origin

A Moroccan sued a real estate agency for not showing him an apartment just because of his origin. Now they will have to pay 10,000 euros

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The story sounded so strange, so much like an ‘improvised excuse’, that Hamid Hmata decided to do an experiment. In January 2024after seeing how the umpteenth real estate company closed the door on him after finding out about his Moroccan origin, Hamid asked a co-worker to help him out. His friend (with a Spanish name) called the same agency asking about an apartment in Mataró that Hamid had been interested in shortly before. He had no problem. They confirmed that the home was available, gave him information and scheduled an appointment. Shortly before, Hamid had been told the opposite, that it was already rented. The story could have stopped there, but what the agency probably did not take into account is that Hamid has been battling discrimination in access to housing for some time. Now that episode of 2024 has led to a pioneering sentence by “real estate racism”. a dozen complaints. The statistics They suggest that Hamid is not (far from it) the only immigrant who encounters obstacles or outright racism when looking for housing. His case is different in something: this man of Moroccan origin, father of two minor children and with the necessary income to pay for a rental house, has been denouncing real estate racism for some time. And he has also done so in an active way, calling out against various agencies and presenting a dozen complaints before the Mataró City Council. “For being a migrant”. His case was revealed ago just a month and a half the DESCA Observatory, one of the entities that has accompanied Hamid in his peculiar real estate crusade. At that time, the platform explained that the man had been looking for an apartment for four years, a long period during which he had dealt with “great difficulties.” The reason? Everything indicates that its origin. “Different real estate agencies, allegedly, would have covertly avoided providing him with their services (showing him the apartment, evaluating his candidacy, managing a contract, etc.) due to the fact that he was a migrant,” details DOWNLOAD From office to office. Despite his efforts, most of Hamid’s claims were unsuccessful. Their complaints to the City Council ended up being filed and they undertook a “bureaucratic journey” by different organizations, such as the Housing Agency of Catalonia, the Consumer Agency and finally the Office of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination. Almost all of Hamid’s complaints ended up being dismissed, but last month DESCA recalled that there were still three live files: two “in the administrative procedure phase” and another “in the preliminary proceedings phase.” And the big surprise came. We have now known the next chapter in Hamid’s real estate odyssey. a few days ago DESCA revealed that the Office of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination (OITND) of the Generalitat of Catalonia has imposed a fine of 10,001 euros on a real estate agency in Mataró for, the association claims, “a case of real estate racism in access to rentals.” The reason would have been the episode with which we started this article. Same floor, different answers. In 2024 Hamid was interested in an apartment for rent, so he contacted the real estate agency that owned it to visit it in person. He couldn’t. A day and a half after requesting the interview they told him that it was already leased. The explanation did not convince Hamid, who asked a colleague (in this case with a Spanish name) to call the agency to inquire about the home in question. Same agency, same apartment… different answer. Him, ensures DESCAYes, they made an appointment for him. Click on the image to go to the tweet. “True, but it has nothing to do with it.” Determined not to let the matter go, Hamid attended the visit scheduled by his friend to ask the head of the agency for explanations. Specifically, I wanted to know if the problem was that the owners of the apartment did not want to rent it to a person of Moroccan origin. “The administration admitted it: ‘That, that’s also true, but it has nothing to do with that. It’s reserved,’” reveals DESCA. The phrase is reminiscent of the one he received recently as well. another moroccanin this case from Irún, who was looking for a home. Mosqueado recorded the explanations of the head of an agency that had slammed the door: “The owner doesn’t want anyone from outside.” A figure: 10,001 euros. Hamid’s experience demonstrates several things. To begin with, proving an episode of “real estate racism” is not easy (he has denounced a dozen agencies). The second is that when it is detected it is expensive. DESCA explains that, in this case, the OITND has fined the agency a fine of 10,001 euros, although that is only part of the punishment. For one year you will not be able to receive any public aid or subsidies, nor establish contracts with the Generalitat Administration. “The OITND resolution recognizes that the reported facts consist of a case of discrimination in access to housing for ethnic-racial reasons and/or origin, which according to Law 19/200 on equality and non-discriminatory treatment is a serious infraction,” argues the observatory. The standard to which the platform refers clearly states in its section 14.3 that real estate agencies and their clients “must respect” equality and not discriminate. Why is it important? For several reasons. The first, the pioneering nature of the sanction. At least in Catalonia, where according to the RAC1 chain There is only one similar precedent. In 2022, Barcelona City Council revealed that the court had ratified a fine of 90,001 euros which he had recently imposed on “a real estate agent” for “excluding a group of people from access to housing due to their origin.” On that occasion the trigger was an advertisement for an apartment that only accepted Spanish tenants. The fine that the OITND has just imposed is interesting for another reason. There are studies that suggest that real estate racism is far from being a one-time phenomenon. In … Read more

We have been searching for the origin of life in hot puddles for years. Bennu has shown that radioactive ice works just as well

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When the capsule OSIRIS-REx mission landed in the Utah desert in September 2023, NASA knew it had a treasure on its hands. We are talking about a bit of black dust that was collected millions of kilometers from Earth and that was about to rewrite one of the most important chapters of science: the origin of life. What we knew. Until now, the predominant theory regarding the origin of life told us that for “cook” all the basic components of life, such as amino acids, heat and liquid water were needed to make a kind of hot chemical soup. However, science has just flipped the script: the bricks of life They are not only formed in heatbut they can be born in the most extreme cold and under gamma radiation. And that completely changes our understanding of how we got here, and also of the possible presence of life in any corner of the Universe. The importance of Bennu. Definitely is the protagonist of this whole story, and it is nothing more than an asteroid of about 500 meters in diameter which functions as a fossil from the early solar system. But the most interesting thing is that it is approximately 4.6 billion years old, the same age as the Earth, although, unlike our planet, its surface has not melted or been drastically altered by geological processes throughout its ‘life’. And little by little we are learning more about this asteroid thanks to the samples brought by OSIRIS-REx that had already been confirmed in preliminary analyzes an unusual abundance of carbon, nitrogen, water and organic compounds. But what the team led by Penn State University has now found goes one step further. The surprise. This same team, when analyzing the isotopic composition of the amino acids present, especially glycine, came across a chemical signature that did not fit with the classical theory of formation in hot water. A radioactive freezer. Until now, we thought that amino acids in asteroids were formed primarily through aqueous alteration processes: ice melts from heat, liquid water interacts with rock, and voilacomplex organic chemistry. However, science now suggests that liquid water is not necessary for amino acids, an essential molecule of life, to form. Simply from simple ice they can arise without much problem. And there are many of these in the universe. The catalyst. The other important factor in this formation was the energywhich in this case came from gamma radiation emitted by radioactive elements that were abundant in the early solar system. And the energy could not come from thermal heat, since this process occurs in icy environments, long before the asteroid was compacted or heated enough to have liquid water. This explains why we found amino acids both in asteroids that underwent a lot of water heating and in those that remained “drier” and colder. Life, it seems, is more stubborn than we thought and can begin to develop in the most hostile conditions of the vacuum of space. An increasingly complex menu. But we are not just talking about simple molecules, since analyzes of Bennu samples have identified a variety of compounds. Among these is tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid, much more structurally complex, and vital for terrestrial life. Besides, DNA and RNA components have been detectedin addition to ammonia and amines, surpassing in richness many samples of famous meteorites such as that of Murchison. Backlash to Panspermia. If amino acids can easily form in irradiated ice grains in the solar nebula—before the planets even formed—it means that these “ingredients” are spread throughout the solar system. The fact that Bennu, a B-type carbonaceous asteroid, is packed with these compounds reinforces the idea that Earth didn’t have to produce all the components of life itself. A constant shower of asteroids and meteorites during the late intense bombardment could having “sown” our planet with a pre-made deep space biological starter kit. That is why in the end looking at a grain of Bennu dust is looking at ourselves. Or, at least, to the chemical great-great-grandparents who made us here today. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | NASA has just announced that this large asteroid has a 1% chance of impacting Earth. That’s not normal

The origin of December 25 is in an obscure third century antipope obsessed with the birth of Christ

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For years, we have repeated that Christmas is an invention. Not only does the Bible not specify that Jesus was born on December 25, it is that It is implausible that it was on that date. The gospels themselves detail that there were shepherds tending flocks outdoors (something unlikely in the Decembers of the time in Bethlehem), but the idea that the Romans were going to take a census on those dates is almost delirious. For this reason, we have repeated over and over again, the most reasonable explanation is that during the 4th century, the Church set the birth of Christ on December 25 to make it coincide (and in the process ‘Christianize’) the pagan festivities of Sol Invictus and Saturnalia. The only problem is that the latest available evidence goes in another direction: that of an obscure third century antipope who, obsessed with making a chronology of the scriptures, arrived at the date of the 25th independently. This is the story of how Hippolytus of Rome invented Christmas. The myth of the Christianization of Roman festivals Hail, Caesar! Io, Saturnalia! by Lawrence Alma-Tadema But let’s start by reviewing the best-known theory and seeing why some authors They have started to doubt them. As is often read on the Internet, this theory tells us that there is nothing coincidental about the December 25 election. On that date there was already a birthday, that of the “Unconquered Sun” (which would be the winter solstice for the Romans) and the Church, which during the 4th century struggled to — and would succeed — to become the official religion of the Empire, would have taken advantage of the pull of the pagan festival to place Christmas there. And the theory makes sense. However, it has a big problem; does not really resolve the question at hand: why 25? As explained Thomas C. Schmidta researcher at Princeton University, indeed the Roman Saturnalia fell on those dates, but not on that date. Certainly, it is difficult to be conclusive when we talk about that historical period, but everything seems to indicate that the strong day of Saturnalia fell closer to the 17th than to the 25th. In fact, if this approximation is true, we could not even say that it is the end of the ‘sigilarias’ (the celebrations – of a week – that followed the birth of the Unconquered Sun). Other festivities such as the Kalends (which were already celebrated in January) or the brumals (the solstice festival) do not fit well with the date in question either. That is to say, the idea that these Roman festivals are the origin of Christmas is, as I say, suggestive; but it still does not provide a convincing explanation as to why the Church chose the 25th. To answer that question we have to dig a little deeper. Since when is Christmas celebrated in “Christmas”? As says Schmidt.the first historical reference to December 25 as the day of the “birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea” can be found within the Filócalo Calendarin a document dated 336. It is a curious fact. And, although it is not something that explains the central issue of our question (the reason for December 25), it does give us a time frame: it tells us where to look for that explanation because, for practical purposes, we can assume that during the 4th century the festival was already relatively consolidated. That is, you would have to search a little before. Specifically to 222. In that year it is dated a statue of Hippolytus from Rome found in 1551 near the Via Tiburtina. The interesting thing about the statue is that, among its many inscriptions, it includes a lunar tablet that is kept today in the Vatican Library. Who is Hippolytus of Rome and what does he have to do with all this? Adoration of the Shepherds, by Gerard van Honthorst Hippolytus of Rome is a very multifaceted figure. Considered one of the great theologians and preachers of his time (in fact, Origen can be considered his disciple in some respects), he led a schism in 217 that led him to distance himself from the Church for a decade. He is, at the same time, the first antipope in history and a saint who, according to what is said, died martyred 235: he is, in fact, the only antipope canonized to this day. Well, we know that already in 220 after Christ, Hippolytus (in a commentary on the book of Daniel) defended that “The first coming of our Lord, in Bethlehem, was on Wednesday, December 25.” However, we also know that this text is manipulated. There are several versions with modified dates: among them, some that explain that the birth was in March or April. And the truth is that if Jesus was born in April many of our problems would be solved suddenly. However, looking only at the texts, it is not clear. That’s where the statue comes in. Because in the lunar table of the inscriptions, all past and future Easters appear calculated and, along with them, two key notes for us: the original Good Friday (which fell on March 25) and the “genesis” of the Lord (the year 2 AD) which fell on April 2. In the year 235, in a very ambitious work in which he traced the complete chronology of creation, Hippolytus It advanced that origin to March 25 for the simple (and, seen from today, absurd) reason that that was the date on which, according to their data, the world had been created. The true “genesis” of Christmas Paolo de Matteis But what does all this have to do with December 25? The answer is in the statue although I have overlooked it: specifically, in the word “genesis.” Because what is the “genesis” of a person? His birth or his conception? While it would be better for us if it were his birth (because it would fit with what the Bible says about Christmas), … Read more

Jeff Bezos fired the CEO of Blue Origin two years ago. In retrospect, it was the best decision he could have made.

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The most surprising fact about Blue Origin is that it was founded before SpaceX. Obsessed with space since childhood, Jeff Bezos saw the potential the aerospace industry would have and began selling thousands of Amazon shares to build a rocket company. He founded Blue Origin in 2000, when his net worth was around $6.1 billion. Two years later, a young Elon Musk obsessed with the conquest of Mars invested $100 million (more than half of what he had from the sale of PayPal) in founding SpaceX. Who would suspect that the company that would end up revolutionizing the sector would be that of the eccentric South African businessman and not that of the CEO of Amazon, who multiplied his assets by 30. The sleeping giant The Blue Origin coat of arms For almost two decades, Blue Origin was the butt of jokes in the sector: a company financed with infinite funds that sold 15-minute suborbital trips to millionaires, but when it came time to reach orbit it only produced powerpoints and legal lawsuits to stop its opponents. Blue Origin was aware of its apparent slowness in the face of SpaceX, to the point of deliberately adopting it as its motto. The company’s coat of arms includes two turtles and a Latin phrase that Jeff Bezos has publicly defended with pride: Gradatim Ferociter“step by step, fiercely.” But although projects such as the powerful BE-4 engines and the reusable New Glenn rocket had been in development for years, the reality is that Blue Origin did not step on the accelerator until the end of 2023, when Bezos said enough and caused a CEO change that has been like night and day. The Dave Limp Effect The first stage of the New Glenn rocket returning to the factory A little context. By 2023, under the leadership of Bob Smith, Blue Origin had become a bottleneck for US national security. The new Vulcan rocket from ULA (the company that had a monopoly on government launches until the arrival of SpaceX) depended on Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines, which kept falling behind schedule. At the end of that year, Jeff Bezos made the decision to remove Bob Smith and entrust the company to the executive who had led Amazon’s devices division during the creation of Alexa or Kindle: Dave Limp. Today, the engine crisis is more than resolved. Blue Origin has celebrated the delivery of the 30th engine to ULA, which will allow its partner to meet its launch obligations for the Space Force. But it has not been the only thing that Dave Limp has managed to channel as the company’s new CEO. Under old management, Blue Origin operated with a crippling risk aversion. He sought perfection on the first try, which translated into eternal development cycles. Limp arrived with the Amazon system under its arm: Blue Origin went from being an R&D company to becoming a real rocket factory willing to take risks. The internal culture had already begun to improve when, in February 2025, Limp laid off 10% of the workforce. “We grew too fast and lost focus,” he explained. But the effect was immediate: Blue Origin has become a company that is agile in decision-making. Instead of having a single rocket that’s scary to break, they’re a real rocket factory. So when the New Glenn finally took off, crashing on the landing attempt, it was not a single prototype: there were other stages of the rocket already on the production line. From New Glenn to Super New Glenn New Glenn vs Saturn V vs New Glenn 9×4 If anyone had doubts about Limp’s management, the events of this last year have dispelled them. Blue Origin has successfully completed two orbital launches that have completely changed the narrative, and which have soon been overshadowed by the company’s roadmap. He maiden flight of the New Glenn It was a partial success. The rocket reached orbit (and there are few rockets that can say that on the first try), but the first stage disintegrated while trying to land. Far from stopping to investigate the failure for a year, Blue Origin analyzed the data, adjusted the software and moved forward with the second attempt, as SpaceX would have done. In November, the second New Glenn successfully launched NASA’s ESCAPADE mission, two probes that were placed at the L2 Lagrange point awaiting gravitational assistance to travel toward Mars. But even a Martian mission can take a backseat when, against all odds, the first stage of the rocket landed on the Jacklyn maritime platform in the Atlantic Ocean. Blue Origin is only the second company to achieve the propulsive landing of a rocket. For the first time, SpaceX has a real competitor capable of recovering orbital-class boosters. One that uses methane for cleaner and cheaper combustion, and that promises to carry up to 45 tons to low Earth orbit. Shortly after the launch, taking advantage of the momentum of success, Blue Origin announced an improved version of the BE-4 engine and a new variant of the rocket: the New Glenn 9×4, which instead of seven engines in the first stage and two in the second, carries nine and four. In addition to a larger 8.7 meter diameter canopy, to launch larger space stations, telescopes and satellites. What does this mean? That Blue Origin is going for the “Super Heavy” category, in which SpaceX competes with the Falcon Heavy and the gigantic Starship, still in development. This variant of the New Glenn will be able to carry 70 tons to low orbit, which with Starship’s permission surpasses almost everything else on the market and, most importantly, with an architecture that has already flown and landed. To conquer the orbit and the Moon With the New Glenn 9×4 scheduled for 2027, Jeff Bezos and Dave Limp’s attention is now focused on scaling the rocket’s manufacturing and reusability capacity to reach 24 launches per year between now and then. SpaceX continues to play in its own league with 160 launches … Read more

We already have the missing ingredient to explain the origin of life

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What the mission OSIRIS-REx brought back to Earth in his capsule after being perched on the asteroid Bennu It could be very enriching, but the truth is that it has exceeded all our expectations. And in the past we have already been surprised to find water or carbon in space, but now NASA has confirmed than what has been seen on this asteroid: Bennu contains sugars essential for life as we know it. But not only that, among the grains of dust and rock, researchers have come across something they did not expect: a mysterious substance that they have already dubbed ‘space gum’. The discovery. After a long time analyzing the materials extracted by this probe, the results have finally been released to a published study in Nature Geoscience led by Yoshihiro Furukawa from Tohoku University (Japan) and which undoubtedly marks a milestone in astrobiology. From a sample of just 603 milligrams of Bennu dust, the team was able to detect a variety of sugars that are biologically significant, such as glucose. This marks something historic since it is the first time that this sugar that we know so well has been identified in a pristine extraterrestrial sample. But this has not only been the important thing, but also samples of ribose which is an essential component of RNA, which is responsible for transporting genetic information in human organisms and which undoubtedly It became popular during the COVID pandemic. Its importance. Until now we had seen signs of these samples in meteorites, but there was always the shadow of land pollution upon impact. Now this doubt disappears since the samples arrived sealed. What is undoubtedly important is that the joint presence of these sugars suggests that they were synthesized by abiotic processes (without life) inside the asteroid, probably through chemical reactions in the presence of water at the dawn of the solar system. Something that would be essential to be able to generate life. Space gum. If sugars are the “hard” science news, what has captured most of our attention is what Danny Glavin, a mission co-investigator at the Goddard Space Flight Center, describes as “space gum.” The analyzes revealed a unique polymeric material, a kind of complex, sticky substance that doesn’t fit the standard minerals we’re used to. That is why its composition is now under study and its presence indicates that Bennu is not only a pile of rubble, but a chemical laboratory that is capable of create organic macromolecules that we have living beings inside us. In addition to this “gum” and sugars, the samples contained star dust that is older than our own Sun, survivors of ancient supernovae that were trapped in the asteroid’s matrix. A ‘complete kit’. With this announcement, the Bennu puzzle seems to be complete since amino acids have been found that are essential for proteins, bases to form DNA, carboxylic acids and now sugars to give energy and structure to RNA. This strongly supports the hypothesis that carbon-rich asteroids, like Bennu, acted as “cosmic delivery boys” during the late intense bombardment, seeding the early Earth with all the ingredients necessary for the life we ​​are now enjoying to emerge. It is literally an asteroid that carries all the ingredients for life as we know it. A look at the past. The stability of compounds like glucose and xylose in these samples, along with the surprising presence of ribose (which is typically very unstable), tells us that Bennu’s parent body had very specific water activity and chemical conditions shortly after the solar system formed. As confirms NASA itselfwe are facing the strongest evidence that the building blocks of biology are not a miracle exclusive to Earth, but rather common products of the chemistry of the universe. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | We have left Moss out for nine months in space at the mercy of vacuum and radiation. He’s back alive and breaking records

The only photo you need to understand the scale of what Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ company, has just done

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In the absence of bananas, there is nothing like having five human operators in the photo to understand the scale of the New Glenn rocket, whose first stage is 57 meters high and seven meters in diameter. landed successfully on a barge in the Atlantic. SpaceX has company. So far, the club of companies capable of landing their orbital-class rockets so they can be reused had only one partner: SpaceX. For a decade now, Elon Musk’s company has single-handedly dominated the reuse game, landing and taking off again up to 500 times with the Falcon 9 thanks to a reliability that is now more than routine. What you see in this photo is the breaking of that monopoly. The first successful landing of the enormous New Glenn rocket, achieved on only its second flight, demonstrates that orbital reuse is no longer a matter of a single company. Although Blue Origin, founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, is far behind SpaceX, it has just taken a giant leap that Bezos summarized with a Latin expression: Gradatim Ferociter (“step by step, fiercely”). As large as graceful. Unlike the Falcon 9, which measures 70 meters and can put about 22 tons of cargo into low orbit, the New Glenn stands out with 98 meters in height and a planned capacity of 45 tons. If we had not seen SpaceX catch the Super Heavy (the first stage of Starship) three times with the arms of the launch tower, it would seem more unlikely to us that a rocket like the New Glenn would be able to land gracefully in the center of a barge in the Atlantic Ocean. And without getting covered in soot. There is another fundamental detail in the photo: the rocket fuselage is clean. Unlike the Falcon 9 boosters, which return covered in the characteristic black soot caused by kerosene combustion, the New Glenn appears almost pristine. The reason is that its seven powerful BE-4 engines use methane and liquid oxygen (a combination of cryogenic propellants known as methalox). This fuel is not only more efficient and cheaper, but it burns much cleaner, facilitating inspection and reconditioning tasks for the next flight. With this landing, the New Glenn has become the first methalox rocket to successfully recover a first stage from an orbital flight, ahead of the Zhuque 3 from the Chinese company Landspace (and with permission from Starship, which also uses methalox, but has never reached orbit). Things are coming. Blue Origin’s sweet moment begins now. In an interview with Ars Technicathe company’s CEO, Dave Limp, has confirmed that the aggressive 2026 goal is to complete between 12 and 24 missions. The company has announced a launch price of about $70 million, a figure almost identical to what SpaceX charges for a Falcon 9. But the New Glenn not only competes with the Falcon 9, but also threatens to burst the market by competing directly in the league of the Falcon Heavy, but with the advantage of a unique and fully reusable first stage. As for the rocket that has landed, its next payload will not be a probe or a satellite, but the Blue Moon Mark 1 lunar module, which the company plans to launch in the first quarter of 2026 to demonstrate to NASA They are ready for the moon race. Image | Jeff BezosBlue Origin In Xataka | Blue Origin now has a golden opportunity to overtake SpaceX on trips to the Moon. And he is taking advantage of it

The origin of the oceans on Earth has always been somewhat mysterious. Now we are clearer how it happened

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A team of scientists, analyzing the tiny and invaluable samples of the asteroid Ryugu brought to Earth by the Hayabusa2 missionhas made a discovery that shakes our understanding of water in the early solar system. The discovery, published in the prestigious magazine Naturereveals that liquid water flowed in Ryugu’s progenitor body more than a billion years after its formation. Something that changes our paradigms. Contradiction. This new discovery contradicts the belief that water activity on asteroids It was a phenomenon exclusive to the first moments of the history of our solar system. And most importantly, it could force us to recalculate how much water these bodies brought to a young Earth. Many doubts. The story of how our planet became an aquatic world still has gaps. One of the most accepted theories is that carbonaceous asteroidsformed from ice and dust in the confines of the Solar Systemacted as a cosmic “water delivery” service for the inner planets. JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission has provided us with a unique opportunity to study this process by bringing back 5.4 grams of pure material from the asteroid Ryugu. And this is very important. While meteorites that fall to Earth are altered by contact with the atmosphere and environment, the Ryugu samples are a near-perfect time capsule. This is because a perfect record of water activity is preserved within it, proof that fluids moved through its rocks sooner than could be expected. This is something fundamental that changes the way we think about where the water in asteroids comes from and ends up on our planets. Isotopic clock. To reach this conclusion, the team turned to a “radiometric dating“based on isotopes: the radioactive decay of Lutetium-176 into Hafnium-176. Something that can be similar to the ‘Carbon-14’ test that is better known. In an object as old as Ryugu’s father, you would expect the proportion of these elements to follow a predictable line, known as isochronewhich dates back to 4,565 million years ago. But Ryugu’s data did not fit these models. The samples deviated from that ‘reference’ line showing an excess of hafnium (or a deficiency of lutetium). In order to understand why, it was first ruled out that it was due to accelerated disintegration or the effects of cosmic radiation. This made the conclusion point differently than that, at some point, a liquid ‘washed’ and took away some of the lutetium from the asteroid’s rocks. The reasons. The event that triggered this late flow of water was, most likely, a violent impact. While the first aqueous activity, which occurred in the first seven million years of the solar system, was driven by heat from the decay of radioactive elements, this second event was different. Specifically, we are talking about an impact on the body of Ryugu’s ‘father’ that would have generated enough heat to melt the ice that had remained frozen inside for eons, and at the same time, would have created fractures in the rock that emerged as channels for liquid water to flow. On the Primitive Earth. If asteroids like Ryugu’s father were able to retain not only hydrated minerals but also large amounts of water ice for more than a billion years, their potential to ‘water’ other planets is much greater than expected. Current models of the formation of terrestrial planets could be underestimating the amount of water contributed by these bodies. According to this study, Ryugu-like planetesimals could have entered two to three times more water into Earth than is commonly estimated. This would have direct implications on our understanding of the origin of the oceans, the atmosphere and in general the conditions that made it possible for us all to be living here. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope Carl Wang In Xataka | The last asteroid loaded with precious metals to graze the Earth escaped us. For the next one we already have a plan

Millions of users used the legendary Windows XP key “FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8”. Now we know its origin

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Many users – and I included myself – almost knew by heart the activation key for Windows XP“FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8”. With it it was possible to install a valid and official copy of the operating system that Microsoft launched in October 2001, but until now it was not known where that key had come from. Now we know. what has happened. Dave W. Pullmer is a famous engineer and developer who worked his entire career at Microsoft and who, in addition to being in charge of the task manager or ZIP folders, had another task: working on the first version of the Windows Product Activation (WPA) system. Precisely that allowed him to know from the inside what happened with that activation key, and He told that story on Twitter. It was not stolen, but leaked. As Plummer explains, no one hacked Microsoft or its systems to obtain it, nor did they manage to steal it. There was actually a mistake on the part of the development team, and a “disastrous leak” occurred. There were no social networks, but it didn’t matter. That leak ended up going viral and millions of users found out about the trick almost immediately, something surprising considering that conventional social networks did not yet exist. There was no need: a warez (pirated software) group called “devilsOwn” released the key five weeks before the launch of Windows XP, and the key was published on IRC, online forums, Usenet groups, warez websites and especially P2P applications such as eDonkey or KaZaA. How activation keys were calculated. The WPA system generated a key that was based on each user’s hardware: “the identifiers of the CPU, RAM and other components” were taken into account, and were sent to Microsoft along with that activation key to be validated. If errors or suspicious keys were detected, that installation was labeled as pirated. Master key. But FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 was a valid volume license key that became part of the “white list” that the key validation system had. If that key was used, the servers assumed that it was an enterprise volume license, and that “there is no need to call home.” Thus, when installing Windows XP, users simply had to answer “Yes” when asked if they had an activation key, they entered the famous key and thus avoided checking it. It was like having a master key. You could even update XP. When using this activation key, the operating system started fully functional and without activating small user warning mechanisms such as watermarks or a 30-day countdown. It was even possible to overcome the controls that were applied to receive updates. Although Microsoft detected and banned activation key, new illegitimate patches and “cracks” appeared who managed to make this activation mechanism persist for years. Now you couldn’t use it. As Plummer explains, you could technically still use it on old Windows XP installation disks if you could find one, but Microsoft’s own servers that handled the validation process were disabled years ago. And even if it wasn’t, the key ended up being part of the blacklist of prohibited activation keys, meaning you couldn’t use it to validate a legitimate copy of Windows XP. Image | Internet Archive In Xataka | Nostalgia does not disappear. So much so that there are people developing a new web browser for Windows XP

Now the science ‘guilt’ to the origin of livestock

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For a long time it has been a suspicion, a logical hypothesis but difficult to prove: that our decision to Domesticate animals and live with them unleashed the great pests that have ravaged humanity. Now, the biggest study of ancient DNA of pathogens ever has confirmed it. An thorough analysis. Analyzing 1,313 human remains of up to 37,000 years old, a team from the University of Copenhagen has created a genetic map of diseases and has found the exact moment in which everything changed: about 6,500 years ago, with the arrival of livestock. A 37,000 years map. The study, published in the prestigious Nature MagazineIt is not a simple confirmation. It is a time trip at the molecular level that draws 37,000 years of the silent struggle between humans and pathogens in Eurasia. The results in this case demonstrates that the change to an agricultural and livestock lifestyle was the entrance door for the Zoonotic diseasesthose transmitted from animals to humans, which drastically increased the burden of morbidity and molded our history and our own genetics. How they did. To achieve this feat, the scientists analyzed sequencing data of 1,313 old individuals, covering from the upper Paleolithic to historical times. In their teeth and bones they found the genetic footprints of a true catalog of horrors of the past. What diseases they found. After performing this molecular analysis, they were able to determine the presence of several diseases that now heard them can enter normal, but the same did not happen at that time. To understand them better, they can be summarized as follows: Bubonic plague (andErsinia Pestis): They identified 42 cases, 35 of them completely new, greatly expanding the map of the plague in ancient times. Lepros (Mycobacterium leprae): It was detected in seven individuals in Scandinavia, appearing from the Iron Age, which supports the theory that the trade of squirrel skins could facilitate its transmission. Recurring fever (Borrelia recurrentis): A disease transmitted by lice with high mortality. The study points to 34 new cases, demonstrating that it was a much more common plague than was thought. Hepatitis B: 28 cases were found, confirming their presence for millennia. Malaria: nine infections located in three different species of Plasmodium, with the oldest case dated in the individual of the Bronze Age in Central Europe. The moment in which everything changed. The most resounding conclusion of the study is that although the human being has always lived with pathogens, those of Zoonotic origin They are not detected until about 6,500 years ago. Its appearance coincides with the generalized domestication of livestock and the beginning of large -scale agriculture. The peak of these new diseases was reached about 5,000 years ago, a period that coincides with the great migrations of the pastors of the Euroasy steppe, who, together with their herds, could have acted as transmission vectors throughout the continent. Why not before. “It is a beautiful idea that makes sense: livestock brought zoonotic diseases. But there really is very few overwhelming tests about it,” Martin Sikora saidauthor of the study. Until now, the evidence was scarce because most infections do not leave visible marks in the bones. But as they point out in the study, examining a large number of pathogens and looking for some temporal trend that will support that hypothesis has managed to find the necessary evidence. Older plague cases. The team has identified the presence of Y. Pestis In three individuals between 5,700 and 5,300 years ago, located in western Russia, Central Asia and Lake Baikal. This finding pulverizes the previous record (a woman in Sweden from 5,000 years ago, also discovered by them) and defies the idea that the first plague outbreaks were isolated events. An millenary coinfection. A hunter-gatherer who lived in Russia 11,300 years ago showed evidence of a double infection in his body: diphtheria (C. Diphtheriae) and Helicobacter pylori. This is a fairly unusual combination that demonstrates how complex the world of diseases is, even before agriculture. We are the children of the Neolithic (and its pests). For Carles Lalueza-Fox, geneticist of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology of Barcelona, ​​this work is a fundamental step to understand the pandemics not only as tragedies, but as “engines of social and political change” and factors that have modeled our genomes. In this way, the study provides the direct evidence that was missing for one of the most important transitions in human history. The Neolithic Revolution not only brought us agriculture, villages and eventually, cities; It also inaugurated a new era of diseases. Images | Stijn Te Strake National Institute of Allergy In Xataka | The ten most common (and deadly) diseases that we do not know, we cannot or do not want to cure

We have detected a mysterious and very potent radio signal of a nearby galaxy. And its origin is a complete enigma

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In March 2025, an energy pulse as powerful as the one that emits our Sun in several days hit the earth. It lasted just a few milliseconds, but its detection, and above all, the location of its origin, mark a before and after modern astronomy. Now a team from Northwestern University has managed to identify the origin of the fast radio gust (FRB) brighter ever registered. Although there are still many questions to answer. What is a fast radius gust. To understand the magnitude of this finding you must first know what we are talking about. The astronomers themselves describe THE FRB LIKE a cosmic lighthouse of immense power that ignites during a fraction of second In a vast and distant universe. These signals are incredibly energy and travel for millions of light years to reach the earth’s telescopes. Detect one of these bursts It is already an achievement. However, the real challenge is Respond to the origin of these bursts of energy. Until now, the frb that were repeated, which gave scientists multiple opportunities to triangulate the position, had been precisely located. Now they have done it with only one signal. A “photo” with unprecedented precision. The protagonist has been baptized as FRB 20250316A which was detected on March 16, 2025. To achieve this, it is where our current technological capacity enters. Thanks to a telescope network called Chime Outriggerastronomers were able to locate this burst of energy with an amazing accuracy of 13 parsecs, which is equivalent to 42 light years. If we move this measure to the universe itself, we could talk that they have been able to point out a specific house in an entire city seen from space. Something that marks preceding, is that the first time it is achieved for a burst that has apparently been a unique event. An origin that was almost empty. The address from where this signal came to a spiral galaxy called NGC 4141. At that time, all the great telescopes of the world, from the MMT in Arizona to him Keck in HawaiiThey turned to observe that little corner of the universe. Everyone tried to look for some explanation to this event, but what they found did not square them at all. And it is that in the exact place of the outbreak of this signal there is nothing. Not a supermagnnetic neutron star (a Magnetar), Neither a nebula, nor any continuous radio source. A very quiet neighborhood. When looking around the point that scientists had located, you could think that there would be something spectacular. But nothing is further from reality. It was seen that the signal could not come from another close place. Specifically, the formation of stars closest to the localized point is 190 Persecs away. In this way, the origin is located in a really quiet region of the universe. There have been no more repetitions of the event. Despite looking intensely for months, the signal has not reappeared. This is key. Many frb are “repeating”, emitting bursts sporadically. If it were, given its closeness and power, we should have detected weaker pulses. Statistical calculations are clear: the probability that it is a known repeater and we have only seen this bright pulse is very small (with a tension of more than 3.7σ, a very high level of certainty in physics). What could cause this signal. This combination of factors puts the main theories about the origin of FRB. The most accepted hypothesis is that they come from young magnetares, neutron stars with incredibly powerful magnetic fields. These objects are usually born in active star formation regions. The fact that FRB 20250316A is displaced from its “cradle” could mean that the Magnetar He is older of the one that is thought (between 200,000 and 3 million years) and has moved away. However, this clashes with the active life that is presupposed to these objects. The study also rules out other scenarios, such as outbreaks gamma rays Recent The “cleaning” of the environment and the lack of any residual glow in radio or X -rays do not fit with the models of cataclysms such as the Fusion of two neutron starsat least not immediately. The beginning of a new era. Beyond the enigma of the origin of this particular signal, this phenomenon marks a before and after in astrology. The capacity of the Chime/FRB system to locate unique events with this precision The field will revolutionize. It will no longer be necessary to wait for a source to be repeated to be able to study it in detail. Now, astronomers will be able to create a large -scale map of the environments of hundreds of FRB, allowing to compare the unique bursts and those that are repeated every so often. Perhaps in this way we discover that, after all, not all FRB are born from the same type of event. We may be facing two (or more) different phenomena that produce the same type of signal. The universe is plagued by mysteries. From how The stars were formed to him How the ‘big bang’ formedthey still have Many intrigues For our scientists. This makes every time there are more fronts in open -open astronomy And also the hardware field for put our best teams pointing to space with the aim of increasing our knowledge. In Xataka | There is a radio signal arriving at Earth since 1988. The pulsar from which an important mystery is hidden

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