died

how a relay in Gipuzkoa saved Europe while the Spanish system died of success

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Next April 28 it will be exactly one year of the biggest collapse in our recent history: the great blackout that turned the Iberian Peninsula black and left 55 million people in Spain and Portugal without electricity supply for 12 hours. Almost twelve months later, we finally have the official autopsy. The final report. The European Network of Electricity Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) has made public the long-awaited final report. Throughout 472 pages, the panel of experts dissects an unprecedented event to the millisecond. The document, which warns from its preamble that it does not seek to assign legal responsibilities but rather to learn from mistakes, reveals a chilling diagnosis: the blackout was the perfect storm caused by the rigidity of new technologies, manual ineffectiveness in the face of a millisecond crisis and an infrastructure incapable of keeping pace with the energy transition. The anatomy of collapse. To understand the ruling, you have to look south. According to the European report, at 12:03 p.m. on April 28 a local vibration was recorded of 0.63 Hz caused by instability in the electronic converters of renewable plants. Minutes later, at 12:19, the swing was amplified, affecting the entire continent. Technical research points to what could be defined as “operational blindness.” The report notes that much of the renewable generation in Spain operated under a “fixed power factor.” That is, the solar and wind plants were blind to the needs of the grid; they could not absorb reactive energy dynamically. When the voltage rose, these plants were simply taken offline for safety. When they stopped generating electricity, their reactive absorption also suddenly stopped, causing a rebound effect that triggered the voltage in an uncontrolled manner. Furthermore, while the crisis required millisecond reflexes, the control of reactances (the machines that absorb excess voltage) was carried out manually. Operators needed vital minutes to assess the situation. The blackout that could have been avoided. The European report not only acts as a notary for what failed, but also puts on the table what should have happened. By diving into the technical simulations of the ENTSO-E document, sector experts such as Joaquín Coronado have drawn a devastating conclusion: The collapse of the Spanish electrical system was not inevitable, but the result of ineffective management of voltage control by the System Operator (Red Eléctrica). The European analysis is blunt. In his simulation of sensitivity (named Analysis 7), the report concludes that if the connection of the reactances – such as the Caparacena shunt reactor at 400 kV – had been automated instead of depending on the slow human factor, the voltage rise would have been limited and the cascade effect avoided. In addition, ENTSO-E simulates alternative scenarios that show that electrical zero would have been stopped cold with measures that should already be operational: an increase in reactive power margins, the requirement that conventional generators absorb more voltage, or the use of the eight new synchronous capacitors that were already planned in the 2021-2026 planning. Without this automated reactive power reserve or dynamic support, the network was orphaned at the worst possible moment. The rescue from Gipuzkoa. The continental disaster was avoided thanks to Gipuzkoa. At 12:33, the high voltage substation in the Osinaga neighborhood of Hernani detected that the Spanish chaos threatened to drag down all of Europe. In milliseconds, the protection relay out-of-step (out of step) decapitated the connection with the French Argia substation. This “shot” left Spain in the dark, but it shielded the continental network. Barely ten minutes later, Hernani became the rescue route, allowing France to inject energy to resurrect the peninsular system from top to bottom (Top-Down). The structural problem of the market. The targeting of clean energy in the moments before the blackout has raised eyebrows, but the sector defends itself by pointing directly to regulatory inaction. In an interview for XatakaHéctor de Lama, technical director of UNEF (the photovoltaic employers’ association), is blunt: “A plant, no matter how large, cannot cause a blackout. Many other factors must come together.” De Lama explains that the current inverters installed in Spain meet very high European technical requirements, but places the structural problem on the roof of the Ministry (MITECO) and the CNMC for not financially incentivizing renewables to provide security services to the grid. “The current remuneration of €1/MVArh is not enough to encourage renewables to provide this service (voltage control) when we are paying combined cycle plants between 100 and 200 times more for the same thing,” details De Lama. The UNEF expert also recalls a historical administrative negligence that took its toll on us on April 28: while Portugal approved regulations to take advantage of the voltage control of its renewables in 2019, Spain took years to implement vital mechanisms such as Operation Procedure 7.4. We were playing with the rules of the past in the face of a crisis of the future. “A gold mine without a road.” This diagnosis fits with the voices of the industry. During the VI Economic Forum of elDiario.esPatxi Calleja, director of regulation at Iberdrola Spain, defined the national system as “a gold mine without a road.” We have enormous cheap generation capacity, but the electricity grid is the great limitation due to lack of investment compared to our European neighbors. And this green shield also has cracks. As we already analyzed in Xatakathe very high renewable penetration shields us from geopolitical crises (such as the increase in gas prices due to the war in Iran) during daylight hours, plummeting prices to zero. However, as soon as the sun goes down, the lack of mass battery storage sends us back to square one, leaving us at the mercy of combined cycles and fossil volatility. The war without quarter. While technicians analyze the ENTSO-E simulations that point to operational failures, a fierce battle is being waged in the offices. The president of Redeia (parent company of Red Eléctrica), Beatriz Corredor, has used the Brussels report in her appearances in the Senate to entrench herself … Read more

Soda Stereo returns projecting a musician who died 12 years ago

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On March 21, 2026, Charly Alberti and Zeta Bosio went up to the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires next to screens that reproduced the voice and guitar of the deceased third vertex of the Soda Stereo triangle, Gustavo Cerati. They showed previous recordings of the musician, and they intended to go far beyond a simple hologram. A part of the public, from social networks, did not see it as something so revolutionary. What just happened with Soda Stereo is one more chapter (although, a particularly revealing one) in the industrialization of the posthumous concert. The ghost of Cerati. It was known when and where Soda Stereo returned, but it was not known how. On September 29, 2025, the announcement on networks was brief and deliberately ambiguous: “It is not a tribute. It is not a tribute. It is not a movie. It is Soda, live. Soda = Avant-garde.” The promise was that Gustavo Cerati, who died in 2014, would be on stage, although the word “hologram” was carefully avoided in the announcement. What the public found on March 21 at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires was something simpler and more complex at the same time: screens, depth effects and the voice and guitar recordings that Cerati left on the 1997 and 2007 tours. The figures. The tour already has, before finishing its first week, more than 500,000 tickets sold and 33 dates in Latin America and Spain, the last scheduled for September 24 in Madrid. What can be seen in the show is, behind a semi-transparent curtain, Cerati’s silhouette that gives way, song by song, to a clearer presence on the side screens: shots of his hands on the blue Jackson guitar, full-length images… A total of nineteen songs, with 3D glasses for two of them. Fan reaction. The reaction on networks was very polarized. A part of the audience was moved but another part, the loudest, described the show as “fraud” and “fantochada”. The argument for rejection, more than technical, was emotional: “Cerati always changed some arrangement live, made jokes, talked to the audience. “That’s not Cerati, it’s not live, it has no humanity.” pointed out a user. “Cerati” and “fraud” became trending topics among reviews of “the “technological prowess” is normalized by the third song. And then there is nothing left. It is one song after another (sometimes they are not even on stage). And the viewer feels as if they were watching a DVD with 15 thousand other people.” Everything to the millimeter. In the review he made The Nation of the concert, he said that the show “is not a recital. It is a show, calculated to the millimeter, with a script, without possibilities of spontaneity or improvisation.” And it is something that can be applied to what most great live concerts have become: every gesture of the artist, every speech between songs is extremely scripted. But in the case of Cerati, even more spontaneous moments (there is a moment in which he greets the other two members with “Hello, Zeta, Charly…”) are especially artificial, because they will always be repeated the same. Funeral precedents. This is not the first time that the music industry has resorted to this type of resources. When Tupac Shakur’s image appeared on the Coachella stage alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre in April 2012, the 90,000 attendees were left speechless. The video racked up 15 million views on YouTube in 48 hours and sales of the rapper’s catalog skyrocketed. Technically it was not a hologram, but an old trick from 19th century illusionism: a projection on a screen in front of the audience known as Pepper’s Ghost. Since then, spectral versions of Michael Jackson, Roy Orbison, Whitney Houston and Frank Zappa have graced the stage. They were all isolated events: the first time it was thought about extending it over time was the ABBA Voyage show in 2022: a permanent residence in London with a 3,000-seat venue built specifically for the show, with effects from Industrial Light & Magic and with the four members of the group actively participating in the motion capture process. ABBA Voyage had a turnover of more than one hundred million pounds in 2024 alone. Something more modest. The Soda Stereo show is inspired by the ABBA model, but in a reduced version, since the technology used is significantly more modest. There is an extra difference: ABBA Voyage works because its four members consciously decided how they wanted to be represented. With Soda Stereo, Cerati did not make any decisions about this project. Consent is exercised by whoever controls his image: Benito Cerati, son of the musician, who has defended the Soda Stereo initiative. The problem is that, according to fansCerati was known for exactly the opposite of this: improvisation, stage risk and unpredictability were always present in his concerts. In Xataka | Spotify killed the record and the industry pivoted to concerts. Netflix killed cinema and the industry was left with a “space crisis”

Chaplin died on Christmas. In March they were already asking for $600,000 in ransom for his body.

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On the night of March 1-2, 1978, a pair of unemployed mechanics dug up the coffin of the legendary Charles Chaplin from a Swiss cemetery, and moved it to a cornfield, where they hid it. They asked for $600,000 to return it and the widow refused to agree to their demands. Everything was solved with an intervention by the police, but with an unexpected final twist: the thieves did not remember where they had hidden it. Death. Chaplin had died on December 25, 1977, at the age of 88, at his residence in Corsier-sur-Vevey, a town on the shores of Lake Geneva. He had been there since 1952, when the US government denied him a visa to return to his country after being accused of communist sympathies. during McCarthyism: He had left the United States to attend the London premiere of ‘Candilejas’ and was never able to return. The funeral was discreet and the oak coffin was buried in the local cemetery without much fanfare. A quiet end for someone who had been, literally, the most famous person in the world in the 1920s. The robbery. The tranquility lasted ten weeks. In the early hours of March 1-2, 1978, two men crossed the unprotected cemetery carrying flashlights and shovels. They were Roman Wardas, Polish, 24 years old, political refugee who led a precarious life in Switzerland and Gantscho Ganev, Bulgarian, 38 years old, also a mechanic, also without stable work. They had come to the conclusion that Chaplin’s corpse was the solution to his financial problems. They unearthed the 135 kilo oak coffinthey dragged him to the street and loaded him into Ganev’s car. They drove to a cornfield a little over a mile from the Chaplins’ house and reburied him. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. On the morning of March 2, police discovered the empty hole and notified the family. Press speculation They were immediate: uncontrolled fans, local anti-Semites, neo-Nazis resentful of ‘The Great Dictator’… That same day, calls from tomb desecrators began to arrive. And they repeated themselves. Between March 2 and May 16, Oona Chaplin, the actor’s very young widow, received 27 calls demanding a ransom of $600,000. His refusal made history: “Charlie would have found it ridiculous.” In reality, there was a reason for delaying them: while he pretended to negotiate to buy time, the police tapped his phone and deployed agents to the two hundred public telephones in the region, because the thieves changed booths with each call. The situation was complicated because impostors appeared who claimed to have stolen the body, forcing the real kidnappers to photograph the coffin to prove that they were the ones who had it. The thieves also threatened the family’s youngest children, but Oona Chaplin stood her ground. The arrest. On May 16, 76 days after the robbery, Wardas was arrested in a telephone booth in Lausanne, and Ganev fell shortly after. The police took them to the cornfield to recover the coffin, but there was still comedy in the story: the thieves did not remember the exact point where they buried it. The agents had to use metal detectors to locate the coffin. Chaplin was reburied in the same place, this time with a concrete slab on top of the coffin. Oona died in 1991 and is buried next to him. More robberies. The theft of Chaplin’s body was not an isolated accident, but the continuation of a macabre tradition of famous kidnapped corpses. In 1876, a gang of counterfeiters attempted to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body to ask for a ransom and the plan was aborted when the thieves had already sawed off the tomb’s padlock. In 1977, weeks after Elvis Presley’s death, four people attempted to break into his mausoleum in Memphis, convincing the family to move the remains to Graceland, also sealed under a slab. Eva Perón lived a posthumous journey that lasted decades: her embalmed corpse was stolen by the Argentine military in 1955, stored in a van parked in the streets of Buenos Aires, secretly transferred to Italy and buried in Milan under a false name until she was able to return to Argentina in 1974. And in 2015, the skull of ‘Nosferatu’ director FW Murnau disappeared from his grave near Berlin, possibly stolen by satanists. He never recovered. In Xataka | This is how sound was added to cartoons before sound films: the complex simplicity of mechanical orchestras

The bargain Xiaomi has died. Its new era goes through luxury, sports cars and competing in premium

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Xiaomi came into this world promising that the price was a conspiracy. That the absurd margins of Samsung and Apple were arbitrary, that a decent cell phone could cost two hundred bucks and that Democratizing was, in itself, a form of gainr. It worked and grew. It became the third smartphone brand in the world with a 14% global share, not so far from Samsung and Apple. And now, at the MWC in Barcelona, ​​he has set up a stand where there is no trace of that initial promise. There is a Xiaomi 17 Ultra for 1,500 euros with the Leica seal. There is a SU7 Ultra that breaks records at the Nürburgring. and there is a concepts of hypercar electric car called Vision Gran Turismo designed to appear in the PlayStation video game alongside Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes. The Xiaomi of the bargain has not died of success. He died, in part, out of necessity. The numbers tell the story that the statements do not usually explain: The average selling price of their smartphones fell almost three percent in 2025weighed down by the weight of Redmi in international markets. In China, its natural market, closed the year in fourth positionlosing ground to Apple and a Huawei that has returned with force. With an R&D budget that exceeds four billion dollars annually and the pressure to sustain that spending, selling more cheap mobile phones is no longer a viable strategy… …so the move to premium is an Excel thing. The photography with Leica and the SU7 Ultra we already knew them. What’s new in Barcelona is the Vision Gran Turismo, and it is true that it deserves some attention. Xiaomi is the first Chinese manufacturer to join Polyphony Digital’s Vision GT program, a club that for three decades has been the exclusive territory of large European and Japanese houses. The concept itself (a hypercar electric, 900 volt platform, power that could be around 1,900 horsepower…) will never reach production. Xiaomi knows that and we all know it. But that’s not the question. The question is why a company that sells mobile phones, appliances and electric cars dedicates resources to designing a video game car and also creates its physical version. The answer is that The Vision GT is not a product but a positioning statement executed in the only territory where Xiaomi still has no history to defend or expectations to manage: the one of pure fantasy. A place where a brand that Four years ago it didn’t even have a car division. can sit without raising an eyebrow at the same table as Porsche. Some photos of stand from Xiaomi at the MWC explain well where the shots are going: What is not seen because it is covered by people surrounding it is the Vision GT, Xiaomi’s biggest eye-catcher at this MWC. Image: Xataka. What you see when you enter the security area thanks to a convenient press pass. Image: Xataka. The queue to get on the SU7 Ultra is already a classic. Image: Xataka. Cell phones continue to attract glances… but they are not even close to the ones that their cars awaken. Or his car and his concept car. Image: Xataka. The move is very reminiscent of Hyundai when it launched Lexus, although with one difference: Hyundai had the discipline to separate the brands. Xiaomi is trying to ensure that the same logo that for years crowned 150 euro phones now supports an ecosystem that ranges from hypercar to the ultra-premium mobile passing through the connected home. This identity clash remains unresolved. And at the MWC stand it looks great: the main protagonists are Leica, the SU7 Ultra and the Vision GT. Redmi and POCO surely have a big place in the hearts of the staff of the brand, but they do not appear on any display, they are something that the Xiaomi of 2026 does not want to boast about. The bet is serious because the premium margins are much better. The vertical integration that Lei Jun pursues with its own chip, its own operating system, its own AI model, etc., It only makes economic sense if the devices that incorporate them sell at a high price.and the total ecosystem that Xiaomi is buildingfrom the pocket to the living room and from the living room to the garage, generates a blocking effect that the low price segment will never be able to offer. The risk is also serious: luxury always works by accumulation of credibility, a unilateral declaration is not enough, and Xiaomi still carries the shadow of having been for a long time the brand you chose when you couldn’t afford anything else. Or when you could, but you preferred not to, and you clung to that comforting feeling of getting something as good as your neighbor while paying half as much. Convincing that neighbor that you are now worth three times as much is one of the biggest marketing challenges in the tech industry right now. In Xataka | Leica is teaching Xiaomi everything it knows. When the student no longer needs the teacher, the agreement will have fulfilled its function Featured image | Xataka

Now that the most wanted cartel in Mexico has died, three disturbing possibilities open up. All with the US in the target

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For more than four decades, the relationship between Mexico and the United States has been marked by a shared war and asymmetric against drug traffickinga fight that has oscillated between open confrontation, silent cooperation and the reproaches mutual while criminal networks adapted, fragmented and strengthened in the heat of the demand for drugs north of the border and violence to the south. In this permanent pulse, each hit against a boss has not only been an operational successbut also the beginning of a new disturbing phase. The biggest blow in a decade. The death of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”undisputed leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, represents the most important blow against organized crime in Mexico since fall of “El Chapo”. It is, not only because of the dejected figure, but because structural weight of the organization he directed, which became one of the most expansive, violent and with the greatest international capacity in the country. We are talking about an organization with presence in dozens of nations and a central role in the trafficking of methamphetamine and fentanyl into the United States. The definitive breakup. From the political side, the operation confirms the breakup with the stage of “hugs, not bullets” and consolidates a strategy based on intelligence, coordination and direct action against criminal leaders. In fact, the administration of Claudia Sheinbaum has multiplied arrests, seizures and deployments on the northern border. The internal message is crystal clear: the State seeks regain the initiative in the face of organizations that took advantage of years of limited containment to expand and professionalize. Immediate response that has paralyzed regions. There is no doubt, in an operation of this caliber, the reaction of the cartel has been lightning and coordinatedwith blockades, vehicle fires, attacks on infrastructure and suspension of activities in several states. Cities like Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta are experiencing panic scenes that are reminiscent of previous crises in Sinaloa after the capture of other leaders such as that of “El Mayo”. And, as almost always, the deployment of federal forces and the alerts to foreign citizens show a reality most uncomfortable: The group’s operational capacity does not disappear with the death of its leader. The great unknown and a risk. This being the case, and with the natural heir imprisoned in the United States, the replacement of the next great drug trafficker open a fight potential between regional commanders and key operators. They remembered in the New York Times that, if the chain of command is not imposed quickly, it is very possible that internal disputes will begin to arise that fragment or weaken the organization. The Mexican experience shows that these transitions usually translate in prolonged violence and territorial fights that affect entire communities. The first possibility looking at Washington. With this scenario, what happens in the coming weeks can greatly alter the security architecture not only of the United States, but from all over North America opening before him three most disturbing scenarios. First of all, a more than possible internal war due to the succession within the CJNG that destabilizes the organization and multiplies all types of sources of regional violence, generating in turn displacement, migratory pressure and greater disorderly flow of weapons and drugs towards the north of the continent. And the remaining two. Secondly, the equally plausible possibility opens up: that of a rival cartels offensive to dispute territories and the most strategic routes, a situation that could trigger a prolonged national conflict similar to the one that occurred in Sinaloaaffecting logistics chains, investment and, in general, border stability. Finally, the third way is that of rapid consolidation under a new leadershipone that, far from weakening the business, makes it more opaque and decentralized, maintaining or even sophisticating fentanyl trafficking to the United States and beyond, which would force Washington to rethink its cooperation, its political pressure and even the debate on direct interventions, with profound implications for Mexican sovereignty and regional integration. In short, with consequences for the entire North American security architecture. A turning point in relationships. The last thing that we have known of the operation has been that it was carried out by Mexican forces together with US intelligence, all in a context political pressure from the White House and millionaire rewards offered by the DEA, along with the review of commercial and security commitments. Plus: arrives after months of extraditionsconvictions and mass arrests linked to the capo’s entourage, suggesting that the operation has been a sustained strategy and not an isolated hit. Tactical success obviously reinforces cooperation, but it will also very likely raise expectations and scrutiny over actual results. If violence expands or the criminal business adapts and diversifies without losing any capacity, such as it has already happened In the past, the region could enter a highest voltage phase strategic that redefines the way in which both countries manage their border, their trade and their shared security. Image | Knight Foundation In Xataka | The cartels have a vehicle that looks like something out of Mad Max: it is called a “narcotanque” and it is a nightmare in Mexico In Xataka | There is a “cocaine of the sea” that is breaking the Chinese market. And that is a huge problem for Mexico.

Marie Curie died 92 years ago. Your personal notebooks are still buried under layers of lead for a good reason

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If you visit the basements of the National Library of France (BnF) and you want to look at some of the bibliographic gems that are kept there, you will most likely be forced to respect a series of measures, such as wearing gloves or handling the books in perfectly controlled conditions. The objective is obvious: protect the volumes. From you, from excessive exposure to light, from degradation. Things change if what you want to read is one of the notebooks that Marie Curie scribbled in her laboratory. In that case it is you who they must protect. Literally. The fact that there are dangerous publications may be a controversial statement that may or may not be shared, but in the case of the folios handwritten by the famous Franco-Polish scientist, it leaves little room for debate. Despite Madame Curie He died in 1934, almost 89 years ago, his notebooks continue to cause concern among archivists. and it is quite normal so be it. When Marie Salomea and her husband, Peterinvestigated in their laboratory with uranium, little was known about the potential damage of radiation, so they did not apply the basic safety measures that govern any radiological task today. So things—supports the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH)— “no wonder his workspace and notebooks became contaminated.” Pierre and Marie Curie, in the laboratory, around 1904. To avoid possible risks, the handwritten notebooks are kept in the basements of the National Library of France inside special boxes, made up of several layers of lead. Not only that. As detailed in 2021 by the BBC networkthe French institution requires researchers who want to handle the notebooks in person to first put on some protective suits specials and, of course, that they sign a document in which they exempt them from any responsibility. Is such misgivings justified? When reading requires a special suit For their research, which led to the discovery of polonium and radium, the Curies accumulated, crushed and manipulated enormous quantities of minerals containing uranium in their laboratory. He knowledge about natural radioactivity It was very recent at the time and the couple, who contributed to their research, were unwittingly exposed to its harmful effects. Themselves and, of course, all the material they used. Including notebooks of notes. To understand the conditions under which they worked, it is good review the notes by Marie, collected by Philipp Blom in ‘The years of vertigo: Europe, 1900-1914’: “One of our joys was entering the workshop at night; everywhere we saw the faintly luminous silhouettes of the capsule bottles containing our products. It was a beautiful sight and always new to us. The glowing tubes looked like dim fairy lights.” It was not strange, they say, that the pair of scientists carried flasks with polonium and radium in their coat pockets or kept them in their desk. Marie herself ended up dying in 1934 from a aplastic anemia which was probably caused by his frequent exposure to radium samples and polonium. “Taking into account the half-life of 1,600 years of the radius and the sensitivity of current radiation detectors, it is also not surprising that this contamination is still detectable today,” comments the ACSH in an article dedicated to the topic. The experts, BBC specifiescalculate that given that on average radium atoms take about 15 centuries to disintegrate, it is not unreasonable to think that the notebooks should remain in their lead box during that period. The National Library of France is in any case not the only one to preserve Curie’s notebooks. The Wellcome Collection It also has a volume, digitizedwith notes on experiments and radioactive substances and sketches. The volume dates from between 1899 and 1902 and was written in Paris. To avoid scares in 2014 The Aurora firm examined the material and concluded that it was contaminated with radius-226. The ACSH states in any case that the volume “does not represent an appreciable risk.” Fortunately, the notebook can consult now from homeonline, or even downloaded in PDF. The theme of “the contaminated notebooks” of Curie generate so much interest that it even has your own entrance on the website Marie-curie.eu, focused on the figure of the two-time Nobel Prize winner, and numerous articles have been written on the subject. Notebooks are not the only ones in a similar situation. The BBC explains that the house south of Paris where Marie Curie worked until 1934 is also affected by the radiation levels generated during her experiments. The block has even earned the ironic nickname of “Chernobyl on the Seine”. When he was buried in Paris Pantheoneven Marie Curie herself ended up in a lead sarcophagus almost an inch thick. Image | Aurora In Xataka | In 1968 a man had the idea to create the first tablet in history. The problem is that he was decades ahead of his time. In Xataka | The first hard drives in history were gigantic. Then a miracle happened: miniaturization

In 1962, a Mexican child found a radioactive pill and took her home. All the father died but

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27 years before Chernobyl disasterMexico City lived in its meats the effects of ionizing radiation. With a clear parallelism with the death of Marie Curie About 30 years before, a Mexican family disappeared after being exposed for days to a radioactive capsule that they found out there. And the worst thing is that he never clarified as something so dangerous ended in that house. The case. In March 1962, a family composed of five members (father, pregnant mother, paternal grandmother, a daughter and a son) moved to a new house in Mexico City. It is estimated that, playing in a garden, the child found a ‘capsule’ and took it. With about ten years, I was unable to know what it was, but the capsule is not that it had an easily recognizable badge. The cell. They did not know that this small cobalt-60 capsule of just a few centimeters had an activity of 200 gigabequerelios (GBQ). To put it in context, it is a radiation between hundreds and thousands of millions smaller than the one in Chernobilbut enough to wreak havoc without proper protection. And, of course, the manipulation was far from being correct. Like Marie Curie 30 years before with her radioactive tubes, the little one took the capsule for a few days Cobalt-60 In the pants pocket, absorbing more than directly the ionizing radiation. The mother took her and kept her in a kitchen drawer. Now We still have problems with radiation in Chernobyl And they are built great sarcophagi to contain itso a wooden drawer had little to do. The piece Tragic outcome. A few days later, the mother began to notice that glass vessels began to change color. It is a phenomenon called radiation solarization which occurs when transparent materials such as glass are subjected to high energy radiation (such as X -rays or gamma). Depending on the color of the glass and its composition, the new hue varies, but the effects are patent. It also began to cause mysterious symptoms in different family members, such as tiredness at the beginning and vomiting. He outcome It was expected. At the beginning of April, a few days after the finding of the radioactive pill, the child died. It was the one that received the biggest doses, which caused great damage to the bone marrow, infections and necrosis in the areas of maximum exposure. The mother, who was the one who spent the longest in the kitchen, died in July due to hemorrhages in hematopoietic tissues. The two -year -old younger sister died in August after developing respiratory infection, anemia, leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. The grandmother was the last one: in October of that year and for causes similar to those of the girl. The father received a high dose, but as time was spent at home for work, he survived. A plane of the house, about 25 m². The location of the pill in the kitchen is marked with the “radiation” symbol Explanations? In just eight months, that little radioactive battery ended five family members and here the most interesting question is how something like that, especially when there was already knowledge of the danger of the radioactive material, ended without protection in the garden of a house. The most serious thing is that 60 years have passed and there is no official version. The capsule, after being obsolete, was removed from a hospital where it was used in radiology equipment and was not transported with the necessary protection measures. There begin the versions that point that he arrived at a landfill next to other waste, but without signaling about the danger it represented and, in some way, ended in that garden. A Report Medical of the 1964 pointed out that the piece was in a lead container that was granted to the family for their care, but without informing its content or danger. The only clear thing is that he left the hospital without proper surveillance and the head of that cobalt capsule was not found. Was not the only one. That mystery has given rise to conspiracy theories such as ensuring that it was a premeditated event that ended in that family, but they are still that: theories. And, although it would have been a perfect story for some film with supernatural component (mysterious deaths, change of color in objects), nothing was done with it. Nor are there great documentaries, contrary to what happened with another radiation case with a cobalt capsule-60: that of Ciudad Juárez in 1984. The protagonist was another radiotherapy unit with Cobalt-60, but on this occasion, an improperly dismantled. Destined to the garbage dump, when the operators pierced the unit with cobalt-60, the particles were shot, contaminating thousands of tons of metal destined to create construction pieces and metal bases for tables. During the next months, hundreds of houses were built that had to be demolished, and tons of contaminated metals that had been distributed throughout Mexico and the southern United States were also recovered. It is estimated that some 4,000 people were exposed, without catastrophic consequences, but leaving a valuable lesson about the risk of recycling obsolete medical machinery. Images | IAEA, V1ADIS1AV In Xataka | The place where the US created atomic bombs has a problem. Plutonium has shot at the Chernobil level

During World War II, Australia sent an ornitorrinco to Churchill. Died on the trip and 82 years later we know why

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In 1943, a camouflaged ship departed from Australia to England with an ultrasecreta load to the peculiar: An ornithorrinco called Winston, a diplomatic gift for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The creature died during the trip and for 82 years a German submarine was blamed. Some researchers They have discovered What really happened. Winston was not loaded by the Germans. Australian students They have resolved the enigma After examining the archives of the naturalist David Fleay, who captured the animal. The boat’s temperature records reveal that Winston died due to thermal stress by crossing Ecuador, not because of enemy attacks. Temperatures exceeded 27 degrees Celsius for a week, well above the survival limit of the species. Why Australia gave an ornitorrinco. In the middle of World War II, Australia felt abandoned by Great Britain while Japan approached the Pacific. Australian Foreign Minister Herbert Evatt knew that Churchill collected exotic animals and thought that an ornitorrinco, a creature that many considered at the time a taxdermic hoax, could tip the balance in favor of Canberra military support requests. The trip that should never have done. Winston was captured near Melbourne and embarked on a specially designed container, with burrows lined with hay, Australian stream water and 50,000 worms for the 45 -day path. David Fleay, the naturalist in charge, opposed from the beginning: no ornitorrinco had ever survived such a long trip and exports of the species were prohibited. The cause of “official” death. When Winston appeared dead in his tank, Churchill wrote to the Australian prime minister expressing his “pain” for loss. To avoid a diplomatic incident, death was hidden for years. When it finally came to light, the version that the Ornitorrinco had died from the stress of the attacks of the German submarines, a story that Fleay himself supported publicly. The clues of the logbook. Harrison Croft, a doctoral student at Monash University, agreed to files in Canberra and London that included interviews with the caretaker of the Ornitorrinco. “They made a kind of autopsy and he was very concrete: there was no explosion, everything was calm on board,” Croft explains. In parallel, an Australian museum team Digitized the collection Fleay staff, where they found the daily temperature record that revealed the real cause of death. Ship’s logbook. Image: Australia Museum Ornitorrincos Based Diplomacy. Australia tried again in 1947, sending three ornithorrincos to the New York Bronx Zoo. Betty died soon after arriving, but Penelope and Cecil managed to arrive healthy and saved to the country, even becoming authentic celebrities and a hook for the press at that time. The media expected them to be reproduced, but after a four -day “romance”, the thing did not go as expected. Image: Australia Museum The way to reproduce from an ornitorrinco is fascinating, since they are monoturem mammals, which means that, despite being mammals, they put eggs. In fact, they are one of the only five species of mammals that do this (the other four belong to species of Equidas). So when they saw that Penelope did not end up reproducing, it became a fun scandal at the time. In 1957 he disappeared mysteriously and Cecil died the next day of “broken heart”, according to the press. Since then, Australia strictly prohibited the export of ornitorrincos. Only two have left the country In 70 years, both to the San Diego Zoo in 2019. Cover image | Yousuf Karsh and Michael Jerrard In Xataka | If Spain believes that velutinas are a problem is because it does not know what the US has found: radioactive wasps

The model that dominated technology for 50 years has died

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The numbers do not usually lie, especially in the long term. And Intel’s figures during the last decade speak of a historical replication. Of A giant come less in an alarming way. In figures. In 2015, Intel’s stock capitalization multiplied by Nvidia. Almost ten years later, that of Nvidia, the first company in history to exceed four billion dollars, multiplies by 41! to Intel, which has been jibarized at a time when it has been exceeded by many lower companies. A brutal change that symbolizes the change of technological era: Nvidia’s boom first for its GPUS sales for cryptocurrency mining and then for the training of AI models. Intel’s decline due to its inconsequence in the mobile era, the rival boom in CPUS, or the passage of Microsoft or Apple to ARM. And not only Nvidia has advanced. Also Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, AMD … Gelsinger’s legacy. The contrast. In 2006, Intel refused to make chips for the iPhone Because I considered that Apple was too small. That same year, Intel tried to buy Nvidia For 20,000 million dollars, but Jensen Huang refused. Today these decisions have completely checked Intel’s route, which at the beginning of the century was always in the top 10 of world companies by stock market and today is close to leaving the Top 200. The threat. The Hard recent admission of CEO Intel, Lip-Bu Tan, that Intel is no longer among the top 10 of semiconductors, says many more things. The company that fed the PC revolution, which created the Wintel ecosystem that dominated for decades and was synonymous with American innovation, now is worth less than Spotify, Coinbase or Iberdrola. Yes, but. The 5,500 new layoffs announced by Intel They are more than an adjustment or cut. In California, almost 2,000 jobs will disappear. In Oregon, almost 3,000. In total, 20% of the workforce will be fired. The workers who developed the technology that moved the world are now expendable. The turn. Intel has outsourced TSMC 30% of its production by 2025. Paradoxical in a company that presumed its vertical integration, which controlled from design to manufacturing. And that now depends on his Taiwanese rival to survive. A symbolic surrender: the king of manufacturing asking for help to who removed the throne. Between the lines. The strategy of pivoting to the edge announced by so sounds like last minute refuge. “It’s too late for us“The CEO admitted. It is not only to recognize the loss against Nvidia, it is to recognize the loss in the most important race of what we have been from the century: that of AI. And another paradox: China represents 29% of Intel’s incomemore than any other market. The most iconic American technology company depends more on China than its own market. Trump is focused on technological independence in this legislature … … but Intel needs China to stay alive. Turning point. He 18A process That must save Intel by 2025 generates certain doubts. And if he fails, Intel runs out of his last asset to compete with TSMC. If it triumphs, it will be a partial victory, since it will be arriving five years late to the battle. This Intel fall also symbolizes something else: the end of the vertical integration model in chips represented Intel against Nvidia’s specialization model. The first designs and manufactures. The second designs but leaves manufacturing in the hands of TSMC. And hence the problem for the West: advanced manufacturing is concentrated in Asia and the value is redistributed. In Xataka | In its darkest time Intel is receiving a crucial economic support from its best client: China Outstanding image | Intel

We believed that the nasal strips had died in the 90. It turns out that they were just waiting for Instagram to get them fashionable

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The small adhesive bands that stick in the nose are again very common on slopes, gyms and popular races after decades of oblivion. Why is it important. From Carlos Alcaraz Even weekend runners, the phenomenon of nostrils has exploded in the last year. It is no accident: It reflects both the obsessive search for marginal advantages in sport … … as our complex relationship with Gadgets –electronic or not– that promise instant improvements. The context. The nasal strips were born in the 80s as an antironquid remedy. They jumped to sport in the mid -90s when Jerry Rice wore them in the Super Bowl (today keep entering money by promoting them) and Ronaldo popularized them in football. They promised to “increase the nasal air flow by 31%” and became the sports avant -garde symbol of the time. And they went down in cascade, reaching the semi -professional and also to the amateur who simply wanted to leverage them to increase their performance. The fall. By 2000, science began to disassemble them. A study by the University of Buffalo with 13 athletes He concluded that they did not improve performance in intense exercises. The reason is simple: when the effort goes up, we breathe through the mouth, not by the nose. The strips became irrelevant. The return. Carlos Alcaraz took them A month ago in the Masters of Romeand in addition to black color: even more evident than the classic shiver. Several Barça players uploaded a photo on a planeall with the strips set, to “improve rest.” And new companies such as Gudslip or histrips have “reversed” them with somewhat more comfortable designs and marketing aimed at athletes of all levels. Also with Machacona advertising on Instagram. Yes, but. A 2021 review which analyzed 19 studies did not find significant differences in Vo2max –A key metric–, heart rate or performance. The strips reduce nasal resistance, but only help in light efforts or when there is congestion. In intense exercise, they are useless. For elite athletes, any 1% improvement can be decisive. Alcaraz uses them strategically when it is congested. Amateurs, less accustomed to extreme suffering, can perceive greater subjective benefit in respiratory comfort. In fact, who writes these lines tested them and the highest air entry is noticed. But not the remarkable improvement in performance. And we must not lose sight of the mental factor: in sport, there is very often a psychological component in certain practices. The use of strips can give mental confidence, reduce pre-compensation stress and be part of the ritual that reassures the athlete, which makes him feel control. What is happening. There are five great forces promoting this boom: Greater conscience that once on nasal breathing in sport. Products that have improved: grip, comfort and even appearance. Virality in social networks. Examples in elite sport. And low risk profile. On the latter: the strips of certain brands usually cost between and one euro the unit. They are a performance experiment that comes out cheap. Deepen. The strips do work during sleep. They reduce snoring and improve rest. For athletes with rhinitis or exercise induced asthma, they can be useful. In healthy people doing intense sports, its effect is mainly placebo. Abel Antón, who won World Cups with and without them, summarizes it in a phrase pronounced a Relief Two years ago: “Believing that something is doing well makes us work much better.” Outstanding image | Pneuma Nasal Tape In Xataka | I have run, swim and worked with the Aqua Suunto. Under water I understood what these bone driving headphones propose

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