lived

NASA’s longest -lived astronaut has returned to the land in his 70th birthday. We are left without the best space photographer

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There are ways and ways to celebrate a birthday, but few like Don Petit’s. He NASA’s longest active astronaut He returned to Earth after seven months at the International Space Station just the day he turned 70. A bittersweet milestone because, although it is healthy and safe, we lose the unique perspective of one of the best photographers of space. Delicated landing in the kazaja steppe. 220 days after its launch aboard the Soyuz MS-26 Russian capsule landed on the plains of Kazakhstan Together with his crew companions, the Russian cosmonauts Aleksey Ovchinin (53 years old) and Ivan Vagner (39 years old). The landing occurred without technical setbacks, although with a small scare: Pettit needed immediate medical attention when extracted from the capsule. The cameras captured him practically motionless after landingwhich revived the debate on the Russian practice to expose the crew instead of prioritizing its intimacy, as is done in the United States and China. 70th birthday, and farewell? “When our capsule lands on those desert plains, I will be literally on the other side of the earth, almost 19,000 kilometers from home. However, I will be at home,” Don Pettit wrote from the orbit shortly before returning. A reflection that puts in perspective what ‘home’ means after seven months seeing the earth 400 km high, from the International Space Station. This has been the fourth space mission for Petit, which accumulates a total of 590 days in space. Despite being NASA’s longest astronaut, it is only the tenth human being that accumulates more time outside the earth. With 48 active astronauts in the space agencythe last incorporated in 2022, it should be thought that this could be its last mission to space. Goodbye to the ISS photographer. If we will miss this astronaut is his extraordinary ability for photography. Pettit is one of the best photographers who have gone through the ISS and during this last mission, he has given us spectacular images again: The dairy and Starlinks: one of its last captures shows the core of our galaxy and zodiac light, with Starlink satellitous steles crossing in the frame Reimaginated terrestrial landscapes: using infrared filters or playing with the reflection of the sun, Petit reveals hidden details of oceanic currents or terrestrial geology with an almost pictorial quality Atmospheric phenomena: captured impressive northern lights during the intense new year solar activity and contributed to the study of elusive “transient light events” (Tles), electric discharges on storms Long exhibition: Master of this technique, has created iconic images of stars steles or the night lights of cities turned into rivers of light by the Iss orbital movement More than photos. Chemical Training and Scientific Engineer rather than Astronaut, Pettit’s creativity is not limited to photography .. invented A cup of coffee to drink without straw taking advantage of the surface tension of the microgravity fluid. And a device that compensates for the movement of the International Space Station to obtain more clear nightcare photos on Earth. It is also Famous for his “Opportunity Science”small experiments carried out in their free time to demonstrate physical principles in microgravity. To play with drops of water charged electrostátically to freeze ice sheets To study their crystals with polarized filters in the freezers of the station. With the return of Soyuz MS-26, expedition 73 is under the command of Japanese Takuya Onishi. He is accompanied by NASA Astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers and Jonny Kim, and Russian cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. In Xataka | The best photos from the International Space Station are made by the same astronaut: Don Pettit

If Nvidia lived only from PC GPUs, she would be about to die of success. And US tariffs don’t help

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During the last weeks take a family graphics card GeForce RTX 50 Nvidia without falling into the hands of speculators is a real odyssey. At the time I am writing this article the only solution of this family that is easy to find at a price close to the recommended By nvidia is the GeForce RTX 5070. As is understandable, this situation generates frustration among the players who have decided to get one of these graphics cards, as you have noticed in the comments of our articles. To understand what is happening, we are interested in taking a look at “the photograph” of the PC graphics card market. According to the consultant Jon Pedie Research During the last 2024 quarter, more than 78 million GPUs were distributed for PC, which represents a 6.2% growth compared to the third quarter of last year. Nvidia leads this market with a quota of 65%, while Intel and AMD are formed with 16% and 18% respectively. This is our starting point. Difficult times arrive for the PC graphics card market This statement of Jon Pediethe head of the consultant who I have mentioned a few lines above, describes very precisely what the current situation is: “Nvidia, with the highest market share, had difficulty satisfying the demand. And as a result of its size and influence, it prevented the GPU market Tariffs will include profits for the majority, even for everyone, for 2025 “. TSMC is responsible for producing these chips for Jensen Huang’s company Nvidia has not officially revealed how many GPUs belonging to the GeForce RTX 50 family has delivered to graphics card assemblies, but it is evident that not necessary to meet demand. The Taiwanese manufacturer of semiconductors TSMC is responsible to produce these chips for the company of Jensen Huang, but it is important that we do not overlook that it not only manufactures the GPUs for Nvidia games; also produces its chips for artificial intelligence (AI). And the production capacity of TSMC is limited. From one thing we can be sure: in the current circumstances the GPU market for AI is a priority for Nvidia. After all, it is Its greatest source of income. The Jon Peddie Research report expects that from 2024 to 2028 the general market of the GPUs will be contracted annually, and in 2030 only 15% of the computers will have a dedicated graphics card. In these circumstances it seems reasonable to assume that Nvidia and AMD will pay more and more attention to their chips for AI, and perhaps a little less to their GPU for games. Anyway, there is another fact in Jon Peddie’s statement that is worth not overlooking: The tariffs which is deploying the administration led by Donald Trump. At the moment TSMC produces Nvidia chips in Taiwan. Perhaps in the medium term diverts the manufacture of these integrated circuits to Your new US plantsbut for the moment neither Nvidia, nor AMD, nor any other client who buys TSMC his chips produced in Taiwan will be fought from the tariffs. And in these circumstances, as Peddie states, the profits of these companies will be affected. If prices do not raise their benefits will be reduced. And if they are presumably submitted less, so their earnings will also resent. More information | Jon Pedie Research In Xataka | The Singapore government has revealed which companies are involved in the delivery of GPU from Nvidia A Deepseek

If you have ever wondered what would happen if 99% of a country will run out of electricity, Chile has lived it in their flesh

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99% of the population of Chile remained in the dark. A failure in an electric transmission line caused the biggest blackout from the country in 14 years from 3:15 p.m. until after 23:00 hours. Short. Chile has seen the electricity supply interrupted in 14 of the 16 regions, from the Arica northern to the southern of the lakes in an extension of more than 3,000 kilometers that the nation travels, According to the National Disaster Response Service (Senapred). For eight hours the Chilean country was without light or connection and until midnight did not return, so the government authorities They had to decree The state of emergency and a curfew (between 22.00 and 6.00 in the morning on Wednesday) and convene the disaster risk management committee (Cogrid). The chaos. The blackout that surprised at noon generated a huge circulatory chaos, prevented banking, financial, mining and commercial activity. In addition, it put hospitals and other essential services at risk, and has already been reported at the time of writing this note The death of three electrodependent people. On the other hand, the images of the Metropolitan Region Metro Without light and People returning on footthey are already viral in different social networks. To this media have confirmed people from the Bío Bío region, Valparaíso and the city of Santiago de Chile who had to send SMS messages to communicate, the information came through the radio and the little internet (it was intermittent) reached them to use to use The X app (old Twitter), since it was the only one that worked. Regarding the coercive measures of the government, it mobilized thousands of security agents of the Military Police of Carabineros and the Investigation Police (PDI), According to the Undersecretariat of Defense. For the moment There is no record of acts vandalism or serious accidents, but the national air traffic with delays and agglomerations has been affected. The blackout. The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, He went to the country at 10:00 p.m. from the Palacio de la Moneda by contingency before the power of electricity supply. In this speech to the population, Boric explained that the blackout was the product of A fault of the Isa Interchile company and there was a massive cut in almost the whole country. From the National Electric Coordination (CEN) they reported that the interruption of the electricity supply was produced by a disconnection of the 500 kV transmission system in the North Chico. Through this situation, the service recovery plan was activated to reestablish electricity, but it did not begin to reach up to 10 p.m. and after four attempts, they had not succeeded. The president of the Board of Directors of the CEN, Juan Carlos Olmedo, confirmed that disconnection It was due to “an unwanted operation in the protection and control systems of the line (which the Isa Interchile company manages).” And he explained: “The electronic systems did not operate the way it should have operated.” The vulnerability of the system. Isa Interchile, a subsidiary of the Colombian company Isa, plays an important role in electric transmission in Chile, being responsible of infrastructure such as the New Maitencillo Line – New Pan of Sugar. The electrical system in Chile is composed of different private companies that generate and distribute, but a failure in these infrastructure can affect the electricity supply nationwide. The recent blackout has shown The vulnerability of the electrical system Chilean, no It is obsolete. However, when concentrating into a few hands and an interruption in a key infrastructure can generate chaos nationwide, highlighting the need to reinforce Resilience and diversification in the country’s electrical system. Affected a pillar of the economy. The world’s largest copper mine, hidden from BHP, ran out of electricity, confirmed to Reuters. Also the state copper mining company Codelco confirmed in a statement to media That all their mines were affected, leaving the largest, the Lieutenant and Chuquicamata, without electricity, while the smallest mines could partially operate using support generators. Similarly, the Antofagasta Minera was able to continue working. A day after the blackout. Recently, Interior Minister Carolina Tohá, has announced at a press conference that the government has raised the state of exception by catastrophe, together with the curfew. However, the minister explained that the uprising of the measure “does not affect the regions of the country in which we have a state of emergency exception, particularly the Araucanía region and much of the biobío, which are with an emergency state by security reasons, this does not affect the deployment of military personnels that we have on the border (north). ” Image | Pablo carved Xataka | There are so many Australians with solar panels in their roofs that the electricity grid has been one step away from the abyss

The “hypercarnivore” that lived 30 million years ago and today focuses the attention of paleontologists

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The Egyptian paleontologist Shorouq al-Ashqar and her team were about to conclude their work in the archaeological site where they worked when they noticed something that caught their attention. As explained by Al-Ashqar, it was teeth of considerable size that stood out from the rock. Bastetodon Syrtos. The teeth belonged to the fossilized skull of a mammal of about 30 million years old and belonging to a species so far unknown. The team responsible for the finding has cataloged the new species He has given him a name: Bastetodon Syrtos. The “almost complete” skull found has allowed the team to obtain valuable information about This new species. For example, let’s heal the animal would have had a size similar to that of modern leopards. B. Syrtos would have belonged to the order of the hyitodontes (Hyaenodonta), an already extinct group of mammals related to that of carnivores (Carnivora), The group in which there are species present such as cats and hyenas. The name Hyaenodonta It makes reference to these animals since, despite not having a direct relationship, the shape of the teeth of the extinct order is similar to that of the teeth of the modern species. Hypercarnivorous diet. The skull It has even served to get an idea of ​​what this animal ate. The team indicates that B. SyrtosIt would have been what we know as a “hypercarnivore” (this time in a non-taxonomic but strictly food sense), an animal whose diet would have consisted of at least 70% of meat. This species would have been, their discoverers believe, on the cusp of the “food pyramid” in its ecosystem. The team presented its finding Through an article In the magazine Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Etymology of a name. The choice of name is a wink in the history of the country in which it has been discovered. The Egyptian goddess Bastet embodied, Explain the teamprotection, pleasure and good health. Bastet was represented well as a cat well as an anthropomorphic figure with a feline head, similar to that that members of the newly discovered species could have had. “-Oode,” on the other hand, it is a usual suffix in zoology that means “tooth.” The fayum. Thanks to its oasis, the fayum is one of the few areas where the water dyes green the land beyond the Nile Valley, which makes it a key region for agriculture in Egypt. But there is another characteristic that makes this environment interesting: its deposits, both archaeological and paleontolocic. The new finding, in fact, has served to give context to some remains found in the region 120 years ago. From the skull found and fossils discovered in 1904 in the region belonging to hyitodars of a size even larger than that of B. Syrtos. They classify these remains into a different genre to what they have called Sekhmetops. Bastetodon and Sekhmetops. Until now these animals (whose new name also refers to an Egyptian god, Sekhmet) had been classified in the same group as European hyenodontes. The new classification places the origin of the two new genres, Bastetodonand Sekhmetopsin the African continent itself. According to the new study, these two genres would have expanded in successive waves from Africa to the adjacent continents and even to North America. In Xataka | They looked like mice, but they didn’t live as mice. This is what the denture of the Jurassic mammals has told us about them Image | Ahmad Morsi

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