origin

Western scientists have been debating the origin of Kamo’oalewa for years. China went looking for him

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If everything goes according to schedule, the Chinese Tianwen-2 mission will be about to arrive at Kamo’oalewa, the co-orbital object on Earth to which it is heading to discern once and for all whether it is an asteroid or a lunar fragment. Actually this It is not the only coorbital on our planet. There are other objects that take exactly the same time as us to go around the Sun, so they can be said to be our traveling companions. However. z Kamo’oalewa has been one of the best characterized since it was discovered in 2016. Since then, European and American scientists have been striving to find out its origin, leaving the balance more tilted on some occasions towards the lunar fragment and on others towards the asteroid. But it is clear that to have a definitive answer we need to analyze samples of its surface. In order to obtain them, China jumped to the rescue. A mission to answer once and for all. The Tianwen-2 mission was launched in May 2025 bound for Kamo’oalewa. In the next few days it should reach the satellite, to start taking samples next month. The samples will later make the return journey and land on our planet in 2027 so that scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences can investigate them. Then we will finally know where our traveling companion comes from. Two hypotheses, many changes of opinion. Kamo’oalewa was first observed in April 2016, thanks to the Pan-STARRS telescope at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii. That same year, a team of European scientists made his first characterization. Thanks to them we had very specific information about this object. For example, its orbit was calculated and its thermal inertia was analyzed. That is, the speed with which its surface responds to changes in temperature. After that characterization, further investigations were carried out at the Arizona Planetary Science Institute. From those analyzes two hypotheses emerged for its origin: it could be an asteroid that escaped from the asteroid belt or a fragment of the Moon that jumped from there due to a large impact. This last hypothesis arose from spectroscopic observations made with the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT). The spectra indicated that this object is very rich in silicates, like the lunar samples collected on the Apollo missions. In addition, there was a reddish band that seemed to correspond to the spectrum of lunar soil that has received many impacts from micrometeorites and solar wind. The first hypothesis returns. This same year, a team of European scientists has carried out a new study in which the probabilities of both hypotheses are analyzed. Clearly, the asteroid option wins over the lunar fragment option. China to the rescue China to the rescue. As Tianwen-2 approaches Kamo’oalewa, Chinese scientists have begun to make their own characterizations from a distance. For example, a study was recently published in which they compared the spectrum they measured in Arizona with that of a chondrite bombarded by laser. The chondrites They are rocky asteroids that have impacted the Earth in the form of meteorites. Laser bombardment mimics the effects of several million years of impacts. When analyzing the spectrum of this manipulated chondrite, they saw a reddish band very similar to that of Kamo’oalewa. Therefore, it is possible that it is an asteroid rich in silicates. There doesn’t have to be just them. on the moon. Specifically, they believe that it may be from the Flora family, coming from the asteroid belt. The hypothesis that is winning. Currently the asteroid hypothesis wins, although there will be no clear answer until the Tianwen-2 samples reach Earth. After many debates by scientists from Europe and the United States, the answer will be brought by a Chinese ship. This, once again, shows us how important it is to work as a team to answer the big questions of the Universe. Image | 中国新闻社 In Xataka | There is a silent race to take over the Moon’s waves: dozens of companies have claimed part of its spectrum

Amazon had everything ready to attack the Starlink monopoly. Until Blue Origin exploded into pieces

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On April 20, 2023, the inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Starship took place. Less than four minutes later, the space vehicle explodedbut that was not what was amazing. The amazing thing was that all the company staff celebrated that explosion applauding wildlyas if it had been an extraordinary success. And the truth is that it was, because this launch was part of the company’s incremental philosophy: it doesn’t matter if the rockets explode, because (for the moment) that is what they have to do. When the Blue Origin rocket exploded last weekthere was very little to celebrate. And that is a big difference between both companies. This was not an explosion “by design”. There is a critical difference between the Starship prototype explosions and that of the New Glenn: intent. While SpaceX uses its tests to push its rockets to the limit and learn from those often controlled destructions, the New Glenn that exploded a few days ago was theoretically a production vehicle intended to complete operational missions. It’s one thing to lose a rocket with no payload that is designed to learn from mistakes, but quite another to lose one with a payload that real customers depend on. Blue Origin runs out of ramp. The economic impact of this accident goes beyond the cost of the lost vehicle. The fundamental problem is that Blue Origin currently has only one operational launch pad for the New Glenn, the LC-36, and damage to the tower and support systems could paralyze the company’s activity for months. In a recent update the company indicates who is already working on that ramp “And we have a good reconstruction plan in place.” Bad news for Kuiper. This explosion has also left in the air the deployment of the first 49 satellites of Amazon’s Juiper network, which depended on this launch. The company needs to put thousands of satellites into orbit to compete with Starlink, and every month of delay in the New Glenn is a month of advantage for Elon Musk. NASA and the lunar calendar. But the New Glenn is also a key piece for the logistics of NASA’s Artemis missions. The explosion may force the space agency to rethink its priorities and even delay missions to the Moon planned for the coming years. NASA is running out of plans B, and is increasingly dependent on a single supplier (SpaceX) when that is precisely what Blue Origin could have mitigated. Reliability pays off over time. We have a good example of SpaceX’s trial and error strategy with the Falcon 9. Today it is one of the most reliable rockets in the world with a success rate of over 99%: to date it has carried out 644 missions, of which 641 have been successful. Failures like that of September 2016 They served to learn and mature, and a decade later the Falcon 9 have become almost “boring” due to their reliability. Blue Origin seems to have wanted to skip stages by coming to market with a product that wanted to be perfect, but reality has shown that it is very difficult to achieve that reliability without stumbling. And this setback has been big. The opportunity cost. It is estimated that the economic losses of the destroyed vehicle they hover 150 million dollars, but the true cost is in the penalties for delays and the loss of confidence of future customers. The technical and reputational debt that Blue Origin faces is notable, and it remains to be seen how a company that needed success more than ever will react. Monopoly by accident. The clearest consequence of this setback is also striking: the winner is SpaceX, which is even more dominant than it was in the space launch market. The explosion of the New Gless is terrible news because it eliminates competition, and without a rival that can guarantee launches, access to space will continue to be a bottleneck controlled by a single company and, of course, by its founder, Elon Musk. The tycoon, yes, published a message in X upon hearing about the explosion saying “I’m sorry to see this, I hope you recover quickly.” Image | Blue Origin In Xataka | In 2018, Elon Musk put his own car into orbit. Eight years later it is still circling the Earth

The horror movie of the summer is ‘Backrooms’, and its origin is so surprising that there is a rumor that its director is not real

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‘Backrooms’ premieres today in the United States (it arrives in Spain on June 5). The film, produced by the unstoppable indie A24is expected to be the horror bomb of the summer (hand in hand with the already tremendous ‘Obsession’, which is putting its hand in the face of ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu‘). It has 87% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and is expected to open between $45 and $50 million, which would be the biggest debut in the studio’s history. Of course, it faces an unexpected controversy: there are those who say that its director, the very young Kane Parsons, has not really directed the film. What has happened? Days before the premiere, this unexpected rumor has circulated online: a more experienced director would have been working from the shadows. Osgood Perkins, producer of the project and director of the great ‘Longlegs‘. Mark Duplass, who stars in the film alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve and Finn Bennett, responded in X: “I don’t remember seeing you on set. When I was there, Kane was 100% in control. More than many directors three times his age.” The origin of ‘Backrooms’. As we already explained in detailon May 12, 2019, an anonymous user posted on /x/, the paranormal board on 4chan, a photograph without a signature or context. It looked like a kind of abandoned office: yellowish carpet and walls, fluorescent lighting… It was ridiculously disturbing. The next day someone added a description that spoke of “not clipping out of reality” (a term taken from a glitch of video games in which the player falls into a geometric void beyond the mapping), and ending up trapped in a space that extends infinitely. The backrooms They are an extreme version of what the internet calls liminal spaces: hotel hallways at three in the morning, empty waiting rooms, closed shopping centers, underground parking lots without cars… Recognizable places but stripped of their function and of the people who normally inhabit them. Just like has been explainedthese types of environments activate the same response as the phenomenon of uncanny valleybut applied to physical places. The brain identifies these spaces as known and at the same time does not know how to read them logically. Jump to the cinema. Kane Parsons was 16 years old when he posted his The Backrooms (Found Footage): nine minutes in first person with a VHS filter, in which someone was chased by a strange presence in one of these spaces. The series that followed this first video, full of secret research institutes and dimensional experiments in the eighties, exceeded 197 million views. A24 bought the rights a year later. Youth, divine treasure. One of the apparent hooks of the A24 film, the extreme youth of its director, has worked against it. The press has underlined Parsons’ youthand some conspiracy theorists consider it to be a marketing strategy. In reality, what this talks about is the current situation in Hollywood, which has produced franchised cinema for two decades in which the director is, fundamentally, a technical executor under the creative supervision of the studio. The system of great sagas has normalized the idea that a good film cannot come from the criteria of a single person, a young person without credentials. We viewers are distrustful because that is what the industrial cinema of recent years has taught us. The explanation. Parsons was born in 2005, the year YouTube launched. “YouTube, more than a cultural reference for me, has been the way I know how to do everything I know how to do,” declared. Parsons doesn’t have the kind of resume that the traditional production circuit demands, but rather his only credential is a massive audience of followers who have been reacting to his work in real time for three years. And that is capable of arousing the suspicions of anyone who is buried by the industrial machine logic of modern Hollywood. In Xataka | When a town found a dead whale on its beaches, it decided to dynamite it. 55 years later they still celebrate it

Blue Origin had a plan of 12 launches for this year. A fireball at Cape Canaveral just changed everything

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Bad news for Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company. And his New Glenn rocket It exploded this morning into a huge fireball while conducting a ground test at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The accident, which fortunately left no injuries, is a good blow for the company in his race to compete with SpaceXjust when this was going to be his definitive breakout year. That has passed. Around 9:00 p.m. local time (3:00 a.m. on Friday on the Spanish peninsula), the New Glenn exploded during a ‘hotfire’, a test in which the rocket engines are turned on while the vehicle remains anchored to the platform, without taking off. The objective of this test is to check the operation of the engines before a launch. Blue Origin itself He spoke on his X account of an “anomaly” and confirmed that all personnel were located and safe. According to collect The Guardian, the fireball destroyed the platform and the orange glow was seen more than 180 kilometers away, while residents of nearby towns noticed tremors in their homes. A year that was going to be the year of takeoff. The blow is especially hard because of the moment it arrives. Blue Origin had marked 2026 as the year to finally gain pace. Its CEO, Dave Limp, even stated in an interview with Ars Technica that the company could reach double digits in launches this year, until matching its production rate of 12 rockets, and even considering reaching 24 if manufacturing continued to improve. They also mentioned the 12 launches in their request to the FAA to operate from Cape Canaveral. The problem is that it was more of an ambitious goal than a realistic forecast, since the New Glenn has started the year without having flown again since November and experiencing several setbacks. The explosion has now turned that goal into a chimera. Bezos’ reaction. The founder of Blue Origin took the drama out of the matter, counting in Elon Musk also reacted to the event briefly: “Very unfortunate. Rockets are difficult.” Why it is important. The New Glenn It is the key piece with which the company wants to confront the dominance of SpaceX, and it is also called to play a central role in NASA’s Artemis programwhich seeks to return astronauts to the Moon. Just a few days before the explosion, the agency had awarded Blue Origin a contract to participate in the construction of a lunar base. The moment could not have been worse. A streak of setbacks. Blue Origin has accumulated a series of catastrophic misfortunes. On its third flight, in April, the rocket managed to land its reusable booster on a barge at sea, but its upper stage failed and failed to place the satellite it was transporting for AST SpaceMobile into orbit, which ended up falling and disintegrating in the atmosphere. That failure sparked an investigation by the FAA, the US air regulator, which just last week had given the rocket the green light to fly again. Thursday’s test was precisely the preparation of its fourth mission, in which it was going to deploy satellites of the network Leo from Amazona direct competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. Amazon clarified that none of those satellites were on board at the time of the explosion. Damage assessment. Both the FAA and NASA spoke out quickly. The regulator pointed out that the test was outside the activities it licenses and that it did not affect air traffic. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, on the other hand counted that “spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing a new heavy-lift capability is extraordinarily difficult.” The agency promised to support a thorough investigation and, above all, to evaluate how what happened affects its lunar programs. And now what. What we will now see is how Blue Origin rewrites its calendar. NASA was counting on New Glenn to launch the first missions to its lunar base this year, and the agency itself has acknowledged that they still do not know how this accident will affect the mission with Artemis. On the other hand, SpaceX has its own problems with the Starship, also under review by the FAAwhile preparing a historic IPO. The terrain is quite hot. Cover image | NASA Space Flight In Xataka | SpaceX seemed unreachable in its race to the Moon. Blue Origin is proving that anything is possible

We had been searching for the origin of the most massive black holes for years. The answer is a cosmic carom of extreme violence

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All black holes They are the fruit of a very violent activity. However, there are some for which the known processes are insufficient. Now, an international team of scientists has discovered how the most massive black holes in the Universe form. It is a process so violent that it needs a huge star cluster to support it. Two groups of black holes. This team of scientists has analyzed the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC4), which includes 153 detections of black hole mergers through gravitational waves. By analyzing all the available data focusing on the spin of black holes, they have seen that all of them can be divided into two large groups. On the one hand, black holes of lower mass, which arose from an ordinary stellar collapse. On the other hand, very massive black holes, arising from secondary mergers in the environment of dense star clusters. Okay, now that you understand. Generally, black holes are formed when a very massive star that has already run out of fuel collapses. This gives rise to an explosion in which the outer layers of the star are expelled, leaving only a very dense core. It is so dense that it generates a great gravitational pull and nothing can escape from it. On the other hand, there are such massive holes that do not fit with this process. They are believed to be second generation black holes. That is, two black holes they merge and then the result merges with another black hole, becoming much more immense. That would be the second group that has been detected in the GWTC4 catalog. Something doesn’t add up. This black hole merger process is so violent that, as soon as the first merger occurs, the result would fly away like a rocket For it to stay in place and merge with a third black hole, something is needed to retain it. These scientists have discovered that these are densely populated star clusters. There are so many stars in them that the gravitational attraction of all of them keeps the black hole still in place. And what does spin have to do with it? Spin is a parameter that refers to the spin of black holes. When formed in the conventional way, the spin is predictable and perfectly aligned with the star that gave rise to the black hole. On the other hand, when they are formed by a process as violent as these consecutive fusions, the spin takes a random direction, but a value predictable from the sum of the spins of the rest of the black holes. These scientists, therefore, saw that all the data coincided with that hypothesis: consecutive mergers in the environment of a very populated star cluster. A forbidden zone. On the other hand, these scientists found a forbidden strip of stellar size in which black holes could not form. There are small or huge ones, but not medium ones. Although this is something that was intuited, the complete set of data they have obtained gives a twist to what is known about the formation of black holes. Relationship with nuclear physics. As explained by these scientists, this detected mass limit seems to be related to a series of nuclear reactions that take place inside stars. Stellar nuclear reactions are nuclear fusion. Humans have learned to control nuclear fission, but it poses risks that would be solved if we also mastered nuclear fusion. Until now It is being a complicated challengebut perhaps these new findings, obtained thanks to gravitational wave analysis, could shed a little more light on this research. Everything adds up. Image | NASA, ESA, STScI and A. Sarajedini (University of Florida)/NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI) In Xataka | What happens if you fall into a black hole, explained simply in an overwhelming NASA simulation

The hantavirus outbreak has sparked a search to find its origin. Ushuaia fears that this will cost it its tourism

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Until a few days ago, the vast majority of Spaniards had never heard of hantavirus. Probably not Ushuaiathe capital of the province of Tierra del Fuego. The crisis unleashed by the MV Hondius cruise ship, however, has united both names in one of the most worrying episodes so far in the turbulent 2026, at least in health terms. And so worries in Ushuaia. A lot. Although there are still unknowns about how, where and when the viral outbreak broke out, in the southern region they fear that what happened affects one of the pillars of their economy: tourism. They even talk about a “smear campaign”. And the hantavirus arrived. Although there are still many months ahead until December, 2026 seemed basically doomed to be the year of the iran waroil through the clouds, Maduro’s arrest or (in another order of things) the North American World Cup. Now that list is expanded with one more item: the hantavirus. Since on May 2 A viral outbreak was confirmed on board the MV Hondius, the world is waiting for what happens to the ship, its passengers and the chain of possible people infected by a virus that until almost two weeks ago was almost completely unknown in Europe. In a place in Patagonia… In Ushuaia, capital of the province of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina), one of the southernmost cities of the planet, the evolution of the outbreak is also being followed with interest. Although there what really generates debate is not the last hour about the outbreak or what may happen from now on, but what has happened in recent weeks. The reason is very simple: the fateful voyage of the MV Hondius left its port April 1. When the ship set sail, there were about 140 passengers on board, including the septuagenarian Dutchman who only a few days later (on the 6th) began to show symptoms of infection. More than a month has passed since then, four long weeks during which events have happened at breakneck speed. That first patient died on April 11, days later his wife did and since then at least one more dead and half a dozen infected. As for the MV Hondius, after the evacuation of the last hours on board the ship there are only a few dozen of people who will continue heading to the Netherlands. What has not changed is the question that authorities have been asking for days: Where is the origin of the outbreak? Where the hell did the Dutch couple get infected? A remote landfill. Taking into account the incubation period of hantavirus, which ranges between one and six weeks, authorities are working with the hypothesis that the epicenter of the outbreak is not on the ship. That is, the most plausible theory (at least in appearance) is that the virus they took him to the MV Hondius one or more travelers who were already carrying it before navigation began. That made all eyes turn first to the couple of Dutch retirees and second to Ushuaia, the place where they embarked. In recent days the conversation has revolved around a very specific point in the town: a garbage dump located about seven kilometers from the center of Ushuaia, a place where, assures The Countryepidemiologists are looking for traces of infected rodents. Hantavirus infection, let us remember, is contracted mainly by coming into contact with the urine, feces or saliva of certain rodents. The most common thing is that contagion occurs by inhaling remains of this waste in poorly ventilated spaces, but it could also be contracted in a large landfill. The unknowns begin. That a Dutch couple (he 70 years old, she 69) stop by a mega urban garbage dump before embarking on a luxury cruise through the South Atlantic may sound strange, but it makes a lot of sense. The MV Hondius trip was not just any trip. It was planned as an expedition cruise to contemplate Atlantic fauna. And the Ushuaia landfill is not just any garbage dump either. Lovers of birds and natural photography usually go there to enjoy the species that fly over it, including scavenger birds such as the white matamico. In recent days it has been published that some of the travelers who boarded the MV Hondius visited the dump. The Country even interviewed to a guide who was in the area with some of the tourists from the cruise, although the Dutch couple was not among them. Did they get infected there? Is that the epicenter and genesis of the outbreak? Hard to know. First because the marriage (unfortunately) has died. Second, because before boarding the cruise the couple had made a long road trip that took them to different parts of South America. In fact, it is believed that they were four months visiting several countries on the continent, including Chile and Uruguay. “We have no evidence”. This fact (that the first deaths were in other parts of South America) has been strongly emphasized by the authorities of Ushuaia, who do not quite understand that the couple was infected in their territory. The reason? The main one, insists Juan Facundo Petrina, general director of Epidemiology and Environmental Health of the province, is that the hantavirus is not a problem in the area. “In Tierra del Fuego we have no record of cases in our history,” clarifies to the BBC. “Specifically, since 1996, when the National Surveillance System included it among the notifiable diseases, we have not had a single case in Tierra del Fuego.” More than 1,000 km north. As if that were not enough, Petrina details a few more facts. To begin with, the hantavirus endemic area is more than 1,500 km to the north. Also remember that there are no records confirming that the mouse subspecies that transmits the disease lives in the area. “And if rodents begin to move, since they do not respect borders, it is important to remember that we are an island,” duck. Another key that … Read more

Blue Origin equals SpaceX in rocket reuse but fails in the mission

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Blue Origin has reused the propellant of its New Glenn rocket for the first time, reaching a milestone that until now had only been achieved by SpaceX. With this achievement, it is one step closer to its main competitor, which is also beginning to hinder its path to the Moon. However, this launch has been accompanied by some errors that still allow Elon Musk’s company to breathe easy. The good and the bad. Last November, Blue Origin managed to recover the propellant for the first time with which he had launched a New Glenn rocket into space. Their goal was to reuse it, exactly as SpaceX already does routinely. That second achievement has been a long time coming, but it finally took place this Sunday, April 19. The launch was carried out successfully, but there was a problem: The satellite it was carrying as a payload was placed in the wrong orbit. Therefore, although this is a giant step for Jeff Bezos’ space company, there are still details to be refined. Background. Blue Origin had already managed to reuse the propellant of a rocket, but it was not a New Glenn rocket, but a New Shepard. This one is smaller, so it was less of a challenge. To match SpaceX, it needed to do the same with a larger rocket. For this reason, the company’s goal has long been set on reusing the first phase of a New Glenn. This one measures 98 meters high. The New Shepard only 18 meters. A failed attempt in January 2025. To reuse a propellant, it must first be recovered. This occurs after the rocket launches. The two phases separate and, while the second continues the journey to leave its payload in place, the first returns to Earth. Ideally, a vertical landing or splashdown should occur, so that the propellant can be recovered intact. Blue Origin already tried this with a New Glenn rocket in January 2025, but a failure to fire the engines during descent prevented it from being done correctly. In November, however, complete recovery was achieved. That has been the propellant that has now been reused. SpaceX has reused its Falcon 9 hundreds of times Other companys. In reality, the only space companies that have achieved reuse of this type have been Blue Origin and SpaceX, although there is another that has done something similar: Rocket Lab. In their case, a vertical landing of the first phase does not occur, but instead It lands in the ocean with the help of a parachute. It is also useful, but recovery is more complicated. Furthermore, this company has not yet achieved complete reuse of the recovered rockets. Other companies, like the Chinese LandSpacethey also intend to follow in the footsteps of SpaceX, but are still carrying out tests. Importance for the future. Rocket reuse is important for many reasons. To begin with, what companies look at most: their economy. Not having to manufacture a new propellant with each launch greatly reduces costs and allows investment in other technologies. On the other hand, it is useful and necessary for reduce space debris levels. SpaceX does not stop generating new space junk by sending satellites into space. Few experts consider that the reuse of rockets will compensate for that, but it continues with its particular space greenwashing. SpaceX has made a lot of progress in this regard. Their reuse of rockets has already become routine, with more than 500 reused takeoffs from its Falcon 9. It has also been possible to reuse the powerful Starship. Even Rockets have been recovered in flight with a kind of giant Chinese chopsticks. Now, Blue Origin is closer, but if they want to continue in the competition they must be more accurate. An investigation is underway as to why the satellite did not end up in the correct orbit. When you find the answer, you can look for solutions. Images | Blue Origin | SpaceX In Xataka | Jeff Bezos asked his parents for their life savings to found Amazon. They only asked him one question: “What is the Internet?

35% of its chip manufacturing machines are already of Chinese origin

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Foreign lithography and wafer processing equipment manufacturers are selling less and less in China. In 2024, the country led by Xi Jinping represented 41% of ASML revenuebut in 2025 this figure dropped to 33%. And presumably in 2026 will contract up to 20%. Something very similar has happened to the American wafer processing machine manufacturer Applied Materials: its sales in China have gone from 37% of its total sales in 2024 to 30% in 2025. In addition, sales in China of the American companies Lam Research and KLA, and the Japanese Tokyo Electron, also have decreased during 2025 compared to those they obtained in 2024. This obvious trend is the consequence of two factors. On the one hand, US sanctions prevent US and allied manufacturers of lithography and wafer processing equipment from delivering their most sophisticated machines to their Chinese clients. The Dutch company ASML is most likely the most affected in this scenario. On the other hand, in response to pressure from the US, the Chinese Government is supporting the adoption of machines of Chinese origin in its integrated circuit factories. In fact, in 2025 the national tools represented 35% of the equipment in use in semiconductor plants, and Xi Jinping’s Government aims to reach 50% in new factories during 2026. Its purpose is clear: China’s chip industry needs to achieve technological independence as soon as possible in its fight with the United States. China has made great progress, but lithography remains its weakest point The resources that the Chinese Government is allocating to its designers and manufacturers of wafer processing equipment are bearing fruit. And they already compete face to face with foreign companies in the field of deposition, thermal processing, etching and cleaning of wafers. However, there are still no extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography machines of Chinese origin in Chinese IC factories. Presumably they will arrive before this decade endsbut this is for the moment China’s real Achilles heel. One of the Chinese companies worth keeping track of is Pulin Technology. This organization has opted, like Naura Technology, AMEC (Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China) or Piotech Inc., to develop your own cutting-edge photolithography machines. And the achievements are coming little by little. In mid-2025 Pulin sent one of his clients your first cutting-edge equipment using nanoimprint lithography technology (known as NIL for its English name NanoImprint Lithography). In mid-2025, Pulin sent one of its clients its first cutting-edge equipment NIL technology is not new. The Japanese company Canon has its own commercial NIL solution for yearsand presumably its operating principles are essentially the same as those of the machine designed by Pulin. On paper, NIL photolithography equipment is an alternative to printing machines. extreme ultraviolet lithography (UVE) designed and manufactured by the Dutch company ASML, although no to the high aperture version of these teams. The latter are currently the most sophisticated and expensive that exist. Very broadly speaking, the production of silicon wafers in the latter requires very precisely transporting the geometric pattern described by the mask to the surface of the silicon wafer using ultraviolet light and extremely refined optical elements. NIL lithography, however, allows the pattern to be transferred to the wafer without the need for intervention in the process. an extremely complex optical system. This strategy is simpler and cheaper, but it also involves the execution of several sequential processes that make it slower than UVE and UVP lithography. Canon assures that its nanoimprint lithography equipment can be used to manufacture integrated circuits comparable to the 5nm chips that TSMC, Samsung or Intel produce with ASML’s UVE machines. And in the future, with the refinements that will arrive, they will be able to manufacture 2nm chips. In addition, a NIL equipment costs ten times less than an ASML EUV machine: 15 million dollars compared to the 150 million dollars that the Dutch company asks its clients for an EUV machine with numerical aperture 0.33. We still don’t know how much each Pulin NIL machine costs, but it is reasonable to predict that at most it will have a cost comparable to that of the Canon machine. Image | Naura Technology More information | Tom’s Hardware In Xataka | Japan wants to end the Netherlands’ leadership in lithography equipment. This is your plan to get it

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

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