paradox

The breakfast that ruins your energy in the office is the same one that saves a cyclist: the paradox of "empty calories"

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The busy and stressed life that a good part of society leads can mean that in the mornings the lack of time means that breakfast is quickly resolved with a coffee accompanied by a few cookies or a bun. Something that is known by many that is not healthy, but the clock pressing from behind makes it difficult to find time to make some toast with something healthy on top. However, with this quick breakfast there is a problem: energy ends up falling in a few hours. The empty calories. a term which is increasingly heard to refer to those more processed foods such as pastries, cookies or any sweet that we eat. And here is the great debate, and it raises many questions about its usefulness and if we really eat foods that serve no purpose in the short term beyond making us fat. In Xataka Nutrition science is becoming clearer: it is not that important "that" We have breakfast but at what time do we do it? A roller coaster. To understand what happens in our body at 8:00 in the morning when we eat a coffee and four cookies, we must look at the biochemistry of digestion. And it is that industrial pastries o cookies are mainly composed of refined flours and free sugars. This is a problem because, lacking fiber, protein or quality healthy fats, the body You don’t have to make a great effort to digest them. That is, they are broken down at a high speed in the intestinal tract and enter the blood in the form of glucose almost suddenly. In energy terms, it is the equivalent of trying to heat a house by lighting a fire with sheets of newspaper: it burns very quickly, generates an intense flare, but goes out after a few minutes. {“videoId”:”x7zo910″,”autoplay”:true,”title”:”Added sugars: How to avoid them and improve your diet?”, “tag”:”sugar”, “duration”:”220″} There is no need to demonize to glucose because it is essential as fuel for our body and especially for the brain. However, this sugar peak which is produced by the consumption of these products or others that represent a large release of glucose in the blood, forces the pancreas to secrete a large amount of insulin at once to remove excess blood sugar towards the muscle or adipose tissue. The result here is a drastic drop in glucose just a couple of hours after eating these foods, which causes ravenous hunger or fatigue that makes us need to eat again to have sugar in our body. A continuum of sugar. If you have a slower breakfast with much more varied, healthy and fiber-rich foods, this does not happen. When there is a good amount of fiber, the digestive system has to spend more time processing food and, therefore, the transfer of glucose to the bloodstream is slower and more sustained over time. This gives you a ‘more sustained’ energy throughout the morning without feeling the classic mid-morning ‘slump’. In Xataka We’ve been believing oatmeal is the perfect breakfast for years, but science has a warning: there’s a limit It’s not always bad. Although on many occasions these empty calories are demonized for not having quality nutrients, sometimes it is necessary to have extra quick energy. without thinking about fiber or vitamins that may be presented. This is something we see in the world of sports, where a hyper-sugar chocolate or a cookie can work a miracle when you are at kilometer 80 of a stage, climbing a hill or when the dreaded ‘bird’ is lurking. In this context of high sports performance, fiber or fat would be a hindrance, since they would slow down gastric emptying, stealing blood from the legs to send it to the stomach and causing heaviness or gastrointestinal problems. That glucose spike that in an office causes lethargy after two hours, on the bicycle is immediately burned in the muscle as high-octane fuel, allowing the intensity to be maintained. Images | Bayu Syaits In Xataka | To the question of whether “eating breakfast as soon as you wake up is good for your body”, science offers a clear answer (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news The breakfast that ruins your energy in the office is the same one that saves a cyclist: the paradox of “empty calories” was originally published in Xataka by José A. Lizana .

Android 17 launches Pause Point, a function to save us from addictive apps. It is the paradox of the arsonist firefighter

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Among all the news announced by Google a few days ago, without a doubt Gemini Intelligence It was the one that attracted the most attention, but it was not the only one. Android 17 also releases other changes Among which a function called ‘Pause Point’ caught my attention, an option that promises to save us from infinite scrolling by making us stop and think for a few seconds. When I discovered what Pause Point was, I did just that, stopped to think for a moment and realized the ironic of the situation. What is Pause Point “Have you ever spent 45 minutes scrolling and suddenly you realize that you don’t remember why you opened the phone?” This is how Google presents this new function that will arrive with Android 17 and that follows the line of others like Digital Wellbeing that was released with Android 9. Until now, if we wanted to limit the use of certain apps we could set timers or even block access completely, but according to Google this does not solve the problem: timers can be postponed and blocking sometimes makes it impractical if we need that app for something important. What they propose now is another different approach: when you open an app that usually distracts you, Pause Point is activated and makes you stop for 10 seconds to ask yourself “Why am I here?” During this break you can do a small breathing exercise or open the app, but setting a timer of 5, 15 or 30 minutes. It also offers you other apps to focus on, such as one for audiobooks. It makes sense: we have internalized certain patterns so much that we pick up our cell phone and open apps for no apparent reason, out of pure muscle memory. If we want to completely disable Pause Point, it is necessary to restart the phone. The goal is to make you stop and think before anything else. It makes sense and is something we have talked about before: we have internalized certain patterns so much, that we pick up our cell phone and open apps for no apparent reason, by Pure muscle memory. The arsonist who sells fire extinguishers In 2017 we were already talking about what was being set up an industry that promised to cure us of mobile addiction. There are all kinds of solutions that promise to reduce our screen time, from boring cell phones that make us use them lesseven accessories that They prevent us from opening certain apps. What is striking is when Those who offer the cure are the same ones who have created the problem. Recently, a judge in the United States has said that Meta, TikTok and Google They are guilty of having deliberately designed their products to generate addiction among young people, with functions such as autoplay or infinite scroll. Google defended itself arguing that “this case misinterprets YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social network.” It is true that the concept of “addictive” infinite scroll was born with apps like Snapchat, TikTok or Instagram, but let’s not forget that Google entered fully into this formula with YouTube Shorts and one is no less guilty for having committed the “crime” later than the rest. Google is not the only company that is offering the solution to a problem that they themselves are fueling. Instagram and TikTok also have features to help users disconnect from the app, but without leaving the appclear. As long as the metric that controls is usage time, these “detox” functions will be little more than a cosmetic patch in a system designed so that we never let go of our cell phone. One thing must be clear and that is that the business of these apps lies in Let us spend as much time as possible on them. Only then do we see more advertising and buy more products. We live in the attention economy and, as long as the metric that controls is the time of use, these “detox” functions will be little more than a cosmetic patch in a system designed so that we never let go of the mobile. Images | Google In Xataka | The psychology of doomscrolling: the trap our brain is programmed to fall into again and again

Iran has just attacked a base in Europe. The paradox of Spain is that it condemns the war, but the US does not need to ask to use its bases

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In 1953, in the middle of the Cold War and at a time of international isolation, Spain signed with the United States the so-called Madrid Pactsan agreement that opened the door to the installation of North American military bases on Spanish soil in exchange for economic and military aid. That decision, taken in a completely different geopolitical context, ended up becoming one of the longer lasting pillars of the bilateral relationship and a structural element of Western defensive architecture in southern Europe. Rota, Morón and a return. The operation American and Israeli against Iran has returned to place the Rota and Morón bases in the center of the strategic board. Destroyers permanently deployed in Cádiz They sailed to the Mediterranean Eastern, strategic transport planes and tankers took off towards the area and the Aegis system embarked on ships of the Arleigh Burke class It once again acted as an anti-missile shield. Rota is not just another base: it is part of the naval component of the NATO missile shield and, in practice, it has served on several occasions as a direct reinforcement of the defense of Israel in the face of Iranian salvos. Far from being reduced, the American presence has expanded in recent years, with five destroyers already stationed and a sixth on the wayconsolidating the Cádiz base as a structural piece of Washington’s military projection in the Middle East. Europe closes ranks with Washington. France, the United Kingdom and Germany have declared your disposition to take proportionate defensive actions against Iran and have coordinated your posture with the United States. London has explicitly authorized the use of British bases to neutralize missiles at source, while Paris and Berlin have supported the defense of European interests in the region. This position of the so-called E3 represents a political and operational support to the US strategy and confirms that, on a military level, Western Europe has not distanced itself from the offensive. Beyond diplomatic nuances, the message is clear: the main European powers are willing to provide infrastructure and resources if escalation demands it. First attack on Europe. Hours after Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his decision to authorize the United States to use bases in the United Kingdom to launch attacks on Iranian missile depots, a drone has impacted against the RAF military installations at Akrotiri, on the island of Cyprus. In this way, a more than relevant event occurs on the continent: Iran has attacked a European base. The Spanish paradox. For its part, Spain has condemned publicly the intervention and has appealed for de-escalation and respect for international law. However, the paradox is evident: while the Government criticizes the operation, US ships and media stationed in Rota have participated in the military device. The key is in the current legal framework. The US forces are not in Spain by specific authorization of the Executive in power, but by virtue of that bilateral agreement that regulates their presence and use of facilities. Because the United States does not need ask permission on a case-by-case basis for each ordinary operational movement within the agreed framework. In essence, Spain may express political rejection, but infrastructure is already part of the US strategic architecture in Europe and the Mediterranean, and its activation does not depend on an improvised consultation in the middle of a crisis. What Spain can do legally. The bases of Rota and Morón are governed by the Convention of Defense Cooperation between Spain and the United States, which is periodically renewed and establishes the conditions of use. Spain could in theorydenounce the agreement, not renew it or demand substantial modifications, which would open a complex diplomatic process that would require formal deadlines and prior notifications. It could also try to limit certain activities if it considers that they exceed what was agreed or violate international law. However, the real chances of that scenario materializing are rather few. The bases are part of NATO’s defensive framework, generate employment and investment, and are integrated into broader strategic commitments. Abruptly breaking or restricting the agreement would imply a political, military and diplomatic cost of great magnitude, both in the bilateral relationship with Washington and within the Atlantic Alliance. Between sovereignty and interdependence. If you also want, the current situation reveals the structural tension that exists between formal sovereignty and strategic commitments. Spain retains ultimate legal power over its territory, but has voluntarily linked part of its military infrastructure to a collective defense system. In this way, when a crisis breaks out like Iranthat interdependence becomes visible: the decisions made in Washington, London or Paris are immediately reflected in Spanish ports and runways. The political condemnation can modulate the discourse, but strategic reality shows that Rota and Morón are nodes integrated in a network that transcends the current debate and that places Spain, want it or notwithin the operational perimeter of the US strategy in the Middle East. Image | US Naval Forces Central Command/US Fifth Fleet, Navy In Xataka | The US threatened to take the Rota base to Morocco. Spain has buried it with an unbeatable offer: more territory In Xataka | A disturbing idea for the US is beginning to gain strength: if the war with Iran lasts more than five days it will not win it

the great paradox of Spanish energy

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The Spanish energy market has broken into two halves that seem to have no relationship with each other. On the one hand, the trench of the retail market—direct sales to consumers—has become a scenario of continuous attrition where historical giants are bleeding customers at an unprecedented rate. On the other hand, the boardrooms of these same corporations celebrate the highest profits in their entire history. How is it possible to make more money than ever by losing hundreds of thousands of customers? The answer defines the new paradigm of the sector: large electricity companies are ceasing to be “light sellers” to consolidate themselves as managers of colossal infrastructures. The real business is no longer in fighting the average citizen’s monthly bill, but in controlling the cables, regulated assets and energy demanded by the new technological giants. The bleeding of the 1.3 million contracts. The closing figures for 2025 draw a historic leak. As detailed The IndependentIberdrola and Endesa suffered an “unprecedented fall”, jointly losing almost 1.3 million customers (1,279 million exactly) in the electricity and gas markets. Endesa left 645,000 contracts behind, while Iberdrola lost 634,000. The attitude of companies towards this flight of users is radically different. The president of Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, downplayed to the matter during the presentation of results, calling it “normal rotation” and boasting of the “enormous loyalty” of its hard core of users. On the other side of the coin, Endesa yes it has set off the alarms: has announced an injection of 900 million euros until 2028 with the urgent objective of recovering half a million customers, even relying on strategic alliances such as the recent purchase of Masorange’s energy business. The feast of alternative firms. In the last year, an absolute mobility record was broken, more than 7.25 million changes of marketer. In other words, almost one in four Spaniards decided to change their rate. The big winners of this stampede have been companies like Octopus Energy, the MásMóvil group and, most especially, Repsol. The oil company has already established itself as the fourth electricity operator in the country, exceeding 2.1 million customers and taking market share directly from traditional electricity companies. The model breaks, but the box is full. Any traditional economics textbook would say that losing more than a million customers is a financial catastrophe. However, the balance sheets say the opposite. How to publish Five DaysIberdrola pulverized its brands by earning 6,285 million euros in 2025 (12% more than the previous year), while Endesa reached 2,351 million (18% more). The secret of this paradox explains it perfectly The Mail When analyzing Iberdrola’s accounts: the net benefits that come from the management of distribution networks skyrocketed by a brutal 77%, while the contribution of the energy generation business fell by 27%. In simple words, they earn less by selling electricity to the end customer, but they earn much more by charging the regulated “toll” for using their cables, especially in markets with very attractive legislation such as the United States and the United Kingdom, which already account for 60% of their investments. The future runs through the cables. Electricity companies are going to stop obsessing about installing solar panels at any price to focus on the sockets and transmission highways. Endesa will invest a record figure of 10.6 billion until 2028, allocating more than half (52%) exclusively to electricity networks. Simultaneously, it will put the brakes on renewable energy, cutting its investment by 20% due to the “cannibalization” (plunging prices) that solar energy suffers during peak production hours. Iberdrola follows the same path: 62% of its gigantic investments last year went to the networks. The other great vector: data centers. Endesa already has some 3,000 MW of capacity ready to feed these insatiable technological infrastructures, highlighting its hybrid macroproject in Pego (Portugal). All of this will require a much more robust national backbone; Therefore, Redeia (parent company of Red Eléctrica) will skyrocket your investments 70%, injecting 6,000 million into the high-voltage transmission network to support this technological boom and the electrification of the country. Furthermore, this scenario comes with strong pressure of both companies for extending the useful life of Spanish nuclear plants, such as Almaraz, defending that they can operate safely up to 80 years to guarantee cheap and stable base energy that the system urgently needs. Network saturation and market clearing. The regulatory context explains many of these operational decisions. Spain faces a monumental bureaucratic funnel: 83.4% of electricity distribution nodes They are administratively saturatedwhich keeps 130 GW of renewable energy locked in, even though the grid is physically underutilized. To avoid the collapse of reindustrialization, the CNMC is designing new “flexible access permits” that will change the rules of the game. At the same time, the bottom of the market pyramid is undergoing a silent purge. The Government started a few months ago a historic cleanup of the “ghost marketers.” Of the more than 900 firms registered in Spain, only 416 had real activity. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has already begun to disable inactive or delinquent companies, transferring their clients to avoid systemic risks and clean up a hypertrophied market. The definitive metamorphosis. The traditional electricity bill is no longer the main battlefield for the great energy totems. While they gladly cede – or out of pure wear and tear – the exhausting hand-to-hand combat of the retail market to independent marketers and oil companies in the midst of a green conversion, Iberdrola and Endesa have ascended to a much safer, more profitable and macroscopic ecosystem. They have understood that the future does not belong to whoever sells electricity to the final consumer, but to whoever owns the highways on which, inevitably, all that energy will have to circulate. Image | freepik and Alex Quezada Xataka | Spain has a giant problem: its electrical network claims to be “full” when in reality it is underused

the great Spanish paradox of forest risk

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It seems like a contradiction, but that’s how paradoxes work. And this one in particular is so problematic for Spain that in nine out of ten configurations the result is always the same: whatever happens is bad for fires. But why? I mean, how is it possible that whether it rains or not, this country always has a problem with flames? The world on two scales. If it doesn’t rain, if we endure weeks or months of drought, the humidity of the material accumulated in the mountains (grass, bushes, leaf litter) drops. In addition, the soil temperature rises and living vegetation begins to become stressed. Just one spark is missing and boom, we have a fire source that is very difficult to stop. That is, drought worsens the risk today. The rain makes it worse, but it will do so tomorrow. Because if it rains, the vegetation grows (especially what we call fine fuel) and the continuity of the scrub increases. It’s biomass, biomass and more biomass. If it rains there is no risk, if it doesn’t rain: it is material that sooner rather than later will become fodder for the flames. The hell of the summer of 2025, started in spring… Sometimes we don’t focus much on this: wet springs are wonderful, but in our case it is also a potential danger. Not only because of what I explained above, but because (also) no one manages it. And that means that, if the trend continues in the direction it is going, we have to start seeing rainy winters as more than just a way to save the season. We must begin to see them as a clear reminder that we must invest in prevention, plan devices, firewalls, fuel management and all types of extensive farms that help contain the problem. Because climate change is not just “warmer.” A few days ago, AEMET itself reflected on How rainfall records are changing. Changes in the landscape and rural abandonment are a permanent source of problems and the so-called “bullwhip effect” only increases them: growth phases and drying phases that never stop coming and going. So yes, the great Spanish paradox with rains and fires is this: no matter what happens, in the coming years, we will always have problems with fires. Image | Karsten Winegeart In Xataka | In China they are deploying metal firefighters. Maybe they are more useful than robo-waiters

Thousands of CEOs admit that nothing is changing (yet). The productivity paradox of the 80s resurfaces with force

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AI will make us more productive, the studies said and AI advocates. It is a discourse that is already well known and seemed reasonable: models allow us to automate routine tasks and use that time on other productive things, right? Well, the truth is, (at the moment) no. And what is happening is curiously the same thing that happened 40 years ago. The productivity paradox. In 1987 the economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow realized of a singular paradox in the so-called “information age”. The transistors, microprocessors, and integrated circuits discovered in the 1960s were supposed to revolutionize businesses and dramatically increase productivity. What happened was just the opposite. Productivity growth did not accelerate, but rather slowed down: between 1948 and 1973 it was 2.9%, but since 1973 that growth was only 1.1%. So much chip for nothing? It seemed that way, at least those first few years. History repeats itself: AI is of little use. As they point out in Fortunethat paradox has resurfaced just now that we are suffering exactly the same thing with AI. A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reveals a striking conclusion after surveying no less than 6,000 CEOs, CFOs and other managers from several countries: they see very little impact of AI on their real operations. AI is not changing anything. Although two-thirds of the managers surveyed indicated that they used AI in their processes, this use was very limited: about 1.5 hours per week. 25% of participants indicated that they did not use AI at all at work. Nearly 90% of the companies that participated highlighted that AI has not influenced their hiring or productivity in the last three years. But they are optimistic. The use of AI by these executives appears to be very limited at the moment, but those same companies are still waiting for a substantial impact. In fact, they expect productivity to increase by 1.4% in the next three years. Another paradox: these first years AI was supposed to cut hiring by 0.7%, but respondents revealed a 0.5% increase in those hiring. The data confirm that at the moment, little. The truth is that the vaunted AI revolution has still not become a reality, at least in terms of productivity and economic return. Economist Torsten Slok recently indicated that “AI is everywhere except in macroeconomic data: you don’t see it in employment, productivity or inflation data.” His thesis: the impact of AI is currently almost zero. In fact, except in the case of technology’s “Magnificent Seven,” there are no signs of profit margins or revenue expectations. But these revolutions take time. The revolution that semiconductors brought us took a while to crystallize, but it ended up doing so: in the 1990s and 2000s were produced productivity improvements such as an increase of 1.5% between 1995 and 2005. There are experts who they point because in fact this change in trend has already begun to occur: in the US, GDP in the fourth quarter grew by 3.7% despite the fact that there were job cuts. That points to an increase in productivity. Slok also pointed to this possibility, and theorized that the impact could end up having a “J” shape, first slowing down and then exploding. Let them tell the steam engine. Previous industrial revolutions, such as the one that produced the steam engine or, even more importantly, electricity, took their time. The initial delay disappeared over the course of subsequent decades because these technologies needed time to spread to the rest of the productive sectors. Excessive optimism does not help, of course, and at the moment what is reasonable seems to lie somewhere in between: neither “AI is useless” nor “AI will do everything for us.” Perhaps the only thing AI needs—in addition to improving—is for us to give time to time. It is not in vain that many describe it as “the new electricity.” Image | The Standing Desk In Xataka | Until now “software was eating the world.” Now AI is eating software

Threads has surpassed X in daily users on mobile. The paradox is that this has not changed.

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Threads and X play, in essence, the same game. Short messages, public conversations and the ambition to become the place where the things that matter are discussed. On mobile, Threads is already moving very close to X in daily active users on a global scale, to the point that, on specific days, it was ahead. But when you look beyond the numbers, the feeling is different. The conversation that jumps to the media and public debate continues to be born, almost always, in the same place. The most cited photograph comes from Similarweb data and focuses exclusively on mobile use. That’s where Threads has closed the gap significantly. According to this analysis firm, both platforms converge in very close figures of daily active users on a global scale, around 130 million. In the week with data until September 20, 2025, Threads was ahead of X on three of the days analyzed. Even so, the series as a whole does not allow us to speak of consolidated leadership, but rather of a very tight and localized equality in time. Daily active users on iOS and Android. Threads approaches X on mobile phones globally | Source: Similarweb What does this data measure and what is left out. When talking about daily active mobile users, it is advisable to sharpen the focus. Similarweb accounts daily use on iOS and Android, counting each person only once a day, even if they open the app multiple times. Additionally, any user who performs a minimal action, such as opening the app or logging in, is considered “active.” This metric reflects access habits, but does not distinguish between reading, interacting or publishing, nor does it measure what type of accounts concentrate the activity or what content is amplified outside the platform. Daily web traffic on a global scale. X maintains a very large advantage over Threads in browser visits | Source: Similarweb That balance that appears in mobile use is broken as soon as the focus is expanded. When looking at web trafficthe distance between both platforms is once again very marked. Similarweb data shows that It is not a minor detail, because web access is usually more present in professional contexts, newsrooms and news monitoring. Changing metrics also changes the story the data tells. Information consumption follows another map. When the question is not how many people enter each day, but rather where users get information, the scenario changes. The conclusions of the Digital News Report 2025 of the Reuters Institute point out that The difference is not so much size but function within the media ecosystem. Part of that difference has to do with the type of use. A academic study published in 2024 describes X as a “passive sensor” especially useful for detecting opinion leaders, by combining public visibility, active community and clear temporal traceability of messages. This architecture makes it easier for statements, reactions or controversies to be followed in real time and reused in other contexts. For media and analysts, X not only works as a social network, but also as a tool for observing public conversation. A growth pushed from within the ecosystem. The progress of Threads is largely explained by its integration with Instagram and, in general, with the Meta ecosystem. Direct access from an already massive application reduces barriers to entry and makes it easier for many users to try out the platform without additional effort. That push helps explain why mobile usage numbers have grown rapidly. However, this dynamic does not guarantee that users adopt Threads as a central space for public or informative debate, nor that they transfer there the practices that they currently maintain in X. Not even the recurring controversies surrounding Elon Musk have been sufficient to displace X from its role as an informational reference point. Threads advances in usage and visibility, but the center of gravity of the conversation remains where it was. For that to change, it will not be enough to add users or rely on the Meta ecosystem. It would require a deeper transformation of professional, media and political habits that, for now, is not appreciated. Images | Mohamed Nohassi | Kelly Sikkema In Xataka | Neither board games nor karaoke: ‘Word on Beat’ is the new king of the living room and proof that we prefer rhythmic chaos

Europe has finally approved how to help Ukraine. The great paradox is that the most unexpected vote has been imposed: that of Russia

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Europe has finally closed an agreement to guarantee financing for Ukraine for the next two years through a loan of 90,000 million of euros backed by the common budget of the Union, a decision taken after more than 16 hours of negotiations in Brussels and under explicit pressure to avoid a financial collapse of kyiv at the beginning of 2026. In the background, a crystal clear idea: Russia has imposed its “vote”. The lifeguard and a pulse. The pact comes at a particularly delicate moment, with the United States and Russia advancing conversations parallels about a possible end to the war and with Trump publicly urging Ukraine to accept a quick agreement. For European leaders, the loan is not just an economic instrument, but a way to reaffirm that the EU wants and needs to have its own voice in any outcome of the most serious conflict experienced on the continent in the last eight decades. The political message is clear: Europe cannot stand by while others decide the future of Ukraine and, by extension, its own security. The failure of the ideal plan. For months, Brussels’ preferred option was to use the fences of 210,000 million euros in Russian sovereign assets frozen in Europe as collateral for a large “reparations” loan for Ukraine, a formula that made it possible to finance the war effort and the functioning of the Ukrainian state without directly resorting to European taxpayers’ money. The idea was powerful, both economically as symbolically: that Russia would pay, at least indirectly, for the destruction caused by its invasion. However, the plan fell apart at the last moment, a victim of the legal, financial and political risks involved in touching that capital, above all and as we told yesterdayfor a handful of countries. Russia, in fact, has already initiated legal action denouncing an illegal confiscation, and fear of economic or judicial reprisals grew as the decisive summit approached. Bucha and the passing of the war A pragmatic agreement. Faced with the impossibility of closing ranks around the use of frozen assets, France and Italy led a more pragmatic alternative: use the common EU budget to issue debt on the markets and channel the funds to Ukraine. The result is a two year loan which guarantees immediate liquidity to kyiv, although it is more expensive and less scalable than the original option. To achieve consensus, a complex political architecture was also accepted: Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic will not assume obligations direct financial measures, a key condition to avoid an internal blockage. Still, the agreement was presented as a minimal but necessary victory. Ukraine gets the money it needs to survive and Europe avoids a picture of total paralysis at a critical moment. The resilience narrative. From kyiv, Zelenskiy celebrated the agreement as a real reinforcement of Ukrainian resilience, underscoring both the arrival of funds and the fact that Russian assets remain tied up. For the Ukrainian president, the combination it is essential: short-term financial security and sustained strategic pressure on Moscow. Zelenskiy had defended the use of frozen assets until the last moment, appealing to moral, legal and historical justice criteria, but he accepted the compromise. like a lesser evil facing the existential risk of running out of resources. The EU, for its part, insists that Ukraine will only have to repay the loan when Russia pays reparationsa formula that keeps the narrative of Russian responsibility alive without yet crossing the line of direct confiscation. Belgium and type C accounts. It we explained yesterday. In the background of the agreement there was a key actor: Belgium. Most of the Russian money frozen in Europe is there, guarded through critical financial infrastructure like Euroclear and linked to mechanisms such as called type C accountsdesigned precisely to immobilize assets without transferring ownership. Brussels demanded “unlimited” guarantees against possible Russian demands and retaliation, a level of protection that the rest of the partners were not willing to assume. The final result, although presented as a European commitment, essentially coincides with what was best for Moscow: that its sovereign capital not be confiscated or used as direct collateral. Russia loses access to the money, but retains the fundamental principle that these funds remain formally its own, avoiding a far-reaching legal precedent. If you also want, indirectly, Europe has chosen the safest path for itself and, at the same time, the least disruptive for the Kremlin. Europe and its limitations. So things are, the agreement leaves an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, it shows that the EU is capable of mobilizing massive resources to support Ukraine and prevent its financial collapse in the middle of the war. On the other hand, it exposes again structural limitations of the European project when it comes to quick and risky decisions in foreign policy and security. The plan based on Russian assets promised to be more forceful and transformative, and the loan backed by the common budget is more conservativeslower and more politically comfortable. In a context in which Washington presses for an agreement and Russia hopes to buy time, Europe has chosen legal stability and internal cohesion over a direct financial confrontation with Moscow. Ukraine thus receives the oxygen it needs. The strategic pulse, however, is far from resolved. Image | RawPixel In Xataka | Ukraine’s biggest problem is not Russia. There are three European countries trapped in a perverse mechanism: type C accounts In Xataka | A Soviet missile is destroying Ukraine’s helicopters. The paradox is that it is not from Russia: it comes from the West

the paradox that has trapped 69% of young people

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We usually imagine the loneliness as total isolation: an empty room and a phone that doesn’t ring. Seeing a person who is surrounded by people and with an active social life seems like they cannot feel loneliness, but the reality is very different in Spain, where studies suggest that we have never been so connected and at the same time so alone. And young people are the ones who bear the brunt. The problem in Spain. A recent study published in PLOS One has just named a phenomenon that defines generation Z already the millennials younger: social ambivalence. And it is not that the youngest in our society lack friends or plans to make on a daily basis, but it shows that the amount of social interactions does not guarantee optimal emotional well-being. Having dozens of ‘likes’ for a publication on Instagram does not mean being accompanied. Something that the data of the report made by SoledadES in Spain has confirmed, since its conclusions indicate that we are experiencing a silent epidemic where 69% of young people admit to having felt alone. And all this regardless of the number of followers on social networks or friends they have by their side on a daily basis. Change of concept. For decades, sociology assumed that loneliness was simply the lack of social contact seen in people who did not go out and interact with anyone. In this way, the equation seemed quite simple: the more friends you have, the less loneliness you have. But this is no longer the case as it has been seen in adults ranging from 18 to 29 years old. Here it has been seen that people who have a high social connection are accompanied by a simultaneous feeling of loneliness. The most affected. The studytitled “Lonely and Connected in Emerging Adulthood”points out that this social ambivalence It occurs especially in moments of life transition. Young adults go through a period of instability, such as changing residence to go to study, entering the labor market or ending their studies. This only breaks support networks, for example losing contact with the friends they make at university or the need to have to meet new people at work. That is why the conclusion is quite clear: having a full social agenda does not protect against feelings of isolation if the interactions lack depth or if the young person feels that they do not fit into the environment that has changed. Radiography in Spain. He “Study on youth and unwanted loneliness in Spain”promoted by the State Observatory of Unwanted Loneliness (SoledadES) of the ONCE Foundation, gives us information that sets off our alarms. In this case they point out that 25.5% of young Spaniards between 16 and 29 years old claims to feel alone at present. But if you broaden the focus, almost 7 in 10 young people feel alone now or have felt that way at some point recently. Its duration. In this report, the quantity may not be the most important, but rather the duration, since this feeling is becoming chronic in the young people of our country. According to the data, three out of every four young people who suffer from this loneliness have been in this situation for more than a year. But almost half still feel like this for more than three years. Something that completely passes the critical phase of adolescence. Because. Among the reasons that try to justify this feeling, the one that gains the most weight is instability. This is something that can be seen in those changes of environment due to studies or work that force us to make new relationships, breaking the original ties where there was greater trust. In Spain, this is aggravated by socioeconomic factors. The difficulty of emancipation, job insecurity and uncertainty about the future make it difficult to create quality ties, which are what truly combat loneliness, unlike the mere “quantity” of social interactions. And here it stands out that it is not important to have a large number of friends, but that even if they are few, they are of quality. And this is the quality that is sometimes missing to be able to be 100% transparent with other people that does not make us feel so alone for not being able to express our concerns and keep them to ourselves. Images | Mert Uner Şahin Sezer Dinçer In Xataka | Loneliness is now a public health issue. We have more and more evidence that animals help us appease it

the luminous paradox of a vertical panel on the balcony

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Last month, Alejandro Diego Rosell – energy consultant, professor and analyst with more than a decade in the photovoltaic sector – discovered something that does not fit with what we all believe about solar energy: his balcony produced the highest generation day of the year and also a day of absolute zero. Same month, same installation, but opposite results. The paradox is not a flaw: it is exactly how a solar balcony works in a real city. And what his case reveals dismantles many of the myths of urban self-consumption. The solar balcony phenomenon. The explanation begins with a phrase that Diego repeats in the interview he gave us in Xataka: “The real performance depends more on the angle, shadow and geometry of the building than on the calendar month.” Its panels are installed almost vertically, an unusual orientation on roofs but very common in Spanish apartments. And this completely alters the classic pattern of solar production. Record day: 2.35 kWh on a cold, clear day in November. Zero day: November 15, with 0% apparent production. And why? It is precisely because of the combination of verticality and battery. Your installation now works with plug-and-play batteryand that introduces a little-known phenomenon: “The battery needs a minimum current to start charging. If the output is too low, it does not accept it and does not send anything to the microinverter either.” In other words, some energy is generated, but it is so little that the battery does not activate and the system does not account for it. That minimum production is left out of the records, which causes some days to appear as “zero” even though they really are not. Position matters. Alejandro Diego’s experience uncovers several lessons that almost no one knows before installing one of these kits. On the one hand, a vertical panel performs better in winter. “In winter the sun is so low that it looks at you from the other side of the street,” says the energy analyst. And it makes physical sense because the sun, being low, affects almost perfectly on a vertical panel and the cold makes for better performance. In fact, this idea is not anecdotal, verticality is beginning to be adopted even in professional installations, as is the case of the company Over Easy Solar in the Valencian Community. On the other hand, shadows are the great invisible enemy. “Shadows travel,” insists the energy consultant. A railing that barely touches the glass panel in June can ruin 20% of the day in January. A neighbor’s awning can cut entire hours of production. And tall buildings create cast shadows that move like clockwork. The batteries and the fine print. Here we come to the kit question: “It’s not plug and play.” The Master in Renewable Energies (MERME) professor details that Plug-and-play domestic batteries help—they shift consumption, allow prolonged injection, improve peak utilization—but they also bring surprises: very low production simply does not enter the system, there are efficiency losses in the charge-discharge cycle, and they weigh more than people imagine. In a market where Ikea, EcoFlow, Zendure or even electric ones are launching batteries “for everyone”, this clarification matters. Urban photovoltaics are unpredictable. If there is one thing that Diego is clear about after almost a year measuring every watt that enters his balcony, it is that photovoltaics in the city do not follow the rules that one imagines from the outside. In its installation, the data changes abruptly depending on the angle of the sun, the presence of shadows or even the type of cloud cover. And there is no need to go into theories: you see it in your daily life. In December, For examplehas reached more than 2 kWh in a single day. It seems counterintuitive—especially considering that December is one of the months with the fewest hours of daylight—but the explanation is simple: the low sun hits a vertical panel almost head-on and the cold improves the electrical performance of the module and the microinverter. However, in April – with longer days and clear skies – there were days that did not even reach 1.5 kWh. “The angle of the sun changes everything,” he explains. In spring the sun begins to rise, hits the panel from above and the verticality penalizes more than intuition suggests. The clouds also influence. This opens another chapter: even small passing clouds can reduce production in a matter of seconds, because they block direct light—the one that really triggers the generation—and leave only the diffuse light, much less usable in such an angle-dependent installation. When the sky is completely covered, the situation is even clearer: production usually sinks to 5–10% of the daily potential, figures that the consultant has seen repeated over and over again. These same extreme oscillations are common in the thousands of solar balconies installed in Germany: very good days, very bad days and a performance that depends more on urban physics – shadows, orientation, tall buildings that cut off the sun at different times – than on the calendar or the general weather. The conclusion, in Diego’s own words, is that a solar balcony is educational, useful and surprisingly efficient for its size, but not magical. It produces, yes, but it produces according to the physical reality of the building, not according to the mental idea that many have before installing one. The real barriers to installing one. In Spain there is a particular ecosystem: plug-in kits are limited by law to 800W, neighborhood communities may require permission if they are on a façade or railing and the regulations require electrical protections and, sometimes, a bidirectional meter. Alejandro Diego had no problems with his community—”from the street you can hardly see it”—but he admits that in other buildings it can be a bottleneck. On the other hand, in countries like Germany, the regulation explicitly protects the right to install them. The result has been more than 1.5 million of kits operating and half a million installed in just one … Read more

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