Human

Scientists have connected 200,000 human neurons to a chip. And he made them play ‘Doom’

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If they tell us that human neurons are playing ‘Doom’, the first thing we would think of is science fiction. However, that is exactly what the Australian company Cortical Labs has shown with your CL1 system: about 200,000 live neurons grown on an array of electrodes on a chip, capable of receiving information from the game and responding through electrical patterns. We are not talking about conventional artificial intelligence, but rather biological tissue interacting with software through an interface designed for that purpose. Human neurons and ‘Doom’. The demo isn’t just launching the game and letting something random happen. In the material shared by Cortical Labs, those responsible explain that the system receives signals from the video game environment and generates electrical patterns that translate into the character’s actions. This is a form of learning in which the system modifies its response depending on the result obtained. The key here is not skill, but the ability to adapt, which, according to the company, they are managing to train and mold in real time. How the interaction loop is established. For the experiment to work, it is not enough to display images on a screen. According to CTO David Hogan, an independent developer managed to convert the game’s visual signal into “electrical stimulation patterns” that are applied directly to the cell culture. These stimuli provoke electrical responses in neurons, and certain firing patterns translate into specific actions within ‘Doom’. In this way, the system creates a closed loop in real time in which each decision has an immediate effect on the virtual environment. look back. In 2021, the same company managed to make a system based on more than 800,000 neurons play ‘Pong’an experiment that required years of scientific work and specific training. That precedent laid the foundations for what would later become the CL1, the equipment presented at the Mobile World Congress in 2025 as the world’s first commercial biological computer. As we explained at the time, the system combines neurons grown on silicon with software called biOS, responsible for exchanging electrical information with living tissue. It is advisable to adjust expectations. The system, it should be noted, falls far short of advanced human performance. Brett Kagan of Cortical Labs emphasizes that the experiment is not intended to replicate a miniature brain, and rejects the direct comparison: “Yes, it is alive, and yes, it is biological, but it is actually used as a material that can process information in very special ways that we cannot recreate in silicon.” The emphasis, therefore, is not on skill, but on the type of processing that this biological substrate allows. Starting point. In the video, the team encourages researchers and developers to interact with the CL1 open API. Cortical Labs hopes to address progressively more demanding tasks than a classic video game, although the video itself also recognizes that there is room to fine-tune the feedback of successes and errors. For now, what we have is a proof of concept that shows potential, but whose path will depend on what others manage to build on this platform. Images | Cortical Labs In Xataka | Sam Altman has spent his entire life saying one thing and doing exactly the opposite. And this time it didn’t even take 48 hours.

Genetics suggests that Neanderthal males preferred human females

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We have known for years that today’s non-African populations They preserve between 1 and 4% Neanderthal DNA as a legacy of the prehistoric crossings that existed. However, when looking at our X chromosome (which determines sex), geneticists repeatedly encountered an absolute void, a phenomenon that has been dubbed ‘neanderthal desert‘since there was no ancient DNA. And the question here is quite obvious: Why did the imprint of this species disappear from our sex chromosome, but not from the rest of the chromosomes? The key data. From here science began to investigate, and a new published article in Science proposes an answer much more focused on demographics: sex between both species It had a very strong gender bias. That is to say, the fact that a member of each species had sexual relations with great frequency has survived to this day with this genetic imprint. How do you know? What was done to be able to see what happened to the genetic material and its passage between generations within the Neanderthal populations was simply to analyze genomes. Specifically, the DNA of women from current African populations, who do not have any Neanderthal genetics, and compared them with genomes of female Neanderthals, mainly the Neanderthal of Altaibut also specimens of Chagyrskaya and Vindija. The result. Here the researchers realized that the X chromosome of the Neanderthals analyzed presented a large amount of DNA that came from the Homo sapiens. Specifically, an excess of 62% was seen compared to the rest of the organism’s chromosomes. The only thing that confirms is that the genetic exchange between both species was not a one-way change, but rather that both parties were enriched, causing the Neanderthals to also have sapiens DNA, but in different proportions. A matter of preferences. How is such a brutal asymmetry in the sex chromosomes explained? Until now, the most accurate hypothesis to justify our “Neanderthal desert” was biological incompatibility between species. Here it was thought that male hybrids suffered fertility or viability problems if they received this DNA, which caused a negative selection of testicular genes that erased the Neanderthal imprint of our X chromosomes. However, science has now ruled out that this 62% excess on the Neanderthal side is due to the sapiens DNA giving them an evolutionary advantage, since they ended up disappearing in a until now inexplicable way. The conclusion. Everything indicates here that there was an extreme sexual bias in the miscegenation. That is, the crossings occurred overwhelmingly between Neanderthal males and females. Homo sapiens, and always with this pattern. This mating preference persisted across generations, where Neanderthal males preferred females sapiensand the resulting hybrid offspring were also “preferred” in group dynamics. In this way we are faced with the piece that fits into the bidirectional puzzle of our evolutionary history. There are nuances. As usual, there is always a ‘but’ in these stories. In this case, the researchers point out that, although the genetics are quite clear, the behavioral interpretation has nuances, since the pattern we see today could be the result of a mixture of factors. One of them is that societies where women sapiens They left their tribe to join the clans of their Neanderthal partners, introducing their X chromosome into the genetic pool of the other species. Images | Jan Jakubowski In Xataka | The extinction of Neanderthals has always been a mystery. Science now believes that they are still with us

If you don’t optimize your resume, the AI ​​will filter it out, leaving you out. If you use AI, a human recruiter will leave you out

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The use of AI in hiring processes personnel is increasingly widespread, both by human resources departments with the use of automatic ATS filtering of candidates (Applicant Tracking System) and by candidates to, precisely, overcome AI filters. However, using AI to optimize resumes may have overwhelmed recruiters searching for candidates. that stand out from the restnot clone resumes. The boom in CVs generated by AI. The implementation of AI systems has radically changed the way we find employment. Simply copy and paste the job description into ChatGPT, you get an optimized resume for that specific offer, filled with keywords that exactly match the terms that the bot waiting on the other side of the Submit button will select. As and as they described From the Manfred technological employment platform, this means that each offer receives a flood of identical applications, where everyone repeats the same terms. According to a survey According to the consulting firm Hays, at the end of 2024, 40% of professionals were already using AI for their CV that year, 3% more than in 2023, and they expect it to reach 80% in five years. As a result of this increase, recruiters receive hundreds of profiles that pass the filters and appear to be the ideal candidates, but fail. at the first human glance. Companies want to hire people. As and how I collected Washington Postrecruiters have developed the ability to identify these “synthetic” resumes. Patterns such as the absence of synonyms, mechanical repetitions or an excessively polished tone reveal the use of AI in your writing. according to human resources experts. According to a survey conducted by the employment assistance platform Resume.io, 49% of hiring managers reject resumes suspected of being generated by AI. The recruiters interviewed in the article Washington Post They are in favor of using AI as an assistance tool to “cover gaps” and make the writing of the resume more complete. But delegating it completely to AI generates rejection because, in reality, they don’t know who they are hiring. “If this is how you apply and this is how you work, I don’t want to hire you,” said Joseph Eitner, director of human resources at Eaton Capital Management, a New York investment firm. “Job seekers should use it to enrich their work. They should not use AI for the entire process,” said Ron Sharon, chief information security officer at financial consulting firm PTMA Financial Solutions. Anthropic, one of the world’s leading AI developers, positioned itself along the same lines in its job offers, urging its employees not to use AI to complete the application form with the aim of getting to know their candidates better and emphasizing that it did not matter if they did not have the appropriate training since the form was not going to pass any AI filter. A game where everyone loses. The use of AI in preparing resumes and cover letters has increased in response to ATS filtering systems. Candidates simply hope to pass the initial filter and advance through the selection process to reach the interview phase and meet face to face with an interviewer. In this sense, it is the companies and recruiters themselves who they have created the monster which they now repudiate. According what was published by Forbes82% of companies use AI to scan candidates’ initial applications, creating a race between algorithms to optimize for each other. Along the way, the candidate loses his “humanity” but the company also loses its culture and values. Candidates cannot be blamed for adapting to a technology present in a good part of open personnel selection processes. The process is broken. Huntr’s Q2 2025 ‘Job Search Trends Report’ points out that 85% of candidates looking for a job take more than nine months to find a job. For its part, a meta-analysis of the sector revealed that 63% apply for more than 337 vacancies, of which only 2% manage to interview with a human recruiter. On LinkedIn, they only respond to 3.3% of the candidates. This constant bickering It exhausts companies and candidates alike, complicating the search for suitable candidates for open positions. Currently, companies are experiencing a contradiction in their hiring processes, as they claim adaptability and attitude in their candidates, but surely those candidates were discarded in the first filter because his CV was not optimized by an AI. In Xataka | If your chair limps during a job interview, it’s no coincidence: they’re evaluating more than just your resume. In Xataka | The latest trend to ace job interviews: training with ChatGPT as a recruiter Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

Neuro-sama is the AI ​​that has dethroned all human streamers on Twitch because it doesn’t need to eat or sleep

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2026 already has its first milestone in the history of streaming: for the first timethe channel with the highest number of active subscribers on Twitch does not belong to a human creator. Neuro-sama, a VTuber generated entirely by artificial intelligencereached 162,459 active subscribers at the beginning of the year, dethroning all flesh-and-blood streamers on the platform. This figure places the channel vedal987from where Neuro-sama emits, in an unprecedented position: an artificial entity that surpasses established rivals in paying audiences. More human than humans. The origin of Neuro-sama dates back to 2019, when the British developer known as Vedal designed an artificial intelligence system initially aimed at running games of the rhythm video game ‘osu!’. Three years later, in December 2022, the project evolved into its current format: a VTuber that combines multiple technological layers to simulate the presence and activities of a human streamer. According to its creator, Neuro-sama’s visual infrastructure is developed in C# using the Unity engine, while the artificial intelligence systems work in Python. It is expressed. Neuro-sama’s architecture rests on a LLM (Large Language Model), technology that processes billions of parameters to generate coherent conversations in real time. These models form the basis of chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini or Microsoft Copilot, and operate by predicting sequences of words according to patterns learned during their training. Added to this conversational core are voice synthesis systems that generate the characteristic high-pitched tonality, and an avatar animated using Live2D technology that reacts visually to interactions. The result is a digital entity capable of maintaining dialogues, playing video games and responding to chat without direct human intervention during broadcasts. Audience records. Neuro-sama’s upward trajectory in terms of viewership is completely unusual. In January 2025, during its second annual “subathon” (a continuous broadcast format whose duration depends on subscriptions received), the channel set a world record by reaching level 111 on Twitch’s Hype Train system, an indicator that measures the intensity of subscriptions and donations over concentrated periods of time. That milestone, which surpassed the 106 levels of the previous record, seemed difficult to match. However, just eleven months later, in December 2025, Neuro-sama pulverized its own brand. The channel completed a level 120 Hype Trainaccumulating 118,989 subscriptions and 1,000,073 bits in a limited period of time. This figure makes vedal987 the only channel that has managed to break the global Hype Train record twice in a row, a distinction that earned him a global Twitch emote usable by any user of the platform. You peel them. lThe economic implications are notable. According to data from TwitchTracker, with 162,459 active subscribers and applying Twitch’s standard revenue split (which varies depending on individual agreements, but is usually around 50% for the creator), the channel would generate approximately $400,000 per month exclusively from subscriptions, not counting direct donations, additional bits or advertising deals. Currently, vedal987 occupies the 3rd place in the historical ranking of channels with the most Twitch subscriptions. He has a sister. In March 2023, Evil Neuro was born, presented as the “twin sister” of the original character. Vedal conceived this second entity so that Neuro-sama could interact with herself, but the project resulted in a differentiated personality with its own voice, visual model, and behavior. Both AIs have transcended the streaming format: in December 2022, Neuro-sama premiered ‘LIFE‘, his first original song. In August 2024 both launched ‘NEVER‘, the first duet between the two entities. The problems. The phenomenon has problematic antecedents: Nothing, Forevera series inspired by Seinfeld and generated entirely by algorithms, was suspended from Twitch after making transphobic comments. The Rubius experimented Similar dilemmas with DegenerIAa channel where ChatGPT controlled all conversations. In fact, one of the DegenerIA characters made derogatory comments about the streamer Pokimane, showing that automatic moderation systems do not always filter inappropriate content. Neuro-sama herself faced a temporary ban in 2023 for controversial statements, a reminder that the conversational autonomy of these systems carries risks. The rise of VTubers with AI. Conventional VTubers, until now, were humans controlling virtual avatars in real time through facial and body motion capture systems. Hololive, the Japanese agency that dominates this sector, manages figures such as Gawr Gura, whose YouTube channel exceeds four million subscribers. These creators choose to represent themselves through animated characters for reasons ranging from protecting privacy to building digital identities. Neuro-sama represents a qualitative leap: here there is no human behind the avatar. The VTuber industry has experienced sustained growth that YouTube quantified like this: Between 2022 and 2024, VTubers-related content generated an average of 50 billion views annually on the platform. The market for tools to produce this type of content has also become democratized: platforms such as Akool, HeyGen and VTube Studio allow creators without advanced technical knowledge to generate interactive avatars with a very small investment. Doubts about the future. What is clear is that this boom of technology-driven VTubers is full of imbalances. Continuous broadcasting without the need for rest gives these entities a structural advantage over human streamers who need to sleep, eat or simply disconnect. The question of whether this constitutes unfair competition or simply technological evolution remains without a clear answer. In Xataka | We have a problem with AI. Those who were most enthusiastic at the beginning are starting to get tired of it.

Johannes Klæbo, the human locomotive that has dynamited cross-country skiing

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The first thing is the message. An electrical current that crosses the brain. And everything is unleashed. The brain sends the signal: more wood for the locomotive. The nervous system executes the order. More fibers and more fast fibers are put into motion. The muscles demand more energy. The heart rate goes up. The heart pumps more blood. With blood comes oxygen. And the quadriceps, the hamstrings, the calves become the coupling rod of the locomotive. Boom. Boom. Boom. Up and down. Johannes Klæbo only needed to steam his head. Its engine already seemed to be running at full capacity when the storm hit. How wrong we were. It remained to be seen how he crushed the ground with his skis with the frequency of someone fleeing from the enemy but the rage of someone who crushes him. With the determination of someone who knows they are making history. Click on the image to go to the original tweet (and see the devastating attack) An overwhelming number Three minutes and 40 seconds to cover a thousand meters. Nothing too special. If we talk about putting on some sneakers and hitting the asphalt. Very different when you put on skis, face a slope and reach peaks of 18 km/h to destroy your rivals. This is how Johannes Klæbo broke the sprint distance cross-country ski race. 3’39″74 Less than 220 seconds to cover a distance of 1,585 meters on skis. Where of course you go down, but where you also have to go up. Klæbo let himself go in the final meters, enjoying his overwhelming superiority as he did before. Usain Bolt in Beijing in 2008. How will you enjoy? Remco Evenepoel with the Eiffel Tower behind him in 2024. Or as Tadej Pogacar repeats over and over again, the athlete with whom he is most compared for his domain. Johannes Klæbo was born in Trondheim (Norway) in 1996. It will be 30 years in October. By then, it is certain, he will be able to display 15 gold medals accumulated in World Cups in his living room. On the other wall his nine Olympic medals will stand out, seven of them gold. Who knows if four more will accompany him as he did at the 2025 World Cup in Trondheim, his home. Because after gold in the speed test and the 10+10 kilometer skiathlon, the Norwegian can become the Winter Olympian with the most gold medals in history. At the moment, the reign is held by two other Norwegians. Marit Bjoergen, distance runner, is the person with the most Olympic medals in a winter games with eight golds, four silvers and three bronzes. He is followed by Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, biathlete, with another eight golds, four silvers and two bronzes. If he wins his six golds in these Olympic Games in Milano Cortina 2026, Klæbo would remain at 13 medals but the weight of 11 golds would elevate him to a new level. So far, it’s already been seven. The Norwegian skier is one of those forces of nature that dominates any distance record and type of race within his sport. Like Pogacar, Armand Duplantis or Kilian Jornet, he is one of the chosen ones. One of those athletes who go down in history. Athletes who not only win, they crush any type of insurrection. And the most meritorious thing, they turn it into a spectacle. Johannes Klæbo is also part of a generation of Norwegian athletes that are breaking with the established. Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the result of a father who worked obsessively with his three children popularizing double threshold training. Karsten Warholm He was the first man to break the 46-second barrier in the 400-meter hurdles. Kristian Blummenfelt He is a triathlon world champion, Olympic champion and Ironman distance world champion. Johannes Thingnes Bø, biathlete, recently retired with five Olympic gold medals, two silver and two bronze. Magnus Carlsen is another of those geniuses whose roof, perhaps, only “El Mundo” can put it. Photo | Olympics In Xataka | The Winter Olympics are facing the most unexpected technological doping: penis punctures

human poop in parks

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The case I told it Marisa García, apothecary, has been on Instagram for some time now. One day he was walking through a park in Majadahonda when he lost sight of his dog. The scare did not last long. The dog reappeared after a few minutes, but it did so after having feasted on human feces. Up to this point the scene may be eschatological, but it is not of much interest either. If you have a dog you will know that it’s not strange that are interested in poop. The problem is that those specific feces contained traces of drugs, which is why the animal ended up in the vet. The problem is that it is not an isolated case. More than an eschatological anecdote. The video of García is from September 2024 but the poisoning of dogs that end up ‘high’ (and admitted to a veterinary clinic) after feasting on human poop is far from being a curiosity or problem of the past. Quite the opposite. It continues to happen (at least in the Community of Madrid) and with astonishing frequency. This has been revealed The Country in an article in which he cites several veterinary cases that corroborate that they are no longer surprised to encounter dogs that, due to their owners’ carelessness, have ingested poop… with some type of drug. A member of the Reina Cristina emergency center assures that they have attended to up to four emergencies in a week. Even in the film ‘Sirât’Oliver Laxe’s Oscar-nominated film, is winks to these types of cases. “I had already been warned”. García’s experience is illustrative. In September 2024 counted how he lost sight of his dog while walking through a park in Majadahonda (Madrid). When the animal appeared, it did so with surprise: “It had eaten someone’s feces.” The problem is that those human poops were ‘seasoned’ with something else. Whoever had left them there had consumed drugs, substances that left traces in their stools. “Dogs eat it and get intoxicated from marijuana, cocaine… In this case it also had traces of tricyclic antidepressantsfrom opiates… Maybe from someone who was taking some type of medication,” remember the apothecary. “Apart from vomiting and becoming very sad and ill, the dog’s back legs began to fail and he couldn’t walk. That alerted us and we took him to the vet.” García recognized that cases like the one she had experienced were relatively frequent because, whether due to lack of public bathrooms, urgency or simple habit, there are people who choose to relieve themselves in the parks… leaving their excrement and everything they contain, including traces of drugs or legal medications. “I had already been warned. This can happen to anyone. There are more and more dogs that become intoxicated by the drugs that humans consume,” Remember Garcia. “A plague”. How frequent is it? One of the veterinarians interviewed by The Country speaks directly of “plague.” The problem is by no means new, but cases such as that of García or that of Paula Valdeón, another Madrid native who had to take her dog (Balkis) to a clinic after she ate human feces during a night walk through Madrid Río, suggest that it has worsened. The reason? One possible explanation is the change in drug use. A european report of 2025 on the subject concludes that 13.3% of Spaniards between 15 and 64 years old have tried cocaine at least once in their lives. This is the highest figure in the EU, considerably above nations such as France and Denmark (9.4%) or the Netherlands (8%). Not all are negative indicators (cannabis use has collapsed among adolescents), but Health data show that the prevalence of the consumption of hypnosedatives, ecstasy, cocaine or hallucinogens is significantly higher today than in the 90s. Are there more factors? Yes. Several. The first explains why the report of The Country or García’s video point to the same region: Madrid. Beyond the greater or lesser consumption of drugs, the capital deals with a handicap: the high cost of nightlife, which forces groups to look for alternatives, such as meeting in public areas or organizing bottles. If to that is added the the small number of public toiletsthe story tells itself: feces within reach of the dogs, with everything they have ‘on board’, both medications and illegal drugs. Beyond Madrid. The problem of pet poisoning is not exclusive to the parks and gardens of Madrid. A year ago the Radio and Television of the Principality of Asturias warned that several dogs from Oviedo had gotten sick after eating human poop with traces of drugs. For the neighbors, the origin of the problem was clear: the drinking parties held in a park in the area. There are also animals that become intoxicated without setting foot on the street. In 2024 JAMA Network Open public a study by Orrin Ware and Renée Schmid that shows that episodes of this type are not strange within homes themselves. For their study, the researchers analyzed hundreds of calls made between 2019 and 2023 to the organization Pet Poison Helpline in which pet owners reported that their animals had become poisoned. The sample must be handled with some caution because it coincided with the pandemic, a period during which many people were forced to confine themselves and carry out their daily lives inside their homes, but their conclusions are interesting: they reveal a worrying (and growing) exposure of pets to drugs. Images | Courtney Mihaka (Unsplash) and Colin Davis (Unsplash) In Xataka | In 2001, a yacht took refuge on a remote island in the Atlantic. Days later its inhabitants breaded fish with coca

They have become human garbage cans

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Japan has spent decades elevating cleanliness to an almost competitive. It is not trivial, since even organize official championships garbage collection on the street, where teams compete to see who leaves the most impeccable environment. In a country where there are initiatives that turn civility into sport, the relationship with waste is not a minor detail, but a profound expression of how public space and individual responsibility are understood. And yet, the arrival of hordes of tourists has revealed a paradox. A clean country without trash cans. Yes, Japan has been surprising the world for decades with a paradox that baffles anyone who visits it for the first time: impeccable streets, sparkling stations and, at the same time, almost no garbage can in sight. This absence is not a system failure, but a direct consequence of a culture who avoids eating while walking, prioritizes taking waste home and individually assumes the responsibility of not littering public spaces. For local people, buy something in a konbini or in a vending machine already implies having a mental plan to manage the packaging, a routine so internalized that it makes trash cans on the street unnecessary. Garbage cans, but human. The problem appears when this cultural ecosystem collides with mass tourism. With dozens of million visitors a yearJapan has been filled with travelers who eat on the go, buy viral drinks and “Instagrammable” snacks and, when they finish, discover that there is nowhere to throw anything away. The result is an image as absurd as it is revealing: hordes of tourists turned into human trash canswalking kilometers with glasses, wrappers and bottles in their pockets, backpacks or improvised bags. The official surveys they confirm it: For visitors, the lack of trash cans is already the main logistical problem of the trip, above the language or the crowds. Local rules, foreign habits. The friction is not only due to the physical absence of cubes, but to a profound difference in habits. In Japan, eating while walking is frowned upon and, in some cities, it is outright prohibited. “Takeaway” food is effectively taken home or to work. Tourists, on the other hand, consume on the street and expect to find an infrastructure similar to that of their countries of origin. When there is not one, the system suffers: scarce trash cans that overflow, waste abandoned in discreet corners and a growing tension between traditional Japanese courtesy and the reality of tourism that does not always know how (or can) adapt. Safety, costs and trauma. Added to this equation is a less visible but decisive factor: security. After the sarin gas attack in the Aum Shinrikyo sect in the Tokyo subway in 1995, many trash cans were removed for fear that they were used to hide explosives, a logic that also explains why the few that exist usually have transparent bags. Added to this are the maintenance costs and strict municipal regulations on public space. The result has been an urban landscape deliberately devoid of cubeseven when the social context that supported it has changed radically. Cities that are beginning to give way. In any case, it counted the wall street journal in a report that the continued pressure of tourism is forcing some cities to rethink dogma. In especially saturated places, such as central Tokyo neighborhoods or busy historic parks, calls have begun to appear. “smart” binssometimes with messages in English, sensors or compaction systems. Other initiatives border on the surreal, especially for the “foreigner” without any context, such as students who they walk with garbage cans behind their backs to collect waste in exchange for donations or advertising. That said, these are more of creative patches to a deeper culture clash: Japan hasn’t really changed its idea of ​​cleanliness, but the world has arrived en masse and without warning, and now millions of visitors travel around the country carrying their garbage on them, discovering that in the most tidy place on the planet… the bucket is them. Image | PexelsCorpse Reviver In Xataka | Sushi was a sleeping giant of the fast food industry: in the US it has already begun to eat hamburgers In Xataka | Japan has been mired in a demographic debacle for years. Now it suffers a new crisis: that of coming of age

For thousands of years, human beings have avoided crossing the Taklamakan Desert. Now China is raising fish there

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For more than 1,500 years, the merchants who traveled the Silk Road dared with oceans, mountains and jungles, they dared with endless walks, with warlords, with hunger and pain and the cold; with one of the most destructive epidemics in history; but they did not dare with the Taklamakan. That sand hell (whose name comes from the word ugiur for “abandon, leave alone, leave behind”) is not only the second largest dune desert in the world, but it moved, invaded and devoured everything around it. It’s been a nightmare for thousands of years. Well, now, China is farming fish right there. As? As it sounds, Xinjiang has been committed to producing fish and seafood “in the middle of the desert” for years. And no, obviously, it has nothing to do with “releasing fish in the sand” as if it were worms from Arrakis. The key is saline-alkaline water, lined ponds and recirculation techniques. It is not a revolutionary approach (already We have talked about similar techniques), but without a doubt Chinese producers are taking it to another level. Xinjiang aquaculture production was 196,500 tons in 2024. And, of course, the “desert seafood” boom raises questions about water, energy and scalability. From the promise of fresh fish… We are talking about a very harsh physical context (annual rainfall of less than 100 mm, very high evaporation and salinized soils): thus, the entire Tarim sub-basin depends on melting snow to provide water. Therefore, on the table, there are two clear approaches: the first, which has become popular in the Westtalks about the construction of monitored ponds. And this is already, in itself, very effective: “species such as grouper, mullet, shrimp, oysters and pearl musselsyes reach commercial size with survival rates close to 99%”, always according to the available data. But that’s just the beginning; just a proof of concept. …to the promise of mar. As explained by several chinese mediathe final horizon of the project is much more ambitious: creating a sea in the middle of the desert. That is, take advantage of the water associated with saline-alkaline soils and saline lakes to simulate marine conditions with technical adjustments, circulation systems and cultivation of microorganisms. And thus be able to breed species normally linked to the sea. But can that be done? Of course you can. We have the technology to do it. In a world where aquaculture already exceeds extractive fishing in volume, the interesting question is not that: the question is whether the model is scalable without aggravating tensions over water in a hyper-arid region dependent on snowmelt. What the industry that sees tons of fish emerging from the desert is asking is something even more basic: is it possible that the beginning of the end of commercial fishing is beginning? Image | On Magnet | China is exporting millions of shrimp with antibiotics to the world. And they could end up on your table

Science is on the verge of achieving something that would end our human experience as we knew it: suffering

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The Holy Grail of modern pain medicine has always been the same: achieving the analgesic power of morphine without its side effects such as respiratory depression, addiction or tolerance. And although until now it seemed impossible, one study has suggested that the key is not to ‘numb’ the body, but to ‘attack’ the way the brain processes suffering. The study. A team led by Gregory Corder of the University of Pennsylvania has developed a gene therapy that acts as a “switch” for chronic pain. What is revolutionary is not just that it works, but how it does it: it eliminates the emotional distress of pain without erasing the protective physical sensation, keeping the patient safe but free from suffering. The problem is not feeling, it is suffering. Pain has two very clear components: one that is sensory, which is necessary to human survival (as it is to withdraw the hand when we get burned), and the other is the affective or the emotional. This second is what generates the feeling of constant suffering that can destroy the quality of life of a patient who lives with chronic pain or neuropathic pain that affects the nervous system, such as the hated ‘sciatica’. According to the study, titled, the researchers identified a specific group of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These neurons are sensitive to opioids and are responsible for encoding the “unpleasantness” of pain, and this is where they have tried to attack, but surgically and without pills. The tool used. The scientists used a tool known as DREADD (Designer Receptors Activated Exclusively by Designer Drugs). To do this, through a viral vector, they inserted synthetic receptors specifically into the cingulate cortex neurons of mice with neuropathic pain. From there, they administered a drug that has no effect called DCZ. This compound, despite not doing anything to the body in mice, acts as a key that “turns off” the neurons that have been modified in their brain in a very specific way. The result. The chronic pain behavior disappeared and they began to act like completely healthy animals. However, when exposed to an acute thermal stimulus, they were able to withdraw their paw. In this way, his survival system was working, but his anxiety system was completely turned off. The AI ​​that reads pain. One of the biggest challenges in pain research is that mice can’t tell us “it hurts a 7 out of 10,” which is why scientists classically relied on biased tests. But this is over thanks to an AI called LUPEwhich is a Deep Learning platform and has the ability to analyze hundreds of hours of video of mice moving freely. But what is relevant here is that it has the ability to detect spontaneous micro-behaviors associated with pain that the human eye would miss. Thanks to LUPE, the team was able to objectively confirm that the pain relief was real and not an error of human interpretation. The opioid crisis. The most promising thing about the study published a few days ago is the security profile. Unlike morphine, which generates tolerance, that is, more and more doses of medication are needed to have an effect, and addiction, this gene therapy is completely the opposite. In this way, it does not generate addiction, meaning that the mouse does not have to seek a higher dose to maintain that sensation and the effect remained stable. The arrival of humans. Although the success in mice is resounding, the jump to humans is complex, since we are really different and requires many more safety studies. However, the path is set. The team is already planning the next steps towards clinical trials, although it is something that may take many years to become a reality in our daily lives. Images | Sasun Bughdaryan In Xataka | We have accepted that sport is “medicine” for the body. Now science is discovering its side effects

the Ukrainian drone that stopped Russia for six weeks with a machine gun and not a single human soldier

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On the Ukrainian front, where every meter conquered or defended is paid for with a human cost that is increasingly difficult to assume, ingenuity is has become a resource as valuable as ammunition. In this context of extreme wear and constant adaptation, some units are experimenting with little visible solutions that, without attracting attention, are beginning to change the way a battle line is held. When there are no soldiers left. In a war marked by a shortage of infantry and the extreme lethality of maintaining forward positions, Ukraine has begun to test a solution that until recently belonged to military science fiction: leaving the front in machine hands. During 45 consecutive daysa Ukrainian unit maintained front-line sectors without direct human presence, entrusting the defense to a single land vehicle unmanned, a bet that summarizes the crude logic of the current conflict: if something can receive enemy fire, it better not bleed. The doctrine. The experience was reported by the NC-13 Strike Company, integrated into the Third Corps of the Ukrainian Army, a unit created specifically to operate unmanned ground vehicles. Its commander, Mykola “Makar” Zinkevych, explained that the idea was radically simple: “robots don’t bleed,” and the ground drone was the only element present in the position, carrying out constant suppressive fire missions to deter Russian advances and force the enemy to confront a defense that could not be psychologically worn down or eliminated with human casualties. The droid TW 12.7. The system used was the Droid TW 12.7developed by the Ukrainian company DevDroida small tracked vehicle armed with a heavy machine gun M2 Browning .50 caliber. Far from being an isolated prototype, the drone was displaced between different positions at the request of local command posts, acting as a mobile punishment platform that turned each attempted Russian advance into a costly and risky operation. The Droid TW 12.7 Wear and tear… also for machines. Although the robot could remain in place for days, it needed withdraw every 48 hours for maintenance, resupply of ammunition and recharging of batteries, tasks carried out by a team located several kilometers from the front. The process, initially four hours, is reduced by half thanks to the purchase of additional batteries paid for by the soldiers themselves, a detail that illustrates the extent to which the Ukrainian war continues to depend on local initiatives and improvised financing even when talking about advanced technology. Limited autonomy. DevDroid affirms that the Droid TW 12.7 can operate at distances of up to 15 miles and has artificial intelligence-assisted navigation functions, although it is unclear to what extent it can act autonomously in combat. Even so, the simple fact that a single UGV has held positions for six weeks demonstrates that the value of these systems lies not only in their sophistication, but in their ability to replace human bodies in tasks where survival is minimal. From experiment to military doctrine. After this experience, the Zinkevych unit plans to expand the use of UGVs in both defensive and offensive missions, relying on new variants equipped with grenade launchers already approved for official use. The demand, recognizeis very high, but so are the costs, to the point that development continues to be partially financed through crowdfunding campaigns. The future of the front. If you like, the case Droid TW 12.7 It is not just a technological anecdote, but a sign of where to go war is headed modern in Ukraine: a battlefield where every meter can be defended with sensors, steel and algorithms instead of flesh and blood, and where the strategic value of a soldier begins to also be measured by his ability not to be physically there. Image | Tank Bureau In Xataka | Russia has reminded the planet that the war in Ukraine is a ticking bomb. And for this he has pressed a nuclear button: Oreshnik In Xataka | Ukraine has become an animal slaughterhouse: Russian soldiers appear with horses and drones blow them up

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