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We were already using fire 800,000 years earlier than we thought

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He dominion of fire isWithout a doubt, the greatest turning point in the technological and evolutionary history of our lineage. It gave us warmth, it scared away predators and, by allowing us to cook food, it triggered the development of our brains and also our own lives. Until now, the scientific consensus placed the strongest evidence of its early use at around one million years, although this is no longer the case. A new study. a new study published in PLOS ONE takes us to Wonderwerk Cave, in the northern Cape province of South Africa. This site was already “old acquaintance” for paleoanthropologists, since in 2012 a team demonstrated the existence of fire on site in layer 10 of the cave, dated to approximately one million years. And this is important because from here the consensus was created about when humans discovered fire. But the story didn’t end there. The new study has descended one more step in time, specifically to layer 11 of the same cave and there they have found burned bones with an age that ranges between 1.07 and 1.79 million years. And it is vital. The location of the remains is vital, since they were found 30 meters deep inside the cavern. This completely rules out that the fire marks are the product of a random forest fire or a lightning strike, but rather that someone had to carry those flames there after learning to control the fire. A new debate. The evidence that suggests that our past knew how to make fire is much later, since in sites such as Gesher Benot Ya’aqov In Israel, total control of technology is already shown. What this new finding raises is whether these Homo erectus early people did not know how to light a fire from scratch. What is proposed is that instead they were “thieves” of nature, since they took advantage of natural fires caused by lightning or volcanoes, collected the embers and transported them inside the cave to keep them alive as long as possible. A technique that, although it seems simple, entails great cognitive and social complexity. The technology. If the fire in layer 11 had not been confirmed until now, it is because it is incredibly difficult to distinguish a bone burned almost two million years ago from a fossilized bone that has undergone chemical alterations. And it is no wonder, since with the passage of millennia, diagenetic processes such as fluoridation or the accumulation of manganese can darken the fossils, giving them a false appearance of having been carbonized. But now we have very important tools, such as luminescence techniques combined with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, which allow us to reveal chemical secrets at the molecular level. A new paradigm. The experts who have given their opinion on this study through the Science Media Center Spain such as Joaquín Panera or researchers specialized in fire such as Aitor Burguet-Coca agree in describing the methodological protocol as “innovative”, highlighting that it opens the door to reevaluate huge collections of fossils in other sites, such as Koobi Fora in Kenya, where there are ambiguous signs of fire 1.5 million years ago. In Xataka | We had always believed that evolution had been arrested for thousands of years. The redheads were telling us the opposite

Walking 20 minutes a day after age 55 is very good. The secret of healthy maturity is to do it much earlier

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An increasingly repeated idea is that, to have a quality retirementyou have to keep moving throughout maturity and with adequate physical activity. The problem is that many times people wait until they are 55 years old to start taking care of themselves and in many cases because they already have a metabolic disease. And this should make us aware that the sooner we start taking care of ourselves, the better. Walk It has been crowned as the star exercise for older adults, and the scientific evidence that supports it is overwhelming. A study from the year 2023 points out that walking 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week reduces the risk of age-related diseases, although it is especially emphasized that it must be done at a high speed and that requires some effort for the body and not as a simple walk. If this is done, we will be significantly reducing the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, but also protects against dementia. And if that were not enough, a review conducted this year with 180,000 participants demonstrated an 18% to 30% reduction in mortality from all causes with moderate levels of physical activity. In figures. It’s not that Olympic records need to be broken, but simply taking 5,694 steps a day is associated with a 13% lower risk of mortality from all causes. And as we have said before, if it is done a speed high, a greater benefit is achieved. When to start. If the benefits in middle age are so incredible, why does science demand that we start much earlier? The answer lies in sarcopenia, which is the process of loss of muscle mass that we face when we begin to age without doing any type of strength exercise. And that is why the deadline of 30 years is set to begin to remedy it. Because? From this age onwards, it has been seen that between 3% and 5% of muscle mass is lost per decade. according to the NIHand other studies suggest that this figure can be between 3% and 8% per decade after age 30. AND from 60 years old the rate of decline becomes even greater. With all this information, it is estimated that right now between 10% and 20% of older adults suffer from sarcopenia, and lack of exercise is the main factor that worsens this progressive muscle loss. The recipe. The WHO here is very clear in its guidelines and, curiously, it does not make reductions upon reaching retirement, so it does not understand a specific age from which you must exercise no matter what, but rather it points out that you should always do it. That is why their recommendations are exactly the same for adults from 18 to 64 years old as for those over 65 years old: relativize. Between 150 and 300 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity (such as walking), or between 75 and 150 minutes of vigorous intensity. Furthermore, the WHO asks to incorporate muscle group strengthening exercises at least two days a week for all adults. In the specific case of adults over 65 years of age, the only difference is that activities that improve balance must be added to the general recommendations three or more days per week to avoid fatal falls. Images | Emma Simpson In Xataka | There’s a reason why working out for an hour a day at the gym doesn’t give you results. And that reason is evolution In Trends | The trainers agree: “From the age of 55, you should walk every day for at least 20 minutes, preferring stairs, doing gentle stretches and working on balance.”

a primitive galaxy that has stopped spinning much earlier than expected

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When we think of a spiral galaxywe normally imagine it in rotating motion. It is logical that we do it. After all, that’s what most people do. Only some may have stopped their spin due to collisions or interactions with other galaxies. It is a process that takes many thousands of years. Therefore, when a team of scientists from the University of California Davis came across a very young galaxy completely still They didn’t believe what they were seeing. “Only” 2,000 million years. The galaxy in question, XMM-VID1-2075, formed 2 billion years ago after the big bang. It is a very primitive galaxy, but the light that reaches us is from a young galaxy, which has not had time to stop its spin as planned. The James Webb Space Telescope has observed her along with two other galaxies with similar characteristics, but those do move. Therefore, this must have something special that intrigues scientists a lot. Different movements. Both this galaxy and the other two had been detected and described for the first time thanks to the WM Keck observatory, located in Hawaii. The James Webb intended to study them in more detail and focus attention on their movement. It has been seen that one of them moves normally and the other in a somewhat disordered way, but both rotate. Only XMM-VID1-2075 has stopped spinning. Yes, it has some very chaotic internal movement, but no circles. Important data. Thanks to these observations it has been seen that this galaxy is very massive, one of the most massive primitive galaxies that have been detected so far. It has also been observed that new stars are no longer forming inside it. All this data leads us to think what could have happened to stop its rotation so soon. An unexpected merger. The authors of this research believe that, instead of many collisions over a long time, this galaxy experienced the early merger of a single galaxy that was spinning in completely the opposite direction. This offset his movement and caused him to stop. It is a hypothesis that is also supported by the fact that there is a large concentration of light on one side of the galaxy. Possibly where the merger occurred. Very few. According to the simulations carried out following this study, there should be very few galaxies like this in the universe. However, it will be interesting to find them, in order to understand what the dawn of the universe was like and the different galactic behaviors that have occurred since then. Sometimes exceptions can help us understand the rule much better. Image of Andromeda (not the galaxy in the article) | Adam Evans In Xataka | These real images were unthinkable before the Webb telescope: they are planets orbiting other stars 130 light years away

The Earth turned on its great geological engine billions of years earlier than we estimate. We know it from a microscopic crystal

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For a long time, textbooks They have painted the primitive Earth like a ball of infernal and static magma, being a “lid” of inert rock where life or complex geological movement was impossible. Specifically, it was thought that the plate tectonicsthe engine that shapes the continents and recycles our planet’s nutrients, had taken much longer to start. However, we were wrong. How he did it. Science, in a recent article, has just put on the table the definitive evidence that indicates that the Earth began to move much earlier than we believed: at least 3.3 billion years ago, and most likely, more than 4 billion ago. And the key is not in the gigantic mountains under our feet, but in small fragments of glass smaller than a grain of sand. And if we want to travel in geological time, you have to go to jack hillsin Western Australia, where the oldest known fragments of terrestrial rock are found. The protagonists of this story are zircon crystals, extremely resistant minerals that act as authentic geological hard drives. The interesting thing is that, when they form, they trap isotopes and tiny amounts of other elements inside that tell us exactly what the environment was like at the time of their crystallization. The results. According to detailed analysis that collects Natureand supported by key works such as those published in the prestigious magazine PNASthese S-type zircons hide unmistakable geochemical signatures. Specifically, they reveal that, instead of a static and dead Earth’s crust, subduction processes already existed. That is, the oceanic crust was already colliding and sinking under other plates, melting back into the Earth’s mantle. A double life. But researchers have not limited themselves to looking at a specific era, but have traced the proportions of trace elements such as uranium, niobium or scandium in different zircons from Australia, Greenland and South Africa. Here they observed that during the Eoarchean, the Earth did not have a single geological behavior. Instead, it had two tectonic regimes. The first of these, known as a ‘stagnant lid’ with areas of crust dominated by plumes of oceanic magma that simply pushed upwards. On the other hand, it also had the ‘moving lid’ zone, which were active zones where volcanic arcs were already forming and there was subduction, very similar to modern plate tectonics, recycling the Earth’s crust. But there is more. As if that were not enough, other published studies in Science and Geology have contributed even more pieces to the puzzle, such as the transform faults in the Pilbara Craton of Australia that show horizontal movements 3,000 million years ago, and even inclusions of fresh water in zircons from more than 4,000 million years ago, which suggests that there were already emerging continents interacting with the atmosphere and the water cycle. It changes everything. Knowing that plate tectonics started so early is not a mere geological whim, since tectonics is the Earth’s thermostat: it regulates the carbon cycle, releases fundamental gases into the atmosphere and creates the necessary environments for the chemical breeding ground. In this way, if more than 4,000 million years ago our planet was already recycling its crust, having primitive continents and fresh water, it means that the conditions for life to emerge occurred much earlier than what science books dictated. Once again, the Earth shows us that, from its most remote beginnings, it has always been a living world. Images | Javier Miranda In Xataka | There are scientists deliberately causing earthquakes in the Alps and they have a good reason for it

Japan’s problem is not that it is stopping having babies at a record speed. It’s just that he did it 17 years earlier than he should have.

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If there is a way out of demographic pitJapan still hasn’t found it. And not for lack of effort. Although all your effortsof the imagination and million-dollar investment that has been allocated to birth policies, its balance of births continues to be disastrous. The last one has just been published by the Government and shows that in 2025 they were born in Japan 15,179 fewer babies than in 2024. It is the tenth consecutive year of decline, a new historical low and above all a scenario in which Japan did not expect to find itself until 2042. The question is: Is Tokyo willing to cover this birth rate disaster with a greater migratory flow, the demographic table that keeps afloat other countries? What has happened? that Japan has received a hard bath of demographic reality, something that is beginning to be common. The Ministry of Health has just published the birth rate for 2025, a document that leaves little room for optimism. Throughout last year, 705,809 babies were born in the country, a bad figure no matter how you look at it. It represents the lowest record since statistics began to be compiled in 1899, and above all it confirms that the birth rate has been declining for ten consecutive years… with no prospect of improvement. In annual terms, these 705,809 births represent a decrease of 2.1% compared to 2024. If we look further back, to the last decade, the drop is around 30%. The only good news is that the data improves (slightly) some forecasts launched by the Japanese press a few months ago and that the speed at which the birth rate falls seems to be slowing down little by little. At least it is lower than that of the 2022-2024 period, when it exceeded 5% annually. Is it that bad news? Yes. For several reasons. The main one is that the Japanese demographic crisis is worsening much faster than the Government believed, which years ago prepared for a pessimistic scenario. In 2023 the National Population and Security Research Institute and Social Security (IPSS) published a report in which it calculated that the number of annual births would not decrease to 700,000 until 2042. The reality is that the country has already moved within that range in 2025, 17 years than expected. What’s more, the IPSS estimated that 774,000 babies would be born in 2025. The actual data that we know today (705,809) is closer to its most pessimistic projection (681,000). Why is it a problem? Because Japan is proving that, despite its multiple attempts, it has not managed to close its demographic gap. It is not just that their birth rate is falling, it is that vegetative growth (difference between births and deaths) gives clear alarm signals. Although the deaths have decreased by 0.8%the Japanese population shrank by 899,845 people last year. Media like Nikkei either The Japan Times In recent hours, they have published analyzes that warn of the gradual aging of the country and (above all) the pressure it puts on its social security system and pensions. There will be something positive, right? More or less. The statistics leave some positive readings or that show possible paths to follow, although with nuances. For example, in 2025 marriages increased slightly compared to the previous year (1.1%) to reach 505,656. The question is whether this rebound is the result of the hangover from the pandemic, when many couples postponed their weddings. Another curious fact is that there are territories that seem to have hit the right demographic key: in Tokyo the births increased by about 1.3% last year, reaching 88,518, and it is estimated that its metropolitan area accounts for almost a third (30%) of all births registered in the country. What is the solution? The big question. The difficult thing is to answer it. Japan has tried with economic and labor incentives, programs for pair…Everything to boost your birth rate, a goal to which you have dedicated millions and millions. It has been of little use to him. There are those who believe that in this scenario a possible salvation is to rethink the national immigration policy. “Refusing to accept an adequate flow of migrants is not only ignoring economic reality, but giving up on our collective future,” pointed recently to The World Akito Tanaka, from the Migrant Solidarity Network. “Policies that are increasingly limiting the entry of foreign workers are exacerbating precisely this problem,” Tanaka insists.who warns that Japan faces “an unprecedented demographic crossroads.” The latest data from the Ministry of Health actually leaves an interesting idea: the 705,809 babies registered in Japan in 2025 not only correspond to births to parents of Japanese origin, but also include foreigners. What is Tokyo’s position? It does not seem very willing to bet on foreigners to revive its population. In fact just yesterday transcended that Japan’s immigration agency has tightened the guidelines that applicants for permanent residence must comply with. In practice the changes make it more difficult meet the requirements to obtain the visa, for which it is key to demonstrate good conduct and financial self-sufficiency, among other conditions. It’s not exactly new. It has been known for months that the government of the conservative Sanae Takaichi was planning double the time minimum stay that foreigners must remain in Japan to qualify for citizenship. Can it change? In the midst of an avalanche of international tourism (which has generated multiple tensions between foreign visitors and the native population) the presence of foreigners has become a relevant issue in Japanese politics. In fact, after taking the reins of the Government, Takaichi did not take long to promote an immigration policy that revolves around regulations with an eloquent name: “Law for a society of orderly coexistence with foreigners.” His last results at the polls They show that their position does not upset the electorate. Image | Andrew Leu (Unsplash) In Xataka | If Korea believes it is experiencing a demographic crisis, it is because it does not … Read more

China arrives earlier and better

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Just a few days ago, Porsche presented its quarterly results. In the month of Halloween, the numbers were truly terrifying. Hundreds of millions lost, a resounding drop in margins per unit sold and, above all, the feeling that the company is in the middle of a clamp between Europe and China where, in the latter, its toast is being eaten at a devilish rate. The numbers. Loud, if I had to give it a quick qualifier. Let’s review hand in hand with your own numbers: Losses in the last quarter of 967 million euros. Last year it reported 974 million euros in the same quarter. In the first nine months of the year it reported 40 million euros in profit. Last year it reported 4,000 million euros of profit in the same period. The operating margin has completely disappeared. Expected losses at the end of the year of 1.8 billion euros. a clamp. The problem for Porsche is that it has found itself in the middle of a perfect storm. not long ago it seemed like she was ready for that storm. Now everything indicates that is falling on him and he has been caught with a flimsy umbrella and a raincoat that leaks water. Encouraged by its sales in China and a European regulation that has clearly pressed for jumping into the electric car, Porsche put on the table a plan to electrify at a good pace. He porsche taycan was received with a good reception, the Electric Porsche Macan It was to be its first large “mass” electric car and the Porsche Cayenne would delve into the leap to electric. However, the electric Macan has arrived late. At that time, The United States has imposed very high tariffs that have caused a hole in their accounts. The European institutions want to jump to the electric car but customers seem not to want to do it at the pace proposed by politicians and The rich already seem satisfied with the electric cars they bought. The Chinese public has completely changed their focus and now, for them, Luxury is represented by the cars made in China itself.. Looking at the internal market. The paradigm shift in the Chinese market has completely disrupted Porsche’s prospects. Not only in terms of sales, but also in terms of putting a huge brand crisis on the table. For the Chinese, Porsche is no longer synonymous with luxury and the latest technologyit’s just another brand. The company, like many other European brands and the entire Volkswagen Grouphas not known how to adapt to the new reality. The result is that sales in the Asian country have plummeted. Despite the launch of the electric Porsche Macan, in the first nine months of the year, Porsche has sold 26% less than in the same period of 2024. The 32,195 cars sold in China in Q3 of 2025 are very far from the 64,237 cars sold in Q3 2019record year for the company. In the last five years, the drop in sales has been a constant but it has worsened especially in the last two years. China has experienced an explosion of electric vehicles that They are faster and more modern. But, in addition, they put supposed innovations on the market that arrive earlier and better than those presented by the German company. Better and faster. The best example of how China is arriving better and faster is the case of the electric Porsche Macan and Cayenne. The first, as we have said, was delayed for years and that was disastrous in an industry that is advancing at a devilish pace and that, specifically in China, makes cars obsolete in just a few months. To convince the skeptics and eliminate friction with its more classic customers, the Porsche Cayenne has been presented with a wireless charging system and a very digital environment. The problem is that this type of cargo is already offered in China in cars like the Hongqi E-HS9 for years and it hasn’t caught on. On the other hand, ubiquitous screens are no longer surprising, what the public in China is demanding is differential software, extensive integration with services such as the mobile phone and a variety of services that European companies do not seem to understand. The other great incentive is its ultra-fast 400 kW recharge. It must be taken into account that, indeed, in Europe it will be one of the most powerful cars on the market but Porsche is interested in looking at China and there BYD is offering cars with 1,000 kW of power for a fraction of the price. The Zeekr 7X, which is one of Geely’s (owner of Volvo) big bets it will go to 800 kW of power. We already know this. This example of the Zeekr 7X and its 800 kW of ultra-fast charging is just the (pen)latest example. BMW suffered something similar with its Panoramic iDrive. The company announced it in 2023 but will not have mounted it on a street car until the first units of the BMW iX3 hit the streets in the early stages of 2026. When it was first announced, Xiaomi did not have a single car on the street. Today, Your Xiaomi YU7 already has a system very similar to BMW’s big bet. The ability of Chinese firms to adapt to new markets or launch technologies in record time is one of their great assets when it comes to staying ahead of the competition. In fact, we know that from Volkswagen to Toyota have looked for solutions to speed up production times and put their products on the market more quickly and thus be able to compete with an industry that advances at a dizzying pace. We have noticed the consequences of this crazy race to bring more and better cars to the market even in our country. a few months ago we explain in Xataka how companies adapted their cars in record time to European tastes, adapting pre-series units … Read more

Sell tickets a year earlier

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It is inevitable: each new premiere of a film directed by Christopher Nolan is more than the essential cinephile event of the year. It is a cultural event. And so It will happen again with ‘The Odyssey’the epic adventure film inspired by Homer’s classic stories and that a year before its premiere has managed to raise an expectation never seen before. Everything is part of a carefully drawn plan. Odysseus & co. The only announcement of ‘The Odyssey’ already put expectations in the clouds: Christopher Nolan, the director technologically more advanced of the momentwill adapt a very classic adventure, a founding story of epic stories, and whose footprint in world culture is unbarkable. I was going to decorate it with a cast, as always in his cinema, of consecrated stars (Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal …). Produce Universal againwith whom he already worked at the Oscarizadísima ‘Oppenheimer‘And the premiere is scheduled for July 17, 2026. A year earlier. To stand this strategy, Universal put tickets on July 17, a year before the premiere of the film already knowing that Nolan’s name is more than enough to sell ‘The Odyssey’, without the need for trailers. They are the passes for the first weekend, in the Exclusive 70 mm IMAX formatthe preferred by Nolan. The tickets sold out in a single day and, of course, it did not take long unleash speculative feverwith resale of up to 200 pounds in London (a phenomenon that Nolan already knows: It happened with ‘Oppenheimer’). A bold bet. The typical marketing of the great productions, especially those of the expected summer premieres, usually starts from 4 to 6 months before the premiere. Nolan has skipped the norm bending that period of time and in a format that also knows that it is exclusive (in Spain, for example, There are no cinemas that project in this format). 95% of the tickets sold out in minutes, generating 1.5 million dollars of benefits… before the film has finished its production. IMAX, the future. A few days ago, BBC linked success From this universal marketing operation to the previous success of a Warner movie, Ryan Cogler’s vampiric adventures’The sinners‘. The director expressed on numerous occasions your love for the IMAX format And the film became a success in that format. According to BBC, this semi-lain success could have encouraged Universal for this early sale, relying on support without palliative that Nolan has always made the format. An excellent Timing To claim the formats in the room, now that it is clear that the recovery of pre-pandemic box office figures It may never come. Nolan, for elites. Nolan is still a RARE Av Inside the cinema. You can afford to make the movies you want: Science fiction would be With Kubrickian left to continue his trilogy about Batman, and after that, more twisted science fiction and a biopic without fantastic elementsand then refer to this new classical epic epic. And they will always be successes. But if other directors dared to experiment with their same approaches, tones and topics, possibly the box office would not accompany them, Seeing public preferences. Nolan is an isolated phenomenon, and that is why the following steps of the industry so that the public goes back to the rooms must be extremely careful. Christopher Nolan’s eternal paradox: razes at the box office, success after success even one year in advance, but that does not mean anything. An islet in a sea of sequelae. Image | Gtres – Warner In Xataka | After fifteen years of its premiere, this classic treasures a record: the highest grossing science fiction film without being a saga

V3 earlier than expected, but with half a capacity

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The two consecutive explosions of Starship, related to the design changes of its V2 versionThey have made SpaceX to readjust the highest rocket roadmap in the world. As usual, we have learned for a message from Elon Musk in X. The message in question. “We are making the design of Starship v3”, Musk wrote. “Spacex is on its way to achieving a launch rhythm of a starship per week in approximately 12 months.” “Each one will put about 100 tons of Starlink satellites in its fully reusable version. It will be a transcendental advance.” Context. He Starship rocket It is in tests and has not begun to launch satellites. The current design does not exceed the load capacity of a Spacex heavy falcon. When Elon Musk presented the V2 and V3 versionsdescribed a radical leap. They would be higher, totally reusable and with an unprecedented power in the space industry. Starship V2 would grow up to 124.4 meters high and could place more than 100 tons in orbit in its fully reusable configuration (that is, recovering both the super heavy propeller and the ship). Starship V3 would grow up to 150 meters high and place more than 200 tons in low orbit in reusable mode. The changes. Musk’s message suggests that Spacex has focused its efforts on Ultimar Starship V3 after incidents of the last two tests. Although Starship V2 has not fully materialized (on flights 7 and 8, a Starship Block 2 ship threw itself on a super heavy block 1), something does not go well with the second block of rocket improvements. The change of plans is reflected in which Starship V3 will have half of the planned load capacity. Specifically, 100 tons in its reusable configuration is what Spacex had announced for Starship V3. What happened to Starship V2. The second version of the ship has flown twice (Starship 33 and Starship 34) with the same result: leakage and explosion in the ascent phase, before the motion off. The new design has a defect that produces an excess of vibrations in the lower part of the ship, which causes the propellant tubes to break and have leaks. On flight 7 caused a fire and on flight 8 the explosion and loss of several engines. Waiting for the Raptor 3. Despite these problems, there is a new Starship V2 flight scheduled for April. Starship V3 will have to wait for New Raptor 3 engines 3 are ready. The new engines have more thrust and incorporate an integrated cooling system that eliminates the need for an external thermal shield. Image | Spacex In Xataka | While rumors point to a design error in Starship, Elon Musk has been blunt: “He will go to Mars next year”

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