mortal

The poison of the Cobras is one of the most feared and mortal in the world. AI is very close to neutralizing it forever

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After the mosquitoes and the man himself, snakes usually take third place in The list of more deadly animals for the human being. According to estimates of the World Health Organization (WHO), between 81,410 and 137,880 people die every year as a result of the bite of these reptiles. AI can help change this. AI to the rescue. A group of researchers has demonstrated the utility of deep learning tools (Deep Learning) In the design of proteins capable of neutralizing, at least partially, the effect of the venom of some the steps (Elapidae), The snake family that includes the cobras, coral snakes and mambas. Three fingers. The study focuses on the calls “Toxins of the three fingers”(3FTX), called by the form of tridents that have the proteins that make up this family. These compounds are potentially lethal neurotoxins, that is to say they have the ability to attack our nervous tissue and involve a risk to the lives of people who are poisoned. As the team explains, these toxins are responsible for the anti -speakers, the antidotes used to counteract the venom of snakes, are not effective. The reason is that these toxins are capable of “evading” To our immune system, reducing the effectiveness of some treatments. For now, in mice. The team responsible for the development of the new antitoxins put them to the test in mice. The team experienced with different types and doses of poison and different antitoxins, achieving survival rates of between 80% and 100%. The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Nature. Lowering costs. The new technique opens a new way to the creation of molecules aimed at counteracting the different toxins that affect people who receive the bite of a poisonous snake, offering new advantages. First, to reduce the time dedicated to the process of searching for new useful compounds in this field. Less time dedicated to research implies a lower cost, but it is not the only factor that would help reduce the “invoice” of antidotes. According to the equipment, the new compounds can be synthesized using microbes, which would avoid traditional production methods. “The antitoxins we have created are easy to discover using only computational methods. They are also cheap to produce and robust in laboratory tests,” stood out in a press release David Baker, study co -author. Better access.Under costs and higher production facilities imply better access to these antidotes, something key if we take into account that it is in developing countries where snake bites more problems cause. “I trust that protein design make treatments against snake bites more accessible to people in developing countries,” Susana Vazquez Torres addswho led the new job. The inheritance of a Nobel. David Baker’s name can be familiar: in 2024 He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “For the computational protein design”, a prize he shared with Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper. Baker’s prize recognized his work in the construction of proteins never observed in nature, all through the combination of amino acid sequences. In Xataka | Some engineers have simulated 500 million years of evolution with an AI. Now we have a fluorescent protein Image | Anil Sharma

Takata mounted millions of potentially mortal airbag. And the family of the first deceased in Spain will go to court

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Juanjo was a neighbor of Benazacón (Seville). He was 44 years old when on August 5, 2023 he suffered an accident on the A-4 road at the height of Dos Hermanas (Seville). The driver died after hitting his Mercedes Vito with a Peugeot 308 who was stopped by a breakdown. But what should be an accident without mortal consequences thanks to the airbag became the opposite. In fact, it was precisely The airbag that ended his lifesince its explosion was uncontrolled, causing “a penetrating wound in the right hemithorax with internal hemorrhage” caused by the expulsion of metal parts that acted as shrapnel when the airbag inflated. That is the conclusion reached by the Forensic Report. Juanjo’s name is fictional but the rest of the story is completely true, as reflected ABC. The newspaper explains that this Sevillian driver circulated exceeding the maximum permitted blood alcohol limits when the clash occurred but that it was a Takata airbag that really ended his life. This person was, in fact, the first deadly victim registered in our country as a direct consequence of these airbags. The airbags of this company should serve to protect the lives of drivers but for years it is known that they are, in fact, a weapon against the passenger itself in case of accident. Now, the driver’s family ensures that a complaint Against Mercedes-Benz, who claims economic compensation for death, after keeping a negotiation route that has not fruitful. Although after this fact Another deceased has also been counted In our country with these Takata airbags involved, that of this Sevillian driver was the first case and the future of the possible complaint can be the case of a new fatal accident. The Takata case In Xataka We have contacted Mercedes to learn about the company’s position before this case but, when writing these lines, we have not obtained an answer. What we do know is that in 2020 The world He collected a review call of up to nine models of Mercedes (each of them with different generations). In the list detailed by the company was not the Mercedes Vito But in the newspaper it was detailed that the company had called for review to the predecessors of class V and this van. The company also has a Web page in which the VIN number can be introduced to check if a concrete unit is affected by a revision call by the defective Airbags of Takata. And it is that the damage that the company did is difficult to calculate. In Spain, tens of thousands of affected cars have been called to review but it is believed that there are more than 12,000 of them who have ignored the passage through the workshop. In France it is estimated that there are 1.7 million cars affected and In the United States It was said that since 2008 almost 30 million of these airbags have been withdrawn in constant call calls. The big problem is that the Takata scandal inluó a good part of the automotive industry. Mercedes is not the only one affected, to mention some there are Japanese companies (Honda, Mazda or Toyota), American (Fod, Chrysler or General Motors) and European (Audi, BMW, Citroën or Volkswagen). To give an example, In 2023 Seat called 300,000 cars to review on the occasion of these defective airbags. These security systems had the problem that, with the passage of time, the gases inside were degraded causing violent explosions that generate shrapnel when exploiting and can seriously damage the driver to the point that he can cause death as in the Sevillian case. This ruling is present in millions of cars that mounted the airbags of this company Between 2008 and 2019 Therefore, it is still common for manufacturers to make review calls with airbag substitutions if necessary. The company, in fact, ended up hosting bankruptcy in the United States in 2017 as a result of the fines and compensation imposed. Photo | Rahul Pugazhendi and Mercedes In Xataka | The DGT wants to generalize the airbag on motorcycles. Your shortcut: make it mandatory to get the card to

Duolingo believed that AI was his ally. GPT-5 has just demonstrated that it can be its mortal competition

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Duolingo sinks in the stock market. In early June its action was around $ 525, but now its value It has collapsed Up to 325 dollars, 38%. It is not entirely clear what this debacle has caused, but we have a clear suspect: AI. Be careful what you say. Three months ago Luis Von Ahn, CEO of Duolingo, made very controversial statements and indicated that he would replace part of his network of external (human) collaborators by generative AI systems. Although he stressed that they would continue to be a company that took great care to its employees, it also stressed that IA would take an increasingly notable role in the entire operation of the company, especially to “eliminate bottlenecks so we can do more” with the employees they already had. The value of Duolingo’s action has suffered important ups and downs in what we have been, but the last trend is clearly negative. Source: Google Finance. Boom and drop in actions. These statements were produced at the end of April. The initial impact for shares seemed to be positive, which went from $ 400 to $ 530 (32.5% growth) in a few days. But shortly after that optimism for the role of AI in the company vanished among investors: the action fell even below those initial levels, and now is around year principle levels. It seemed that Duolingo traced. The company presented financial results and corroborated the success of its business model. The feeling of progress when learning a language – gamification is a powerful (and as we will see, dangerous) tool— sold more than learning itself. That allowed to momentarily stop the fall of the actions a few days ago, but then something happened. GPT-5. During the presentation of the new OpenAI model there was a demonstration in which one of the company’s engineers launched a dart poisoned to Duolingo. That demo was to create a custom web application in just three minutes with which the user could learn French. With a simple prompt an app that competed directly with Duolingo, and that of course avoided paying for that application to learn languages. That PROMPT single made GPT-5 capable of creating an interactive website to teach you to speak in French. Source: OpenAi. Be careful with gamifying everything. Although that demo of GPT-5 becoming a personalized teacher is striking, the value of value of Duolingo’s action may also have been motivated by other causes. Especially, for that clear focus on the gamification of the learning process. Converting this process into a game is attractive and encourages many users to take that task in a more fun way, but criticism of excessive focus In Duolingo’s gamification they are frequent. As A user said In Reddit, “for me the reward to learn a language is to learn the language.” Other explained That Duolingo is not a learning application, but that it must be taken as something else: a game. The condemnation of advertising. Other criticisms are aimed at Excessive appearance of ads advertising when one uses duolingo to learn a language. Advertising occurs in the free version, because the premium version has the advantage of not showing it. The model is reasonable – study, after all, is a company and is there to earn money – but as with streaming, the presence of ads is increasing and is increasingly annoying for those users of the free version. Of betting on AI to be threatened by her. The truth is that although all these factors may have influenced that assessment, volatility may have been influenced by those expectations that are constantly lived with AI. The companies that are most committed to this technology are the ones that are going up in the stock market –to tell the “Trinity of the AI”-, although the real impact of this technology is for the very discreet moment. AI as a private teacher. What is unquestionable is that The potential of AI as a teacher of any discipline “Not only about languages,” is undeniable. It is something that GPT-4o already pointed out, whose demonstrations were in the same direction. For example, the boy’s video Learning to solve a mathematical issue —Hahere included – it was especially striking, and hunting a future in which whoever wants to get a lot of these “private teachers” that we can create with a prompt single in chatgpt (and other chatbots, of course). It is early to know, of course, but Duolingo, like many others, seems to be suffering the consequences of that future potential. In Xataka | We do not know if the AI is going to eat your work, but the CEO of some startups are determined to convince you of it

There is only one group that is escaping the mortal trap of the house in Spain: the heirs

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Spain is (increasingly) more A country of heirs. And so It is felt In its real estate market. If in 2007 11% of the homes that changed hands did it through inheritances, in 2024 that data already exceeded 19%. In Fotocasa Research they have dropped even more retail And they have found that 16% of the entire Spanish real estate offer feeds on homes that have gone from family members to others, an even greater percentage if we stick only to the sale market. After that figure there are opportunities … and challenges. The percentage: 16%. A few months ago Fotocasa Research technicians asked a question: what weight do inheritances in the Spanish real estate market? To get out of doubt in February they conducted a survey that yields some interesting results. First, because they help us understand the current ‘photo’ of the market, very conditioned by a lack of housing that does not cover the new work. Second, because they are completed with others similar studies of the last five years. Of all its conclusions the most revealing is that, in a market very marked by the mismatch between supply and demand, the inherited homes are almost fifth (16%) of all available properties. It is also not a timely situation. The data coincides more or less with that of the last year (15%), although it is below the 18% peak registered in full pandemic. More sales than rentals. 16% is the ‘general photo’, but hides some nuances that can only be seen when lowering in detail. The main one is that this percentage varies considerably depending on the segment we are talking about, if we refer to houses available to rent or the sale market. In the second case, that of the houses looking for a buyer, the impact is greater. “By segments, the weight of the heirs in the sale market historically doubles that they have in the rent. People who have received an inheritance home represent 23% of the offer in the purchase market, while that percentage is reduced to 11% in the rental segment,” María Matos commentsDirector of Studies and spokesman for Fotocasa. Both indicators are located a percentage point above those noted last year. A full exchange market. Matos remembers that the weight of inherited housing has been increasing year after year due to the country’s demographic drift, marked by the aging of Baby Boomers and the progressive fall of birth rate, and warns of the effects of ‘Great wealth transfer’. “We estimate that in the next decade there will be the greatest transfer of intergenerational heritage in history, which will have a structural impact on the market,” Reflect The Fotocasa spokeswoman, and adds: “However, for each inherited house that is destined for rent, the double is sold.” Why this difference? In addition to collecting data, Fotocasa He has asked Also to some heirs who leads them to sell or rent their homes. The first conclusion, at least among the former, those who choose to get rid of their legacy, is that they weigh above all “personal motifs”, the reason that alleges 34% of respondents. Another key argument is that they are not attracted to the perspective of becoming homemade. And he does not basically do it for fear of defaults. “The heirs who prefer to sell also do so to avoid problems with the payment of rent (32%), an option that has significantly increased their support in recent years, since it was 23% in 2024”, Remember the expert. When preparing its study, the platform has also met with heirs reluctant to lease their homes for fear that tenants cause damage (21%) or the “absence of tax benefits that compensate for the risks” (21%). “A natural way”. Matos remembers that during the last year these misgivings have increased their impact on the market, And warn: “In the lease is where more housing is needed, so, if an environment of greater security and trust, many of these inherited homes could be generated, could become a natural way to increase the offer in rent.” Those who do choose to lease their houses in search of a source of income and profitability. And who inherit? That is another of the questions that answer The report. According to the data collected by Fotocasa, the profile of the heir who chooses to take out his home to the real estate market (either in lease or the sale) is very defined: they are above all men (they represent 60% of the cases) of around 54 years, upper or medium-high class and that usually reside with their partner and children. By communities, Madrid stands out, the region in which the heirs reach greater weight. Second is Andalusia and in the fourth Catalonia. Is there more data? Yes. Fotocasa gives a track, but it is not the only one that shows the impact of inheritance on the Spanish real estate market. Another is contributed by the INE, which has been elaborating for years A historical record of housing transmissions that close throughout the country looking at how they are carried out; That is, if it is donations, sale, swaps, inheritances or some other formula. Your conclusion? In 2007 they changed hands in Spain around 1.2 million homes. The vast majority (775,300) did so in sale operations and 131,200 through inheritances, so that last option had an impact of 11.1% on the market. Last year the photo was already something different. Of the million transmissions noted by the INE, 642,000 corresponded to sale and 201,000 with inheritances, which raises its footprint to 19.3%. Inheritances also gain weight in a delicate moment for the real estate market, very conditioned by the great demand and the shortage of supply. The Housing and Land Observatory shows that in 2024 they were completed almost 101,000 Housing to cover that imbalance, 13% more than in 2023, but the data remains well below the house creation rhythm noted by the INE. Images | Andrés García (UNSPLASH) and Joseph Bouvier … Read more

Spain has fought the fight against gender violence. And it is translating into mortal failures

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A woman named Lina went to the police last January. His ex -part Viogén. This system, based on an algorithm, determined that Lina was a “medium” risk person. Three weeks later it was allegedly murdered For your partner. It is not the first time that something like this happens, and shows that we have a serious problem with our potential dependence on algorithms. The origin of Viogén. The Interior Ministry development In 2007 the Viogén system (integral monitoring in cases of gender violence). Among its objectives was to make a risk prediction and, depending on that prediction, monitoring and protection of the victims. How it works. The system is based on the collection and analysis from various sources such as police complaints, protection orders or criminal record. In the complaint, for example, a series of questions about the episode of the aggression, the situation of the victim, the children, the aggressor’s profile or the aggravating vulnerability, such as economic dependence are asked. Risk levels. From that evaluation one of the four levels of risk is assigned to each case (1 – low, 2 – medium, 3 – high, 4 – extreme). Each of them entails specific measures that may include from the allocation of telecare devices to remote orders. At the extreme risk, women have 24 -hour police surveillance. Viogén 2. The system has evolved since its creation and in recent months its second version has been implemented, Viogén 2. As explained in article 14the algorithm was updated with novelties such as eliminating the unreissented risk and hindering the inactivation of open cases. Thus, a new supervised inactivation modality appears that sets police control mechanisms for a period of six months extendable to one year. That makes it possible to monitor cases in which police experts have not appreciated the existence of risk for women or this is low. Zero protocol. There are also modifications that will allow the victim to request it in a “voluntary, manifest and repeated” way to inactivate cases of unattended risk, low or medium. Even so, the so -called “zero protocol” designed to minimize the risk of victims who express their desire not to denounce. According to the Macro -New Equalitythe vast majority of victims do not report, and therefore also protect them: institutions only have knowledge of 21.7% of cases according to said survey. Tragedies everywhere. The problem is that the system is not entirely effective. The alleged murder of Lina is the last example of the limited reliability of Viogén. In October 2024 a 56 -year -old woman She was killed Despite having asked for help even twice. Before, in 2024, another woman was killed by her partner and her It was also part of the Viogén system. The algorithm seems to minimize the risk. In the case of Lina, for example, the Viogén system allocated the “medium” risk for it, and that seems to happen on more occasions. In September 2024, 96,644 women were within the Viogén systembut only 12 of them were considered extreme risk, 0.01% of the total. Both the Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, and the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, They minimize errors Recognizing that “the model is not infallible, but saves many lives.” New alarm against AI and algorithms. In recent times we are seeing how there are more and more cases in which excessive confidence is granted to algorithms on especially sensitive issues used in administrations and public institutions. The AI ​​does not stop making mistake. It happened with the Veripol system using AI to detect false complaints: His real reliability was very debatable. Something before, in March, we lived the Ábalos Case scandal in which an AI used to transcribe the statements of witnesses and defendants made mistakes and ended up turning some paragraphs into a gallimatisms. The AI ​​system for facial recognition itself that is being used for example In video surveillance cameras in Madrid He has done too Jump alarms in privacy. In the United Kingdom an AI was used to predict crimes to the minority report, and Its results were unfortunate. Attempts to apply AI in judicial processes and police They have also generated worrying conclusions. Lack of transparency. These systems are usually also criticized for their lack of transparency. Veripol is a good example, but we had others. In 2024 we talked about the Bosco system, used by electricity companies to decide who and who cannot accept the social bonus for aid to the light invoice. The Government He refused to share the source code claiming reasons for public security and national defense. It is not a problem only from Spain: there is an algorithm that suggests to the US judges what convictions imposebut its code is a secret, for example. In such delicate issues, the lack of transparency on the functioning of these algorithms is especially worrying. There were no agencies for this? In 2021 the creation of A Spanish Agency for Artificial Intelligence Supervision (Aesia). It was apparently centered to monitor compliance with the Digital Services Law (DSA) on platforms such as great social networks, and in fact in 2022 Sevilla was chosen To house the first European Center for Algorithmic Transparency (Ecat). What about Aesia. More recently we have seen how AESIA finally wants to take shape with Its coruña headquarters and start operating in 2025 to theoretically focus on the application of the EU AI Law. Its objective is theoretically to carry out “measures for the minimization of significant risks on the safety and health of people, as well as their fundamental rights, which can be derived from the use of AI systems.” Both the case of Viogén and Veripol’s or what happened in the ‘Abalos Case’ are precisely likely to enter that area, and it remains to be seen if the activity of this agency manages to help both the algorithms used as well as its application are optimal. Image | James Harrison | National Police In Xataka | We live a concentration crisis. Experts … Read more

The director has made another mortal leap between genres

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We already have the first image of the hero of ‘La Odyssey’ of Christopher Nolan. With her, Nolan makes clear her fame as one of the most versatile directors of the moment: her new film is going to be a real peplum, an adventure and drama film set in ancient Greece, a land of fantasy and violence, inspired by a Absolute classic of universal literature. A cast of bells. Matt Damon will give Ulysses life as part of a cast of stars, and where Tom Holland, Mia Goth, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, Jon Bernthal and Bernthal and John Leguizamo. The film has a premiere date scheduled for July 17, 2026. Ulysses come back. It little that Nolan has told of this new version It makes it clear that it is an unheard of new adaptation of the classic of Homer’s epic literature: after the Trojan War, the hero Ulises (or Odysseus) returns home in Ithaca, accompanied by his crew and on a journey full of dangers. Of the charming sirens of sailors to the caves where the Cyclops is hidden, ‘The Odyssey’ is one of the most influential works in the history of human creation. You know little, but it has chicha. With a script written by Nolan himself, the official data of the film so far are very scarce: part will be shot in Sicily, and the production will begin in spring on the island of Favignana, that is to say environments that historians believe that Homer stepped on by imagining The Odyssey A few weeks ago, Nolan woke up on praise of traditional trucages fans when the rumor was ran that the Cyclops Polyphemus colossal would be shot with a giant puppet, and not creating a figure by CGI. An ambitious director. What is clear, in any case, is that Nolan’s ambition does not seem Try to give a densest background, and possibly and given your search for “real” scenarios for history, which tries to be as reliable as possible to historical reality. One more evidence that the director of ‘Interstellar‘ and ‘Oppenheimer‘He does not know project that is great. Multiplicity of genres. Although Nolan’s fame has been based on science fiction (‘Interstellar’, ‘Origin’, ‘Tenet’) and realistic superhero cinema (Batman’s trilogy), his filmography is more varied than that. He has been different forms of historical drama (‘The prestige’, ‘Oppenheimer’) and his career started as creator of Thrillers wiring as ‘Memento’. This jump, however, is one that many directors do not give in their entire career, given the abundant challenges it brings: Nolan’s next With others. Header | Universal In Xataka | Christopher Nolan declares himself a admirer of one of the most hated deliveries of ‘Alien’, and has a reason: its director

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