explain

the battle to explain gravity that Einstein won thanks to an eclipse in 1919

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This summer, many people have organized their holidays around the eclipse that will be seen in Spain on August 12. Without a doubt, many see it as a spectacle that perhaps they can only see once. or very few times in life. However, we must not forget that it is still a phenomenon with very interesting scientific implications. For example, something very curious is that in 1919 It was used to prove Einstein right. Einstein vs Newton. In 1915, Einstein enunciated his Theory of General Relativity. In it, broadly speaking, he pointed out that the attraction of gravity is due to a space-time curvature caused by the effect of objects with mass and energy. Before him, the most accepted theory about gravity was the one launched by Newton. In it, it was pointed out that the gravitational attraction was due only to the mass of the objects. Energy had nothing to do with it, and of course I had no idea that time and space could be intertwined. Einstein’s hypothesis was received as interesting, but many physicists of the time were not willing to abandon Newton’s theory. If Einstein wanted to be believed, he would have to prove that he was right. An eclipse ultimately turned out to be the ideal experiment for his demonstration, although it was carried out not by him, but by a British astronomer named Arthur Eddington. Light issue. Newton considered that light was composed of corpuscles with mass. Therefore, these could also be attracted to massive objects. If the Sun drew light from the stars around it, for example, it would do so with an arc of 0.84 seconds. Einstein, on the other hand, made different calculations. For him, light is not attracted like a magnet attracts metal or anything like that. What happens, according to his theory, is that massive objects curve space-time, like a ball falling on top of an elastic fabric. The light, to pass through there, must take the easiest path, which is passing through the edges of that groove that the massive object has generated in space-time. In short, it also deviates, but much more so. According to Einstein’s calculations, we would be looking at an arc of 1.74 seconds. Massive objects warp spacetime The trick. To know who was right, it would be enough to observe the effects of the Sun on a nearby star cluster. But of course, during the day those stars are not seen. Therefore, the ideal would be to take advantage of an eclipse that blocks the light of the Sun and allows you to see the stars when they are very close to it. A very useful excursion. To try to prove Einstein right, Arthur Eddington traveled to Africa in May 1919. On the 29th of that month a very interesting eclipse would occur, since at that time the Sun would be very close to the Hyades, a large star cluster. He went to Príncipe Island and made the calculations of the position in which the stars should be when they appeared when the Sun set. I only had 7 minutes to try to take photographs and the weather did not make it easy for him, but he managed to take advantage of a cloudless moment and take the snapshots that would prove the German physicist right. As he already sensed, the stars in the cluster were deviated from where they should be if the Sun did not exert any gravity on them. Specifically, with an arc of 1.7 seconds. Nowadays. Eclipses have not been used for a long time to confirm theories that the scientific scene takes with suspicion, but they are still very useful for science. They expose the solar corona, that superficial layer of the sun in which solar storms brew that can affect terrestrial communications so much. Nowadays there are coronagraphs that create a kind of false eclipse so that the corona can be studied. However, eclipses offer a very interesting natural opportunity to see it in all its splendor. That’s also very exciting. Image | Wikimedia Commons/Luc Viatour |ESA In Xataka | A third of Spain will be completely dark for a minute or two. The astronomical event of the century is approaching

Separations between people over 50 are growing. And there are two words that explain it: gray divorce

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The term may be striking, but one thing must be recognized: it does not leave much room for misunderstanding. The “gray divorces” They are neither more nor less than that, separations carried out by couples with gray hair, spouses who are over 50 years old and often have been married for several decades. Until not long ago they were a relatively strange phenomenon; But as the population pyramid widened at its upper end and society changed, they have gained weight. So much, in fact, that there are already experts investigating its causes to understand them better. New times, new trends. Divorces with last name. There is nothing written about love. About heartbreak, either. There are those who end their marriages just a few years after saying “I do”, those who do so after decades and those who sign the divorce papers after the age of 60, when both spouses have gray hair. Sociologists and academics specialized in demographic phenomena have even given the latter a name: “gray divorces”. The term is not entirely new. In 2004 I used it and to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and in 2012 researchers from the Bowling Green State University They even spoke of a “gray divorce revolution”, but since then it has attracted the attention of more and more experts. Today the expression is replicated in a good number of essaysincluding a extensive article published in 2024 in Sage Journal and that seeks to investigate its causes. A rising phenomenon. It takes reviewing some figures to understand that interest. In the US, the divorce rate among adults at least 50 years old has more than duplicate in a matter of two decades to the point that in 2010 almost 25% of separations could be considered “gray divorces”. Some experts have detected that their incidence has stabilized over the last decade or that they have even decreased after the pandemic, but still almost 40% of the people who decided to dissolve their marriages in the US in 2022 were still over 50 years old. Beyond the USA. The phenomenon is not exclusive to the US. The INE also leaves some brush strokes interesting about what is happening in Spain. For example, almost a third (31.8%) of divorces made official in 2024 were carried out by couples who had been married for at least two decades. Another key fact is that, although the highest number of separations occurs between spouses who are in their forties (40 to 49 years old), the average age at which they decide to follow different paths has not stopped growing in recent years until it is approaching 50. Among men it is already close to 49 years old. In general, the INE estimates that over the last three decades, senior divorces, between couples over 50, have skyrocketed by around 40%. Accented from 65 onwards. “Divorce in old age is increasing in the Western world, even in family-oriented societies like Israel, in which the most common family status for older adults, aged 60 or over, is to be in a long-term heterosexual marriage with adult children,” a group of researchers from the University of Haifa reflected a few months ago in an article focused precisely on the drift and causes of gray divorces. In their analysis, they also see a particularly marked increase among couples with members who are 65 or even older. Average age of spouses at divorce (YEARS) Women Men 2015 43.8 46.3 2016 44.2 46.7 2017 44.8 47.2 2018 45.2 47.6 2019 45.5 47.9 2020 45.6 48.2 2021 45.5 47.8 2022 45.9 48.4 2023 46.2 48.7 2024 46.6 49 And why do they separate? The big question. And there is no single answer. The first and obvious thing is that not only those who get divorced have changed; society itself has done it, increasingly older in regions like Europe or the US. Considering that the average age of Americans has gone growing gradually since the 1970s or that the population over 64 years of age hasn’t stopped to gain weight, it makes sense that there are also more and more divorces involving couples who have blown out all 50 candles. life expectancy has been stretched Furthermore, which broadens the life horizon of couples. “Your ability to enjoy has improved”. “In these societies, older adults enjoy relatively good health and functioning, and these conditions have improved their ability to enjoy life,” they add the Halifa researchers, who point both to the transformations of the population pyramid and at the cultural and social level. “Later-life divorce is increasing due to changes in marital and family structures and demographic trends.” Although that is the general framework, there are those who appreciate important nuances. After observing a slight drop in divorce rates among couples aged 50 to 60 from 2022, a study Recent research from Bowling Green State University raises an interesting reflection: gray divorces could be “largely” a phenomenon associated with couples Baby Boomersformed by spouses born around the middle of the 20th century. One process, two phases. During your studio Researchers at the University of Halifa discovered something else: they concluded that divorces that occur after the age of 50 or even in old age are usually the result of a “complex” and long process, lasting several years, during which two well-differentiated phases can be identified. “The first, continuous and prolonged, is that of staying together despite the distance. The second captures the moment of the final decision to separate, with a point of no return or inflection and several accelerating factors in the background.” The experts too have identified two large layers in divorces between older couples: the “interpersonal” and the “demographic”, such as increased life expectancy. Of the two, the most curious are the first, since – the researchers highlight – they do not differ much from the reasons that lead younger couples to break up: distancing, infidelities, health or financial problems, poor communication, behavioral changes or an imbalance of roles in the home. Second … Read more

Charging the battery properly is a hassle. So the Madrid firefighters have had to come out and explain how to do it.

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The Madrid Security and Emergency Agency has published a series of recommendations (something that comes remembering year after year) as a result of something they see constantly (: domestic accidents due to bad practices when charging a phone. What in 2026 seems obvious does not have to be so obvious, so it is worth collecting some of the points in which some users continue to fail. It doesn’t work anywhere. Raise your hand if you have ever carried your cell phone on the bed or sofa. Such a common practice can end up leading to a fire. The basic recommendations are clear. Do not charge the device near any device that emits heat, such as the car dashboard itself (when it is connected by cable to it) or a radiator. Do not carry it on beds, chairs or textile surfaces. These, in addition to increasing the temperature of the device, are highly flammable. The 112 recommendation is the same that we have been doing for years at Xataka: charge on a smooth, non-combustible surface, and if possible cool and ventilated. Be careful with chargers. 112 explains that we should only use “approved chargers.” To verify that this is the case, all we have to do is look at whether or not the charger has a visible CE marking. This type of charger always includes data on its input voltage, output, amperage and power. As Xatakero advice, we recommend buy chargers with official fast charging protocols such as Quick Charge (QC), Power Delivery or PPS. This is a perfect indication that the manufacturer has taken care to offer compatibility with the best charging protocols of the moment, since the final power does not tell us everything: how it charges matters. Add to this that, although chargers are specifically designed to collect heat (all the heat they collect is heat they take away from your device), it is best not to put them near flammable surfaces. Be careful with repairs. A point that we do not usually take into account and that can end in a bad outcome is the quality of the replacement battery. Nowadays it is more than common to use compatible batteries instead of the original ones, since they are much cheaper. Here it is important to be clear about where the battery comes from and what its safety guarantees are. A poor quality battery can bloat, not control the temperature like an original one, and cause significant damage. Go deeper. It is no coincidence that year after year, and with the arrival of heat, you discover these articles with tips (that you may or may not know) on how to charge your cell phone. Fires caused by plugged-in electronic devices remain on the order of the dayand every memory about the recommendations for charging our devices makes sense. With the rise of silicon-carbonincreasingly larger batteries, and fast charging systems that exceed 100w, we have advanced and safe technology, but it requires a little effort on our part. In Xataka Mobile | A 12,000 mAh battery in a mobile phone is possible: Xiaomi advances the future of silicon-carbon with the next Redmi

If the question is how many websites has AI generated, the answer begins to explain the new internet

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Creating a website has never been just one thing. For years, for many users it meant choosing between fighting with tools like FrontPage, hiring someone who knew how to design, or settling for other types of solutions. Later, templates and visual editors began to gain ground, lowering the barrier to entry. Now we are witnessing a new change thanks to tools such as Lovable either Vercel v0which promise to turn a description into something publishable in just a few minutes. The AI ​​leap. The intuition that AI is gaining weight in the new web already has a concrete figure on the table. This is what the study points out “The impact of AI-generated text on the Internet“, signed by researchers from Stanford, Imperial College London and Internet Archive. The work places the percentage of new websites analyzed classified as generated or assisted by AI at around 35% by mid-2025. Before the launch of ChatGPTat the end of 2022, that percentage was zero in the study sample. The speed of change, rather than the isolated data, is what makes it relevant. How they measured it. To arrive at that figure, researchers worked with the Internet Archive and analyzed monthly samples of sites between August 2022 and May 2025. In each case they searched for the oldest archived copy available on the Wayback Machine, downloaded the HTML, and extracted the text for processing separately. They then tested several detection tools and chose Pangram v3which was the one that offered the highest detection rate in its tests. Some of the pages published by the Lovable community The result. The research found a website with “a decrease in semantic diversity and an increase in positive sentiment.” Do you mean that all this is positive? You can depend on the angle at which you look at it. The same text warns that “as AI text becomes more common on the Internet, the range of unique ideas and diverse points of view is reduced.” An expanding industry. What the study shows has not appeared out of nowhere. An industry of its own is being consolidated around this promise of creating a website with less friction, with tools designed for very different users: from those who need a simple page for a business to those who want to prototype an idea quickly. Wise Guy Reports Data They place the market for tools to create websites with AI at 3.1 billion dollars in 2024 and project it to reach 25 billion in 2035. The direction of travel seems clear: publishing is becoming increasingly accessible. What’s coming. In web creation, AI is already moving pieces, and professional design does not seem to be immune to that change. That doesn’t mean it’s going to put an end to web designers or that all projects can be solved with generative tools. There are products, brands, stores and services that will continue to need criteria, architecture, design, maintenance that is less semantically diverse and more positive overall, and a technical layer that is not so easily resolved. However, it makes sense to think that professionals will also end up relying on these AI tools to speed up parts of the process. Images | campaign In Xataka | Kimi Code is eight times cheaper than Claude Code and does 75% of your work. The question is whether it is enough

We have reached a point where artists have to explain that they have made their works without the help of AI and not the other way around.

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“I spent 40 hours making a digital painting and the first comment I get says: nice AI art.” He tells it a user on Redditbut it is not an isolated case. Not too long ago, we thought that the solution was tag all AI-made contentbut we quickly realized that It was a huge challenge.. Today, it is human artists who have to defend that their art is real. What is happening. More and more artists are accused of having used AI in their works, especially when they are works that tend more towards realism and have a high level of detail. Many artists choose share your entire work process on networks and some deliver the files in layers to their clients to cover their backs and so that there is no room for doubt. It is not something that happens only with plastic arts, they have also been accused video game developers and writers. If I don’t know if it’s AI, then everything is AI. AI imaging capabilities have reached a level where the eye is no longer able to distinguish a real image from a generated one. Our ability to capture and distinguish visual information is suffering a shock in real time and the natural response is distrust; Since we can no longer trust what our eyes see, we question it. Is something too well drawn? It must be AI. Is a text suspiciously well written? You sure have done it with ChatGPT. It is a defensive posture that also responds to the fact that, if you believe something false, you look like a loser, while if you question something real, you are simply a skeptic. Label the human. Labeling AI content sounded good, but it hasn’t worked. Much of the blame lies with the platforms for not having been tougher with their application. We have the case of Etsy, a platform that was the refuge of crafts and has ended up becoming a bazaar of slop AI that pretends to be real. In this context, the solution seems to be just the opposite: labeling what is made by humans, as a kind of quality seal. Adam Mosseri said itdirector of Instagram, a few months ago: Platforms like Instagram do a good job of identifying AI-generated content, but their effectiveness will decrease over time as AI improves. It will be more practical to identify real content than fake content. AI detectors are not reliable. It is a fact and we have seen it on several occasions: universities falsely accusing hundreds of students of using AI because a software (also AI, of course) told him so, AI detectors who believe ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ was made with a chatbot…The quality of content generated with AI is advancing so quickly that it is no longer impossible to distinguish it from the real thing, which is why the proposal for human content labels makes sense. Something like the ‘denomination of origin’ seal on food. There are several proposals. They count in Verge that there are quite a few proposals that want to praise human content, offered by different associations such as Not By AI, ProudlyHuman, Human Authored or Human Made. The problem is that many of these labels do not have a complex authentication process behind them, but are based on simple trust. For it to be a reliable label, it is necessary to verify the work process using sketches or diagrams, something that is much more laborious to achieve. In Xataka | Crocheting was a peaceful refuge from the stress and information overload of the internet. Until AI arrived

Theories that try to explain why aliens have not yet contacted us

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The Fermi Paradox It remains very young despite having been formulated in 1950, partly because today there are still councils of scientists addressing possible responses to the physicist’s idea. We do not know if we are alone in the universe and the desire to explain how we are accompanied. There is an even more intriguing theory: zoo hypothesis. It is a matter that a few years ago was discussed by astrophysicists, biologists, sociologists, psychologists and historians at the biannual meeting of the METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) “What is life? An extraterrestrial perspective.” At the meeting, topics were discussed such as whether a signal should be sent to space or the possible extraterrestrial origin of life on Earth, as well as somewhat more fun hypotheses like the one we presented to you. Enrico Fermi asked how come we had not had contact with the extraterrestrials if they were there, where were all those life forms if their existence was so probable. A possible answer is the one that has been discussed in this METI event, in which the analysis of the Fermi paradox has been covered from a scientific approach, according to Cyril Birnbaum and Brigitte David. Forbes. And the truth is that the issues that were discussed were, to say the least, striking from a scientific perspective: Do extraterrestrials remain silent in case contact with us impacts humanity? Do we live in a galactic zoo? Should we send international radio messages to nearby stars to demonstrate humanity’s interest in being part of the “Galactic Club”? Will alien intelligence be similar to human intelligence? Is the origin of life on Earth somewhere else in the galaxy (interstellar migration hypothesis)? In fact, we already talked about the first here as we linked to you before, but what is this about the zoo? What does this theory suggest in reference to the idea that we are not alone? Well, not only that, but we are being watched and even protectedas explained by Florence Raulin Cerceau (of the METI board of directors and in the organization of the event). And if we are not very interesting It is about the idea that there is a series of alien civilizations that knows about us, but that is intentionally hidden to avoid influencing our behavior or development. In the same way that keepers monitor animals in zoos, reasoning that if a zebra suddenly communicated with us through prime numbers using its hoof, our relationship with it would be altered and we would be forced to respond, explains Douglas Vakoch, president of METI. “If we went to the zoo and suddenly a zebra turned towards us, looked us in the eyes and started sending us series of prime numbers with its hoof, that would establish a radically different relationship between us and the zebra, and we would feel compelled to respond. (…) We can do the same with aliens by transmitting powerful, intentional, information-rich radio signals to the stars.” Douglas Vakoch, president of METI This hypothesis is supported by ideas such as the fact that they have left surveillance equipment or automated systems on Earth (yet to be discovered), that we are not interesting enough or that we have not reached a sufficient level of progress for them to come into contact with us. It was already there Anders Sandberg in 1999 (from the University of Oxford) who raised another possibility that perhaps technologically advanced civilizations would prefer to stay on their planets building gigantic supercomputers as big as the planets they lived on, their so-called “Jupiter brains.” (Unsplash) In this way, the Earth would be our great cage or space, from which we are oblivious to the surveillance of extraterrestrials. In fact, Jean-Pierre Rospars (research director at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research and co-organizer of the event with Raulin Cerceau) speaks of a “galactic quarantine“, which would be imposed on our society as the aliens are “culturally troublesome” for us. Until they can be properly disproved, there are many theories attempting to answer the Fermi paradox. There are those that we gather here and many others, like the one about the aliens They are locked under oceans of ice (from Alan Stern, principal investigator on NASA’s New Horizons mission), trapped on super earths due to its extreme severity (from Michael Hippke, an independent researcher associated with the Sonnenberg observatory in Germany) or already devastated by themselvesas we earthlings seem to be doing (this one by Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester in New York). Without completely denying the existence of life in the universe beyond terrestrial life, not all points of view assume that there are already intelligent forms or that we are going to find the same molecular mechanismsyes. As stated by Dr. Felipe Gómez from the Astrobiology Center of the CSIC, highlighting this as the weakest point in the search for life in space when asked Does it make sense to look for life in outer space?. In this regard, on that occasion we also spoke with Domingo Marquina (microbiologist at the Complutense University of Madrid), who clarified that “there is no definition of life.” Hence there are two well-defined lines of research: searching for more elemental forms of life (what missions like Curiosity would do) or higher intelligence (what SETI does). “We don’t know if the life forms that we are going to encounter will have a form of life based on DNA, on carbon.” Domingo Marquina (microbiologist at the Complutense University of Madrid) It is also Dan Hooper’s approachresearcher of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratorywhich based on the principle that the universe is expanding has been discussing what an advanced civilization should do to survive. Consider that civilization would realize this problem and expand rapidly, building Dyson spheres and using that energy to accelerate those stars that move away near the center of civilization where we can continue using them. It is something, according to him, that they should do as soon … Read more

Mobile software has become so complex that Samsung has had to add an AI to explain it to you

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There’s a feature in One UI 8.5 that says more than it seems. It’s called, in Samsung’s internal nomenclature, ‘voice settings assistant’: you ask the phone why the screen doesn’t turn off, and it explains which setting is causing it. You ask it why the volume goes down on its own, and it tells you where the setting is that controls it. In it briefing of the Galaxy S26 They mentioned it almost in passing, as a nice detail among bigger and more important news such as the 3 AIs in 1, or the spectacular screen and its privacy mode. But this also deserves some attention. For years, learning to use a cell phone was part of the deal. You scanned the menus, memorized where things were, got used to their quirks, and cursed when you changed brands and couldn’t find anything. The instruction manual disappeared many years ago because it was assumed that phones were already intuitive enough not to need it. And for a while, they have been. The problem is that phones have not stopped growing. Every generation, and I’m looking at both iOS and Android, adds settings, modes, features, and layers of customization. One UI 8.5 brings, in the AI ​​section alone, more than a dozen new functions. The Christmas tree effect: We accumulate things without getting rid of the previous ones and we end up with an unruly mammoth. The operating system of a modern mobile phone has thousands of options spread out in menus that are sometimes where you would expect and sometimes not. And when something behaves unexpectedly, finding the reason can take several minutes of searching or a simple query to Google. Or ChatGPT. Samsung has decided that the solution to this complexity is not to simplify, but add a layer to help you navigate it. The mobile phone no longer expects you to understand it: it explains how it works if you ask it. It is a pragmatic move. Manufacturers have been in a race for years to add functions that justify the annual update, and retracing that path would mean cutting features that some users do use. So the solution is not to remove, but to translate. An AI that acts as a guide within the device itself. Google already has similar functions in pure Android and the Siri that the prophets promised maybe one day it will come. What Samsung does with One UI 8.5 is go a step further: it not only takes you to the setting, but explains why that setting is affecting the behavior that misses you. It’s the difference between giving you directions and explaining the map to you. The question that remains is how far this goes. If the phone needs an AI to explain itself, The next logical step is for that AI to start making decisions for you.: not only explain why the screen does not turn off, but also turn it off when it detects that you are not using it. Some of the agentic upgrades that Samsung has presented in the S26 are already going in that direction. The cell phone that asks you what you want to do and the cell phone that deduces what you want to do are closer than they seem. In Xataka | Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, S26+ and S26, first impressions: a broken heart in an unprecedented commitment to AI Featured image | Xataka

There is an outbreak of swine fever in Barcelona and the most worrying thing is that no one is able to explain where it came from.

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In November 2025 in Catalonia all the alarms went off due to an outbreak of African swine fever that forced the slaughter of a large number of animals and the application of very restrictive measures. At that moment everyone was wondering where this pathogen could have emerged from, and all eyes were on the IRTA-CReSAa high security center that worked with these pathogens. A failed hypothesis. On the table it seemed perfect, since everything matched. But the reality is that the latest report of the committee of experts, endorsed by the Ministry of Agriculturehas completely dismissed this theory. In this way, we already know that It was not a leak from this laboratory that works with this type of pathogens, but then… Where did a virus come from that has already infected more than a hundred wild boars and that has the scientific community crying out for more data? DNA doesn’t lie. The suspicion about this laboratory was completely legitimate, since in November a technical incident occurred in a laboratory digester which coincided with the appearance of dead wild boars in the area. a team fundamentalsince it converts the bodies of infected animals into sterile waste without the presence of their infection, but its failure could have triggered this. But genomics has come into play to dismantle itsince, according to the preliminary reportthe analyzes carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratory of Algete and experts from IRB Barcelona are categorical. Specifically, 81 samples have been analyzed and compared with the viral strains that were manipulated within CReSA and the result is that there is no genetic match. The virus was already there. This is where the plot thickens. If the virus did not leave the laboratory during the November incident… when did it arrive? The experts and the ministerial report suggest we have been looking at the wrong timetable. All this because, according to analysis of the corpses and the dispersion of the 23 initial outbreaks, which have already escalated to more than 100 positive wild boars According to the latest updates, they indicate that the virus had been circulating “under the radar” for much longer. It is estimated that infections could have started up to four months before the official outbreak was detected. This almost definitively eliminates the connection with the failure of the CReSA digester in November, since the virus was already completely free in the mountains of Barcelona when that occurred. There is a hypothesis. If we rule out the involvement of the laboratory and also the natural arrival by wildlife, we are only left with the most mundane and worrying option: humans. And the current consensus points to the introduction of this virus through contaminated meat products into our environment. A simple piece of infected foodas a sausage sandwich made with meat from an infected pig in another country dumped in a peri-urban area accessible to wild boar is enough to start an epidemic. Something that is on the table right now, with the theory of “passive poisoning” with the human vector that brings the virus in the suitcase and the local fauna does the rest by scavenging through the trash. What science demands. Although the “accidental” origin is reassuring in terms of biological safety, the management of information has opened another front. International experts such as Edward Holmes, famous for his work on the origin of COVID-19, They have raised their voices about the lack of transparency in the information. Although the ministry and the expert committee claim that there is no match between the virus DNA found in those infected and in the laboratory, the global scientific community is calling for the complete sequenced genomes to be published for independent analysis. In the era of Open Sciencesaying “trust us” is no longer enough, as researchers want to see the raw data to understand the unique mutations of this “Barcelona virus” and trace its true family tree. And now what? The outbreak is currently active with more than 100 wild boars affected and the Civil Guard investigating the origin. It is true that the priority has gone from looking for culprits in white coats to contain an expansion that threatens the Spanish pork industry by quarantining those possibly exposed to prevent it from continuing to spread. What we know today is that technology has saved a laboratory’s reputation, but it has left us with a more disturbing reality: biosecurity depends not only on high-tech facilities, but on what we throw in the trash on a field day. Images | Kemal Berkay Dogan In Xataka | The Argentine sea hid one of the most disturbing animals in the world: an 11-meter-long “ghost jellyfish”

Valve has been charging a 30% commission on Steam for twenty years. Now it’s your turn to explain why before a judge.

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Valve will have to defend its business model before the British courts after the Competition Appeal Court of London authorized on January 26 a class action lawsuit that could cost £656 million, about $900 million. The accusation: the American company abuses its dominant position in the PC games market with commercial practices that keep prices artificially high and limit competition between digital distributors. The demand. Vicki Shotbolt, activist specializing in digital rights and CEO of Parent Zonefiled the legal action in June 2024. It represents approximately 14 million British users who have purchased video games or additional content through Steam since 2018. The case is based on three arguments: first, it questions the 30% commission that Valve charges on each transaction on Steam. The prosecution considers this fee excessive and maintains that it has a direct impact on the final price. The second argument attacks “price parity obligations”: contractual restrictions that would prevent studios and distributors from offering their titles at more competitive prices on other platforms. Valve would have intervened in specific cases when detecting more aggressive discounts outside of Steam. The third point points out a retention mechanism: whoever purchases a base game on Steam must purchase all subsequent downloadable content exclusively on that platform. Other cases. The British case is not an isolated episode. In the United States, independent studios Wolfire Games and Dark Catt Studios filed antitrust lawsuits against Valve in 2021. They were initially dismissed, but the plaintiffs reformulated their arguments and resubmitted them in 2022. A court ordered the two cases to be merged. Since then, any developer, publisher or individual who has paid commissions to Valve on sales since January 28, 2017 can join. David Rosen, founder of Wolfire Games, explained which took legal action after Valve’s direct intervention when it tried to offer lower prices on other platforms. In August 2024, four players from California, Florida, and Missouri filed a separate lawsuit accusing Steam of “strangling competition with blatantly anti-competitive pricing restrictions.” Antitrust. The lawsuits against Valve are part of a broader pattern of antitrust litigation. The most relevant precedent is the confrontation between Epic Games and Apple: the developer of ‘Fortnite’ implemented an alternative payment system that avoided the 30% commission of the App Store. Apple won most points in the litigation, but had problems in certain states such as California. The case against Google had a more forceful outcome: Epic demonstrated that the company had illegally monopolized the Android ecosystem, which will force Google to allow competing app stores on its devices until November 2027. Antitrust. The lawsuits against Valve fit into a broader pattern of antitrust litigation. The most relevant precedent is the confrontation between Epic Games and Apple: The developer of ‘Fortnite’ implemented an alternative payment system that avoided the 30% commission from the App Store. In May 2025Fortnite returned to the Apple store. The case against Google had a stronger outcome: Epic managed to prove that the company had illegally monopolized the Android ecosystem, which will force Google to allow competing app stores on its devices until November 2027. The magnitude of Valve. Steam hosted more than 19,000 video games during 2025, generating total revenues of $11.7 billion. The income that Valve obtains exclusively from its commissions on sales increased from 1.1 billion dollars in 2015 to an estimated 3.2 billion in 2024, tripling in less than a decade. Additionally, Valve produces approximately $50 million in revenue per employee, an exceptional figure even in the technology sector. The London court has not yet set a date for the trial, which will determine whether these practices constitute abuse of a dominant position. If the lawsuit is successful, the affected British users could receive compensation for the extra costs that, according to the accusation, they have been paying for years. In Xataka | Amazon wanted to surpass Steam and spent 15 years spending 250 times more. It has only served them to enter into crisis

Railway experts explain how and why a rail can break

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Regarding the train accident in Adamuz (Córdoba) and its causes, there are very few things that can be taken for granted at this time. Almost the only certainty is that it will take months to know what caused the derailment of an Iryo train on a straight line and, everything indicates, the subsequent impact of a Renfe Alvia train seconds later. Despite this and despite the fact that Angrois railway accident (Santiago de Compostela) has already made it clear to us that these investigations entail a great effort of time and resources, information that points to one cause or another continues to be published. Among this information that, for the moment, remains conjecture, the idea of ​​a fracture of the road has become relevant following the publication of an image in which three researchers are seen next to a broken rail. in the diary The Country This hypothesis is pointed out as the fact that focuses the investigation. ABC He claims that it is the cause of the derailment. RTVE He points out that investigators want to confirm if it was the cause or consequence of the train leaving the tracks. The image, published by several media, is being used on social networks to defend that this is the real reason for the accident, accompanying video information in which strong vibrations from the trains in motion are observed. The latter, in fact, has been taken into account to lower the maximum speed to 230 km/h in a four points of the line between Madrid and Barcelona by Adif in what is considered the first really drastic measure after the accident in Andalusia. But what causes a fracture in the road and what are the implications? Is it related to the vibrations of the trains we travel on? A fracture in the road The first thing to make clear is that in this article we try to explain how the bill can occur on a track, what its implications are and if it has any relationship with the vibrations we feel on trains. However, until now there are no official sources that confirm that the original cause of the Adamuz accident is this. The investigations continue and probably It will take months to know all the details. The General Council of Industrial Engineers reminds us of the same thing, who emphasizes that “it cannot be stated without data whether the breakage is a cause or consequence. The investigation must be based on records, tests and metallurgical analysis. Not on images after the accident.” With this in mind, they point out that “a stress fracture is a progressive break of the lane that is not produced by a single sudden event, but by the accumulation of tensions over time. Simply put, the rail supports millions of load cycles. If there is a weak area (defect, welding, microcrack), each train passage does not break the rail, but it degrades it. “There comes a time when the resistant section is insufficient and the rail suddenly fractures.” From this entity they clarified to us that the vibrations we feel when we are traveling are not enough to derail a train. For this, one of the following scenarios must occur: Serious lane breakage. Severe loss of track geometry (alignment, grading, width). Structural failures in train elements (axles, bogies). Major obstacles on the road. Very unfavorable combinations of speed, geometry and undetected defects. And they emphasize that “usual vibrations are expected in the design of both the train and the infrastructure. “High-speed rail systems work with very wide safety margins.” “The usual vibrations are foreseen in the design of both the train and the infrastructure. High-speed railway systems work with very wide safety margins” This is confirmed to us from SEMAF (Spanish Union of Railway Machinists), who point out that imperfections in the track multiply when driving on them. “It is steel on steel,” they remember, and emphasize that the vibrations are a consequence of very small perfections in the track or the wheels that generate damage to their opposite. If the damage is on the track, it generates another imperfection in the wheel that multiplies it with each step cycle, generating the discomfort we feel on board. The General Council of Engineers emphasizes that “it is not usually a safety problem. It is usually a comfort or maintenance problem (wheel or rail) and many vibrations are corrected by re-profiling wheels or rails, without touching the structure of the line.” That is, when we feel these vibrations repeatedly and repeatedly It is not that we are passing through broken or fractured paths.. But it is possible that over time they end up being damaged to the point of suffering a stress fracture if appropriate measures are not taken. Maintenance is essential In this case, The road had been renovated last May with an investment that has reached 700 million euros. We cannot yet know if this was the origin of the accident, but the General Council of Industrial Engineers points to three possible causes that could cause the breakage of a track: Rail manufacturing defects: Non-metallic inclusions. Internal microcracks. Steel segregations. They are rare, but possible, and that is why periodic ultrasonic tests are carried out. Defective welds (especially aluminothermal): a poorly executed weld can generate residual stresses, poor alignment and/or internal microcracks. It is not common, but it is a known cause in railway engineering. Fatigue from repeated loads: Each axis introduces vertical, lateral and longitudinal loads. At high speed, dynamic effects multiply those loads. If the rail is already “touched”, fatigue accelerates the breakage. Thermal stresses on track without joints (the usual one today): The lane is “blocked.” Heat generates compression. The cold generates traction. A combination of low temperature, residual stresses and previous defect can promote brittle fracture. It must be taken into account that “the rail is one of the most demanding structural elements that exist. It is not rigid on its own, it is part of a flexible system. The steel … Read more

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