great

“Cyclical” productivity sounds great as a way to organize work according to the rule. The problem is that it’s a bluff

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Patricia Gosálvez told that for some time now talks about how to organize the work agenda according to the phase of the menstrual cycle have been the order of the day. There are different approaches and different discourses, but the general idea is the same: “do social tasks when you are ovulating and reserve planning and solitude tasks for your period days.” We knew that ‘cyclical productivity’ swept TikTokWhat we didn’t realize was that he was already proselytizing among the management class throughout the country. And we shouldn’t be surprised. A priori, the idea sounds like empowerment and militant feminism. The question, however, is whether it makes any sense. But… what exactly are we talking about? In general terms, we can see it as a work adaptation of something that has been talked about for quite some time: the cycle syncing. A self-care practice in which things like diet, exercise routines, or lifestyle habits are adjusted to match the hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle. Applied to the workplace, the month is divided into four phases and tasks are distributed: planning is reserved for bleeding, during the follicular phase work is brought forward, ovulation are “ideal days to negotiate, ask for a raise and everything that needs power and security” and the luteal phase is fantastic for detailed work. It sounds good, but it’s a bluff. Especially since the model assumes a hormonal cycle that most women don’t really have. In general, cycle syncing is right that there is an infradian hormonal cycle (that is, with a period longer than one day), but it jumps to the idea that it is a closed scheme that is easy to program without a break in continuity. In fact, there are two large systematic reviews on this sort of thing that do not support the ideas of cyclical productivity. According to the latest meta-analysis from 2025there is no robust evidence that cognitive performance (neither attention, nor memory, nor executive function, nor spatial ability) changes over the cycle. On the other hand, the most robust studies of physical performance also find that the cycle effect is “trivial”. This does not mean that menstruation does not have an impact very significant in the lives of women and that pain in many cases is a huge problem. It doesn’t even mean that PMS doesn’t exist. What this means is that the hormonal cycle does not seem to serve to schedule tasks with that level of detail in the general population. But it does have a problem. And behind the façade of ’empowerment’, the truth is that there is a very problematic message that “women’s competence fluctuates with hormones.” It is something that reinforces stereotypes and, as we have seen, is a lie. As the endocrinologist Carme Valls said to Gosálvezis an idea that “makes women too biological, too animal.” And he does it without contributing too much. Above all, because as Valls continues, in a normal cycle the variability is minimal: “40% of women hardly feel anything.” That is to say, although from an individual point of view knowing the cycle is very useful, from a population point of view it introduces noise. The problem is not the initial intuition, nor the idea that talking about the rule is good. The problem is the promise of productivity associated with it. A promise that, as we see, in general terms has no relationship with reality. Image | Annika Gordon In Xataka | Period pain in adolescence is not “normal”: massive study links it to increased risk of chronic pain in adulthood

The world is preparing to harvest 36% fewer pistachios. This is great news for Spanish farmers

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2025 is not being an easy year for the pistachio. TO the effects of the Iran war, the closure of Hormuz and the swings The price of the fruit now adds a more than likely puncture in the global harvest. This is what at least the main producer organization, the INC, expects, which foresees a drop of 36% in the amount of fruit harvested worldwide. Although it’s not strange that crops rise and fall, conditioned by the climate or the cycles of the trees, the sector’s estimate is interesting for another reason: it confirms that Spain is reinforcing assumption. And everything indicates that it will gain ground this campaign. What has happened? That the International Nuts and Dehydrated Fruits Council (INC) has recognized that the 2026/2027 campaign does not look particularly good for pistachio. At least if we talk about production. Although the sector expects an increase in the cultivation of walnuts, hazelnuts or raisins, in the case of pistachios it anticipates a ‘puncture’ of 36% on a global scale. Translated into tons, that means that production would go from 1.1 million harvested during the 2025/2026 campaign to 701,050 t in the 2026/2027 campaign. Country Campaign 2025/2026 (tons) Campaign 2026/2027 (tons) USA 722,670 350,000 Türkiye 114,600 156,400 Iran 225,000 130,000 Syria 13,350 35,000 Spain 9,500 11,500 Greece 6,500 8,500 Australia 3,000 5,500 Afghanistan 2,600 2,700 Italy 4,700 1,000 China 320 450 World production 1,101,740 701,050 What is the reason? Although a drop of 36% may seem alarming, the data should be handled with caution. Pistachio cultivation is conditioned by the vecería, which means that there are campaigns in which the trees are loaded with fruit and others in which the harvests are much scarcer. It is one of the handicaps with which the sector plays. Hence there are voices, like that of Juan Gallegofrom Ibero Pistacho, who ensure that a drop of 36% “is within the norm.” Nor is it strange that part of the harvests are saved from one year to the next precisely to compensate for the ‘puncture’ of the years highly marked by the harvest. Does only that factor influence? No. The INC data, advanced by the EFE agency, allow us to focus more and observe the great differences that exist between producing countries, each conditioned by its own challenges. For example, in California, the world capital For pistachio, a 52% drop in the harvest is expected due to flowering problems. The ‘photo’ is not good in Iran either, which is suffering the consequences of the high temperatures of the previous campaign and expects its production to be reduced by another 42%. And what happens in Spain? Here the panorama is somewhat different. Although our production is light years away Compared to the US or Türkiye, the INC estimates that in Spain the 2026/2027 campaign will close with 21% more fruit harvested. In practice, this would mean going from 9,500 tons in the 2025/2026 financial year to 11,500 in the 2026/2027 campaign. The data is interesting because it not only consolidates Spain as the fifth world producer, it also allows it to dream of closing the gap on the podium. The forecast of the INC shows a decline in crops in the US and Iran, the first and third producers on a global scale. And although a priori Türkiye (the second supplier) will see its harvest increase by 36%, it remains to be seen if the strong storm that suffered in May has damaged the trees and will reduce the harvest. How is that possible? That the Spanish crop grows while it declines in other countries with large pistachio plantations, such as the US, Türkiye or Iran, is actually little surprising. Spanish farmers They have been increasing for years the number of hectares dedicated to this crop, especially in Castile-La Manchawhich concentrates a large part of the national production and 77% of the surface. The growth of the harvest in Spain during the next campaign (2026/2027) is only a reflection of that bet. The data from the Ministry of Agriculture show that the planted area in Spain has skyrocketed in recent years to exceed 85,800 hectares in the 2024/2025 campaign and that production has grown by more than 70% in just a few years. Looking ahead to the 2026/2027 season, the INC expects a harvest of 11,500 tons. Not all sources agree on this information (in the sector there are those raises it to 16,000 t), but in any case the background photo is always the same: Spanish production is increasing. What to expect now? The million dollar question. For now, and beyond the short-term fall in harvests due to the rainy season, both the US and Iran they hope to increase its production thanks to the increase in plantations. Specifically, California hopes to boost its average capacity by 40% in the coming campaigns and Iran and Türkiye are already considering approaching 300,000 tons in the medium term. Regarding the price of the fruit and whether or not prices will be altered by the 36% drop in production, there are different opinions in the sector. The Italian analysis company Areté warns of a market with “strong tensions on supply and prices” given that the demand for pistachios has been growing for years. Others, like Gallego, acknowledge that “there may be a small increase in cents,” but clarifies: “All of us who are in this sector are interested in the product remaining stable and being consumed.” Not only the generosity of the crops comes into play. The price is also affected by other factorssuch as instability in Iran, the closure of Hormuz or the influence of war on the cost of inputs such as fuel. Images | Brenan Greene (Unsplash), Brad Spry (Flickr) and USDA In Xataka | Fruit seems like the perfect summer dinner. The problem is that it is not as good an idea as it seems.

The world was tired of depending on TSMC to manufacture all its chips. This is what is causing Intel’s great resurrection

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Who has seen you and who sees you, Intel. The legendary semiconductor firm seems to be leaving behind its painful journey through the desert, and the latest news points to a true resurrection. The signature has achieved a spectacular contract to manufacture three million Google TPUs, and Nvidia is also studying the possibility of use Intel 18A node for future multi-die GPU designs. This is spectacular news for the company. Promising future, at last. The agreement with Google’s cloud division is a huge boost for the chip manufacturing business (foundry) from Intel. This deal will see Intel produce millions of AI chips at its advanced 3-nanometer node. With it, the firm achieves a decisive step to compete with TSMC, which until now was the absolute reference for those who wanted to access advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. There is another crucial geopolitical factor here: part of these chips will be produced in the US, which helps in the objective of not depending so much on Asian countries for this process. Flirting with Nvidia. But Nvidia also seems to be interested in Intel’s 18A photolithographic process. The company led by Jensen Huang is considering the use of this node for its future multi-die architectures for its GPUs. Nvidia has managed to become TSMC’s main customer, but this manufacturer cannot satisfy Nvidia’s demand, so this company is looking for plans B, and Intel is serving it one on a plate. The signature by the way, already bought 4% of Intel in September 2025, so it is the first interested in Intel doing well. The PowerVia revolution. There are two big technical arguments that are apparently convincing Google and Nvidia. The first, the transistors RibbonFET. The second, even more important, PowerVia technology. This system is a qualitative leap because it physically separates the power and signal lines from the transistors, which avoids bottlenecks and improves both performance and efficiency of the CPUs that use this technology. Chip sovereignty. This decision by Google and Nvidia’s plan respond in part to the pressures that the US government is doing—and boosting with its CHIPS Act— to recover technological sovereignty and avoid dependence on foreign countries. Both companies know that 90% of the planet’s advanced chips depend on that island called Taiwan, and taking advantage of Intel’s renewed capacity is a great opportunity for kill two birds with one stone. They reduce their dependence on TSMC, and comply with the demands of the US government. War makes strange allies. The current situation is unique, because it is causing companies that competed fiercely in the field of hardware (Intel and Nvidia) to now be forced to collaborate out of pure necessity. Intel needs clients of this type to demonstrate to investors that its division foundry can operate independently of its consumer processor or server division. And Google and Nvidia in turn need Intel to break manufacturing monopoly of semiconductors that TSMC had. Intel finally resurrects. The big winner of these agreements is Intel, which has gone through a really compromising stage but has for a year has not stopped growing. We can see it in its valuation on the stock market. A year ago its shares were trading at $20.68, and now they are trading at $107.04 and with these agreements that value may continue to improve. Good for Intel. Image | Intel In Xataka | Bill Gates has X-rayed Intel. And his diagnosis is overwhelmingly accurate.

Russia is the great missing person in the AI ​​race. He has neither chips nor talent, and his great ally only gives him the leftovers

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What’s happening with AI in Russia? The artificial intelligence race has as absolute protagonists to the US and China, and it’s surprising that a power like Russia does not seem to be advancing in this type of field. The truth is that he is doing it, but his situation in this area is worrying. Russia does have AI models. Although they are hardly talked about, there are several AI models that are developed by Russian companies and that, above all, are totally oriented towards their citizens. The country does not have access to Western models such as ChatGPT or Claude, but it does have access to these alternatives: GigaChat: is probably the most advanced Russian model. It is developed by the financial institution Sberbank, and It is available via web although to use it it is necessary to have an account in said entity. Yandex Alice: the company that has already offered a search engine in the image and likeness of Google for years also has its own artificial intelligence model, called Alice AI. It is possible to use from its official website in both English and Russian (Spanish is not supported) like a traditional chatbot. MTS AI – one of the largest telecom operators in Russia also has its own model, MTS AImore aimed at companies and developers with its Cotype models that recently support the ability to create agents for enterprise applications. behind. The veto of chips and advanced technology from the US has been one of the factors that has caused these models to be clearly behind the latest frontier models from companies such as OpenAI or Anthropic. He proves it launched three months ago from GigaChat-3.1-Ultra-702B, an open weights model derived from DeepSeek 702B A36B. In the published benchmarks, the performance of this model is at the level of DeepSeek v3 (launched in December 2024) or Qwen3-235B (launched in April 2025). This model is for example available at Hugging Face. China is your natural ally. China and Russia have long maintained a geopolitical alliance that has an impact in various areas. The curious thing is that in this case that impact is being felt less than one would expect. Russian AI models are based on Chinese open models, but at the moment it seems that These are somewhat old versions which they later adapt to Russian. And as happens with Chinese models, which censor certain topics, Russian models apply that same filtering to avoid sensitive issues. Without chips there is no AI. The big problem Russia faces is the same one China faces, but amplified. They don’t have access to advanced Nvidia chips to train their models, so they have looked Shortcuts to bypass trade restrictions and be able to develop those models. Russia, get in line. Sberbank, for example, is trying to get access to Chinese AI chips like the Huawei Ascend 950 for your projects, but there are two problems here. The first is that these chips are aimed at model inference, not their training. The second, that at the moment those who have priority access to these chips are the Chinese companies themselves, which are reserving large quantities for their future projects. ByteDance, Tencent or Alibaba have placed important orders that leave Russia in a complicated situation. Russian chips in the (distant) future. These problems of access to specialized chips could be solved if Russia manages to boost its semiconductor industry. Baikal Electronics has been working on alternatives to x86 chips from Intel and AMD for some time, but also promise develop AI chips in 2029 or 2030. Once again, commercial and technological vetoes mean that in both scenarios the company’s proposals cannot compete with the latest advances of its Western competitors, at least for now. Industrial and military use. Russian LLM developments not only try to present an option for Russian citizens, but also for military applications. The war with Ukraine has actually revealed how Russia is using the well-known AI miniPCs Nvidia Jetson for its Shahed missiles. Russia has it very difficult. The current situation in Russia makes it difficult for the country to present notable alternatives to the most advanced AI models of the US or China (or even Europe). The war with Ukraine also caused an exodus of talent and Russian engineers, although companies like Sber have tried to boost campaigns to attract talent in the university environment. All of this adds to Russia’s difficult access to the most advanced hardware and software and its dependence on an ally like China that is prioritizing its own AI companies. In Xataka | Russia already has its own multi-core CPUs for AI. What it doesn’t have yet is the most important thing: its GPU

The great deindustrialization of Europe, on a map that divides the continent into two

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Europe is a continent and many different realities and the economy is no exception. we see it in the industrial fabric, in GDP, in salaries and on the map that you see above these lines: the weight of the industry in employment, or what is the same, what population that works does so in a factory. Although we are going to see it in a big way and with the legend, at first glance something stands out: while there are states that have industry as their main source of employment, in others what rules are services. The weight of the industry in employment in Europe. More specifically, the map represents the percentage that factory employment represents in total employment in each European region in a range that goes from 3% (the lightest areas) to 34% (the dark red areas). The map in question is the work of the cartographer of Milos Popovic and for its preparation it takes the data corresponding to 2023 from Eurostatthe official statistical office of the EU, which publishes these series systematically for member states, allowing them to be compared. Why it is important. Because beyond offering direct employment, the industry is the sector that contributes the most to productivity growth throughout the economy, according to data from Eurostat and the analysis of the European Center for Austrian Economics Foundation. When there is no industry (or there is it in small doses), the services that replace it tend to concentrate on activities with lower productivity and lower wages. On the other hand, losing industry implies dependence on third parties: we saw it in the pandemic when buying masks and we continually suffer it in strategic products such as semiconductors. And it also takes its toll on exports and deteriorates R&D capacity. What percentage of total employment does the industry occupy? Eurostat via Milos Popovic The two Europes: that of industry and that of services. Broadly speaking, Europe is divided into two blocks: the center, the east and some exceptions in the north of the Iberian Peninsula concentrate between 24 and 35% of its employment in manufacturing. On the other side of the coin, Ireland, the Nordic countries, Greece or southern Spain are below 13%. This division is due to several moments but the reasons are identical. Central Europe is the factory of the old continent and much of the blame lies with the EU enlargement in 2004a moment in which European and global multinationals relocated their production to those economies, taking advantage of low labor costs, the existence of labor and, obviously, this new scenario of access to the common market. Germany, the exception and the industrial anchor of Europe. Germany is simply an anomaly in Europe. While France, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries have been reducing their industrial weight for decades, Germany has been able to maintain robust manufacturing: it represents around 19.7% of the country’s gross added value compared to the European average of 15.6% thanks to an industrial fabric made up of medium-sized companies specialized in machinery, automotive, chemicals and capital goods. But it is not being easy at all: energy is expensive, competition (especially Chinese) is fierce in industries such as the automobile industry and the drop in demand is forcing the Central European country to undergo a profound restructuring. And layoffs: without going any further, ThyssenKrupp Steel advertisement in 2024 a workforce cut from 27,000 to 16,000 workers, an example that summarizes what is happening throughout Teutonic heavy industry. The deindustrialization of the West. Industrial weight loss in Western Europe is not new and does not stop: according to the GMK Center with data from the World Bankthe EU’s share of global industrial added value fell from 20.8% in 2000 to 16.3% in 2023 and between 2018 and 2024 alone, 700,000 jobs were lost in the old continent in the industry. France is a magnificent example because it is the most illustrative case: the industry barely represents 10.6% of its gross added value, almost half that of Germany. Spain stands at 11.7% although it has abysmal differences between the more industrial north (La Rioja and Navarra) and the tourist south. In Xataka | There is one fact that summarizes Europe better than any speech: the minimum wage gap between the east and west of the continent. In Xataka | The best paid jobs in Spain in 2026: from 56,000 euros for a doctor to 250,000 for directing private banking Cover | MilosGis

The MacBook Neo has made traditional Windows laptops look ridiculous. This is great news for users.

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He MacBook Neo showed the way. Mid-range laptops seemed stuck in the past, with an unattractive price/performance ratio. The feeling was that once you were buying a laptop, it was better to invest 1,000 euros or more to be able to work and play comfortably. That seems to be finally changing, because we are seeing a lot of movement in the world of Windows laptops. Asleep on our laurels. Apple’s new model showed that there could be alternatives and caught manufacturers on the wrong foot. Everyone seemed comfortable with it. status quobut he MacBook Neo woke them up from slumberand soon we will see a deployment of modest but functional equipment. Above all, because three of the semiconductor majors already have their SoCs ready or almost ready to compete with the Apple A18 Pro of the MacBook Neo. Qualcomm Snapdragon C. The first alternative is this chip with ARM architecture that just announced by Qualcomm and according to the firm, it will allow equipment to be offered with starting prices of $300. It is very likely that these proposals are too limited (and have no more than 4 GB of RAM), but also that there are versions with higher configurations. The Snapdragon C promises remarkable efficiency, and Qualcomm is an old acquaintance of Windows for ARM equipment. Intel Wildcat Lake. In April we saw how Intel showed its great commitment to conquer this new era of mid-range laptops. I did it with his family Wildcat Lake in which, for example, the new Intel Core 3 304 are integrated. The fundamental advantage of these chips is that of using the traditional x86-64 architecture, which until now has proven to be the best option for Windows computers due to its completely native support for the OS and its applications. Nvidia waits its turn. A lot has been spoken how the duopoly of Intel and AMD on Windows computers could have an expiration date. Qualcomm has not managed to erode that reality, but who may have an important asset is Nvidia, which is preparing the launch of its Arm chips. There has been talk for months that there will be not one, but two based on the GP10 chip which Nvidia jointly developed with MediaTek. The names that are mentioned in the leaks are N1 and N1X, and although the details are unknown, the expectations are notable and already start to leak also Lenovo models that will integrate the N1X. But Windows on ARM has never caught on. The doubts with Qualcomm and Nvidia’s proposals are not due to them, but rather to Microsoft and its Windows operating system. Its version for ARM chips has been available for years, but the teams that have taken advantage of these chips were limited by some software conflicts. I’d better stay with Intel and AMD. There are hardly any problems in that sense anymore, but the promise of the efficiency of ARM chips was not so striking when the prices of such equipment were high. In the end, it was more worthwhile for most users to bet on “traditional” chips from Intel and AMD, and Qualcomm’s proposals—the only ones that appeared on the market—never quite conquered the general public, not even when Copilot+ PCs appeared. Windows 11, by the way, He didn’t make it easy either. with your list of requirements. Specs don’t matter (that much). We already saw yesterday how the specifications of the Wilcat Lake chips are superior to those of the Apple A18 Pro of the MacBook Neobut that doesn’t mean much. Above all, because the MacBook Neo have proven to be laptops that offer a fantastic user experience, but at the moment computers with Intel chips have not been analyzed and their performance is unknown. These same doubts affect future devices with Qualcomm or Nvidia chips: they will have to demonstrate that the user experience is as good (or better) than that of the MacBook Neo, or else these manufacturers (and Microsoft) will have a serious problem. It’s good news. Whatever happens, Apple’s move has caused manufacturers to finally move and develop solutions to try to compete with the surprising team from Cupertino. If the MacBook Neo had not been launched, we would probably still be stuck in the mid-range Windows laptop segment, but this is going to liven things up and revive competition between manufacturers. We all win. In Xataka | “We arrived too soon, but we were right”: The MacBook Neo is everything Microsoft dreamed of with the disastrous Windows 8

We would need to detonate Earth’s nuclear arsenal 130 times to release the energy that caused the Moon’s great cannons.

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The Moon has its own “Grand Canyon of the Colorado”, and doubly so. Only these two canyons were not caused by the slow erosion of a river like the Colorado: 15 minutes of destruction were enough to leave these two enormous scars on the surface of the Moon. 10 minutes of destruction. A 2025 study analyzed in detail two enormous geological strips located in the vicinity of the south pole of the Moon. The analysis has determined, among other conclusions, that they were formed by the impact of an asteroid or comet and that the impact was such that these canyons were formed in less than 15 minutes of destruction. Two large cannons. Their names are Schrödinger Valley and Planck Valley and they are two enormous geological strips that radiate in a straight line from a point located in the Schrödinger basin, near the lunar South Pole, not far from the place chosen by NASA to the return from humans to the Moon. The study has offered us new data on the magnitude and morphological characteristics of these two sores on the surface of our satellite. These two canyons have a length of 270 and 280 kilometers; and 2.7 and 3.5 kilometers deep, respectively. An immense force. In addition to analyzing the characteristics of these two strips, the study tried to characterize the impact that caused them. By studying the way in which these were excavated, they determined that the process lasted between 4.9 and 15 minutes in one of the cases and between 5.2 and 15.4 minutes in the other. That is, they only needed about 10 minutes so that the impact would destroy tons and tons of lunar rock. The impact would have been enormous. According to the team responsible for the study, the energy required to produce these cannons would have been 700 times greater than the energy released by the nuclear tests of China, the United States and the USSR, and 130 times greater than the energy in the world inventory of nuclear weapons. Details of the study, like this last one, were published in an article in the magazine Nature Communications. The best analogue of the Chicxulub crater. The impact would have occurred billions of years before the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs on Earth. However, the team responsible for the study maintains in their article that this lunar impact is the “best analog expression on the surface” of the Chicxulub crater. In Xataka | Earth has lost its minimoon, but it posed for a photo before leaving (and promised to return soon) In Xataka | ESA wants to take its ships into space with nuclear reactors: this is how the Rocketroll project works Image | NASA\SVS\Ernie T. Wright A version of this article was published in February 2025

Spain and Morocco have been dreaming of a tunnel under the Strait for 40 years. The great enemy of the project is called Umbral de Camarinal

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Linking Europe with Africa from the Strait of Gibraltar has been discussed for decades. However, in recent years we have seen how the Governments of the countries involved have been adding steps to this project. Spain and Morocco work has accelerated in recent months to make a railway tunnel a reality that would pass under the Strait and that would connect Punta Paloma (Tarifa) with Cape Malabata (near Tangier). The infrastructure (if it is built) would easily become a historic engineering work, allowing people to cross from one continent to another in just half an hour. What are we talking about?. The project contemplates a strictly railway tunnel, without a viaduct or vehicle lanes (something it originally discussed doing), with a total length of about 42 kilometers between stations, of which 27.7 are submerged. The deepest point it would reach 475 meters below sea level and would cross what is known as the Camarinal Threshold, the shallowest area of ​​the Strait and, curiously, much more complex from a geological point of view. What would it be like inside?. According to data collected by the Spanish public company SECEGSA, the design proposes two independent single-track tubes, each with an inner diameter of 7.90 metersand a 6-meter central service gallery for maintenance and emergency tasks. This gallery would connect with the main tubes through transversal passages every 340 meters. At the lowest point of the layout there would be a safe parking area with intervention areas and a smoke extraction system. High-speed trains for passengers and shuttle convoys for goods and vehicles would run through the tunnel. Who is in charge. The project is moving forward in two ways. On the Spanish side, the work is coordinated by SECEGSA, a public company created in the eighties precisely to promote this connection. On the Moroccan side, the Government has decided to concentrate all its efforts on the channel with Madridruling out other parallel paths. The most recent and relevant agreement It was signed on December 4, 2025 in La Moncloa between the Minister of Transport of Spain, Óscar Puente, and his counterpart in Morocco, Karim Zidane. It contains a memorandum between the Spanish National Geographic Institute and the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research of Morocco (CNRST) to jointly study the seismicity and geodynamics of the Strait for three years. Financing. In March of this year, the Spanish Government approved an additional transfer of 1.73 million euros to finance technical studies, according to they count from La Razón. Added to this item is a marine research campaign commissioned by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) with a budget of 553,187 euros, published in the Official State Gazette. This campaign, lasting about 15 days and scheduled for the first half of 2026, includes high-resolution bathymetry, sampling of sediments and rocks from the seabed, and laboratory analysis. Three CSIC institutes participate (Marine, Geological and Mining Sciences, and Oceanography), the Navy Hydrographic Institute and the United States Geological Survey. Obstacles. The key is in the Camarinal Threshold. The Spanish subsidiary of the German manufacturer Herrenknecht, specialized in tunnel boring machines, carried out a feasibility study that concluded that the work is technically possible with current engineering, although he warned of enormous logistical and economic challenges. The subsoil of that area is made up of materials from the Flysch Complex, with layers of sandstone and clay of turbidite origin, covered by more recent sediments. This geological variability, added to the fact that the Strait is located on the Azores-Gibraltar-Tunisia fracture, the same one that caused the devastating Lisbon earthquake of 1755makes excavation a particularly complex challenge. On the other hand, it should be noted that the Strait is not an easy scenario. More than 100,000 ships pass through its waters a year and the study area is located within a Special Conservation Area with a protection plan for orcas. More than 1,900 species of marine flora and fauna have been recorded, which requires obtaining certain environmental permits before doing anything. How much will it cost. Although there are no concrete figures on how much the project would cost, Morocco World News situates the estimated cost alone for the Spanish part is above 8.5 billion euros, while other media such as El Diario elevate the total budget above 15,000 million, to be distributed between Spain, Morocco and the European Union. In any case, it will be one of the most expensive infrastructures ever built in the region. When will it be ready. Here it is advisable to lower expectations. And the deadlines that are managed They place the possible inauguration between 2035 and 2040always in the best of scenarios, but very possibly set more in the 2040s than before (that is, if the work is ever executed). If the seismic and geotechnical studies end up being favorable, a reconnaissance gallery could be put out to tender in 2027, requiring several years to complete to obtain detailed information on the terrain and the viability of the project. Why it matters beyond engineering. Connecting Africa with Europe by rail would encourage trade in very profitable ways, integrating the railway networks of the Maghreb with the European system and making the peninsular south take on a completely different color as a logistical node. Of course, it also raises political debates, especially regarding immigration management. Be that as it may, we will still have to wait to find out if the project finally materializes. Cover image | SECEGSA and Google Earth In Xataka | Amazon wants to save its ‘cloud’ from the mud: the plan to shield Zaragoza against large floods

US supermarkets want to use digital price tags. Great idea for them, terrible for customers.

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Supermarket price tags want to live his particular revolution. The traditional ones, which normally show the price on a sheet of paper, cardboard or plastic, are in danger, because companies in the sector have a great idea: replace them with electronic ink digital screens that can be updated from a central server in a matter of seconds. It seems like a great idea, but consumers are clear that what it is is a nightmare for their pockets. The advancement of ESL/DSL labels. The technology that wants to replace traditional labels is the so-called Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) or Digital Shelf Labels (DSL), which are nothing more than electronic ink screens that can be managed instantly from a central server. Walmart, the largest retail chain in the world, is leading this transition and aims implement them in 100% of its establishments in the US before the end of 2026. The argument. This company explains that the measure seeks to reduce operating costs, and that any modification will always require validation by a human agent. Amanda Bailey, who leads a team at a Walmart store in West Chester (Ohio, USA) estimated that the time spent changing prices on products in the store had been reduced by 75% thanks to DSL, and with that time they can serve customers better. Consumers, against. A recent survey from the consulting firm GBAO Strategies reveals that consumers do not share Walmart’s optimism. According to the participants’ data, 65% are convinced that supermarkets will use this technology to make shopping carts more expensive. Only 3% believe that it will serve to make it cheaper. The idea is not bad. ESL tags are ultra-low power devices that connect to the premises’ Wi-Fi or Bluetooth infrastructure. Theoretically, the idea is very reasonable, because in addition to reducing price management times, it eliminates cashier errors, reduces paper waste, and allows offers from the physical store to be instantly synchronized with those on the website. But be careful. However, these labels also open the door to disturbing scenarios, such as the application of dynamic pricing. Cold drinks can suddenly cost more if it’s very hot outside, or from price adjustments based on inventory. There is even talk of more sophisticated AI algorithms and already patented by Walmart capable of managing a customer profile in real time to adjust the price of the product based on what the data ensures that they are willing to pay. Surveillance pricing. The industry talks about personalized prices, but consumer associations have dubbed the phenomenon “surveillance pricing” )”surveillance prices”, in a literal translation). The concept is simple, forceful and disturbing: the supermarket monitors the user’s purchase history and their geolocation through the mobile app in addition to other parameters such as the level of aisle traffic to squeeze its profit margin. If there is an electronic tag, I’m leaving. The rejection of these labels is clear in the aforementioned survey: 68% of them fear that these “surveillance prices” will increase the cost of living. 58% indicated that they would avoid buying in stores that implement this type of digital price tags. 67% demand a law that completely prohibits this technology. The reaction is not strange: in April inflation rose to 3.8% in the US (annualized data) while salaries only rose 3.6%. It is the first time that salaries have failed to keep up with inflation, according to CBS News. In Spain the situation is paradoxical. In December 2025 the salaries agreed in the agreement they had grown 3.49% compared to the previous year, while the average inflation until that month was 2.7% (very moderate due to low electricity and fuel). That seems like good news, but 1) two out of every three workers They do not have a salary review clause and 2) the price of food has become more expensive by 37% in the last five years and things are getting worse. The ghost of Uber, Wendy’s and Ticketmaster. We already know this story, because in the past they have already arisen various controversies with dynamic prices. Image | E Ink In Xataka | If you want to anticipate how your shopping basket will rise, you just have to look at what is happening to toilet paper.

We have been wondering for 4,500 years why the Great Pyramid of Giza resists earthquakes. Physics finally has the answer

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Throughout its more than 4,500 years of history, the Great Pyramid of Gizathe tomb of Pharaoh Cheops, has witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the erosion of the desert and also the earthquakes in an area with very intense seismic activity. This is crucial, because while the Alexandria Lighthouse or the Colossus of Rhodes succumbed to the Earth’s tremors, the 138-meter-high mass has remained immovable. The secrets Their longevity has been a topic of conversation for decades among Egyptologists, engineers and architects who tried to understand why they were still standing. And it is logical, because every physical object has a “natural frequency” of vibration, and this is crucial because when the seismic waves of an earthquake coincide with the frequency of an object, a very important amplification effect is produced. It is an effect that we can see, for example, on a swing, since we push it at the exact moment so that it goes higher and higher. And this is where the “superpower” of the Great Pyramid lies. What does it consist of? According to a study published in Scientific Reports, the pyramid and the ground on which it sits dance to completely different rhythms. This means that the pyramid has a natural vibration frequency which is around 2.3 Hz. For its part, the surrounding terrain of the Giza Plateau vibrates at a drastically lower frequency, close to 0.6 Hz. This mathematical gap is a true structural lifesaver, since, since there is no coincidence between the frequency of the stone mass and that of the ground during a seismic event, resonance is practically impossible. Waves from the earthquake pass through the area, but the pyramid does not amplify the vibration, dispelling the danger of a catastrophic collapse. It is, in modern terms, perfect passive seismic isolation behavior. Extreme geometry. This frequency decoupling is one part of the equation, since the focus is also on the impeccable architectural design and geometric of construction, which provides a uniform structural response to any mechanical stress. All this is thanks to the ingenuity of Egyptian engineers who created an artificial monolith that defies the laws of destruction through several characteristics, such as greatly lowering the center of gravity. And, unlike modern structures that are slender, in pyramids the vast majority of stones are concentrated in their lower third. This makes the building virtually impossible to overturn, regardless of the violence of the transverse shaking. More reasons. The square pyramid shape is not just an aesthetic or religious choice, but it is the most stable geometric figure that exists to withstand compression. Symmetry ensures that when seismic waves shake the building, the load and stress are distributed equally across all faces, avoiding critical fracture points. The internal chambers. One of the details that the investigation has pointed out is the unsuspected role of the famous internal chambers of the pyramidlike the King’s Chamber. Historically, they have been analyzed from a funerary perspective, but it is now suggested that, together with the impressive granite discharge blocks, they also act as a system to dissipate energy. In this way, seismic waves that manage to penetrate the structure encounter abrupt changes in the density of the matter, which causes the waves to refract and disperse. Did they do it on purpose? This is the question we can ask ourselves after reading all this, and the most plausible answer is that the Egyptians did not handle all these technical concepts, but they were absolute masters of empirical engineering. Through observation, trial, error and a deep knowledge of the materials, they arrived at the optimal solution so that they would last for life. They built for eternity based on massive stability and, in doing so, accidentally designed a building that meets the same safety parameters that we demand of our most critical infrastructure today to prevent them from collapsing in an earthquake. Images | Jeremy Bishop In Xataka | What we see in Petra is a city “carved in stone”: what it really hides is an amazing water system

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