destroying

having an older brother is destroying your health

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If you’re the little one in the house, you probably inherited your older brother’s clothes, toys, and textbooks. But, according to science, you also inherited something much more harmful, which is its viruses. And what might seem like a simple childhood anecdote about boogers and daycare has a real, measurable and profound impact in the health, educational level and even the economic future of minors. Something common. For decades, sociology and economics have documented that first-born children tend to do better academically and economically. Traditionally, this was explained by theory of “parental care” pointing out that first-time parents dedicate more time, energy and resources to the first child, which is more complicated to offer later with a second child. However, a new wave of macro studies with millions of data is showing that biology and epidemiology have as much or more weight than parenting. The nursery. A recent massive study based on Danish administrative records, which has followed 1.2 million individuals for forty yearshas put figures to this phenomenon. And their conclusion suggests that younger siblings are two to three times more likely to be hospitalized for respiratory infections during their first year of life compared to older siblings. The reason is obvious to any parent, since the older brother acts as a “vector of contagion”, bringing home countless pathogens from daycare or school just when the immune system of his younger brother, who in this case is a simple baby, is most vulnerable. The impact on payroll. What is truly revolutionary about the Danish study is not that the babies get sick, but the long-term consequences. Here researchers have directly linked this severe exposure to early respiratory diseases with lower income, lower educational level and worse mental health outcomes, both in adolescence and adulthood. In fact, data suggest that this early exposure to disease explains about half of the economic and vital gap between firstborns and younger siblings. The other 50% would still be attributable to the difference in parental care. It had already been studied. These data confirm classic studies, such as the one carried out in 2005 with population registries in Norway, which already warned that the higher the order of birth, the worse the socioeconomic results. Norwegian data showed that the fourth or fifth child in a family has almost a year less of formal education than the first, and that women born last have higher rates of teenage pregnancy. The disease. But birth order not only punishes the little ones, it simply distribute risks differently. A colossal study by the University of Chicago carried out in 2026 on 10.3 million people and a previous Swedish macroanalysis have drawn the definitive map of how our position in the family shapes our medical history. In this case, although first-born children enjoy better overall health throughout their adult lives, first-born children have a significantly increased risk of developing autism, Tourette syndrome, childhood psychosis, anxiety and depression. Furthermore, they bear the brunt of autoimmune and dermatological diseases: more allergies, rhinitis and acne. It’s just statistics. Faced with this avalanche of data from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the US, it is easy to fall into determinism. However, the researchers behind all of these works emphasize a golden rule of statistical science by pointing out that all of this refers to population trends, not individual convictions. Images | Annie Spratt In Xataka | Carles Lalueza-Fox, geneticist: “We probably have more than one double somewhere on the planet”

This is how Sunday anxiety is destroying us

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It’s Sunday afternoon. The sun begins to set, the hours of free time slip through our fingers and, almost without realizing it, the Garfield that we all have inside begins to emerge. That visceral rejection of Mondays since the previous afternoon seems, at first glance, to be a harmless personality trait or a simple adult tantrum that is easy to joke about. However, behind that knot in the stomach that assails us at nightfall lies a complex epidemic of work stress, hyperconnectivity and excessive expectations. We usually dismiss this discomfort with a couple of memes on social networks or by baptizing it with viral terms. However, at a clinical level, the phenomenon requires nuances. The general health psychologist Alejandra de Pedro, specialist in emotional management, warns us in interview on the double side of labels such as Sunday scaries: “Putting labels is very useful: it helps us feel less alone and seek help more effectively. At the same time, over-labeling has the problem that we can trivialize things, as has happened with ‘I have OCD’ or ‘I’m depressed’.” De Pedro insists on the importance of discerning between simple laziness to go to work and a clinical problem of anticipatory anxiety. The prelude to burnout The data place Spain in a scenario of particular vulnerability. 40% of workers in our country link their stress, anxiety or depression directly to their job, far exceeding the European average (29%) and placing us among the countries with the greatest labor anguish on the continent. When that Sunday sadness transforms into a wall of anxiety, irritability and even physical symptoms, it stops being an anecdote. Brigida H. Madsen, expert cited by Vogue, points out that if “gastrointestinal discomfort” or acute feelings of rejection appear, we are crossing the line into depression syndrome. burnout. Medical institutions such as Mayo Clinic support this vision: he burnout It is not a simple individual failure to manage stress, but a shared responsibility derived from unaffordable burdens on the part of companies. Added to this structural pressure is global uncertainty. Morra Aarons-Mele, host of “The Anxious Achiever” podcast underlines in Washington Post that employment is our source of livelihood and status; Therefore, in the face of constant headlines about economic instability and possible layoffs, it is logical that the body reacts in a “visceral” way. The work model also works against us. Dr. Audrey Tang explains in Euronews that much of this anguish is born from fear of “the unknown” and the feeling of having to start Monday “at full speed”, wondering what new hell awaits us today. Furthermore, Professor André Spicer argues in his column in Guardian that the widespread use of teleworking (and the fact of working from home on Fridays) has drastically blurred the boundaries between leisure and employment, making the physical return to routine psychologically much harder. Physically, the impact is devastating. The body enters a state of “allostatic load”that is, tension raises cortisol —which rises 23% steadily on Mondays— and collapses the immune system, reducing T lymphocytes and cellular defenses, which facilitates neuroinflammation processes linked to depression. The anatomy of anxiety To draw the line between apathy and disorder, Alejandra de Pedro emphasizes that in psychology the criterion is not qualitative, but quantitative. “Two people can have the same symptoms, but the difference is in the degree to which those symptoms affect the person,” he clarifies. Feeling a little nervous 15 minutes before going to sleep is not comparable to waking up on Sunday with a cramped stomach. One of the great myths of Sunday scaries is that it is solved by “better organizing.” De Pedro refutes this idea: “Anxious people often tend to control and fall into the fallacy of ‘if I finish everything before going home, then I won’t have anxiety.’” The real root of the problem is hyperconnectivity. By carrying the office in your pocket, you create the false illusion that everything is urgent. The solution, the psychologist points out, is not to do more, but to set firm limits: not look at the company cell phone and be present in the here and now. But the origin of this anxiety is not always internal. Science reveals toxic dynamics in offices. A study from Cornell and Northeastern universities uncovered “motivational oversimplification”: Bosses tend to assign extra, routine workloads to employees they see as most motivated, mistakenly assuming that “their passion will protect them from burnout.” Curiously, this discomfort does not only punish those who hate their jobs. Ilke Inceoglu, from the University of Exeter Business School, shows that it affects people who love their profession but maintain unrealistic expectations of themselves. It is the result of a “toxic perfectionism” that subordinates personal worth to constant achievement. The survival decalogue Psychology offers concrete strategies to deactivate the weekend time bomb, divided into three key time phases that help us regain control of our free time. Starting with what we could call the Friday firewall, experts agree on the importance of brain dump or “mind dump.” Alejandra de Pedro explains that worry is nothing more than an attempt by the brain to solve a problem. So instead of passively ruminating over the weekend, sitting down to write down your pending tasks before leaving the office channels that anxious energy and gives our mind the feeling that it’s already working on it. To this cognitive download we must add the visual order. The psychologist Lara Ferreiro remember to order the desk is not just cleaning, but deciding. A clear environment drastically reduces the stimuli that overload the prefrontal cortex and, consequently, lowers cortisol levels. The second phase is to protect Sunday. To achieve this, the first step is to avoid self-sabotage. “The best thing you can do is treat Sunday as if it were Saturday,” advises De Pedro. Stopping making plans or avoiding meeting friends with the excuse of “getting psyched” for the work week only gives disproportionate power to anxiety. Instead, you could look for what is known as “slow dopamine”: Socialize with … Read more

AI is destroying jobs, and creating others too: $2,000 to masturbate

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AI not only is putting jobs at risk, He is also inventing others as unusual as they are disturbing. While some positions are shaky and others gain valuea company that sells virtual companions has taken an even stranger step: It has posted an offer to hire a “masturbation consultant.” It’s no joke, and it’s pretty well paid. The offer. Joi AI is a company that sells AI companions, similar to Replika either Character.aiand is working on a new adult audio feature. In order to evaluate your new product, They were looking for ten masturbation consultants They could test the feature for four weeks and conduct daily audio-guided sessions and then submit short weekly reports on their experience. The only requirement was to be over 18 years old and the salary was $2,000. What happened next will surprise no one. massive response We speak in the past tense because the offer has already been withdrawn. The flood of requests caused the link to the offer to break and, in just a few days, the company received no less than 100,000 applications for just ten positions, that is, 10,000 candidates per position. In statements to Business InsiderJulie Levin, Head of Communications at Joi AI, said “What are we supposed to do with 100,000 applications? I should probably call them winners, because it’s a very close competition.” The majority of candidates were young men between 20 and 30 years old. The business of artificial intimacy. Joi AI is one of many applications that are monetizing something that has been happening for a long time: that Humans are establishing relationships with AIs. The company already has 70 employees, has raised about $4 million in financing and boasts more than one million monthly active users worldwide. There are even more popular apps like the aforementioned Replika, which has two million active users. Joi AI falls into a subcategory of apps more oriented towards sexual content, which also includes the case of OhChat, a kind of virtual OnlyFans where Retired porn actresses continue working in the form of virtual avatars. As for price, all of these apps offer different subscription levels. It is striking that Joi AI offers a hybrid model between subscription and payment for tokens: for $13.99 per month they give you 1,000 coins and, if they run out, you can buy more. Aggressive marketing. Joi AI assured that the offer was real, but the suspicion that it may be all part of a marketing campaign is there. After the offer was published, the company was sharing some responses from the candidates to the question “What do you hope to learn about yourself?”, in a clear attempt to gain virality. Be that as it may, what is clear is that the company has a very aggressive marketing strategy; They sell themselves as an ‘ai-lationships’ platform and on their website they declare themselves enemies of dating apps. “We oppose that stressful and frustrating dating app experience that leaves people feeling hurt, insecure and alone (…) Joi AI is the antidote to everything dating apps have forgotten: authentic connection, real freedom and zero nonsense.” And they stay so wide. The dark side of artificial relationships. As these types of ‘AI companion’ services become popular, the risks they pose to our mental health are being questioned. we live an epidemic of loneliness, but it is increasingly clear to us that using AI to replace human relationships poses more problems than benefits. Far from curing isolation, studies have seen that regular use causes just the opposite effect, making us feel lonelier and more depressed. In this sense, Joi AI being sold as “authentic connection” and a cure for loneliness seems anything but honest. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | People Blaming ChatGPT for Causing Delusions and Suicides: What’s Really Happening with AI and Mental Health

A sedentary lifestyle is not only destroying your body, it is also changing your personality

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Sitting is a problem. Better said: sitting is a lot of problems. Sedentary lifestyle is the fourth risk factor for death globally and is behind one in four cancers of the breast, uterus or colon. And the thing doesn’t end there. Its impact is undeniable: it doubles the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, slows down glucose metabolism, and reduces fat synthesis. In addition, with one hand it hinders the burning of calories; while the other causes loss of muscle mass, bone weakness and bone demineralization. But we have known that for a long time. What is not usually said is that, in addition, sitting changes our personality. The personality? Indeed. In recent years, researchers have been building a growing body of evidence associating physically inactive lifestyles with small (but measurable) declines in several personality traits over decades. Since 2018, We know that baseline physical inactivity predicts declines in four of the big five personality traits: responsibility, openness, extraversion and agreeableness. It’s true that the effects are small (and the evidence is observational), but they are surprisingly consistent. Does exercising protect our personality? It is not clear. As I said, the studies are observational: that means that we know that both variables go hand in hand, but not that one ‘acts’ as a protector of the other. However, we don’t always need clear causality to see where the problem is. And the problem sits at the very center of Western society. Spain is a good example: between 27.4% and 36.4% of Spaniards aged 16 and over declared themselves sedentary in their free time according to the INE. And they are right: if the WHO recommendation speaks of between 150 and 300 minutes of physical activity per week, almost half of Spaniards do not reach it. Sedentary lifestyle is, without a doubt, a silent epidemic that is straining our health system and, if these researchers are right, is changing who we are. Because, although there is debate about all thisthe idea that an active lifestyle is a protective factor for personality stability throughout life is gaining strength among experts. It is true that we do not know the specific mechanisms, but the psychological plausibility of the matter is beyond any doubt. It’s time to get going. Image | Kate Sade In Xataka | Cereals yes, but wrapped in black cardboard: the packaging business aimed exclusively at men

You’ve probably never heard of urea. The missiles in Iran are destroying their production, and that will affect your food

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At the beginning of the 20th century, the world feared it would run out of food because crops were not growing enough to feed a growing population. The solution came from chemistry: an industrial process capable of manufacturing artificial nutrients for plants and multiplying crops across the planet. Today, this invisible system supports much of what reaches our plates, but it also depends on a global chain. surprisingly fragile. The invisible substance that feeds us. We already said it in the headline, you may not know urea. However, this chemical compound is one of the silent pillars of modern agriculture. It is nitrogen fertilizer most used in the world and indirectly responsible for approximately half of global food production. Its function is simple but crucial: providing nitrogen to crops so they can grow quickly and produce larger harvests. To give us an idea, approximately half of global food production depends on synthetic fertilizers. nitrogen basedand urea is the most widespread of all. Without it, agricultural yields would fall abruptly, which would directly affect products as basic as wheat, corn or rice. The Gulf and fertilizers. It happens that a large part of this global agricultural system depends on a very specific region of the planet: the Persian Gulf. The Middle East is home to some of the largest plants of fertilizer production in the world and is also a key source of raw materials necessary to manufacture them, such as ammonia or sulfur. Furthermore, the Strait of Hormuz has become an essential artery for this trade. between one quarter and a third of the world’s traffic of raw materials for fertilizers passes through this maritime passage, along with approximately 35% of global urea exports and 45% of sulfur trade. A war that hits the food chain. The military escalation in Iran and the attacks around the Strait of Hormuz are starting to interrupt that delicate system. Maritime traffic through the area has been drastically reduced and several ships have been attacked, while industrial facilities in the Gulf have suffered direct damage. In Qatar, one of the largest fertilizer facilities in the world had to stop your production after a drone attack, while Iran has paralyzed its own ammonia production. Every missile in the Iran war is not only destroying its production, it brings us a little closer to a dystopian future scenario. Urea sample in the form of granules The domino effect of urea. When the supply of fertilizers such as urea is interrupted, the impact soon spreads to the food system. If farmers cannot apply enough fertilizer, the ccrops produce less. Some experts estimate that the lack of fertilizers could reduce harvests by up to 50% in the first affected agricultural cycle. This decline would quickly translate in price increases in basic foods. Bread could become more expensive in a matter of weeks, while derived products such as eggs, chicken or pork would do so months later, as the increase in the cost of animal feed is passed on to the entire food chain. Gas, the hidden ingredient. The manufacture of nitrogen fertilizers also depends on another key factor: natural gas. Between 60% and 80% of the cost of producing fertilizers comes from the gas used in the chemical process that transforms atmospheric nitrogen into compounds usable by plants. With the war driving up energy prices and damaging industrial infrastructure, the cost of production skyrockets even before fertilizers reach the market. In a few days, the international price of urea has risen more than 25%reaching levels close to 625 dollars per ton. Risk of global food crisis. I remembered the financial times that the situation also comes at a particularly delicate moment in the agricultural calendar. In much of the northern hemisphere, farmers are starting the season spring planting, when they buy and apply the fertilizers that will determine the year’s crops. If the Strait of Hormuz disruption lasts more than a few weeks, the impact could extend far beyond energy or maritime trade. Thus, what today seems like a localized geopolitical crisis could transform into something much deeper: a global food shock reminiscent of (or even surpassing) the one that occurred after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In that scenario, the war in Iran would not only be fought with missiles and drones, but also in the fields of crops half the planet. Image | liz west, nara, LHcheM, eutrophication&hypoxia In Xataka | Iran is directing its attacks where it knows it hurts the West: energy and data centers In Xataka | In 2022, the gas crisis skyrocketed the price of electricity in Spain. In 2026 we have a “green shield” but also a serious problem

how the industry sold us empty calories in exchange for destroying our satiety

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There was a time when buying whole milk or “full fat” yogurt was considered nutritionally reckless. Dietary guidelines, obsessed with reducing saturated fat, for decades pushed consumers toward pale, liquid, skimmed versions of what was once a staple food. Eating “light” became synonymous with eating well. However, the narrative starts to crack. The story of María Branyas, the woman who lived to be 117 years old and who consumed several full-fat yogurts a day, is just the tip of the iceberg of a deeper change of outlook. The researchers who studied his case warn that yogurt alone does not explain his longevity – genetics, lifestyle and environment come into the equation – but it could play a relevant role in the balance of his intestinal microbiota. The focus, today, is no longer just on the calories we subtract, but on how much processing we add along the way. The processing error. For more than half a century, health authorities encouraged limiting red meat and fatty dairy products, warning that its saturated fats They raised LDL cholesterol and, therefore, the risk of heart disease. This premise fueled a massive industry of “light” and “0%” products. However, the problem was not the cow. As Dr. Montse Prados Pérez explainsmember of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN), when natural fat is removed from a food, its texture, flavor and nutritional profile are altered. To compensate for this loss of flavor, many manufacturers turn to sugars, starches, sweeteners or additives. The result is a product with less fat, yes, but also more processed, less satiating and potentially harmful to the intestinal microbiota and appetite regulation mechanisms. Added to this phenomenon is a possible metabolic rebound effect. Nutritionist Laura Isabel Arranz warns that Sweeteners, common in low-fat yogurts, send a sweet signal to the brain without providing real energy. This discordance can confuse the metabolism and favor a more “saving” response, preparing the body to more efficiently store the energy that arrives later. Why doesn’t whole fat act the same? There is a technical irony in the dairy aisle: we take the skimmed jar to maintain the line, but we forget that for the body to use it, it needs precisely the fat that has just been removed. Vitamins such as A or D They are fat soluble; Without that natural fatty vehicle, absorption is a chimera. In the end, trying to enrich a 0% yogurt is like trying to make a car run by pouring gasoline into it. The industry adds the nutrient, but has removed the mechanism to make it work. All this is explained by the “dairy matrix”. Unlike other fats, milk fat occurs naturally wrapped in a complex structure. known as dairy fat globule membrane (MFGM), rich in phospholipids and bioactive proteins. This biological “envelope” is essential because it appears to positively modulate the way our body processes cholesterol. In fact, recent research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition have observed that the consumption of yogurt and cheese maintains a neutral—and even potentially beneficial— relationship with cardiovascular health, unlike what would be expected if only their saturated fat content were analyzed in isolation. Whole yogurt and metabolic risk. The evidence is also beginning to materialize in clinical trials. a study published in 2025 compared the consumption of full-fat yogurt (3.25% fat) versus skimmed yogurt in adults with prediabetes. After three weeks, those who consumed full-fat yogurt showed a significant reduction in blood triglycerides compared to the group that consumed nonfat yogurt. Although it is a short-term study and in a specific population, its results add to an increasingly consistent scientific literature. Along these lines, cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food Is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, maintains that dairy fats are not intrinsically harmful and that there is “ample evidence” of the benefits of fermented dairy products. For its part, natural yogurt and kefir provide satiety, promote intestinal health and help avoid the subsequent consumption of empty calories. Back to real food. The conclusion for the consumer begins to be clear: the fear should not be in natural fat, but in artificial processing. The new dietary guidelines in the United States already reflect this paradigm shift by insisting, for the first time explicitly, on the need to prioritize real foods and avoid ultra-processed foods loaded with sugars, sodium and additives. This does not mean that full-fat dairy products should be consumed without limit or that they are suitable for all profiles. Institutions like Harvard remember that dairy fat It is still mostly saturated and that moderation continues to be key, especially in people with cardiovascular disease or familial hypercholesterolemia. But outside of those clinical contexts, as Dr. Prados Pérez summarizesfull-fat natural yogurt makes sense again: it is more satiating, preserves its original matrix and requires less industrial intervention. In the end, perhaps the secret was not in reformulating foods in a laboratory, but in something much simpler: opening a natural yogurt and eating it as it always was. Image | freepik Xataka | The woman who lived to be 117 had a favorite yogurt: a yogurt that thousands of people are now searching for

Windows is destroying even the cleanest and most minimalist thing it had because of AI: Notepad

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For a long time, Windows Notepad was a program frozen in time. It received specific adjustments, such as font compatibility, status bar, zoom or new encoding options, but deep down it was still the same as always, the one that many of us return to precisely because of what it doesn’t have. A type of software that stands out more for its simplicity than for everything it could offer. After all, when you need something more complete, there are always alternatives, free or paid. However, for some reason, Microsoft has decided that the time has come to transform Notepad into something much more ambitious. And for some of its users, this leap forward is experienced more as a renunciation of its essence than as a real improvement. AI integrated into Notepad. It is not entirely clear why it would make sense to incorporate artificial intelligence functions in this program. If we are going to write an email, it is normal to do so in its corresponding application or web service. And if we want to write a text with a little more depth, within the Microsoft ecosystem the usual thing is to open Word. Still, Microsoft recently announced that Notepad would have three integrated AI tools. Write, to generate text. Rewrite, to rewrite existing content. And Summarize, to summarize texts. To these is now added a new feature called Streaming results for AI text features. No, it has nothing to do with streaming platforms. This is an experimental feature that sends chunks of information continuously, rather than waiting for the entire response to be ready. Something similar to watching live content instead of downloading it completely before starting. Until now, when we used Notepad’s AI functions, such as Write, Rewrite or Summarize, the system processed the request and displayed the final result in one go. With this change, content begins to be generated and displayed on the screen immediately after clicking, making the first fragments of text appear almost instantly. The tables also arrive. Again, if the idea is to work with tables, we will most likely use an application designed specifically for this. But Microsoft believes that Notepad should also cover that ground, and that is why it is already testing this function among users of the Windows Insider program. “Now you can easily insert tables into your document to structure your notes,” the company explains. AI everywhere. What happens with Notepad is not an isolated case, but a fairly clear reflection of Microsoft’s strategy with artificial intelligence, which involves integrating it into practically everything. Your productivity applications already incorporate AI across the board, from Word and Excel to PowerPoint and OneNote, within Microsoft 365. The same is true for your business software, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365. And the list continues to grow. AI is also present in Windows 11, in Microsoft Edge and, of course, in Microsoft Bing. What path should you follow? The underlying question is which path Microsoft should follow from here. The expansion of Copilot It fully fits into its strategy at a time when artificial intelligence has become the great axis of technological discourse. There will be users who celebrate these new features and others who receive them with much less enthusiasm. Images | Microsoft In Xataka | Gemini 3 Flash has surpassed GPT-5.2 Extra High in several benchmarks: Google has just changed the rules of the lightweight model

Scooter, Chinese and with the last name “ADV”. The Zontes 368G is destroying the Spanish market for good reason

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Spain It’s scooter country. They are cheap to maintain, they hardly use fuel and some of them did not need a driving license to buy them. And I speak in the past tense because the DGT It already requires you to take a small driving course for new drivers who want to get a 125cc motorcycle with the B license (the car license). Taking into account that for years it has been possible to drive scooters without a license and the economy of maintenance, it is more than logical that these small vehicles have occupied the top 3 sales for years. What was not so predictable is that a Chinese manufacturer, launching an A2 license scooter, has blown up the ranking of the best-selling motorcycles in Spain and has catapulted itself to the top 3, very close to the historic Japanese Yamaha. We talk about Zontes with his 368Gand take a good look at the photo, since once you recognize it you will not stop seeing it on the Spanish streets. The reason for this motorcycle. Zontes has been in Spain since 2018 and, since then, has had a very modest presence. In China, The culture of copying has nothing to do with how we perceive it in Spain: For the Asian country it is a way of recognizing that a product is well made. For years, traditional Chinese education was based on memorization, tracing and exact reproduction of classical texts. Copying was the correct way to learn, and if a student could exactly replicate their teacher’s work, it demonstrated respect and having achieved a high level of skill. So, analyzing that the best-selling A2 scooter in Spain is the Honda 350 ADVZontes decided to make his own. The anti-ADV. A motorcycle for the city, road and (some) countryside, all with an aesthetic similar to Honda’s most expensive ADV, the X-ADV. The Zontes 368G is the third best-selling motorcycle in Spain according to Anesdor, dangerously close to the Yamaha Nmax. That’s key for several reasons. It is the best-selling Chinese scooter in Spain. It is the first time that an A2 license scooter is close to surpassing a B license scooter in sales. This Zontes model has surpassed Voge, a Chinese manufacturer that seemed unbeatable in Spain. While Chinese manufacturers are betting on a fragmented distribution strategy, Zontes has bet practically everything on this model. Why is it devastating?. Zontes has touched the x pillars necessary for a motorcycle to sweep sales in Spain. The price is absurdly low. Zontes asks 5,529 euros for a 368G with almost 40 HP and fully equipped. On a technological level, it is one of the most ambitious proposals on the market: heated grips, 8-inch TFT screen with mirroring connectivity, rear camera, front camera, keyless start, electric seat opening, full LED lights. Expansion of dealer network in Spain and good response from technical service. The small print. Like practically all Chinese manufacturers (except for some high-displacement models from Voge), the toll to pay for buying an Asian motorcycle is that you have to go to the workshop quite a bit. The Voge’s maintenance is every 4,000km, compared to 12,000km for its direct rival, the Honda ADV 350. A point to keep in mind for all those drivers who drive close to 10,000km annually. 2026 is coming even stronger. Zontes has made a splash in 2025, and has even more reason to do so in 2026. They are going to increase the maintenance interval to 5,000km thanks to an oil cooler. The bike will come with a heated seat. New display. Cruise control. Suspension improvements. On the other hand, in China, it is sold at the same price as the current model, so hardly any price increase is expected. 2026 will be a key year in the motorcycle world: it is more than likely that Chinese manufacturers will take the top 1 for the first time. Zontes is not alone. Zontes has become a manufacturer capable of surpassing giants such as BWM, Kymco and Kawasaki in registrations. But just look at the top 10 units registered in Spain to understand that it is not alone. Position four is occupied by Voge, a Chinese manufacturer that has managed to place its 900 DSX as the best-selling trail in Spain. In 10th place, QJmotor is beginning to make its mark. The future of the motorcycle in Spain is inevitable: it passes through China. Image | Zontes In Xataka | Chinese motorcycles are sweeping Spain: who is who in this puzzle of brands

‘Avatar 3’ is going to be a movie so disproportionately expensive that it runs the risk of destroying and losing money

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‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ is already, as has happened with all previous installments of the franchise, one of the most anticipated films of the year. Each new installment breaks box office records, and yet James Cameron’s statements are more pessimistic each year about the continuity of the series. Are you sure that ‘Avatar’ is as good a deal as it seems? We snooped into his finances. The paradox. ‘Avatar: Fire and Ashes’ arrives wrapped in an economic paradox: its production budget exceeds 400 million dollarsa figure that places it among the most expensive films ever filmed. And yet, its own director is not clear if the business is worth it. Cameron has been unusually frank about his franchise’s finances and he put the question bluntly: “Will we make money on Avatar 3? Surely some. But the real question is what kind of profit margin there will be, if any, and whether that will be enough of an incentive to continue in this universe.” The wild mathematics of break-even. The arithmetic of ‘Fire and Ashes’ defies standard Hollywood logic. With 400 million in production expenses and a marketing budget that analysts place between 100 and 175 million, it would need to exceed $1 billion at the box office simply to break even or break evenaccording to the more or less assumed industry rule that a film must gross 2.5 times its production budget to be profitable. The case of ‘The sense of water’. The previous installment of ‘Avatar’ gives us some previous lessons on the subject. The sequel cost more than $1 billion in total costs: $400 million in production, another $400 in global marketing, $300 million in shares for Cameron and producer Jon Landau, plus cast salaries, residuals and general expenses. Cameron was not exaggerating when declared that ‘Avatar 2’ was “the worst business case in the history of cinema” and that it needed to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film of all time” simply to not lose money. The film fulfilled that apocalyptic objective: raised 2,320 million and finally generated 531.7 million net profit. But that deceptively solid figure hides a crucial detail: The studios do not receive all the money from the box office. Movie theaters take approximately 50% of US domestic revenue, 40% from international markets, and up to 75% in China. That is, of those 2.32 billion, Disney actually received just over 1 billion. The rest stayed at the box office. The crisis of inflated budgets. ‘Avatar’ is one of the most visible symptoms of a disease that affects all of Hollywood. The industry has a systemic problem of out-of-control budgets, which affects such well-known films as ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker‘ ($490 million), ‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ (584 million) or ‘Mission: Impossible – Deadly Sentence: Part One’ (400 million). A analysis of the causes It leads us to multiple factors that explain this phenomenon: inflation has increased the value of the dollar by 15% since 2020, making all aspects of production more expensive. But in addition, streaming platforms altered the economy of stars, accustoming them to higher initial charges, demands that they later transfer to traditional productions. And there is also a visual effects arms race: franchises like superheroes try to surpass each other in spectacularity, and infect the rest of the blockbusters. For this reason they are films that “might not make money even with objectively decent box offices.” The unique case of ‘Avatar’. James Cameron invests in developing pioneering technology that then benefits the entire industry: the underwater motion capture that Cameron and Weta FX took a year and a half to perfect for ‘The Sense of Water’, now reduce costs for the sequels being already invented. But the budget escalation is relentless: ‘Avatar’ cost between 237-280 million, ‘Avatar 2’ between 350-460 million and ‘Avatar 3’ exceeds 400 million. The franchise is a guarantee of box office success, but the profit margins are worryingly narrow. In Xataka | Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ was going to be a flop. Until a trailer that broke several Hollywood rules changed the narrative

from destroying its tree masses to being the third most forested country in Europe

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After decades of neglect, mismanagement and population exodus, Spain is today a European forestry power. In light of the data, reforestation efforts have borne fruit. However, not everything is good news: the Spanish forestry ‘miracle’ is accompanied by risks and problems that are very difficult to manage. Spain, forestry potential? Indeed. Spain has been climbing the European podium of forest area until reaching third position. According to Eurostat dataonly Sweden (28Mha) and Finland (22Mha) surpass Spain, which with its 19 million hectares is in record numbers. And in reality, we only count a small part of the forest area. In technical terms, not everything “forest” is “forest” and this is especially noticeable in Spain because, if we count the forest area Finland is surpassed and second place on the continent is reached. No wonder: between 50 and 56% of the country is considered forest area. Why is it important? Spain lost forest mass in a continuous and worrying manner from the beginning of the 19th century to the mid-20th century. The trend was so pressing that it began to be a problem: together with France and Germany, Spain concentrates a good part of Europe’s timber industry and overexploitation put the future of a good part of the country at risk. Luckily, the reforestation policies (and the rural depopulation that led a withdrawal of activity human productive) have caused this trend to reverse. It is not easy, almost two thirds of the forests are private and without active management; but as I say, during these decades the natural ‘movement’ of the Spanish forest was towards self-reforestation. That means that we are not always talking about “diverse mature forest” and ecologically sustainable. But, still, it is good news. Not all the mountain is oregano. Because, to begin with, poorly cared for forests, subjected to water stress, pests and indiscriminate logging, are sick forests. The evidence is clear: Europe’s forests have long they are losing the capacity to absorb carbon. Furthermore, since they are not well, everything becomes problems. Thus, what at another time would have been excellent news (a very rainy spring) become a ticking time bomb. Not for nothing, 2025 has been worst fire season. On the other hand, when we talk about forestry (with things like eucalyptus monoculture) what we find is that afforestation and increasing density can affect aquifers and finish giving the finishing touch to biodiversity. The big step we have to take. Little by little, humanity begins to realize that it is inevitable that it begins to take direct management of the entire ecosystem. And yes, it is something expensive, costly, and it cannot be stopped when there are economic problems. It is a very long-term project that, honestly, in a very polarized and in full energy transitionno administration can ensure 100%. However, it is a necessary project. That is, something that will mark our future in the medium term. And we’re not just talking about forests. Image | Mitchell Orr | Manuel Lopez In Xataka | The drought is so extreme that Catalonia has made a radical decision for its ecosystems: reduce rivers to a minimum

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