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is going to spend 500 million on the chips of the future

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If you have traveled to Asia to countries like Japan, China or Singapore, it is possible that along your journey you have put your butt on a smart toilet. And it is also likely that that smart toilet was from the TOTO brand. The Japanese firm is famous mainly for its toilets, but the fact that its core is china allows it to be on the front page in the midst of the AI ​​boom and that is not so well known: it has been in the chip business since 1984, manufacturing high precision ceramic components employed in semiconductors. It is not NVIDIA or AMD, but to give us an idea of ​​how serious Toto is and its level of competition, it has just invested a fortune with one goal: to scale its production to the most advanced one-nanometer chips. It should be remembered that IBM just achieved the first chip of that very small size. Towards 1nm chips. Already in February the Pallister Capital fund (one of the largest shareholders of Toto) qualified to a company as “the most undervalued and overlooked beneficiary of AI memory”, highlighting that its chip component manufacturing segment already accounts for more than 50% of its profit. What he also blamed on the Japanese company is the lack of transparency. A few months later, Toto has picked up the gauntlet: just announced an investment of $495 million over five years to scale its business to the most advanced technological horizon in the chip industry: supporting next-generation manufacturing technologies in the nanometer range. Why is it important. The rise of data centers and AI is fueling demand for advanced semiconductors in search of increasingly smaller and more efficient chips. Without advanced materials like those made by TOTO, the miniaturization needed for one-nanometer technology would not be possible. And this diversification is very profitable for Toto. Nikkei Asia collects its astronomical projected figures for this segment: operating profit of 27,000 million yen (146 million euros) for the fiscal year ended in March 2026, an absolute historical record and 32% more than the previous year. It is already what makes the most money for the toilet company. At the state level, this investment is part of Japan’s effort to strengthen its domestic semiconductor supply chain in a context where several countries wish to reduce their dependence on Taiwan and South Korea. Context. Toto began research in the field of advanced ceramics in the 1970s, as Japan’s period of rapid post-war growth was winding down. As relates Toto ceramics business planning department manager Junji Kameshima said, “We wanted to use our ceramics experience to create high-value products.” In 1984 that area was officially established and in 2020 it went from artisanal and low-performance production to playing in the first division. The jump was thanks to Nakatsu’s highly automated plant, with AI systems trained to detect minimal defects: it went from a performance of 50-60% to more than 90% and delivery times were reduced from 180 days to just over 40. Its product portfolio within the semiconductor area was consolidated around three main products: the most important are e-chucks, ceramic discs that hold the silicon wafer during the etching of NAND memory chips. The second are aerosol deposition components, which protect internal walls of the etching chambers. The third are highly durable structural parts used in large LCD panel manufacturing equipment. The three take advantage of a skill acquired making ceramics for the bathroom: ceramic firing of high precision and purity. In detail. This investment of 495 million dollars over five years has three specific lines of action: Expand the machinery at its Oita and Fukuoka plants, already operating at full capacity. Reorient R&D at its Kanagawa plant toward logic semiconductors. Build a new cooking building in Fukuoka, scheduled for January 2027. Part of the investment has already been decided, but the rest will be available depending on market conditions. Thus, if the demand still cannot be met, Nikkei Asia leaks that Toto will consider the construction of a new plant from scratch. Yesyes, but. It seems that days of wine and roses are coming for Toto, based on its solid figures, but there are aspects to take into account. The first is that NAND memory already collapsed a few years ago and could do it again before the Japanese company recovers the investment. On the other hand, this optimistic speech comes from Pallister, one of those interested in Toto doing well (he is an investor). Also, Toto has very few large clients, so a slowdown from any of them can be a severe blow. In Xataka | The fascinating world of Japanese electronic toilets: sensors, microchips and what’s to come In Xataka | Welcome to the AI ​​duopoly: the sector already has a turnover of 80 billion a year, but OpenAI and Anthropic take 89% of the revenue Cover | Toto and Igor Omilaev

ten million robots before 2040

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For years we looked at Japan and thought of robots with friendly shapes, measured steps, and an almost theatrical ability to show us the future. SOHonda’s humanoid, was probably the best symbol of that era: a machine designed to impress, excite and demonstrate how far Japanese engineering could go. But the current debate is different. Japan no longer seems obsessed with recovering that icon, but with something more practical: bringing robots to the real world, where there is a lack of workers and repetitive tasks accumulate, and each unfilled shift begins to become an economic problem. The Japanese plan. METI, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, has put a very specific figure on the table: around 10 million robots deployed in 2040. The goal is part of the revised AI Robotics strategy, a robotics policy with AI to combine artificial intelligence and robotics in machines capable of acting in real environments. The new roadmap expands the focus to 18 application areas and incorporates sectors such as catering, food manufacturing and healthcare. From icon to work. ASIMO did not disappear because Japan lost interest in robots, but because that road was no longer the center of gravity. Honda stopped developing ASIMO in 2018 and withdrew it from public demonstrations in 2022, while part of that learning moved to more applied lines, such as assistance or teleoperation. That transition sums up the current moment well: the country still has robotic muscle, but the question has changed. It is no longer enough to demonstrate that a machine can walk like us; Now you must justify what task you can take on and where you can do it. Much more than humanoid. The 2040 target should not be read as a promise of millions of human-shaped robots. The strategy speaks of a much broader range, with industrial, mobile, healthcare, catering, logistics, inspection, maintenance and emergency response robots. Humanoids appear on the radar of the strategy when they make sense, but they are not the sole focus of the plan. The idea is to deploy machines where they can take on tasks that are repetitive, physical, dangerous or difficult to cover with sufficient personnel. The demographic problem. The underlying reason is not in the fascination with technology, but in the lack of workers. Japan faces structural labor shortage marked by aging, low birth rate and an increasingly stressed active population. According to the Recruit Works Institutethe country could reach 2040 with a deficit of about 11 million workers. In this context, robots stop being a futuristic bet and become a way to keep care, services, logistics, food and production going. A silent power. Context matters because Japan is not starting from scratch. Although today much of the noise about humanoid robots and new AI platforms comes from China or the United States, the country continues to be one of the major global players in industrial robotics. The International Federation of Robotics points out that Japan represented 38% of global industrial robot production in 2023, installed 44,500 units in 2024 and had about 450,500 robots in use. The pending unknowns. The plan, however, still leaves open questions. Japan has set the goal, priority sectors and technological direction, but has not detailed which companies will manufacture this huge number of robots or how much of the deployment will depend on national suppliers or international alliances. We also do not know how the weight will be distributed between industrial robots, mobile systems, healthcare solutions or service machines. The commitment to physical AI. The strategy is not only about deploying more machines, but about improving the intelligence that drives them. At the same press conference on June 30, 2026, METI announced that the consortium formed by Noetra and the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan had been selected to develop a national multimodal foundation model, an AI foundation capable of combining different types of data. The idea is that this base can help build robots capable of interpreting information, combining signals from the environment and acting better in the physical world. Images | Sling In Xataka | The return of Fable 5 has a worrying problem: Anthropic has condemned it to “I would rather not do it”

Talgo’s Avril trains have been a nightmare for Renfe. One that is going to cost another 132 million euros

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Renfe has reached an agreement with Talgo to reform the Avrils and put a band-aid on the wound. This is what he assures The Economist and Europa Press in two articles where the problem that this train has posed for Renfe’s coffers is evident. The company has been trying for months to find a way out of a conflict with the train manufacturer. And he has found her spending more money. The agreement. The information regarding the agreement has been advanced by The Economista medium that ensures that the agreement is pending approval by the board of directors of both companies but that provides extensive information about it. In Europa Press They already state that Renfe describes the decision as “strategic” because it provides “relevant benefits.” The most relevant aspect of the agreement is that Renfe will pay 132 million euros to Talgo so that 15 Avril fixed gauge trains are converted into variable gauge vehicles. That is, they can be used on standard gauge tracks (Madrid-Barcelona) and Iberian gauge (the Galician high-speed section between Madrid and Galicia). Renfe, yes, renounces using these trains in France, how it came to be valued. The agreement maintains Talgo’s obligation to compensate Renfe with 116 million euros for delays in the delivery of the Avril trains and Talgo will also pay the 10.8 million euros that the homologation of the new variable gauge trains will cost. Variable width? Yes, when Renfe ordered the Talgo S106known as Avril, an agreement was reached for the company to deliver 30 units of these trains to Renfe. Half of them would be of fixed width and half would have movable treads to be used on the Madrid-Galicia high-speed line. The great advantage of those Talgo S106 was, supposedly, that variable width. The train can move its tracks and move on standard gauge tracks, those common in European and Spanish high speed, or on those of Iberian wide, a rarity of our country that prevented high speed from reaching Galicia. These trains do not require a transfer and can “jump” from one gauge to another. And do they work? The problem is that the Talgo Avril have been a problem from day one. Talgo has been delayed with deliveries and, as if that were not enough, some of the fixed gauge trains that circulated on the Madrid-Barcelona line suffered serious damage, to the point of generating cracks in the train structure itself. Since then, Renfe and Talgo have argued whose responsibility it is, with the manufacturer accusing Adif of not properly maintaining the tracks. This was the most notorious problem and the one that definitely broke relations between Talgo and Renfe. However, the trains were already accumulating controversies behind them. First, as we said, for their delays. Second, due to the poor rolling quality (with constant swings) and poor quality of materials chosen for the interior. Third, because just a few months after going into operation, the change to the new year caused the trains to collapse due to a software problem. And why are they modified? A few months ago, Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport, confirmed the study to modify the Madrid-Barcelona line and ensure that the journey is less than two hours. In the change, a Spanish invention is essential and buying new trains, with an award that can approach 1.8 billion euros. The trains will have to run at 350 km/h and Siemens and Hitachi are the best positioned. Adapting trains to variable gauge allows Renfe to move those trains to any track that operates with Iberian gauge, which gives it flexibility. The Madrid-Galicia line has to be liberalized but everything indicates that Renfe will continue to be the only one to operate in it because there is no other manufacturer that offers this feature in its trains and Talgo is committed to its production in the medium term. But converting the trains will allow Renfe to relocate the current Avrils on lines that only have Iberian gauge, an interesting alternative when the future trains of the new award arrive. a nightmare. The Talgo S106, known as the Avril, have been a headache for the company. And the problem has gone far beyond the incidents that we mentioned before, they have also meant that Renfe loses the AVLO service, the low-cost option, between Madrid and Barcelona. The company aspired to face Ouigo on this route with these new trains but with the problem of cracks it had to take these trains out of circulation and with it AVLO service disappeared. Now, Renfe will gain flexibility but to do so it will have to spend another 132 million on trains that have arrived late and that have offered mediocre performance. Photo | Andre Marques In Xataka | Spain thought that Spain could manufacture the perfect trains for Spain. The reality: Spain is already looking for trains in Germany

Who are Openchip, the Catalan company that designs RISC-V chips… and has just received 115 million from the Government

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This Monday, June 29, the Council of Ministers authorized an investment of 115.77 million euros in Openchip & Software Technologiesa microelectronics company based in Barcelona and five years old. The operation is channeled by the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETTthe digital SEPI, dependent on the Ministry for Digital Transformation) through the Next Tech facility of the Recovery Plan. It is the largest one-time injection of public capital received by a Spanish technology company in the sector to date. It comes just a week after another move. On June 23, The Generalitat converted part of a 35 million bridge loan into sharesan operation that gave him 5% of the capital and set a implicit valuation for Openchip in around 700 million. With that reference, the 115.77 million from the SETT would be equivalent to a participation of up to 16.54%, which would place direct public control (State and Generalitat) above 20%. Both administrations will have a seat on the council. The Government also included a veto right over any transfer of the headquarters outside of Catalonia. Added to the 111 million already received via PERTE Chip, public support accumulated is close to 262 million. The public supports a good part of the structure. A company that designs, not manufactures Openchip was born in 2021 as a joint initiative of the Catalan engineering group GTDaround 54% of the capital, and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS), the center that operates the MareNostrumaround 46%. Today it employs about 300 people, almost all of them engineers, and operates under a fabless– Designs intellectual property and outsources manufacturing to external foundries. The CEO himself has admitted that this production will leave Europe, which in practice points to where these types of projects usually aim: TSMC. The industrial plan estimates investments close to 500 million to deploy the entire infrastructure. What it designs are processors and accelerators based on RISC-V, the open source architecture that has become the European bet (and, ahem, China) to avoid the dependency on x86 (Intel, AMD) and ARM. Its specific product is a vector accelerator for AI and high-performance computing, integrated into DARE SGA1a 240 million European initiative led by BSC itself that distributes the design between Openchip (vector accelerator), the Dutch Axelera (AI processing unit) and the Czech Codasip (general processor). The goal: a European hardware and software proposal operational by 2028. The schedule, the equipment and the exam This is where it is good for everyone to temper expectations. In November 2025, Cesc Guim (pictured above), CEO and former Intel, said that the company had just sent its first prototype to the factory and that commercial production was planned for 2028. The commercial argument is energy efficiency: its designs promise to reduce electricity consumption by 20% to 30% compared to current alternatives. The real comparison can only be made when there is working silicon, not plans. A few weeks ago, in May, Openchip signed Tobías Martínez as presidentformer CEO of Cellnex for almost a decade. Replaced Carlos Kinder in a change that the company did not officially confirm. His profile provides what a startup of 300 engineers with a round of hundreds of millions was missing: plenty of experience in the capital markets. The operation is sold under the convenient modern mantra of ‘European technological sovereignty’, and the truth is that the framework is real: Europe today designs a minuscule part of the world’s chips, and certainly none of the leading ones. But There remain questions that public investment does not solve on its own: Whether Openchip will achieve a competitive product against rivals with a twenty-year advantage (Guim himself has admitted it). Yes, manufacturing will continue to depend on TSMC, which keeps Europe away from the critical link in a long-term dependence. And whether the intensive financing model, with two administrations on the board and a regional veto over the headquarters, will allow the flexibility and agility that a semiconductor business requires to compete. The State has bought shares, a seat on the council and qualified employment in Catalonia. What remains to be seen is whether the chips arrive. And they work as promised. In Xataka | The Valencia family that made a fortune with guano and Coca-Cola now has another project: photonic semiconductors Featured image | Openchip, Xataka

60 million views and 6 weeks in the top 10

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The first season of the live-action adaptation of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender‘ was met with divided opinions from fans, who in some cases accused it of diluting what made the animated original great. Even so, 61.2 million households watched itwhich led to Netflix to renew the series for two more seasons before its first week on the air ended. Today the second season arrives, and it brings exactly what fans of the original anime wanted: Toph. The truth is that in its first season, the series more than met Netflix’s expectations, after the success of ‘One Piece’: it registered 18.5 million views in its first week. ‘Avatar’ surpassed it with 21.2 million homes and 153.4 million hours watched, reaching that total of 61.2 million homes. It topped the Top 10 in 92 countries for eleven consecutive days. The second season adapts the “Earth Book” from the animated original, the arc considered by many followers to be the most complex of the series. It consists of seven episodes, one less than the first season, although the producers have indicated that the chapters are longer. Two years after that, the narrative axis is the city of Ba Sing Se, capital of the Earth Kingdom. The most anticipated signing this season is Miya Cech as Toph Beifong, the blind teacher who becomes Aang’s instructor. She was selected from 6,000 candidates and worked with a visual impairment consultant to represent Toph’s sensory connection to the terrain around her. Everything is ready for a return in which the waters seem to have calmed down after some very turbulent first steps. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, creators of the animated series, joined the project in 2018 as executive producers and showrunners. Two years later, they announced their departure, saying they could not control the creative direction of the series. They were succeeded by Albert Kim first and Christine Boylan and Jabbar Raisani for the second season. Raisani and Boylan are responsible for seasons two and three, recorded consecutively between September 2024 and November 2025. In Xataka | ‘The House of the Dragon’ returns to HBO Max with its season 3 and a promise: the biggest naval battle you’ve ever seen on television

German scientists have discovered that the Earth has been receiving radioactive fallout for more than 100 million years due to the violent “kiss” of two supernovae.

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Planet Earth is home to the ocean depths a radioactive plutonium deposit that could only be formed in space, during a violent cosmic cataclysm. Although there are reserves of this radioactive dust at great depths, it has been proven that it continues to rain down on us today. That would lead one to think that it was a recent cataclysm in astronomical terms. However, according to a recently published study by German scientistsit was hundreds of millions of years ago. Two isotopes to understand everything. Plutonium-244 does not exist naturally on Earth. In fact, the only isotope of this element that can be produced naturally in some geological processes is plutonium-239. and it does so mostly in the form of traces. Plutonium-244 is the heaviest isotope of this element. That is, the one with the most neutrons. It is known that it is usually formed by cosmic phenomena during something known as the r process, where lighter atoms quickly absorb neutrons into their nuclei. Generally, the event that usually gives rise to this phenomenon is the kilonova, an explosion resulting from the merger of two neutron stars. In the process, curium-247 is also formed, which is why these scientists have also analyzed its levels. Taking this data into account, they have discovered that the explosion in question must have occurred more than 100 million years ago, but less than one billion years ago. And, also, that the radioactive fallout has not stopped since then. The key is in the ferromanganese crust. Ferromanganese bark It is a layer of the ocean floor which is formed when metals dissolved in sea water, such as iron and manganese, are deposited and solidify. This occurs at a fairly slow rate, with growth of between 1 and 10 millimeters per million years. The deposits do not only have iron and manganese. Mixed with them are other substances that have fallen into the sea at that time. Therefore, this crust is a perfect chemical photograph of the history of our planet. A section with surprise. The authors of this study analyzed a section of this crust extracted at a depth of 4,830 meters in 1976. This had already been analyzed previously and had pointed out something surprising. And, in addition to plutonium, iron-60 was also found, another radioisotope associated with supernova explosions, which has a fairly short half-life of 2.6 million years. This figure means that, every 2.6 million years, half of the initial atoms of this isotope will have decayed. In another 2.6 million years half of what remained and so on. Since it is a fairly short half-life, it was concluded at the time that the kilonova that caused the fall of radioactive dust took place about 3 million years ago. However, the authors of the study just published debunked that hypothesis. Half-life of the study isotopes Curio to the rescue. The formation of plutonium-244 when neutron stars merge is always accompanied by the formation of curium-247. The plutonium isotope has a half-life of 81 million years, while that of curium “only” has a half-life of 15.6 million years. When analyzing the ferromanganese bark sample, these researchers found no curium. Therefore, it must have completely disintegrated. That places the explosion more than 100 million years ago. Be careful, remember that the half-life is the time it takes for half of the radioactive material to decay. Every 15.6 million years, half of it disintegrates, so in 100 million years there should be no curium left, but a lot of plutonium, which only lost half of it 19 million years ago. For plutonium to completely disappear, it would take 1 billion years. What about iron? The reason why there is iron-60 in the sample, despite having a lower half-life than that of curium-247, is that they originated in different events. In fact, the level changes of iron do not coincide with those of plutonium. On the other hand, it has been seen that plutonium continues to appear uniformly in the upper layers, hence it has been concluded that the radioactive fallout has not ended. At least it hadn’t ended in 1976 and that in astronomical terms was before yesterday. And now what? These scientists think that the cataclysm that released this long radioactive fallout must have been immense. Possibly even affected life on Earth. But at the moment it is something that cannot be known. We will have to continue investigating to have the answer. Image | University of Warwick/Mark Garlick | B. Schröder/HZDR/NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll/ASU In Xataka | Gravitational waves work their magic: we are closer to revealing the enigmas of neutron stars

Spain has 15 million pets that cannot set foot on a good part of its beaches. That’s something that’s starting to change.

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It comes with going to a park or taking a walk through any city in the country, but in case there were still any doubts, the Government recently provided definitive proof that Spain is a land of pets. The first official census has counted neither more nor less than 15.2 millionof which 7.6 are dogs. With such figures it is better understood that, as summer approaches, more and more people are asking themselves a question: Can we go to the beach with our four-legged friends? The answer is: it depends. Reviewing the figures. We mentioned it before: in Spain there are many (many) pets. It is something that we intuited thanks to the censuses carried out by feed manufacturers, companies dedicated to the care of pets or the Companion Animal Identification Network (REIAC), but which has been confirmed by the first official study of the State. It details that in Spain there are 15,171,569 pets, of which 7,562,893 are dogs. They represent, respectively, 14.1 and 9.6% more than in 2021. Beyond the raw data, the census confirm that in Spain there are now more pets than people under 30 years of age or who live in the country almost double of dogs than small children. Hence the pet economy this awakening the appetite of more and more companies (from feed manufacturers to insurance companies and venture capital) or that, when planning their summer vacations, they have already many families looking for accommodation (or even destinations) pet friendly. To the beach with the dog. Proof of this enormous interest is that every year the blogs specialized in pets (and also some other generalist) publish maps and online guides to dog-friendly beaches during the bathing season, which usually runs from June to September. Their ‘photograph’ does not always coincide, but usually includes more than a hundred sandy beaches. Some place the total count around 130 beaches. Others raise it to more than 150. That disparity is not surprising because the list can change from one year to the next and not all sandy beaches that accept dogs do so in the same way. Fine spinning. Last year, in fact, RTVE published a map in which he differentiated between three main types of beach, depending on the freedom that the dogs had on each one. The most comfortable for pets would be the ‘complete’ beaches, those to which they can freely access all year round. In second place would be the ‘partial’ sandbanks, which tolerate pets, although with small print. For example, the presence of dogs can be restricted to only a defined stretch or a certain time slot, such as at night, when the number of bathers is reduced on the beaches. Finally there would be what RTVE calls ‘nearby’ beachesstretches of coast close to urban areas in which access is allowed in at least part of the sandy area. Why so much complication? Basically, because the Coastal Lawthe framework standard that regulates the maritime-terrestrial public domain, leaves a wide gap that have been covered by the regional and local administrations. And that challenge has not been faced in the same way everywhere. What’s more, sometimes the topic has generated intense social, political and institutional debates. One of the latest examples has been left by Gijón on account of his new ordinance municipal on animal welfare: in March, during the allegations phase, the Principality he was reluctant to the presence of dogs on the city’s beaches, although later nuanced that the decision depends on the City Council. From the beaches to Change.org. Another interesting case is found in A Coruña, where it has been activated a collection of signatures in Change so that the Consistory allows dogs on the beaches in summer in night timefrom 9:30 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. Right now the local ordinance prohibits pets on beaches between June 1 and September 30, with the only exception of the Bens sandy area, which is considered a “dog beach”. Along the Spanish coast there are many more With these characteristics, which are added to other sandy areas where dogs are allowed during the summer, although at night. One figure, two conclusions. let there be between 100 and 150 beaches that can be considered (to a greater or lesser extent) dog-friendly) leaves several conclusions. The first, as recently reported on the Sr.Perro blog, is that the number of sandy areas in which there is a clear regulation that allows enjoyment with dogs is very small. In general, it is estimated that Spain has somewhat more 3,500 beaches. That the proportion is so low is explained, in part, by the requirements that all those sandy areas must comply with opt for the badge of ‘Blue Flag’. The “Guide to Blue Flag criteria” of 2025 states that “the prohibition of domestic animals on the beach must cover the entire area of ​​the candidate beach, including the bathing area.” “Local regulations must prohibit the presence of domestic animals on the beach during bathing season, even outside bathing hours,” the document insistswhich cites WHO studies on “microbiological risks” associated with the presence of excrement on beaches. Gaining weight (little by little). That is the second conclusion that the sandbank map leaves. dog-friendly. Although they remain a minority, some sources they specify that their number has been increasing due to the increase in the pet census and citizen pressure, which sometimes results in campaigns like the one activated this year (also in 2025) in A Coruña. A quick check on Google shows that Sanlucar de Barrameda, Marin, Vila-seca, Cadiz, Punta Umbria either Almeriaamong other populations, have taken steps in recent years (or months) to make it easier for people to enjoy the places of a dip. Image | Nathalie Anfuso (Unsplash) In Xataka | Your cat asks you to cuddle and then bites you. It’s not evil, it’s that you don’t understand its signs

We believed that cities were a desert for bees, but 5.5 million live under this cemetery in New York

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Although cities have their own fauna, the reality is that one could reasonably think that for animals of all kinds the urban environment is far behind the countryside in diversity and quality of life: there is a lot of asphalt, noise, pollutants… well yes, but no, because there is a place where bees have found a true residential paradise: a cemetery in IthacaNew York. Where you see a cemetery, the bees see paradise. It turns out that a laboratory technique called Rachel Fordyce had a trick to get to your work at Cornell University without paying for parking: park on the other side and take a walk through the East Lawn Cemetery. In spring 2022 he arrived at his post with a jar full of bees that he had found along the way: that was the beginning of it all. The bees inside were Andrena regularis, known as the “common mining bee,” a wild, solitary species that nests underground. That is, it does not have a queen and it does not build hives either. Each female digs her own tunnel, lays her eggs, supplies them with food, and seals them. And under the ground of the Ithaca cemetery there are millions, more specifically 5.56 million in just over 6,000 square meterswhich come out every spring to pollinate the surrounding apple trees. Why is it important. Because it is the largest population of wild bees with a nest in the ground ever documented and very far of the secondof 1.6 million individuals of a different species in Arizona. And their work is essential: pollinators in general are responsible for the production of approximately 75% of the world’s food crops. according to the FAO. As explains Bryan Danforthprofessor of entomology at Cornell University, they must be protected: “If we don’t preserve nesting sites and someone paves them, we could instantly lose 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators.” The most striking thing of all is that this enormous population was there, in the midst of civilization and next to one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Context. Contrary to popular belief, the most common way of life for bees is solitary and with a nest on the ground: approximately 75% of the bees on the planet live like this. Those bees that produce honey and live in hives may be the most famous, but they are an absolute minority. Solitary wild bees are not as well known, but their pollination work is key in nature and in food. Thus, this enormous population lives independently but concentrated in that place because the substrate conditions are optimal. The bad news is that pollinators are in decline: according to the report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Servicesmore than 40% of pollinating insect species are threatened. In this scenario, finding such a large population in a city shows that there are more refuges for biodiversity than we thought and we must find them before they disappear (and if possible, avoid it). In detail. We knew about the presence of Andrena regularis in that cemetery since 1935, but it was not until 2021 when the scientific community began to intuit what was underground. To estimate the population, the team installed mesh traps at 10 points in the cemetery between March 30 and May 16, 2023. The result was extraordinary: as explains the press release from the New York university, is the equivalent of 200 honey bee hives on just 0.6 hectares of land and more than triple the population of Manhattan. Yes, but. The study has important limitations, such as that the population data is from a single spring (2023) and that the figure is a statistical estimate and not a real inventory, so we do not know if the population is rising, falling, remaining stable or how climate change affects it, which is advancing the flowering of apple trees and therefore altering the life calendar of the bees. And although it is the largest aggregation of wild nesting bees documented to date, its presence in a cemetery suggests that there may be others whose existence we are unaware of. In Xataka | We have a serious problem with the extinction of bees. The United Kingdom wants to solve it with bricks In Xataka | If the question is how to protect bees and other insects, in Peru they are clear: recognizing their legal rights Cover | Marisol Benitez, Chad Madden and Damien TUPINIER

Today on Prime Video, a disaster movie that lost 45 million in theaters but is sweeping streaming

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In January 2026, ‘Greenland 2‘ premiered at number six at the US box office and closed its run in theaters with 44.8 million dollars collected against a budget of 90. The numbers are incontestable: a tremendous failure. Five months later, the sequel starring Gerard Butler tops the most watched lists on HBO Max in the United States, and now lands in Spain in Prime Video. The story of this saga begins with a pandemic and a comet. The first ‘Greenland’ never reached American theaters: COVID-19 forced it to be transferred directly to video on demand in December of that year. In international cinemas it did have a theatrical release, and it worked very well, since the reviews were good despite it being a genre not very popular with specialists. But it was the perfect time for a film of this type. The sequel tried to ride that same wave, but it didn’t turn out so well, although it ended up finding its audience. The family protagonist of the first installment has been in an underground bunker in Greenland for five years after the impact of a comet, but a series of earthquakes destroys the shelter and forces them to evacuate. They will head towards the south of France, where a crater has generated a habitable microclimate, free of electromagnetic storms and radiation. A true epic in which they will have to test their courage, their resistance and their trust in the family unit. The trajectory of ‘Greenland 2’ has parallels with that of ‘Tomorrow’s War’, the science fiction thriller with Chris Pratt that Paramount gave to Prime Video during the pandemic. It passed without pain or glory in theaters, with barely 19 million dollars collected against a budget of 200 million, but it became one of the most viewed films of the year. streaming at that time and one of the first massive successes of the Amazon platform. New dynamics of exploitation, new unexpected successes, and yes, a common point: the destruction of the planet, better to see it comfortably at home. In Xataka | Premiere: Harlan Coben is the real King Midas of Netflix, and he has a new series to confirm it

A single programmer, simple mechanics, crappy graphics and Paint interface. And he has earned ten million in a week

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Characters that are generic puppets, aseptic to the point of being experimental, elements in the sets that seem to come from a free library for programming learners, an interface that has completely renounced any hint of design or usability and that seems to come from a ‘Paint’ type application… ‘Meccha Chameleon’ has, however, almost ten million dollars earned in one week on Steamand the only reason is not its extremely low price. The milestones. On June 9, Japanese developer lemorion_1224 launched the game on Steam at a price of only $4.99. Today it has sold more than two million units, that is, it has earned about ten million dollars. Discounting the 30% that Valve keeps, the developer has made 6.9 million in less than a week. And it’s all the work of this solo programmer, in approximately two months. How to play. The central mechanic of ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is simple: at the beginning of each round, some players hide and others look for them. The difference with other hide-and-seek games is that hiders can paint themselves to blend in with their surroundings, like chameleons do (sometimes with hilarious results that content creators are fond of). exploiting thoroughly). The more elaborate the camouflage, the harder the player will be to detect. That is, the ability to replicate the pattern of a wallpaper or a painting comes into play. Those less skilled with the brush have another option: look for dark corners of the map where uniform camouflage is sufficient. The precedent. The game collects ideas from ‘Prop Hunt’, a mode that was born in the mythical and highly cult ‘Garry’s Mod’, and that was later incorporated into franchises such as ‘Call of Duty’. The mechanics are the same: some players start as hunters, the chameleons hide, and those who are discovered go to the opposite side. An option can be activated with which those hidden whistle from time to time to give clues about their position. What is original about this new iteration of the idea is the layer of paint that allows for more effective camouflage. But… who is Lemorion_1224? Certainly not a newcomer. This developer had been experimenting for years with hiding mechanics within ‘Fortnite Creative’, the development platform integrated into ‘Fortnite’ that allows you to publish your own modes and accumulate players at no cost. Among these There is a game where players hide by making themselves extremely thin and another where they disguise themselves as NPCs. Lemorion_1224 has also experimented with mechanics inspired by ‘Dead by Daylight’ and ‘Peak’. ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is, therefore, the distillate of several years of testing. Friendslop it. Meccha Chameleon belongs to what in recent years has been called “friendslop”: cheap games, with a very simple, even tacky, visual finish, designed to be played in a group and shared on social networks. That is, games like ‘Peak’, ‘Lethal Company’ or ‘REPO’. The common denominator is the price (below six dollars in most cases), the viral potential and an approach that can be explained in thirty seconds. But to say that ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is part of a viral trend is to understate it: it had a peak of 200,000 simultaneous playerssomething that many AAAs never achieve. ‘Meccha Chameleon’ is another of the very triumphant successes of the medium that reminds us that issues such as graphics or technical neatness are completely accessory aspects to generate fun. In Xataka | This game has been programmed by only one person, and it is already being talked about as one of the great shooters of the year

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