light

What does each pilot light mean and whether it is on or off

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The router, that device that serves as a gateway to the Internet in your home. Whether with fiber or formerly with ADSL, the router is what connect your home with the Internet signal that you hire, and the one that allows you to have a connection by connecting to it or with the WiFi network it generates. And the router has a series of lights that indicate its status and that of its functions and components. Therefore, we are going to tell you in a summarized way What does each of the lights mean? and the fact that some are on and others are off. Not all routers will have all the lights, and some may have their own, but we are going to explain the main and most used ones. Main lights of your router We are going to give you a list of the main lights that all routers have, and what each pilot light means. We are going to do it in a summary way so that it is understandable for everyone, and also easy to understand. power: The on/off button, which is the single indicator that tells you when the router has power and is connected. It has the connected symbol with the open circle with the stripe at the top. This indicator light only shows that the router is on, it does not say anything about whether it is working correctly or not. ADSL or Fiber: It is the button that tells you the status of your home connection. It may have letters such as ADSL, Fiber, PON and LOS, or simply icons with an antenna or symbolizing the signal status. What it tells you is whether the fiber you have contracted is reaching the router. Come on, it shows you the status of the router link with the internet provider. The lights should be solid, and if they are flashing it is possible that the router is trying to connect after having a problem. If they flash permanently or do not turn on, then you have to call technical service. Internet: Another indicator that must always be on, which will indicate that the router has managed to establish a connection with the line. It is similar to the previous indicator. Phone: This indicator will be on if you have contracted a telephone line with your operator and it works correctly, and you can make calls. If you do not have a contracted telephone line, it will be turned off. LAN: The LAN light indicates if you have a device connected to the router via an Ethernet cable. Remember that the Internet will always go faster on devices connected via Ethernet compared to WiFi. Wi-Fi: The WiFi indicator, which can also appear as WLAN, lets you know if your WiFi is working and if you have devices connected to this network. When a device is connected, the light will flash constantly. This way, if you are going to turn off the router you will know if it affects any device. Some current models may have indicators that warn if the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz network is working. USB: If you have a USB on routerthen you may also have an indicator light that tells you if a device is connected to it. WPS: He WPS button The router serves to have the router’s WiFi in standby mode to allow a device to connect directly without knowing the password. How to use it may have safety hazardsyou will be informed when it is active so that you take it into account. Update: If this light is on, it will be because you have a firmware update for the router, and you have to enter its configuration to install it. It will only turn on on very specific occasions. In Xataka Basics | Internet does not work at home: five alternatives to connect without using your router

China has discovered a new mineral on the Moon. It’s so fluorescent it could change the way we make LED light bulbs

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So far, 11 unique minerals have been discovered on the Moon. The last of them has just been revealed by a team of Chinese scientists after analyzing a lunar meteorite. It is an interesting finding, because it gives us useful information about the geology of our satellite. But also because it could have very interesting applications here on Earth. From the Moon to your light bulbs. The material just described It is cerium-magnesium changesite. It is characterized by its glassy, ​​transparent and brittle appearance. The thickness of its granules ranges from 3 to 25 micrometers, less than that of a human hair. Still, it is extremely useful due to its pronounced fluorescence, which could be very useful in improving terrestrial LED technology. A necessary color change. Unlike traditional incandescent bulbs, LED bulbs do not use heat to produce light. They make the most of electricity thanks to a semiconductor material, which allows the flow of electrons from a layer with an excess charge to another with a lack of it. That second layer has what are known as voids. That is, atoms that have lost electrons, leaving something like a free hole. The moment an electron encounters one of these holes, falls inside, in a process in which energy is released in the form of light. The light obtained in this process is blue, but we have all seen that, in general, the light from LEDs is white. The color change is achieved thanks to the coating the bluish chip in which the process occurs with a fluorescent material. This absorbs some of the blue light and, in turn, emits yellow light. Both are what are known as complementary colors of light. Therefore, when you mix them you obtain white light. The more fluorescence, the better. The fluorescence of this lunar mineral is so powerful that it would be a wonderful complement to LED bulbs. White light would be obtained in a much more efficient way, resulting in even greater energy savings. More achievements for China. The Asian country has become an expert in lunar geology, thanks to the Chang’e missions. In fact, the Changesite-(Y) phosphate was already discovered on Chang’e-5, directly related to this other mineral that a meteorite brought to Earth. For now, we can only dream. Logically, going to the Moon to excavate minerals is not very viable. And if it were, it would be good to think twice before jumping in headfirst. We also don’t know if there would be enough on the Moon. It would be necessary to explore it further to know. Therefore, the applications of lunar minerals in terrestrial technology are nothing more than hypotheses. It is interesting, but it does not have a close application in time. What these minerals do teach us. Analysis of lunar geology It can teach us many things. If we find mostly minerals that also exist here on Earth, we can understand that, at some point, similar conditions existed on Earth and the Moon. On the other hand, if many unknown minerals are found on Earth, as is already happening, it is understood that there were conditions on our satellite that have not occurred on our planet. All this serves to understand very well where we are and where we come from. Let’s stay with that instead of thinking about mining our satellite and leaving it without resources as we are already beginning to do on Earth. Image | freepik In Xataka | We have not yet colonized the Moon and we have already filled it with garbage: there are even abandoned golf balls

12 light years away, in a giant that humiliates Jupiter

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Although we have all complained at some point about the clouds when they have ruined us a sunny daywithout them the Earth would be much more inhospitable. Therefore, the discovery that the James Webb Space Telescope has just made on an exoplanet located 12 light years from us is really interesting. It’s not ammonia, it’s water. Epsilon Indi Ab is a gas giant even larger than Jupiter, located in a star system made up of two brown dwarfs and a K-type star. This planet is known to have clouds in its atmosphere, just like Jupiter. Given their similarity, one could expect that the clouds of both would have the same composition. Jupiter’s clouds are basically made up of ammonia. However, when some scientists have analyzed the composition of the clouds of Epsilon Indi Ab with the help of James Webb, they have discovered that there is hardly any ammonia in them. In reality they are composed mostly of frozen water, like what we have here on Earth. Hotter than expected. The exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab is located at a distance from its star similar to that which separates Uranus from our Sun. Uranus is a very very cold planet for obvious reasons. However, Epsilon Indi Ab is much larger and younger, so it still retains much of the heat that came with its formation. Although there is no clear figure, it is believed that it may have an average temperature of 0ºC. That may seem cold to us if it catches us on Earth without shelter, but for a planet so far from its planet it is quite hot. That heat is emitted in the form of infrared radiation and this is where the good stuff begins. James Webb comes into play. The James Webb Space Telescope It has a great ability to detect and measure infrared light. Therefore, it has been with it that these clouds have been analyzed. To do this, the first step was to block the star’s light. If this were not done, it would interfere with the infrared radiation emitted by the planet and could not be analyzed properly. Once this was done, filters that capture 10.6 and 11.3 μm of light were used. Thus, the observation would focus on the planet’s radiation, right in the ranges of interest. Ammonia crystals are known to block 10.6 μm light when it passes through them. If the clouds of our exoplanet were like those of Jupiter, a large blockage would have been observed in this range. But it wasn’t like that. There must have been another substance in them. By studying the 11.3 μm filters and also observing a slight emission of light at 3 and 5 μm, it was concluded that this other substance must be water. The cloud crystals of Epsilon Indi Ab are frozen water, like on Earth. A companion in the rear. Since water clouds are very important for the habitability of a planet, this finding demonstrates James Webb’s ability to analyze one more factor when searching for terrestrial analogues beyond our solar system. The best thing is that, as NASA announced this weekthe Roman Space Telescope, which will be launched in September if all goes well, can join forces with those of the James Webb, providing even more precise results. Perhaps we are facing the perfect team to find that planet we have been searching for for so long. Image | EC Matthews, MPIA / T. Müller, HdA In Xataka | James Webb has been detecting red dots in the universe for years: the only problem is that we don’t know what they are

At 11 km long and with a roof with a light show, China’s longest underwater tunnel has become a tourist attraction

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Under the waters of Lake Taihu, in the Chinese province of Jiangsu, lies the longest underwater tunnel ever built in China. Although it serves today as a great solution to decongest one of the most dynamic regions in the country, it has also become, almost by surprise, a tourist destination on its own merits. The reason: a majestic ceiling full of LED lights that change color and an architecture almost designed more to be contemplated than to be functional. A key point. As we mentioned, the tunnel extends under Lake Taihu, in Jiangsu province, about 50 kilometers east of Shanghai. It aims to connect the expressways of Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou to relieve traffic pressure in the lakeside cities, while also serving to boost economic development from the Yangtze River Delta region. It is also a segment of the highway that connects Shanghai and Nanjing, the former national capital. For this reason, it is a key piece in China’s infrastructure network, but its design and light show have also led to it being transformed into a whole tourist experience. Figures. With 10.79 kilometers in length, the tunnel had a cost of about 9.9 billion yuanabout 1,230 million euros. Work began in 2018 and lasted almost four years. To build the two-way tunnel, with six lanes and 17.45 meters wide, more than two million cubic meters of concrete were used. For ventilation, there are three complexes distributed along the surface of the lake that guarantee air circulation inside. The challenge of building under the mud. It was not a simple work. The bed of Taihu Lake is formed by large accumulations of clayey silt, which made it impossible to use conventional excavation methods with tunnel boring machines. The engineering team opted for a cofferdam system: the route was divided into nine sections and, in each one, a temporary dike was built to “create solid ground” and work dry. Once that section was finished, it was filled with water and moved on to the next. According to collect Tunnels & Tunnelling, one of the biggest challenges was waterproofing the structure, since at some points the tunnel is 20 meters below the lake bed. Thes LED lights yesThey always improve everythingeither. Their figures and the work that had to be done for something of such magnitude to materialize is impressive. But the tunnel has attracted more and more attention for a clear reason: its roof. Those responsible They installed LED lights on the roof of the tunnel to combat driver fatigue during what would otherwise be a very monotonous journey underground. The panels do not simply project a uniform color, but rather show images that change. Ventilation and architecture. But the LEDs on the ceiling are not the only eye-catching element. The three ventilation points that emerge on the surface of the lake have been conceived as sculptural pieces. According to China Dailythe one located in the center of the tunnel was transformed into an artificial island 150 meters in diameter; that on the western side, near Mashan, is shaped like a conch; and the one on the eastern side, next to Nanquan, evokes the silhouette of an ancient boat. The most striking is the one known as “Jade Snail”: 45 meters in diameter and 39 meters high, it is equipped with 174,000 LED light points. A tunnel that generates tourism. The CCCC construction company points out that the Taihu tunnel is now the second highway between Shanghai and Nanjing, and has increased the number of visitors to the tourist enclaves of Lingshan and Nianhua Bay by 50%. The Mashan area, directly connected by the tunnel, is home to the Lingshan Great Buddha, one of the largest in the world and a pilgrimage destination for millions of people. Liu Xiaoyu, head of Wuxi National Taihu Lake Tourism Resort, pointed out told China Daily that “the tunnel will bring more tourists to the Lingshan Scenic Area and hotels in the area.” recordd. At almost 11 kilometers, the Taihu is the longest underwater tunnel in China, but it is not the first in the world. The title of longest underwater road tunnel remains with the Norwegian Ryfastwith 14.3 kilometers, connecting the city of Stavanger with the municipality of Strand. On the other hand, if we talk about underwater tunnels in general, the Eurotunnel (which links England and France by rail) retains the absolute record with 37.9 kilometers of submerged section. Images | CGTN In Xataka | Xiaomi or Xpeng car factories are so advanced that they have become the favorite destination of Chinese schools

This cool 3D map of light pollution turns cities into mountains of light

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This 2026 is the year that opens a fantastic period to enjoy astronomical milestones, since the first of the three eclipses planned between 2026 and 2028: it will be next August 12, it will be a historic event in these latitudes (it has been more than a century since the Iberian Peninsula has witnessed a total solar eclipse) and not everyone will be able to see it: It will only be total in a strip. Being in the right place at the right time is only the first step: the next thing to be able to enjoy both the solar eclipse and any astronomical event, or simply to be able to see the stars well and distinguish constellations is total darkness. Or at least, try to be in a place free of light pollution. Getting away from the big cities is the first step as they tend to be the main sources of light, but not the only one: there are many infrastructures that can spoil the experience. Our recommendation if you plan to see the solar eclipse is that you do not leave it to improvisation and be clear about where to go to enjoy it better and here in addition to the map of the National Geological Institute To follow it, it is worth having on hand a good light pollution map. Where the solar eclipse will be seen: areas where it will be total and areas where it will be partial. IGN But does a light bulb next to you bother you so much to see the sky?? Yes, essentially because it is never usually just a light bulb. In fact, it’s not even just too much light. An example: when you approach a city with your car and it is getting dark or it is night, you can see a glow of the sky (skyglow) fruit of the rebound of light against dust particles, humidity and aerosols in the atmosphere, returning as a luminous veil that destroys astronomical observation. The underlying problem is the increase in the brightness of the sky: a star or a nebula does not compete against darkness, but against that background. If the background is brighter, the contrast drops (excepting the distances, it is like cheap TVs with bad backlighting scheme). The heavens are measured by the Bortle scalewhich goes from 1 to 9 where a class 1 sky is the darkest possible, practically a miracle in continental Europe (most medium-sized cities are around 7 – 9). With a class 9 sky you can barely see the brightest stars and the moon. Where not to see the solar eclipse of August 2026 And it does not only affect large cities (in Madrid it can be seen from quite a few kilometers away), but also industrial areas and ports. In these cases, it is also usually permanent lighting without any control. Also the road networks. A picture is worth a thousand words: the map by cartographer and geospatial developer Jacob Wasilkowski and Petrichor Studio called Earth at Night. Earth at night. JWasilGeo & Petrichor Studio This map combines several sources: night light data comes from NASA (Suomi-NPP satellite, VIIRS sensor) and background satellite mapping is provided by Earthstar Geographics along with other commercial providers integrated into Esri’s World Imagery service. The technological infrastructure to render it in 3D is also from Esri, a Californian company specialized in GIS software. Wasilkowski is the one who has put it all together to convert luminosity into topography. Simply put: It has converted the luminosity of NASA’s nighttime images into elevation, so that cities are mountains. The bigger the city, generally the bigger and higher the mountain will be. Note that there are areas, such as northern Italy or the German border with Belgium, that are real garlands. In the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean coast, the Portuguese coast and a point in the middle of everything stand out: Madrid. These are the areas to escape from if we want to see the sky well. Earth at night. JWasilGeo & Petrichor Studio And just the opposite, the valleys are the most interesting areas to observe the eclipse or any other astronomical milestone: they are the dark areas. Although its controls are intuitive, you have options to switch to the satellite layer, you can zoom, pan and rotate. The map is a few years old now, but for those of us who like to observe the sky it is a good idea to always have it at hand. Furthermore, when this map was launched a decade ago it had a great impact on the cartographic community, winning the award GOLD from the KANTAR Information is Beautiful Awards 2019 in the category “Maps, Places and Spaces”, under the name “Earth at Night, Mountains of Light”. And why not say it: it is evocative. After all, it uses real light captured from space to re-sculpt the Earth, letting it be human activity that defines its topography. In Xataka | Solar eclipses visible in Spain: these are the three astronomical events of 2026, 2027 and 2028 In Xataka | Half of Spain waits expectantly for the historic eclipse of August 2026. The authorities are already thinking about the problems Cover | JWasilGeo & Petrichor Studio

Light and gas have become luxury items. Europe’s plan is to intervene in prices no matter what the cost

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Turning on the heating, running a washing machine or keeping a factory blind up has become, overnight, a luxury. Faced with the economic asphyxiation that threatens citizens and companies, the European Union has crossed the Rubicon: the free energy market, as we knew it, cannot sustain this crisis, and Brussels is preparing a drastic intervention to lower the bill at any cost. ORn global market on fire. The epicenter of this new financial earthquake is in the Middle East, as we have been counting these days in Xataka. The price of oil in international markets continues to suffer shocks; as the firm points out Sparta Commodities to EUobserverit is the “largest daily movement since 1988.” Investors assume that the blockage in the region will cause real cuts in the global supply of crude oil, leaving behind the idea of ​​​​a simple logistical delay in ships. Gas has not been left behind. As detailed BloombergEuropean natural gas futures—the Dutch benchmark—soared 30% in a single day, reaching €64/MWh. Europe emerges from the winter with its reserves depleted and is now facing an all-out war with Asia to obtain the scarce shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) available for the summer. The daily roller coaster of the bill. To understand why this crisis punishes the consumer so much, we must look at how the price of electricity is formed hour by hour. An analysis of Finance Times shows how prices in Europe now suffer wild volatility. The example of last March 4 is devastating: at the height of the solar peak (2:00 p.m.), a megawatt hour in Denmark cost just 26 euros; Just three hours later, after the sun set and the gas plants came into play, the price catapulted to 430 euros. This “roller coaster”, with jumps of up to 1,700% in one afternoon, has been replicated with the same harshness in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Gas thus imposes a “law of luxury” every time the sun disappears, preventing the industry from planning its production. Intervene “whatever the cost.” With a heavy industry (steel, chemicals, aluminum) on the brink of the abyss – it is worth remembering that, according to a document from the European Commission cited by Euronewsindustrial electricity in the EU was already twice as expensive as in the US and China before this crisis—Europe has decided to act. According to the documents discussed by the European leaders to whom has had access Euronewsthe emergency plan seeks quick relief by putting the scissors directly into the bill in three ways: National tax cuts: Which currently vary enormously and can amount to up to 22% of the electricity bill. Cap on tolls and network charges: Which represent 18% of the bill for large industrial consumers. Review of carbon emission costs: Which add 11% to the cost of electricity generation. The intervention beyond of tax cuts. The Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, has toughened her tone towards companies. In statements cited by Euronewswarned: “We will do everything possible to stop speculation. I am ready to react, if necessary, including by increasing taxes on companies that speculate on prices through energy bills.” Furthermore, the panic button for strategic reserves has been activated. As explained Reutersthe finance ministers of the G7 and the EU are negotiating to release part of the 1.4 billion barrels of strategic reserves that Europe keeps to flood the market and artificially sink prices. The impact of not intervening in time. Bloomberg details the case of Domo Chemicalsa plant in the German industrial city of Leuna, which has had to declare insolvency consumed by energy costs. This erosion of the industrial fabric also coincides with a delicate political moment in Germany, where the conservative party (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has just suffered an electoral setback against the Greens in the regional elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Spanish shield. Despite the urgency, the overall European response is being fragmented. EUobserver points out that Ursula von der Leyen has proposed as a patch to expand the Caspian Sea oil and gas corridor. Ironically, the only royal coat of arms right now is Spain. As highlighted by this same medium, the Spanish market has registered the lowest and most stable prices this week thanks to its gigantic previous investment in renewable energies, partly isolating its system from fossil volatility. Finally, the markets have experienced a slight respite thanks to geopolitics. According to the latest update of BloombergEuropean bonds rebounded and gas fell 17% on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump predicted the conflict with Iran would be resolved “very soon.” However, investors assume that if the war drags on, prices will remain high for a long time. Waking up to reality. With 67% of its consumption still tied to imported fossil fuels, the bloc is aware that depending on Middle Eastern trade routes is a huge risk for its economy. Until now, the European Union trusted that the free market would solve consumer problems and guarantee the best prices. This energy crisis has shown that this is not always the case. The authorities now assume that, in extreme situations, intervening in bills, capping profits and emptying state reserves is the only viable solution. Whatever the cost, Europe has decided to take control to ensure that turning on the lights is not a privilege reserved for times of peace. Image | freepik and Haydn on Unsplash Xataka | Neither oil nor gas: if a total war breaks out between the US and Iran, the definitive weapon will be desalination plants

In 1832 Britain realized that it didn’t have much sun. Since then, a law requires that houses have good light

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If there is something that the United Kingdom could blame for its geography and climate, it is the gray days. Rare is the moment when the sun is not covered by clouds in Mary Poppins’ country, where natural light has become a scarce commodity to fight for. So much so, that there is a “right to light” by which homeowners can legally prevent new construction that obstructs natural light rays into their homes. This law is actually an easement established in 1832 by which the owner of a building with windows that have received natural light for more than 20 years has the right to prohibit adjacent constructions that limit it. That is, historically, a person was entitled to this if natural light and air had passed freely through their windows during that time and been enjoyed without disturbance. And these homes protected by the ordinance were marked with the “Ancient Lights” sign. Therefore, if a neighbor tried to violate this by building a structure or planting trees, the owner had the power to sue him for the “nuisance”. Of course, it is important to note that these do not only affect direct sunlight. But it gives the right to a minimum level of natural lighting, not direct rays of the sun. Although this urban planning law has undergone quite a few changes since its inception, the power of property owners to demand natural light continues to be debated in British cities. Nowadays, These “Ancient Lights” signs are still found on buildings around London and other counties such as Dorset and Kent. And the law, more than 100 years later, continues to be the protagonist of all types of litigation, becoming a headache for judges, lawyers and construction companies. The idea of ​​”having the right to light” Let’s go into more detail. A question that arises from this concept is: how much natural light does a person have the right to? And that is precisely where this law has several legal loopholes. Because a building owner’s windows don’t even have to be completely blocked by a neighboring obstruction for that right to be invoked. You simply have to maintain the same level of lighting that the owner has experienced for twenty years, something that is quite diffuse. In the 1920s, Percy Waldram, an expert in this law, proposed a system to standardize the sufficient amount of light that people could claim. He suggested that “common people” required at least one foot-candle (a measure of light intensity) for reading and other work. If the builder, including a homeowner planning an extension, identifies a risk affecting light rights, they must notify the affected homeowner and engage with them to reach an amicable agreement. This could be as compensation or a redesign to rectify or mitigate the problem. However, if there is a dispute, There are two ways to take legal action: damages and/or a court order. The first consists of granting a sum of money to compensate for the loss. The second may require demolition of part or all of the new building unless some other structural change can remedy the problem. The latter is usually too expensive. The idea for many years was that if a property owner did not take immediate steps to obtain a court order, the only remedy available to them was damages. However, a 2010 case left builders stunnedas the court held that it was possible to obtain an injunction even after the completion of the new building. In another more recent case from 2020the court granted an injunction to a property owner two years after the completion of the infringing work. The court found that the builder had proceeded with full knowledge of the risk he was taking. Is there a similar law in Spain? The easements They also exist in Spain. It is the right that the owner of a property has over the adjoining property that limits the proprietary powers of the owner thereof. In fact, it is not so uncommon to find cases in our country (especially in individual homes), in which Your neighbor has one or more windows that face directly onto your property. Is it legal? As regulated by the Civil Code in article 580no party wall can, without the consent of the other, open any window or opening in a party wall. Otherwise, the owner of a wall that is not a party wall and that is adjacent to the back of another owner may open windows or openings in the same wall. to receive lightsas long as it complies with the premises established in article 581 of the Civil Code. Furthermore, as stipulated in the article 582 of the Civil Code: “You cannot open windows with straight views, nor balconies or other similar overhangs, over the neighbor’s property, if there is not two meters of distance between the wall on which they are built and said property. Nor can you have side or oblique views over the same property, if there is not 60 cm of distance.” In Xataka | If your renovation is a pain, think about the house that cost 120 times more than its original cost: a masterpiece In Xataka | If the question is whether they forgot the elevator shaft in the tallest residential skyscraper in Spain, the answer is simple: it was much worse Image | Chris Flexen

“The wound is the place where the light enters”

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Can suffering transform us? Is it true, as Rumi, the great Persian poet of the 13th century, said, that “a wound is a place where light enters”? From the pre-Hislamic myth of Siyavash to the Sufi mysticism of the annihilation of the self or the Shiite obsession with martyrdom, Persian and Iranian thinkers have been thinking about suffering as a transformative force for thousands of years. It is a rich, lyrical, wild and sometimes very dangerous tradition. Therefore, it is curious that thousands of years of such a rich relationship with pain comes to us filtered and converted into Instagram stories. What Rumi didn’t say. Let’s start at the beginning: most likely, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi never wrote those words. And, in this case, it should not surprise us either. In 1995, the recently deceased Coleman Bryan Barks published a book titled ‘The Essential Rumi‘ and, without anyone yet being able to explain it, it sold more than half a million copies. The only real problem with this is that Barks didn’t know Persian. He wasn’t even a really specialized translator. He took previous translations, he cleaned them of references to Islam and He adapted the verses to Western taste. It was a huge success that advanced something we are used to today: the probability that a date we see on the internet be false it is getting higher and higher. And yet, the quote has some truth. Because, in effect, today’s Iran is the repository of an ancient tradition that sacralizes transformative suffering. When Yazid I’s army ambushed and murdered Husain ibn Ali and his 72 companions near KarbalaThey had no idea what they were about to do. They thought they were resolving once and for all the thorny issue of Muhammad’s succession, but the martyrdom of the third imam of the Shiites would germinate in a strange cultural substrate: the idea that suffering is not an accident, it is a battlefield. Thus spoke Zarathustra. That’s where you can best see the ‘Zoroastrian substrate‘: in this religion, Ahura Mazda creates the world as a battle in which humans have to take sides. For old Persian philosophy, evil is not something inherent to the world: it is an army that must be defeated. Therefore, suffering, sacrifice and pain are part of the process that, if we are successful, will lead us to good. It is not the absence of love (as it might seem in the Judeo-Christian mentality), it is a definitive ethical filter. That is the archetype, then came its incarnations. When Islam takes hold in Persia, that substrate is there and takes many forms. While for the Shiites, martyrdom is redemptive and intercedes for us before Allah; For Sufi mysticism, suffering becomes a vehicle towards God, towards the annihilation of the ego and its arrival at divinity. To us, today, all these details don’t matter a little to us, honestly. What is relevant is how hundreds of philosophers resolved the “problem of evil“in a completely different way than what we are used to. Evil is not an error that must be explained by appealing to the unfathomability of God, Evil is the path by which the universe is renewed. No self-help. And in this context, Rumi’s dubious quote (“a wound is a place where light enters”) would be much more radical than any self-help manual would be willing to go. Suffering does not make us wiser, stronger, or smarter. It is simply the price to pay: there is no point in trying to justify it. Today, even knowing how dangerous this line of thought is, it is impossible not to look at those thinkers thinking how much of them really remains in our way of living. Image | If you’ve ever thought about “leaving everything and going to the mountains,” these thinkers have a lot to tell you

We have been blaming mobile phones for myopia for years. Now we have a much more subtle suspect: lack of light

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It is quite a grandmother’s and mother’s phrase to hear that spending a long time in front of a screen or being very close to a book can cause us to develop a disease in the eyes like the myopia. However, science has long suspected that “close work” alone does not explain why myopia has become a global pandemic. The new. Now a revealing study has proposed a physiological mechanism that fits all the pieces of the puzzle together, placing the blame not only on what we look at, but on the amount of light that reaches the back of our eye while we do so. And the investigation is quite justified, since the data is scary. In Spain, 19% of children between 5 and 7 years old are already myopicand projections estimate that by 2050 half of the world’s population will need glasses. To stop this, we need to understand exactly the mechanism that produces myopia, and a team from New York has found the key. The famine of light. The work, recently published in the prestigious magazine Cell Reports by researchers, points to a fascinating concept in this case: the light deprivation hypothesis. Until now we knew that focusing on nearby objects is closely linked to the development of myopia. But what this study has measured with empirical precision is how the myopic eye reacts to the healthy eye during this process. What they have seen. The main finding is that myopes suffer from excessive accommodative pupillary constrictionthat is, when you look closely, the pupil becomes much smaller than normal. If we add to this that close-up work is usually done indoors where lighting rarely exceeds 500 lux, compared to 10,000 lux outdoors, the result is a lethal cocktail for the eye: the combination of dim light and a maximally contracted pupil causes the retina to “starve” due to lack of light. The short circuit. Here the question that logically must be asked is: Why does this lack of light cause the eye to grow abnormally, causing myopia? This is where the purest neuroscience comes in, since our retina processes the image through two main channels: the ON path that is activated with increases in light, and the OFF path, which reacts to shadows. In previous work from 2024, this same team had already shown that in myopic patients the ON pathways have serious deficits, since they are less sensitive and slower. Now the new hypothesis postulates a vicious circle in which, when reading or looking at a cell phone indoors, the pupil closes too much. And this is a problem, since chronic lack of light further weakens the retinal ON pathway, and this imbalance sends erroneous signals that ultimately promote elongation of the eyeball. The treatments. This proposal not only stands out for explaining the biological mechanism of myopia, but also unifies at once why the treatments that ophthalmologists They have been applying it empirically for years. One of the examples is spending time outdoors, but not because it cures, but because the sunlight is so intense that it more than compensates for having a small pupil, keeping the ON pathway stimulated and slowing the progression of myopia. Another example is the use of atropine drops in children to stop myopia thanks to the dilation of the pupil so that more light enters the retina. The same goes for multifocal lenses that are used to reduce accommodation effort, since the pupil does not need to constrict as excessively. It is not definitive. As is almost always the case in science, this work does not demonstrate a direct coincidence yet, but rather offers us an incredibly solid and plausible physiological mechanism supported by very robust data on the behavior of our pupil and neural pathways. But there is still a way to go with new long-term studies to confirm the hypothesis 100%. While we wait for those results, the practical conclusion seems clearer than ever: the problem is not just the tablet or the book. The problem is doing it in the dark, so if you are going to strain your eyes up close, make sure you turn on a good lamp and, above all, don’t forget to go out into the sun. Images | Akshit Dhasmana In Xataka | Denialism has reached one of the last corners of science still free of it: seeing glasses

China has given the green light to buy NVIDIA chips. The problem for your companies is that you will closely monitor each operation

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NVIDIA has hundreds of thousands of H200 chips trapped in limbo. It is one of the company’s most powerful chips and the standard of the companies that are training AI. It is preferred for train the modelsand also the weapon with which The United States sought to leave China out of the game. After movements by the two countries, The US finally approved (25% commission through) that NVIDIA could sell the H200 to Chinese companies. China has taken some time, but finally it seems that it will accept the offer reluctantly and with an ace up its sleeve: DeepSeek. The mess. The H200 issue is a soap opera. In the context of the trade and technology warthe United States played one of the best cards they had: preventing one of their most powerful products from reaching Chinese hands. They also hindered European companies like ASML from selling their most advanced machinery for making semiconductors to companies like Huawei or SMIC. China responded, of course. He attacked with rare earth -that control almost exclusively– and has been showing little by little that they can not only create advanced semiconductors on your own (and pushing old technology to the limit), but they are alive and well in the battle for artificial intelligence. Furthermore, they have developed a robotics industry and other aerospace practically out of nowhere, making a vacuum to Western chips, and that has caught the United States on the wrong foot. China makes a move. Seeing that China was advancing and the US was not getting a cent, they moved tab: They opened the door for NVIDIA to sell its H200s to certain Chinese customers. For each sale, the US took 25%, but it seems that it was something that the Chinese Big-Tech wanted to take on because they need, at least currently, that NVIDIA technology. And the GPU company itself increased production expecting two million orders above normal. The problem is that everything moved very quickly. without China, really, having said anything. Because here it is not just a question of whether the United States lets it sell, but whether China wants its companies to buy. In a tense calm that left requests halted and thousands of H200 in limbo, China has finally made a move. According to Reuters, and as we told a few days agothere are companies that will be able to place orders for the H200. There is a “but”. It is not carte blanche for anyone to place an order. According to WSJ, Chinese authorities have indicated that each purchase must be for a use considered “necessary.” That includes advanced research or development in AI. Because two factors come into play here: On the one hand, it seems that there are Chinese companies that are pressuring the Government to let them access the technology. NVIDIA was allowed to sell the H20 to Chinese customers, but if these customers can now buy the H200 – six times more capable – they want to take advantage of it. But China does not want everyone to throw themselves into the arms of NVIDIA because, precisely, they have been building their own semiconductor industry for five years with SMIC and Huawei in the lead. China’s goal is to stop depending on the US, and if everyone starts buying US chips like crazy, they will not advance on the technological roadmap that the country marked a long time ago. That is to say, it seems that Chinese regulators are going to evaluate which companies can or cannot buy the H200 depending on the use they want to give it. It has been reported that, for example, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent will be able to import 400,000 H200 chips. But there is a twist to all this. deepseek. China’s quintessential artificial intelligence model is one that has turned both NVIDIA and the United States upside down. The question was how it was possible that, without access to the latest technology, DeepSeek could optimize its AI so much. On the one hand, ingenuity to circumvent the CUDA standard. On the other hand, there are those who are clear that DeepSeek has been trained with NVIDIA cards… smuggled. Accusations of smuggling are nothing new in this commercial and technological war, but precisely, and according to Reutersthe company that joins NVIDIA’s massive H200 order along with ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent is… DeepSeek. Officially, and without restrictions, they will be able to access the H200. “We have given China the argument to launch its own industry and, at the same time, we are giving them access to ours again” – Samuel Bresnick Whiplash. I really liked this concept that Wired uses to define American policy in this regard. They are the ones who started the conflict and their position has been pivoting about tariffsbut with more or less lax measures depending on the moment. It seems clear that, now, they are at a point where they have had to think “if China is going to somehow reach the technology, at least we sell it and earn something along the way.” Samuel Bresnick is a researcher at the Georgetown Center for Security and Technology and comments in Wired that the worst thing you can do is “come and go,” noting that “we have given China the argument to launch its own industry and, at the same time, we once again give them access to ours.” Get your batteries. And meanwhile, there’s Jensen Huang. The CEO of NVIDIA has taken a mass bath in recent days in both China and Taiwan, where he has met with some of the companies that move the semiconductor sector. NVIDIA sat at the same table, TSMCFoxconn or Asus, and Huang came out, half joking, half seriouswith one request: you need wafers and RAM. Regarding the purchase of the H200, China is walking on eggshells, and it makes perfect sense. It is at a point where it does not want to be left behind, and to do so it needs its … Read more

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