ice

The “ice man” has been frozen for 5,300 years. There is still life inside

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In 1991, two German hikers they found each other with a corpse in the Alps, more specifically in the Ötztal Alps. At first they thought it would be a recent body, but nothing could be further from the truth: Ötzi, who takes his name from the place where he was found, died around 3255 BC. C. at approximately forty-six years of age due to hemorrhage caused by an arrow lodged in his left shoulder. Ötzi withstood the test of time thanks to glacial ice, becoming the oldest known natural human mummy in Europe. For science, the “iceman” has historically been a magnificent biological and archaeological record of the late Neolithic/Copper Age, bridging the gap, like someone who finds a painting in a cave. But a recent study It makes science look at it with different eyes: they have found life in Ötzi because the iceman is also an ecosystem. There is life within Ötzi. The Eurac Research research team has found yeast strains that could have been dormant for millennia, some of which are still metabolically active as they are especially adapted to the cold: Glaciozyma, Goffeauzyma, Mrakia and Phenoliferia. That is, living organisms have survived inside a human body for more than five thousand years. They also found anaerobic intestinal bacteria such as Romboutsia hominis, Clostridium moniliforme and Ruminococcus bromii, which when the Iceman was alive helped him digest elements of his diet at that time. Why is it important. The relevance of this discovery is enormous for both biology and archaeology, with implications that also point to space exploration: Biologically it is a real milestone: it is a before and after in what we know and can expect from microorganisms and their resistance. If microbes survive 5,300 years in alpine ice, they could potentially survive in similar inhospitable environments outside of Earth, such as the Moon’s south pole. And this has direct consequences for the search for extraterrestrial life. From an archaeological point of view, if a mummy contains microbial life inside, we must rethink how similar samples and other archaeological remains are preserved, stored and studied so as not to lose or degrade that valuable information. What the finding says about health before antibiotics. Some gut bacteria found in Ötzi are still present in modern humans, but others have disappeared from modern Western populations. Being able to compare your microbiome with ours allows you to have a photo of what the microbiota was like before antibiotics, ultra-processed foods and industrial agriculture and apply it to medicine. As already science has proventhe loss of this ancestral microbial diversity is associated with diseases such as Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. In fact, Ötzi’s microbiome constitutes a good basis for designing more effective probiotics or improving fecal microbiota transplant therapies. How have they done it. Ötzi is available for visits at the South Tyrolean Archeology Museum in Bolzano, Italy, where he is kept in a cold room at -6°C and 99% relative humidity. After more than 30 years of studies, science has paradoxically introduced modern microbes into your body, so was essential use multiple samples and methods to differentiate which microorganisms were already present during Ötzi’s life and which colonized him later. From there, they combined genomic sequencing with laboratory culture and comparison with global databases, which for example allowed them to determine that the Methylobacterium and Sphingomonas bacteria found on the surface were introduced by modern humans, while Staphylococcus belonged to Ötzi’s original microbiome. Yes, but. The main limitation of the study is precisely contamination: handling a mummy exposes it to potential contamination by modern bacteria and fungi, which complicates the faithful reconstruction of its original microbial composition. On the other hand, the fact that a yeast shows activity in the laboratory does not prove that it has been active continuously for 5,300 years, since it could have been reactivated when the experimental conditions changed. To clear up doubts, more independent studies with other glacier mummies are necessary. In Xataka | In the 14th century, the “Little Ice Age” caught Europe completely off guard: this is how they managed to withstand the cold In Xataka | Getting up at 3:52 AM, putting your face in ice, rubbing a banana: the male “morning routine” taken to the extreme Cover | Museum of South Tyrol Archaeology, Eurac Research, Marion Lafogler and Andrea De Giovanni

In Asia they haven’t put ice in the water during meals for centuries. Digestive physiology just explained why they were right

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The other day a friend told me about a peculiarity she observed during a recent trip to China: the glass of ice water on the table is almost a rarity. Instead you’ll find a pot of green tea, a bowl of broth, or just nothing cold. For centuries, in much of Asia, drinking cold liquid during a meal has been an eccentricity more typical of the West than there. What for a long time seemed like a quaint custom, or directly a matter of infrastructure—ice was not always available everywhere—turns out to have a pretty solid physiological explanation. The temperature of the water we drink while we eat is not a minor detail. It affects the movements of the stomach, the rate at which it empties, and how the muscles of the digestive system behave. And science, although with important nuances, is beginning to agree with what millions of people in Asia have been practicing for millennia. Before getting into the physiology, we must understand how this debate has reached the West. It has not been through a medical congress or a scientific journal. It has arrived, like so many other things, through TikTok. The phenomenon is known as chinamaxxing either Becoming Chinese: a viral trend in which thousands of Western people adopt lifestyle habits from Chinese culture, including drinking hot water. According to documents The New York Timeshot water has become “the new superstar of online well-being”, with influencers documenting how this habit deflates them, gives them energy and improves their digestion. But what the Internet presents as a revolutionary discovery is nothing new. This practice has been rooted for thousands of years. in Indian Ayurveda—where the morning ritual of drinking hot water is known as usha paana— and in Traditional Chinese Medicine, where cold is believed to “turn off the agni“, the digestive fire, and weakens the vital energy or Qiforcing the body to expend extra energy to warm the stomach. Hot water, on the other hand, balances the Yin and the Yang and keeps the body calm. Just because something is part of an ancient tradition does not automatically make it scientific truth, of course. But it doesn’t disqualify him either. The question is what exactly science says when it begins to analyze what happens in the stomach according to the temperature of what we drink. What really happens in the stomach? To understand the debate, we must separate two things that are often confused: the effect of drinking water during a meal and the effect of the temperature of that water. They are different questions with different answers. On the one hand, regarding water itself, there is a widespread belief that drinking water during meals dilutes gastric juices and digestive enzymes, slowing down digestion. Medical portals such as HealthLine They explain that there is no solid scientific evidence that water dilutes gastric juices or significantly hinders digestion. The stomach has a dynamic regulatory system that detects changes in pH and automatically secretes more hydrochloric acid to compensate. Drinking a glass of water during a meal hardly alters that balance. Marina Domene, head of nutrition at SHA Spain nuances in Vogue Where is the real limit: the problem is not drinking water, but excesses. “What is not recommended is drinking excessive amounts, more than two or three large glasses, as it could distend the stomach too much and temporarily dilute the enzymes,” he explains. It also points out that there are specific contexts where it is advisable to be more careful: in people who suffer from hypochlorhydria – low production of stomach acid – it is not recommended to consume liquids during meals. On the other hand, regarding temperature the panorama changes and this is where physiology begins to agree with Asia. The temperature of the liquids directly affects gastric motility, that is, the muscle movements of the stomach that drive digestion. Domene explains it clearly: “Cold drinks can slightly slow down gastric emptying and constrict the blood vessels of the stomach, which in sensitive people can be heavy. Hot liquids, such as broths or infusions, have a relaxing effect on the smooth muscles of the stomach.” This is not just a clinical opinion. There are studies that support this, such as research on the effect of temperature on gastric emptying have observed that very cold drinks, around 2-5 °C, can temporarily slow down the initial phase of gastric emptying compared to liquids at body temperature. Drinks at 4°C also disrupt antral and pyloric contractions, briefly retaining stomach contents. An experiment with 11 young men who consumed 500 ml of water at different temperatures found that water at 2 °C reduced the frequency of gastric contractions compared to water at 60 °C, and that lower muscle activity was related to lower subsequent caloric intake. The sample sizes of these studies are modest—it should be said—but their results consistently point in the same direction. A study published in Gastroenterology Nursingfocused on patients who had recently undergone colon surgery, observed that the consumption of hot water had a positive impact on subsequent bowel movements. It is not a study designed for healthy people, but it adds evidence about the role of temperature in intestinal motility. Gastroenterologist Dr. Lisa Ganjhu, consulted by The New York Timesdescribes it more graphically: during the night, the digestive system slows down. Hot water generates waves of contraction and relaxation in the muscles of the esophagus, stomach and intestines. “It’s basically telling everyone, ‘Okay, get up. We’ve got to get going,’” he explains. Why did they take that path and not another? The physiological explanation that science offers today connects quite well with what traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda have been saying for centuries, although in completely different languages. In China, Japan and much of Southeast Asia, It is common to accompany meals with hot tea or soup. It is not a fad or a recent trend: it is part of the structure of food. The broth does not close the menu, it accompanies … Read more

This ice cream, sorbet or slushie maker is perfect for small kitchens. And it doesn’t reach 100 euros

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I don’t know about your community, but here in Andalusia it is already terribly hot. Fighting it with water or any cold soft drink is fine, but much better with an ice cream or slushy. If you are one of those who prefers to make it at home and not have to go buy it on the street, you can have it much easier with this refrigerator that our TikTok colleagues have found on AliExpress: it remains in just 98.35 euros with the coupon ‘XATAKAES10‘. Teendow KF-2501U1 Ice Cream Maker with 8 Preset Programs, Self-Cleaning Function, Blend and Swirl Functions, Countertop Model for Home The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A refrigerator with 8 different functions and easy to clean @xataka.seleccion I’m already an adult and I can buy the refrigerator I always wanted 😭 Taking advantage of the AliExpress Summer Sale (until June 10), I found this: 🍦 Teendow Refrigerator 👉🏼 8 programs to make: ice cream, sorbets, frozen yogurt, slushies and more 📲 Super easy-to-use front panel (with drawings included 😌) ✨ Function for creamier textures 🧼 dishwasher-safe pieces 📖 includes recipe book 💸 Price: €108 👉🏼 with the code XATAKAES10 it stays at €95 💥 And be careful, because there are MANY more offers in the Summer Sale 🔗 Links in bio #Aliexpress #Bargains #Summer #Ice Cream #Offers ♬ original sound – Xataka Selección Being able to make ice cream, slushies or sorbets at home is not only convenient and healthier, but it also allows you choose the flavor (or flavors) that you most fancy at that moment. Almost certainly at some point in your childhood you have dreamed of being able to do this yourself and with a refrigerator like this one from the Tendow brand you can do it (without spending too much, too). This refrigerator, called Teendow KF-2501U1, is a fairly compact appliance that will not take up much space in the kitchen. It has 8 different functions and, also, very intuitive to use: each one has a small drawing of its usefulness. In addition, it has another different function for cleaning and its parts are dishwasher safe, which is always very useful. It comes with three different ice cream cups, which is very useful for storing our desserts. And, by the way, includes a recipe book that will help us get ideas to prepare drinks or ice creams this summer. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | Aliexpress, American Heritage Chocolate In Xataka | American refrigerator or 70 cm Combi? Be careful with making mistakes when buying liters that you may not be able to use In Xataka | 1200 vs. 1400/1600 RPM in washing machines: is it worth paying extra to spin faster?

Do you think we’ve had a cold winter? Arctic sea ice has things to tell you

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It’s easy to look out the window on a January morning, see the frost on the car, feel the icy wind on your face and think: “What a winter we’re having.” Our perception of the weather is often terribly local; However, while we shelter ourselves to combat the seasonal coldthe global thermometer tells a very different story. And if we want to know how “cold” this winter has really been, the best place to ask is not our street, but the top of the world, that is, the Arctic. A technical tie. Every year, during the dark and frigid months of the northern winter, the Arctic Ocean freezes, expanding its ice sheet until it reaches its maximum annual extent. Something that normally occurs between February and March. but this year control data of this ice expansion have pointed out that the winter limit of Arctic sea ice was reached on March 15, 2026 with an extension that reached 14.29 million square kilometers. This is a number that in isolation may seem like a large amount of ice has formed, but the reality is that 2026 has tied statistically with the historical minimum recorded in 2025. It’s a problem. Although this year’s extent is nominally lower by just 0.02 million km² compared to last year, the NSIDC considers any fluctuation within a margin of 40,000 km² a “technical tie”. In other words: we have never had two winters with so little ice in the Arctic since satellite records have existed since 1979. It’s a problem. To understand why we should worry, we have to look back. Here climatologists usually use the average of the period 1981-2010 as a base reference, and if we compare the maximum of 2026 with that historical average, the reality is that we are missing a piece of ice the size of 1.3 million square kilometers. We are talking about a reduction of between 8% and 10% of the frozen surface, and to put it in perspective, it is as if a block of ice equivalent to the surface of Spain, France and Germany combined had disappeared. Something that confirms a trend that already points to a loss of this maximum limit of 12% per decade since the end of the 70s, since the ice is not recovering, but is systematically retreating. It’s not just quantity. The drama of the Arctic is not only read in two dimensions, but also in three, since thickness is essential in this situation. And to measure it the mission comes into play ICESat-2 from NASA, which has already ‘seen’ how much of the current ice, especially in the Barents Sea and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, It’s much finer than in past decades. Thinner ice is bad news, since it means it is much more fragile and fractures sooner in spring storms and, more critically, melts much faster in summer. Its consequences. This last point is fundamental, since seeing how the winter maximum falls is bad news, since the structural weakness of that ice guarantees that, when summer arrives, the thaw will be more aggressive. And if we continue advancing in this chain of events, we find in the end that the dark ocean will be able to absorb a greater amount of solar heat, which will heat the waters even more and make it difficult for ice to form in the following winter. In the end we are seeing a textbook vicious cycle. Images | Cassie Matias In Xataka | China has turned the Arctic into its own “Panama Canal.” And that explains the US obsession with Greenland

We have been searching for the origin of life in hot puddles for years. Bennu has shown that radioactive ice works just as well

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When the capsule OSIRIS-REx mission landed in the Utah desert in September 2023, NASA knew it had a treasure on its hands. We are talking about a bit of black dust that was collected millions of kilometers from Earth and that was about to rewrite one of the most important chapters of science: the origin of life. What we knew. Until now, the predominant theory regarding the origin of life told us that for “cook” all the basic components of life, such as amino acids, heat and liquid water were needed to make a kind of hot chemical soup. However, science has just flipped the script: the bricks of life They are not only formed in heatbut they can be born in the most extreme cold and under gamma radiation. And that completely changes our understanding of how we got here, and also of the possible presence of life in any corner of the Universe. The importance of Bennu. Definitely is the protagonist of this whole story, and it is nothing more than an asteroid of about 500 meters in diameter which functions as a fossil from the early solar system. But the most interesting thing is that it is approximately 4.6 billion years old, the same age as the Earth, although, unlike our planet, its surface has not melted or been drastically altered by geological processes throughout its ‘life’. And little by little we are learning more about this asteroid thanks to the samples brought by OSIRIS-REx that had already been confirmed in preliminary analyzes an unusual abundance of carbon, nitrogen, water and organic compounds. But what the team led by Penn State University has now found goes one step further. The surprise. This same team, when analyzing the isotopic composition of the amino acids present, especially glycine, came across a chemical signature that did not fit with the classical theory of formation in hot water. A radioactive freezer. Until now, we thought that amino acids in asteroids were formed primarily through aqueous alteration processes: ice melts from heat, liquid water interacts with rock, and voilacomplex organic chemistry. However, science now suggests that liquid water is not necessary for amino acids, an essential molecule of life, to form. Simply from simple ice they can arise without much problem. And there are many of these in the universe. The catalyst. The other important factor in this formation was the energywhich in this case came from gamma radiation emitted by radioactive elements that were abundant in the early solar system. And the energy could not come from thermal heat, since this process occurs in icy environments, long before the asteroid was compacted or heated enough to have liquid water. This explains why we found amino acids both in asteroids that underwent a lot of water heating and in those that remained “drier” and colder. Life, it seems, is more stubborn than we thought and can begin to develop in the most hostile conditions of the vacuum of space. An increasingly complex menu. But we are not just talking about simple molecules, since analyzes of Bennu samples have identified a variety of compounds. Among these is tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid, much more structurally complex, and vital for terrestrial life. Besides, DNA and RNA components have been detectedin addition to ammonia and amines, surpassing in richness many samples of famous meteorites such as that of Murchison. Backlash to Panspermia. If amino acids can easily form in irradiated ice grains in the solar nebula—before the planets even formed—it means that these “ingredients” are spread throughout the solar system. The fact that Bennu, a B-type carbonaceous asteroid, is packed with these compounds reinforces the idea that Earth didn’t have to produce all the components of life itself. A constant shower of asteroids and meteorites during the late intense bombardment could having “sown” our planet with a pre-made deep space biological starter kit. That is why in the end looking at a grain of Bennu dust is looking at ourselves. Or, at least, to the chemical great-great-grandparents who made us here today. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | NASA has just announced that this large asteroid has a 1% chance of impacting Earth. That’s not normal

Something dark keeps growing in the Greenland ice. And it’s melting the frozen mass at an unexpected speed

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Greenland was for centuries synonymous with immobility, a territory that seemed oblivious to the passage of time, protected by an ice sheet so vast that even polar explorers could see it. like something eternal. From the first Inuit settlements to the European expeditions of the 19th century, the island was more a symbol of resistance than change, a place where the landscape imposed its own rules. Precisely for that reason, any alteration On its surface today it has a historical weight that goes far beyond what appears at first glance. A dark spot on the ice. Something seemingly insignificant is growing on the immense Greenland ice sheet, but with a disproportionate effect: microscopic algae that dye the snow green, red or grayish brown and reduce its ability to reflect solar radiation. In a warming Arctic up to four times more faster than the rest of the planet, this so-called “dark zone” accelerates the loss of hundreds of billions of tons of ice each year, directly contributing to sea level rise and adding a new layer of complexity to an already destabilized climate system. Dust, nutrients and a cycle. counted the new york times last week that much of the latest research shows that the wind blows phosphorus-rich dust from the rocky fringes discovered on the margins of Greenland into the ice, fueling algal blooms. Here’s the crux of it all, because as the ice melts, also releases trapped nutrients for decades or centuries in its deep layers, creating a kind of vicious cycle: one where more melting releases more food, algae proliferate, the ice darkens and melts even faster. This mechanism, time and time again, turns warming into a self-accelerating process that is difficult to stop once it has started. The measurable impact of a microscopic phenomenon. In southwest Greenland, one of the fastest melting regions, algae already explain about 13% of runoff water generated by summer thaw. In fact, studies published in journals such as Environmental Science and Technology and Nature Communications have shown that even minute amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen, released from the ice or transported through the air, are enough to sustain these biological communities, suggesting that the phenomenon could extend to areas much wider of the cap. A climate problem. Plus: ice darkening does not occur in a political or economic vacuum. The retreat of sea ice around Greenland is opening new sea routes and facilitating access to mineral, oil and gas resources, increasing the strategic interest for the region. Any additional industrial activity could release, for example, soot and particles that further aggravate the darkening of the ice, accelerating a process that, in the worst case scenario, could contribute to a global rise in sea level of up to seven meters if the ice sheet completely disappeared. What is known… and what is not yet. The scientists match in which algae are not the cause of global warming, but rather a consequence which amplifies its effects, while underlining that the root of the problem continues to be the burning of fossil fuels on the planet. However, it is still unknown precisely to what extent this “dark spot” can expand and how to integrate your impact in sea level rise models. Meanwhile, Greenland seems to offer us a most ominous warning (another one): that even the smallest changes, those invisible to the naked eye, can tip the balance of one of the largest and most fragile systems on the planet. Image | Jenine McCutcheon/University of Waterloo In Xataka | Why we find 50,000 meteorites in Antarctica if they fall the same all over the planet: ice has the answer In Xataka | Antarctica launches its “Doomsday Vault”: a sanctuary at -50 °C to save the memory of the glaciers

the secret was an invisible ice “blanket”

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For decades, planetary geologists have faced a paradox that didn’t quite add up. On the one hand, the missions like Curiosity in Gale Crater show irrefutable evidence that there were lakes of liquid water for thousands or millions of years. On the other hand, climate models insist that ancient Mars It was a cold place.with temperatures well below freezing point. A new paradigm. The question in this case is quite clear: how can there be stable liquid water on a planet where the thermometer barely rises above zero degrees? A new study led by Rice University and published in AGU Advances seems to have found the missing piece in the puzzle: seasonal ice shields. The LakeM2ARS model. To solve the mystery, the team of researchers developed a specific model called LakeM2ARS. This model included everything we know about terrestrials, but adapted to the extreme conditions that existed on Mars 3.6 billion years ago. That is, a climate with less sunlight due to a younger Sun, an atmosphere with much more carbon dioxide and much more aggressive freezing and thawing cycles than those on Earth. Using these models, the researchers began to apply different climatic situations, covering a period of 30 Martian years, which is equivalent to 56 Earth years. The results in this case pointed to something quite fascinating: the water in the lakes only froze on their surface, creating a shield of ice. A natural “blanket”. The research introduces the concept of “ice shield” or “natural blanket.” Instead of being a solid block of ice, the Gale Crater lakes they would have been protected by a seasonal ice sheet thin enough to allow dynamic processes beneath it. In this way, this “blanket” acted as a thermal insulator, since ice has a low thermal conductivity. The good thing about this is that once a layer forms on the surface, the liquid water underneath is “trapped” and protected from the frigid air, maintaining a stable temperature even if the thermometer plummets outside. Another advantage. Beyond this we can see that the low Martian pressure causes liquid water to tend to sublimate quickly. The ice thus acted as a physical plug, conserving the water inventory for decades or even centuries. But it is not that the water underneath was completely cold, but rather that since it was a thin layer, sunlight could pass through it (similar to what happens in the lakes of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica), generating a slight internal heating. The missing piece. One of the biggest criticisms of the cold Mars hypothesis was the absence of geomorphological traces. The big question we can undoubtedly ask ourselves is that if Mars was a freezer, where are the large moraine deposits and the scars left by the glaciers as they advance? The Rice University study gives an elegant answer: the ice was too thin. Since they were not massive glaciers, but rather thin and seasonal layers, they did not have the weight or dynamics necessary to erode the terrain drastically. This fits perfectly with Curiosity’s observations, which show fine-grained lake sediments, typical of calm waters, and not the chaos of rocks that a glacier would leave behind. Microscopic life. This discovery changes the rules of the game for astrobiology, which wants above all to search for evidence of life on the red planet. In this case, the theory is put forward that if Martian lakes were sealed by ice, they became extremely stable environments. Under the ice, life would have been protected from harmful UV radiation and extreme temperature fluctuations. This is why Mars did not need to be a tropical paradise to be habitable; It was enough for him to have a good “armor” of ice that would keep his liquid oases safe from the icy vacuum of space. Images | BoliviaIntelligent In Xataka | China has just resolved one of the biggest doubts about going to Mars with the birth of six space mice

500-meter ice dome melted 7,000 years ago and is now melting again

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When we think of Greenlandthe image that automatically comes to mind is that of a terrain with a large amount of snow and very cold. But science has bad news for this country belonging to Denmark: the Greenland ice sheet It is much more fragile than we could think.. And that is a problem. From the terrestrial bottom. This statement is not something that has been extracted on paper, but rather has been ‘seen’ in the depths of the earth. This way, after drilling more than 500 meters of ice at Prudhoe Domeresearchers have found evidence that this gigantic mass completely disappeared just 7,000 years ago and then resurface. And the worst thing is not that it happened thousands of years ago, but that now the temperatures that caused that collapse are the same ones we hope to reach by the year 2100. The GreenDrill project. The researchers recently published in Nature on this project, which has been made possible thanks to a technical feat. To achieve this, the team drilled about 509 meters to reach the sediments that rest beneath the base of Prudhoe Dome, a 2,500 km² ice dome in northwest Greenland. To find out exactly what happened there, scientists used a technique called cell dating. infrared stimulated luminescence. In this way, what is allowed is to see when was the last time that part of this deep ice was exposed to the radiation of sunlight. The results. They were pretty clear: the sediments beneath Prudhoe Dome saw the sun between 6,000 and 8,200 years ago. This can be translated into a very simple sentence: at that time, there was no 500 meters of ice above, so the dome simply did not exist. And that is now a problem. Because? At that time Greenland ended up melting due to the ‘Holocene Thermal Maximum’. During this period, temperatures in the Arctic were between 3 and 5 °C higher than the pre-industrial era. And this is exactly where the data becomes really worrying. Worrying because precisely those temperatures that thousands of years ago erased entire ice domes from the map are the exact range of heating that climate models predict for the end of this century if emissions are not drastically reduced. This is why the ice we see today is not an eternal relic of the Ice Age; It is a structure that has collapsed before under conditions we are about to replicate. The domino effect. Prudhoe Dome is just one piece of the puzzle, but its past disappearance suggests that much of the northwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet was much reduced during the early Holocene. The conclusion to this is quite clear: if history repeats itself and the Greenland ice sheet completely melts, global sea level it would rise about 7.3 meters. But logically it is not something that will happen tomorrow, but rather the process of fusion of the entire island will still take several centuries. Although if the estimates are met, it may go faster than you think. Change the rules of the game. Until now, the central, thickest areas of Greenland were thought to be almost indestructible. This study demonstrates that even massive domes 500 meters thick can fade in geologically short periods. And this is something that has already happened as science points out. Images | Visit Greenland In Xataka | China has turned the Arctic into its own “Panama Canal.” And that explains the US obsession with Greenland

According to scientists, global warming will most likely lead to an Ice Age

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We usually imagine the climate change like an endless ascending line: more heat, melted glaciers and more acidic oceans. However, science has just put on the table a hypothesis that is not very intuitive: under certain extreme conditions, global warming does not end in hell, but in a real freezer. And the plankton, which seems harmless, has a lot to say in this regard. The identified. A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and the University of Bremen has identified an instability in the carbon cyclea “glitch” in Earth’s climate operating system, suggesting that an ocean that is too warm and depleted of oxygen can trigger massive global cooling. The geological thermostat. To understand this finding, we must first look at how the Earth regulates its temperature in the long term. The classic mechanism is silicate weathering. Which basically means that when there is a lot of CO₂ in the atmosphere along with heat, it rains more and this rain dissolves the silicate rocks, dragging the carbon and the nutrients it stores to the sea, such as phosphorus. That’s where plankton uses that carbon to build their shells and, when they die, they sink, trapping CO₂ on the seabed. And although it may seem like good news that they store this gas that is seen as a great enemy on the seabed, the fact of reducing its concentration It means that the temperature drops. A paradigm shift. Until now, scientists saw this as a stable “thermostat”: if it is hot, the system works to cool the environment, and if it is cold it works less intensely. But now something radical arises: the thermostat has a catastrophic failure mode. According to their simulation models, when the system is coupled to the cycle of marine nutrients and biological productivity, the regulation can be unstable. And this is where the ideas of a future ice age begin. The plankton trap. For researchers, if we continue with extreme warming on our planet, erosion will increase to bring nutrients to the ocean. Something that will undoubtedly be appreciated by the phytoplankton and the algae that will accumulate it and when it dies, it will create an area in the water where there is not a hint of oxygen. In an ocean without oxygen, phosphorus once again dominates sea water which will create a vicious cycle where the algae They will consume large amounts of oxygen. The result is that the ocean floor begins to ‘suck’ CO₂ from the atmosphere at breakneck speedwhich is much faster than volcanoes or human activities can replenish it. The result is clear: a thermal collapse that can lead to a severe glaciation similar to what the Earth has experienced in the past. We had other fears. Right now on the table we had the suspicion that the collapse of the AMOCthe ocean currents that move water between various locations, will lead us to this situation. And they have a very important function: moving warm water from the tropics towards the north through the surface and cold, dense water towards the south through the depths. Something that a priori regulates global temperature. Global warming. A priori, anyone might think that continuing to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is the solution to this. But the authors issue a warning: geological times are not human times. We are talking about a mechanism that operates on scales of hundreds of thousands of years, and that is why it will not cool the planet either in this century or the next. In fact, researchers suggest that if this mechanism were activated today, it would be an excessive correction that will occur long after we have suffered the consequences of global warming. The fragility of the system. The carbon cycle is not a simple scale that stays in balance, but is quite dynamic and complex. This is somewhat difficult, since it can easily become unbalanced. The idea that the planet can “overreact” to heat by causing extreme cold reminds us that the Earth has regulatory mechanisms that are indifferent to the survival of human civilization. Images | Javier Miranda Alberto Restifo In Xataka | The Earth is entering climate collapse with its first point of no return. Our only salvation is technology

Why 20°C “ice slush” changes our search for extraterrestrial life

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Titan, the crown jewel of the moons of saturnjust gave us a slap of reality. For two decades, the official narrative of space exploration focused on what was hidden beneath its thick haze. a vast global ocean of liquid water. But now we know that we were wrong, or at least, it was not as we imagined. The study. Led by Flavio Petricca, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from NASAand published this December 17, 2025 in Nature magazineproposes a radically different model: Titan does not have an interconnected ocean, but a dense, viscous layer of “slush ice” with pockets of trapped liquid water. The 15 hour lag. The Cassini probe ended its mission in 2017 crashing into Saturn, but its data remains a gold mine for physicists. Petricca’s team has therefore decided to reanalyze the probe’s Doppler data, that is, the changes in frequency in the radio signals generated by the moon’s gravity. But now with the most modern processing techniques that we have developed. The result of the analysis is a 15-hour lag in Titan’s tidal response. This means that when Saturn exerts its brutal force of gravity on Titan, the moon deforms as if stretched. In this way, if on its surface there would be pure waterthe response would be almost instantaneous as it is liquid. But what they saw is a 15-hour delay that indicated that the interior is highly viscous. What is it? The data collected suggests that the material on Titan behaves more like a pasty glacier or extremely dense slush. What seems ruled out is free-flowing water, where the existence of life in the future was already pointed out. A new Titan. With all the data that has been collected, it has been possible to completely define everything we knew about the internal geology of Saturn’s largest moon. Specifically, it is now known that the rock core has a radius of 2.26 km, and the layer that surrounds it is formed by high-pressure ice mixed with water. Although not everything has to be so cold, it also has hot water pockets due to the internal heat. This is what keeps liquid water lakes near the rock core at about 20ºC. The question of life. At first glance, eliminating a global ocean of liquid water may seem like a bad idea for astrobiologists who had hoped for life here. But for the members of this study, the opposite is true. In the new “slush” model, the liquid water in the pockets is in direct contact with the rock core. This is very important, as it allows the water to dissolve essential nutrients from the rose and also have a temperature of 20°C which is ideal for complex chemical reactions. But also, having a small size, all these components are more concentrated. Dragonfly. This discovery puts all the pressure on this NASA mission whose launch It is planned from 2028. Dragonfly is an octocopter designed to fly over the surface of Titan, but its most important instrument in this context is its seismometer. What was expected is that this mission would measure the tides of a deep ocean. Now their mission will be to confirm whether seismic waves propagate through this viscous “hail.” In the event that the characteristic vibrations are detected, we will have confirmed that Titan is the most promising chemical laboratory in our solar system. Images | Wikipedia Matt Hardy In Xataka | NASA changes hands in the middle of the space race with China: private astronaut Jared Isaacman will be its new director

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