may not have such a long-term future. Investors now seem to think that AI will replace many of these systems and SaaS platforms. It is indeed what has been called “SaaSpocalypse” in reference to the stock market falls of this type of companies in recent months: Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit and Atlassian have suffered notable falls in the stock market that are around 30-40% on average. But. This investor panic that is being experienced contrasts with the current reality: AI models are proving to be able to do surprising things in the field of programming, but they are far from being perfect. The code must be reviewed, and IBM itself he already made it clear In a 1979 training manual: “A computer can never be held responsible. Therefore, it should never make an administrative decision.” IBM has already survived other crises. The blue giant has suffered a blow to the stock market, but it is one of those technology companies that have managed to recover and resist all the attacks of an industry that is normally merciless. IBM itself also has its modernization solutions for its clients, and some analysts they are clear that in fact IBM will make more money than before if COBOL finally goes away. In Xataka | Old programmers never die, and Silicon Valley is realizing that

We have been looking for the end of Neanderthals in weapons and climate for decades. A study proposes to look for it in the placenta

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For decades, we have tried to explain why our species has persisted over time and Neanderthals don’t. We have blamed climate changeto competition for resources, to a supposed cognitive inferiority and even to the genetic assimilation. However, a new study suggests that the answer might not lie on the battlefield or in the weather, but in something much more intimate like the placenta. A new idea. In this case, science proposes a hypothesis controversial, since it suggests that Neanderthals could have become extinct, in part, due to genetic susceptibility extreme to preeclampsia. a disorder which is heard a lot today and which is nothing more than a hypertensive condition in pregnancy that can be lethal for both the mother and the fetuses. A price to pay. To understand the hypothesis, we must first understand the human “obstetric paradox”, since in our species we have an almost unique characteristic, which is deep hemochorial placentation. And it is something that may sound very bad, but it is actually necessary to feed a fetal brain as demanding as ours and that of Neanderthals. In this case, the placenta needs to aggressively invade the arteries of the uterus maternal to obtain maximum blood flow, although the problem is that it is something that carries a great risk. The possibilities. Faced with this invasion, the possibilities that open up are several. The first of them is that it works and that the fetus can develop its massive brain. But in the event that this fails, a great immunological and vascular reaction is unleashed in the mother, which is what we know as preeclampsia. This presents with severe hypertension, organ damage and risk of death for both the mother and the fetus. And it is a problem that today is quite significant among human pregnancies, but now science indicates that, although the Homo sapiens evolved a physiological “safety mechanism” to mitigate this impact, Neanderthals were not so lucky. A demographic winter. This study suggests that, as the Neanderthal brain grew, becoming larger than ours, its metabolic needs forced a increasingly aggressive placentation. The fact of penetrating further into the placenta significantly increases the risk of preeclampsia, and the problem is that Neanderthal women lacked the immune mechanism to tolerate this invasion. This is where researchers have created a scenario in which rates of preeclampsia and eclampsia in Neanderthals could have reached between 10% and 20% of all pregnanciescompared to much lower rates in preindustrial humans. The meaning. This scenario translates into logically devastating maternal and fetal mortality, and the direct consequence is that small and dispersed hunter-gatherer populations had a constant decline in reproductive success. And this is a much more effective death sentence than any war, since a sudden catastrophe is not necessary, but it is enough for more mothers and babies to die than are born over a few millennia for a species to end up disappearing. There is skepticism. Within the scientific world there are doubts about what is said in this study, since there is a lack of physical evidence to support this hypothesis. The first thing they point to is that there are no markers in the fossils that have been found that allow us to diagnose preeclampsia in a Neanderthal woman from 40,000 years ago. In addition to this, although we know genetic variants associated with the risk of preeclampsia in modern humans, such as genes linked to FLT1systematic screening of Neanderthal DNA has not yet been performed to confirm whether they possessed the “high-risk” variants or lacked the protective variants. Also like it. What makes this hypothesis attractive to biologists is that it fits with maternal-fetal conflict theory. As different previous reviews point out, pregnancy is not always a perfect cooperation, but rather a tense biological negotiation. In this case, the fetus “wants” more resources to survive, and the mother “wants” to limit that investment to survive and have future children. Preeclampsia is often the result of this conflict getting out of control, and so, if Neanderthals took the “big brain” strategy to the limit without developing the biological counterpart to protect the mother, their own reproductive biology could have become an evolutionary trap. Images | Nanne Tiggelman freestocks In Xataka | A mixture of 4,000 kilometers: we have the first detailed map of the coexistence between Neanderthals and Sapiens

We have been searching for radioactive “monsters” for decades. What we have found is a rapid evolution

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When we think about animals and radiation, our minds may imagine a three-eyed fish from The Simpsons or gigantic beasts from science fiction movies. But the reality is that those areas of the planet that have suffered a radioactive disasterpresent a much more complex and often more fascinating reality from an evolutionary point of view. The data. Decades after the accidents Chernobyl in 1986, Fukushima in 2011 and the historic disasters in Mayak, science has begun to collect enough data to understand what occurs when the fauna returns “exclusion zones” that have been abandoned by humans. The most recent studies tell us that there are no monsters, but there are accelerated genetic changes, forced adaptations and physiological scars. The Chernobyl case. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become an involuntary nature reserve, since, without humans, fauna has proliferated, but genetic studies tell a story of invisible stress. One of the most classic and revealing studies focuses on the barn swallow, Since far from being immune, these birds have acted as bioindicators of the disaster. Research has documented an unusually high frequency of partial albinism in its plumagean external sign of genetic instability. In this case, an increase in the germline mutation rate of between 2 and 10 times has been recorded compared to control areas in Italy or uncontaminated rural Ukraine. As a consequence, between 1991 and 2006, were documented high frequencies of physical abnormalities in adults, suggesting that radiation continues to exert a constant selective pressure. The case of the dogs. In Chernobyl, perhaps the most surprising discovery in recent years comes from the descendants of pets that were abandoned during the evacuation. A genomic analysis A recent study of feral dogs living near the nuclear power plant shows a different genetic structure from dogs living in the city of Chernobyl, just a few kilometers away. In this case, scientists have identified changes in candidate genes such as XRCC4, essential for DNA repair. This suggests a multigenerational selection where the dogs with the best mechanisms to repair cellular damage caused by radiation are those that have managed to survive and reproduce. In this case, a meta-analysis covering 45 studies and 30 species confirms that the effect on mutation rates is large and persistent, being curiously stronger in plants than in animals. The case of Fukushima. If we go to Japan, it is where we find one of the most recent nuclear disasters and it is where we have been allowed to observe the immediate impact and the medium-term adaptation of nature. One of the most notable points is found in a new study published in January of this same year, which tells how thousands of domestic pigs escaped from their abandoned farms and began to mate with wild boars in the forest. Here it is pointed out that this encounter not only produced hybrids between pigs and wild boars, but also has accelerated the biology of these animals. And we are not facing “radioactive mutants” like the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons, but rather something biologically more interesting: a accelerated play machine that has managed to dilute its domestic genes in record time. How it looked. The researchers analyzed the mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only from the mother, and also the nuclear DNA of 191 wild boars and 10 pigs in the area between 2015 and 2018. The results suggested that, although the hybrids look like wild boars, many hide a secret in their maternal lineage. The key to this is the biological difference between both species, since, although the wild boar has a strict annual breeding season, domestic pigs have a continuous reproductive cycle to breed all year round. From here, it has been seen that hybrids that descend from a mother pig They inherit this rapid reproductive cycle, which has caused a rapid generational rotation, detecting more than five generations of hybrids in just a few years after the disaster. In short, wild boars have seen their reproduction accelerate when a few years ago it was much slower. A genetic paradox. Here comes the most curious part of the study, since if these animals reproduce so much, why don’t we see pigs everywhere in Fukushima? The answer is in the massive backcrossing in the field genetic. And the population of wild boars in the area is immensely higher than that of pigs escaped from farms, so hybrids almost always end up mating with pure wild boars. In this way, if hybrid mothers have many offspring thanks to their domestic “engine” and those offspring are crossed again with wild boars, the result is that the pig’s nuclear DNA, which defines appearance and most traits, is quickly diluted. An evolutionary improvement. With this dilution, the study indicates that, although the mitochondrial DNA reveals the domestic origin of these new wild boars, the nuclear genome and its appearance are almost indistinguishable from that of a wild boar. This is why they are, for all practical purposes, reproductively “improved” wild boars that have erased their visual domestic pig trace. The case of the butterfly. If we continue in Fukushima, we find ourselves another interesting case in the butterfly pale grass blue which was monitored between 2011 and 2013. In this case, a reduction in the size of the butterfly’s wings and a delay in growth was observed, which was combined with the appearance of deformities in the eyes and wings. After the initial spike of anomalies, the population appeared to stabilize, but this suggests a “purge” process: the most sensitive individuals died quickly, leaving a more resilient surviving population, an example of accelerated evolutionary adaptation. The Mayak disaster. Although few people know it, before Chernobyl there was this disaster that received very little media attention and which had protagonist to the Techa River in the Urals (Russia). Here, between 1949 and 1952, waste was dumped, creating a historical laboratory for chronic exposure. Technical reports and dose modeling in aquatic organisms such as fish in the Obi-Techa river system remind us … Read more

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