invented

I thought my kitchen couldn’t fit one more whim. Until they invented the invisible induction hob

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The Spanish we cook less and lessand Roig himself predicts that in a few years there will be no kitchens in the houses. For everyone who thinks otherwise, good news: the induction cooktop industry is progressing at a dizzying pace. The invisible induction. There is a phenomenon going viral on networks such as YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram: the induction invisible. They are in the most literal sense of the word, since they are invisible to the eye and can be placed practically anywhere on the countertop. Although they may seem like a magical solution, these new induction systems have technology that we already know and some important cons to know. How to achieve it. Countertops with invisible induction allow you to cook directly on the countertop surface, without the need for a visible plate. The technology is the same as in a conventional induction hob: a system of electromagnetic coils generates a field that induces electric currents in ferromagnetic materials. The surface of the countertop acquires only the residual heat, the intensity of which will largely depend on the material used in it. Thus, like any other induction system, it is much more complicated to burn yourself compared to a ceramic hob. Novy undercounter induction. The pros. In addition to the design, which allows us to completely forget that we have a plate embedded in the countertop, cleanliness is a very strong point. It is enough to clean our countertop regularly without fear of damaging the plates, since they are under the surface. There is also a gain in surface area, since the plate They are also usually quite easy to control, some of them using wireless controllers, others using a traditional remote control or, as in the case of some Cecotec models, we can choose where to install the visible button panel. The buts. Invisible inductions cannot be installed on any countertop. Brands like Cecotec They sell theirs at a pretty cheap price.recommending porcelain or granite materials that withstand temperatures greater than 400 degrees and with a minimum thickness depending on the model. Invisible Cooking Surface plate. Viewed unassembled it is not so futuristic. Although the companies that market them overlook it, invisible induction has a small counterpart: the heat has to pass through the countertop. This creates a barrier that slightly increases consumption, although as an induction system they are still much more efficient than traditional glass-ceramics. If you are worried about leaving marks over time, for now (these plates have been on the market for a few years, although they are still unknown), no big complaints. The manufacturers assure that the countertop is treated so as not to become marked with use, although it will depend on the care with which we place the pots and pans on it. Go deeper. Repairing this type of hob is also more expensive than traditional induction hobs. Despite this, modular installations are usually used so that they can be replaced without it being necessary to completely change the countertop. If Roig is right and in a few years there will be no kitchens, at least those who resist eat only precooked You can have the most beautiful one. In Xataka | Goodbye to the hood in the kitchen. Hiding it is not enough for Samsung: it has integrated it into its new induction hob

China has invented the coldest helium-free alloy in the world. The American DARPA is not going to like it

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In addition to having an extremely high voice, filling balloons or scuba diving, the most widespread use of helium is in refrigeration, a crucial task in countless tasks ranging from magnets for magnetic resonance imaging to particle accelerators (with conventional helium or Helium-4) to cryogenic cooling for quantum computing or neutron detectors (Helium -3). Critical industries. Because yes, everything is helium, but the circumstances change depending on the isotope. Thus, while Helium-4 is abundant in the atmosphere but difficult to retain (it escapes into the atmosphere due to its lightness), Helium-3 is scarce on Earth and is also difficult to obtain: it is a byproduct of the aging of tritium nuclear warheads. Simply put: the helium needed to cool quantum computers and cutting-edge physics acts as a bottleneck to research. A Chinese research team has published in Nature a solution: a metal alloy that cools almost to absolute zero without needing helium. The invention. It is a metallic alloy, EuCo₂Al₉ (ECA), a rare earth intermetallic compound capable of reaching 106 millikelvin (–273.05 °C), thus establishing a record: it is the lowest temperature achieved by a metallic magnetocaloric material without using helium-3. Another peculiarity is that it combines two seemingly antagonistic properties: it acts like a sponge that absorbs heat from the environment and its thermal conduction is between 50 and 100 times greater than other similar materials. A combination that postulates it to be the definitive supercoolant. The network structure, its interactions and the resulting supersolid spin state. Chinese Academy of Sciences Why is it important. We have already seen that helium-3 is a rare commodity and its usefulness in advanced physics and quantum computing. Finding an alternative opens the door to alleviating that bottleneck, although it is still in an early stage. Historically the largest global suppliers of helium-3 They have been the United States and Russiaas a byproduct of its nuclear programs. With this invention, China is one step closer to achieving independence of this strategic resource because it currently imports almost all of the helium-3 it consumes (95%, according to this paper 2024). But the United States is also interested: at the end of January, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a call to develop a modular helium-3-free cooling system for quantum and defense technologies. In less than two weeks I had the solution, yes, from China. Context. The superconducting quantum computers They require working below 1 Kelvin and in that scenario the standard for decades has been dilution refrigeration technology. In a few words and in a simplified way: expensive refrigeration contraptions that occupy cubic meters and need helium-3 continuously. This limits its scalability, practically limiting it to specialized laboratories. Adiabatic demagnetization cooling on which the ECA is based is not new, in fact the concept is a century oldbut its features have never been up to par. As explains the CASthe endemic problem was its poor thermal conductivity. According to the South China Morning PostPeking University already built two refrigerators using this principle in 2024, which have been operational for several months. How have they done it. The cooling technique is called adiabatic demagnetization (ADR): a magnetic field is applied to the cold material, so that the internal “magnets” of the material align and release heat to the outside. When the magnetic field is removed, they return to their natural disordered state, absorbing heat from the surroundings, thereby lowering the temperature. To solve the historical problem of low conductivity, ECA enters an unusual “metallic spin supersolid” physical state, which combines high heat absorption capacity with thermal conductivity similar to a conventional metal. Yes, but. Being able to drop the temperature to 106 mK is remarkable, but the reality is that classic dilution systems in their most advanced version are capable of reaching 10 mK or less. And this is where much of quantum computing operates. In short: there is still a thermal gap to overcome. On the other hand, it is a first step: going from laboratory material and even a prototype to the industrial or military environment is a long road. Scalability and costs will be decisive. Finally, it should be noted that the composition of the ECA includes Europium (in addition to cobalt and aluminum), a rare earth that makes the operation difficult and expensive. Nevertheless, China starts from a privileged positionas long as it is the absolute leader in this industry. In Xataka | Spiderman’s web is no longer science fiction: China has just created something very similar after years of vetoes In Xataka | Japan has a rare earth megadeposit: 700 years of consumption to challenge China Cover | VALGO, ASML

For Finland, protecting its roads in World War II was essential, so flying trees were invented

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In a war it is not only doing and being, but also appearing. We have already seen recently how Iran pretended to have parked fighters so that Israel wastes its missiles, but this trick of playing catch-up is older than gunpowder. In fact, in World War II the United States had until ‘Ghost Army’ who was dedicated to these tasks. Precisely within the framework of the second war on a planetary scale, this curious story of concealment of infrastructurewhich is run by Finland. Finland is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula, the easternmost of the triad made up of Norway, Sweden and Finland. That makes it have a border with Russia, only at that time it was the USSR. Its situation on the map made it fight three wars in three different positions: the Winter War where it was attacked by the Soviets, the Continuation War in which the USSR attacked it, taking advantage of the Nazis’ Operation Barbarossa and the Lapland Warin which he fought against Germany after signing his armistice with the USSR. The photo that illustrates the cover of this piece and that you can see in full immediately after this paragraph was taken by Osvald Hedenström and is preserved in the photographic archive of the Finnish Defense Forces, along with the legend written by the photographer: “The Finns have camouflaged the 10 km from the border on the Raatteen road with country roads, with fir trees that seem to hang in the air, because right on the border there is an observation tower erected by the Russians. Suomussalmi, Kuivajärvi 1941.06.27” Flying trees on the Raatteen road. Sa-Kuva The cheapest camouflage of World War II That is to say, the legend makes three facts clear: that there was camouflage that covered the 10 kilometers of road from the border, which included rural roads and the main highway, and that the threat was a Soviet observation tower right on the muga. As? With fir trees lying. The Finnish army was noticeably inferior to the Soviet one, so they took advantage of the terrain, explains Colonel Petteri Jouko, a military historian at the Finnish National Defense University. for Atlas Obscura: “The Finns did not have the funds to purchase large quantities of artificial camouflage, such as nets, they did use trees, leaves and foliage to confuse the enemy” Because Finland is also a country with exuberant nature: the density of its forests is around 75% of the territory. according to the FAOso discovering critical infrastructure for the movement of troops and supplies such as roads or railways was a piece of cake for the Soviets. Obviously this resource of camouflaged roads was only effective for sky-level observationbut not for reconnaissance aircraft. Trees laid to hide critical infrastructure. Sa-Kuva This camouflage technique was technically simple but arduous. The Finns cut down the pine trees near the roads and then suspended them with steel cables that they had tied to other trees at the ends, although they also used wooden poles. The result, as can be seen just above, in another photograph from the Finnish archive, is that it seemed that the trees were flying over the roads, which from a bird’s eye view appeared to be just another leafy forest. Currently, none of these tree structures have survived; the passage of time and the abandonment of these rural roads has condemned them to their disappearance. In Xataka | Ukraine has found the antidote to Russian kamikaze drones in World War II: an optical illusion worth 500 euros In Xataka | A secret Nazi bunker in Germany hides the most sought-after treasure on the entire planet: hundreds of tons of rare earths Cover and photographs | SA-kuva (Finnish Defense Forces photo archive)

We tend to think that the war of extermination was invented by the modern State. A mass grave from 2,800 years ago has just destroyed the myth

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There is an almost romantic tendency to idealize the remote past. Perhaps, inspired by the myth of the “noble savage” they often let’s imagine prehistory and the first societies as peaceful environments where extreme violence and systematic was an aberration or, in any case, an invention that came with the help of more modern times. But the reality is that if we had a time machine, this would be one of the few places where we would have to travel. A reality. Archeology has an uncomfortable habit of unearthing truths that do not fit our prejudices. The latest blow to this idyllic vision that some may have comes from the Balkans, specifically from a mass grave in Gomolava from 2,800 years ago that reveals a calculated, selective and brutal massacre against women and children. A mystery. In the 9th century BC, during the first Iron Age, the Carpathian and Balkan region was inhabited by societies that we today consider primitive. Specifically, they could be found semi-nomadic groups and sedentary communities who were beginning to clash for control of the territory. But here there were neither states nor regular armies. In this way, when archaeologists found a huge mass grave with the remains of 77 individuals at the Gomolava site, the first hypothesis was the most logical for the time: a catastrophic epidemic devastated everyone. However, a new study published in the magazine Naturehas completely rewritten the history of this site, combining forensic, genetic and isotopic analyses. Annihilation. Here the DNA was clear, since there was no trace of deadly pathogens. In this case, people died not from a disease, but from an outbreak of deliberate violence that has shocked the scientific community. Not only because of the violence, but because of the demographic profile, since 70.8% of the adults were women and 66% of the total were children and adolescents. Here the forensic analyzes revealed a terrifying pattern, since the vast majority had injuries at the time of death in the skull. Thus, they were forceful blows inflicted from above, suggesting that the attackers could have been on horseback or executing the victims while they were kneeling or subdued. Why children and women? The answer is pure strategic calculation, since the study of isotopes and DNA revealed that, with the exception of a mother and her two daughters, the victims were not related to each other and came from various regions with varied diets. But it was not a simple robbery gone wrong, but rather an interregional selective annihilation designed to wipe the reproductive future of rival groups off the map. And, in a context of profound social restructuring and territorial conflicts in the Carpathian Basin, eliminating offspring and those people who can produce even more offspring, such as women, was the most brutal and effective way to assert power in an area. Without a doubt, a great strategy to prevent anyone from claiming rights in that area. Ritual. To add another layer of complexity to this dark episode, the burial was not improvised. Contrary to what happens in many mass graves that are quickly made to throw the corpses, andIn this case they took their time. Investigators saw that the victims were buried next to bronze jewelry, ceramics and even sacrificed animals, so it was quite taken care of. Here the theory proposed is that it is a “macabre demonstration of power”: an act where the brutality of the massacre coexists with the socioeconomic value of the victims and the need to maintain the funeral customs of the time. Image | Sarah Nylund (Nature) In Xataka | When did human beings start “cooking”? The answer lies in some carp from 780,000 years ago.

We have been filling the refrigerator with kefir and high-protein yogurts for years. It turns out that the solution was invented in the year 874

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For decades, the Mediterranean basin has held an absolute monopoly on nutritional health. They convinced us that olive oil, wheat and southern ferments were unbeatable. In the dairy aisle, this hegemony translated into the undisputed reign of Greek yogurt, a product that went from being a traditional food to becoming in the supermarket star thanks to its thick texture and high concentration of complete proteins. However, nutrition science has turned its sights toward much colder latitudes. Today, the undisputed protagonist of healthy diets, recommended by both sports nutritionists and metabolic researchers, does not come from Athens, but from Iceland. Is called skyrand although its appearance deceives us, it is rewriting the rules of what we consider a perfect breakfast. At first glance, the skyr It looks like some kind of ultra-creamy Greek yogurt, but it’s not technically a yogurt. Actually, it is about of a fresh, skimmed whipped cheese, made through a double fermentation process. From the Vikings to the supermarket shelf The history of this product begins with the first Viking settlements in Iceland, around the year 874. The Norwegian settlers who arrived on the island encountered an extreme climate and unfriendly lands. In that scenario, the skyr It became a real life insurance: a food ultra-concentrated in nutrients that allowed them to survive the harshest winters when there were hardly any resources. The traditional process starts with skimmed and pasteurized cow’s milk that is heated to 75ºC and cooled to 37ºC. Lactic acid bacteria are added to this base (such as Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus) and, crucially, rennet. After hours of fermentation, the product is carefully strained to eliminate the liquid whey. The result is a dense paste, with hardly any water, that requires three to four times more milk to produce than conventional yogurt. Today, the skyr has conquered supermarket shelves such as Lidl, Mercadona, Aldi or Alcampo. Nutritionist Blanca García-Orea points out that success in the supermarket lies in their clean labels: the best commercial options contain only two ingredients, pasteurized milk and lactic ferments, without added sugars or sweeteners. The clinical fascination with skyr It is based on its macronutrient profile. According to data collected by Healthlinea typical serving provides between 11 and 19 grams of protein, practically double that of a standard natural yogurt, while maintaining an almost non-existent level of fat (between 0% and 0.5%). But how exactly is it different from its direct competitors in the refrigerator? Nutritionist Laura Parada clears up the usual confusion between the skyrhe kefir and the yogurt. While the kefir stands out for a microbiota very diverse that includes yeasts and acetic bacteria, and normal yogurt It is based on lactic fermentation simple that leaves a light texture, the skyr It makes the difference because it is a fresh fermented cheese with a very high protein concentration and very thick texture. Added to this are other physiological advantages. The rigorous casting process of skyr eliminates approximately 90% of its lactose contentwhich allows many people with mild intolerance to consume it without experiencing digestive discomfort. At the micronutrient level, the portal Ingredia Food highlights that A 150-gram serving covers about 15-20% of the recommended daily intake of calcium, essential to protect against osteoporosis, and 19% of vitamin B2 (riboflavin), linked to the reduction of oxidative stress. What happens in your body when you eat it When you eat a tub of skyr, you’re giving your muscles exactly what they ask for. According to the magazine Nutrition & Metabolismits proteins are loaded with leucine and other key amino acids that trigger muscle synthesis. Basically, it’s an excellent tool for shielding lean mass when you’re looking to lose weight or prevent muscle from deteriorating with age. As if that were not enough, it takes away your hunger suddenly. The Aarhus University in Denmark did an experiment in 2024 pitting the classic breakfast of bread and jam against a bowl of skyr with oats. The conclusions of researcher Mette Hansen were resounding, the Nordic mix boosted mental concentration and satiety throughout the morning. Some women in the study were so full that they couldn’t even finish their portion. Science continues to find medical applications. Last year, the International Dairy Journal published a discovery very revealing about him skyr fermented with strains such as L. plantarum. It turns out that these formulations are capable of stopping blood glucose spikes after meals, while helping to reduce cholesterol and acting as a powerful shield against cellular inflammation. Not all the skyr it’s gold However, you have to put a magnifying glass on the shadows of any fashion product. That a container has the word printed skyr It does not make it a safe passage to comprehensive health. Magazines like Men’s Health warn that the industry is already marketing ultra-processed versions, such as ice cream skyrwhich although they provide protein, camouflage glucose syrup, fructose and added sugars in their ingredients. In addition, Healthline remember thatbeing made from cow’s milk, the skyr It is strictly not recommended for people with allergies to casein or whey protein, as it can trigger severe reactions. On the other hand, the debate about fat arises. Although the original version of skyr is applauded for being skimmed, a deep analysis that we did in Xataka We explain the historical demonization of dairy fat. Modern science is rehabilitating natural whole dairy products thanks to the “dairy matrix” (the membrane of the fat globule), which appears to have a cardiovascular protective effect and greater satiating power. This suggests that, although the skyr It is an excellent tool due to its protein density, completely dispensing with dairy fat in our diet based on ancient dogmas could be a mistake. The emergence of skyr in the global diet is not a marketing accident, but the convergence of an ancient tradition with the demands of modern metabolic medicine. Contemporary nutrition has stopped looking for shortcuts in laboratories to fixate on food matrices dense, real and fermented. Although it is not a magical food nor … Read more

Doraemon could never beat Goku. Until China invented Seedance 2.0

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Not so many years ago we ridiculed AI for not being able to create hands with five fingers or not getting Will Smith to non-gloomily eat a plate of spaghetti. Today, he is capable of creating animations that would make the best producer in Hollywood uncomfortable. Seedance 2.0. First of all, what are we talking about. Seedance is an AI content generation platform, specifically designed to create dynamic anime-type content, combat, short cinematic scenes and clip stylization. It works with one or more base images and a descriptive prompt. Behind Seedance 2.0 There is Bytedance, the company behind TikTok and one of the five most relevant Chinese companies in AI. Why the world is going crazy. Although it is not perfect, Seedance 2.0 is one of the video generation models that is offering the best results. To the point that X is being filled with replicas of well-known scenes created with this AI that are practically indistinguishable from reality. In some cases, the visual fidelity and animation pace border on a level that until recently seemed reserved for professional studios. Recreation of an animation never published by the Dragon Ball franchise. Goku vs. Doraemon. Will Smith doing the only thing we know how to ask him to do with AI. Jackie Chan vs Jet Li. The big video moment. The world had its moment ChatGPTits moment DeepSeekits moment Nano Banana and, now, we are in the Seedance moment. Giants like OpenAI and Google have been fighting for the best video generation model for some time, with proposals such as Sora 2 and I see 3. But right now, the top scorer is Bytedance with Seedance. Look out for Bytedance. Bytedance is moving into seventh gear to be one of the Chinese giants leading the AI ​​race. It only needed to have its own chips, something that is about to be solved through an alliance with Samsung. The company has strived to be more than the giant behind one of the most important social networks in China and the rest of the world, to become a powerhouse of artificial intelligence. Image | Improved Seedance with ChatGPT In Xataka | How to create videos with artificial intelligence: 13 essential free tools

The world is amazed by Moltbot (formerly Clawdbot). It turns out that China had already invented it almost a year ago

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The phenomenon of the end of January has been Molbotformerly known as Clawdbot. It is one of the AI agents most powerful of the moment, to the point that it warns of its own risks even before being installed. An agent who seemed to have no competitor and to be one of a kind. We were wrong. TARS-1.5. Although it has not made as much noise, in April 2025 it was launched UI-TARS-1.5an open source multimodal agent capable of performing all types of tasks within desktop environments. UI-TARS-1.5 is a multimodal agent designed to interact with the digital world through graphical interfaces, using the screen, mouse and keyboard. It came into the hands of Bytedance, a company behind giants like TikTok and one of the main players in the development of artificial intelligence in China. The difference. 1.5 is an AI agent designed to use a computer as a person would do. See the screen, identify visual elements and act using mouse and keyboard. Unlike Moltbot, it does not execute code or commands directly on the system, but rather interacts with the PC from the outside, at the interface level. It’s safer by design, because you can’t break the system by running arbitrary code. In addition, it reasons before each action, which reduces errors accumulated in long tasks. UI-TARS does not control your computer. He uses it. Moltbot does not use your computer. He controls it. What can you do? UI-TARS interacts “talking” with your computer. It is capable of executing tasks in our interface by analyzing what is in it. Serves as a programming assistant. It can behave like a human to test apps. It works as a tutor to perform complex tasks. You can manage desktop tasks and PC management. Why is it important. The new war for AI will not focus exclusively on models like Gemini, ChatGPT or Claude: the next step is to achieve a local AI capable of acting like a human, but with certain security guarantees. Moltbot, UI-TARS, Kimmi K2.5 (also Chinese)… Although agentic AI sounds distant, the war to make it part of our daily lives has been brewing for years. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Studying with AI without thinking teaches nothing: these tips can help you take advantage of it and really learn

We humans like beer. The big question is whether we like it enough to have invented agriculture

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The big question is not whether it was the chicken or the egg first, but rather what our ancestors began to make first: bread or beer? Does about 12,000 years We humans promote one of the most important chapters in our history in the Middle East, the Neolithic Revolution. From being nomads who lived by hunting and gathering, we became sedentary creatures who cultivated the fields. The change was so momentous that anthropologists have long wondered what caused it. It would be reasonable to think that the search for something as simple as bread, but there are those who believe that the answer is another: beer. What if the great catalyst that led us to plow and harvest the fields was not the search for bread but our ancestral hobby to raise your elbow? Cereals, what do I want you for? Scientists have spent the last few decades unraveling the mysteries from our most remote past, but there is one (fundamental) one that they have not yet agreed on: What the hell led humanity to change hunting and gathering for a sedentary life based on agriculture and livestock? What was the catalyst for the Neolithic Revolution, one of the most momentous periods of all time? Since since humans have been human, they need to eat, the answer seems simple: if those men and women settled to plant wheat and barley, it had to be to make bread, right? That is, they began to spend hours and hours tending their fields to obtain grain with which to nourish themselves. In the 50s however a question began to creep into the anthropological debate: What if what really interested them in grain was not bread or porridge but beer? But… And why is that? The debate is not new. It has been on the table for some time and is heated from time to time with new discoveries, such as the one announced in 2018 by a group of Stanford researchers who found “the oldest record of alcohol”, clues that tell us about the manufacture of beer ago 13,000 years. The last one to raise the discussion was Michael Marshall, a scientific journalist and columnist for New Scientist. In December he published a wide chronicle in which he reviews the latest findings on the subject and (most importantly) exposes how much it is costing anthropologists to reach a conclusion. The benefits of beer. To understand the discussion, we must first clarify a key point: neither the bread nor the beer of the Stone Age were like the bread and beer that we know today. The latter in fact has little or nothing to do with the refreshing amber liquid that they serve us in bars. It was more like a puree, a “sweet, slightly fermented porridge,” clarify Professor Jiajing Wang, from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. “They germinated the grains, cooked them and then used wild yeast.” The result was a nutritious, caloric, protein-rich concoction that could even be safer than drinking water from rivers and wells. After all, it was the result of fermentation. Added to that was its alcohol content, a “social lubricant” that we still use in the 21st century to relax and socialize. Archaeologist Brin Hayden highlights, for example, its use in events that helped structure communities. There is research which suggest that (at least some communities) used it in rituals and for veneration of the deceased. Much more than suspicions. If the debate has been on the table since the 1950s, it is basically because it has been nourished by archaeological findings. Researchers have found traces that tell us about beer brewing at least 5,000 years ago in southern egypt and northern china or how he does 10,000 years Shangshan culture They brewed rice beer. One of the most important revelations in recent years, however, was the one achieved in a cave in Israel in 2018 by a team led by Professor Li Liu, from Stanford University. There they found evidence of beer brewing before the first cereals cultivated in the Middle East. The finding is related to the Natufiansa town dedicated to gathering and hunting, although they also tended to stay for long periods in the same place. “The oldest”. After analyzing residues located in 13,000-year-old mortars located in a cave in Raqefet, a Natufian cemetery near Haifa, Liu and his colleagues discovered remains of beer. Quite a milestone, like she herself stands out: “It is the oldest record of alcohol made by man.” “This discovery indicates that alcohol production was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but was developed for ritual and spiritual purposes, at least to some extent, before agriculture.” Issue settled? At all. To understand the complexity of the subject, it helps to review the discovery announced in 2018. At least at that time, the oldest known remains of bread, extracted from a Natufian site located east of Jordan, had between 11,600 and 14,600 years old. The traces of beer discovered by Liu’s team move in a similar range: a priori, they could be dated between 11,700 and 13,700 years ago. One of the keys to the problem, explains Marshall in your articleis that basically the making of bread and beer leaves very similar traces, basically starch residues. “We still don’t have conclusive evidence to answer that question,” Liu recognizes on the question of whether we turned to beer or bread first. The reality is more complex: because we don’t know, we don’t even know if some of those foods were the great catalyst that led our ancestors to change their lifestyle. “I wouldn’t be surprised if both were the motivations.” At the end of the day, the ‘beer first, bread first’ debate does not seek definitive conclusions so much as vindicating the weight of both foods. Both beer and bread, bread and beer, played a decisive role in diets and rituals. Images | Gary Todd (Flickr), Enhin Akyurt (Unsplash) and Gerrie van der Walt (Unsplash) In Xataka | The Wari … Read more

In 1792, before the telephone, a Frenchman invented the first telecommunications system in history: the optical telegraph.

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We live in full Digital Ageand sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that until the end of the 20th century anything similar to the Internet was pure science fiction. But it is not true, because already in the 19th century the telegraph began to allow us to disseminate information in real time, which has earned Morse’s invention the nickname of the Victorian Internet. optical telegraph. But before Morse invented the telegraph in 1832, there were other attempts to make information travel long distances almost in real time. One of them saw the light in 1792 at the hands of the French inventor Claude Chappe. It is about the optical telegrapha tower with two mobile arms that changed position depending on what was wanted to be communicated, and which today is considered the first practical telecommunications system. The origins. This type of communication medium was first devised in 1684 by the British scholar Robert Hooke, although he never put his theory into practice. In 1767 Sir Richard Lovell Edgeworth proposed a first design optical telegraph to transmit the results of a race, but it was not until Chappe developed his that they began to become popular. Claude Chappe and his brothers developed their communication system in 1792, and it was so successful in France that the country created a network of 556 stations that communicated an area of ​​4,800 kilometers. The system was promoted for commercial use, but Napoleon Bonaparte liked the idea and decided to use it to coordinate his troops over long distances. How it worked. The system was made up of a mast from which two mobile arms came out. At two meters long each, the arms were so large that they could be seen from great distances, and only two levers were needed to make them move. As we see in the image, the position of the arms would determine the number or letter that was wanted to be transmitted. The milestone. The first message with the French optical telegraph network was transmitted from Lille to Paris in 1794, and 22 towers were used to carry it across 230 kilometers. It was used for national communications until the 1850s, and the model was modified and used in other countries such as Sweden, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Spain of Charles IV. became famous. In France it enjoyed great popularity, and reached be described in works as important as “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas in 1844. But the same desire to quickly and effectively develop communications that drove and led Chappe’s invention to success also ended up being his undoing. In 1846 and after several failed attempts, Samuel Morse finally managed to convince France to replace it with his new electric telegraph, which could be used at night and in poor visibility. And it ended up prevailing despite the fact that many experts of the time predicted its failure due to the ease with which its lines could be cut, although that is another story. Images | Wikimedia (1, 2, 3 and 4)

China dominates technological industries invented by the West

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iRobot, pioneer of domestic robotics and creator of the Roomba, has gone bankrupt and ends up in the hands of Piceaa Chinese manufacturer. It is not an isolated case but rather the symbol of a devastating trend in which Western companies develop technologies for decades and China ends up appropriating entire industries. iRobot was founded in 1990 by three MIT researchers. It launched the first Roomba in 2002 and sold 50 million units. For two decades it dominated the robot vacuum cleaner market. In 2021 it was worth $3.5 billion. Today it is worth 140 million25 times less. Picea cancels its 264 million debt and keeps everything. Why is it important. It’s not just about vacuum cleaners. Chinese manufacturers – Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi – already control almost 80% of the global robot vacuum cleaner market. With Picea purchasing iRobot, that figure is close to 95%. China not only manufactures cheaper: it now owns Western innovation that it previously only copied. The pattern repeats: Volvo has been Chinese since 2010. Motorola too. Segway, the scooter that was going to revolutionize urban mobility, ended up in the hands of Ninebot. Lenovo bought IBM PC. Haier took over GE Appliances. Geely owns Lotus. Western brands survive, but only as shells with Asian engineering inside. Between the lines. Europe blocked Amazon’s purchase of iRobot in 2024 for fear that it would dominate the smart home. The result: the company was not independent, but ended up owned by its own Chinese manufacturer and creditor. European “protection of competition” resulted in iRobot falling into the hands of its foreign rivals. iRobot outsourced its production to Vietnam to avoid Chinese tariffs, but Trump’s 46% tariffs on Vietnam cost it an extra $23 million in 2025. Meanwhile, Picea was simultaneously its manufacturer, its major creditor, and its indirect competitor. It didn’t even take a hostile takeover: just financial patience. He waited for iRobot will drown in debt and collected the remains. The invisible cost of innovation. iRobot invested decades in R&D: military robotics, space robotics, domestic autonomous navigation… That research is expensive, slow and risky. Chinese manufacturers have not had to pay that cost. They just had to wait for the technology to mature, copy what worked, and improve execution. The asymmetry is total. The West imposes antitrust restrictions on itself that slow domestic consolidations while Chinese companies operate with extensive state support, protected access to a domestic market of 1.4 billion consumers and regulatory scrutiny that cannot even be compared. Europe has recently blocked other similar operations, such as that of Adobe and Figma either that of Broadcom and Qualcomm. Yes, but. It is not about approving any acquisition without scrutiny, but about recognizing that blocking the purchase of Amazon has led to an objectively worse result: pioneering American technology that ends up in Chinese property. If you are truly concerned about Chinese companies dominating strategic sectors, this was a blunder with predictable consequences. Western governments constantly talk about technological sovereignty and their willingness not to depend on China. But concrete actions are producing the opposite effect. Ultimately, the only thing the West loses is not its industry, it is ownership of its technological innovation. In Xataka | The largest food chain in the world is Chinese, surpasses McDonald’s and is unknown in Europe: Mixue Featured image | Onur Binay

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