problem

Heat, pests and a problem of productive capacity

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The production of olives, and therefore that of olive oil, has been living a turbulent years. The drought in 2023 put the harvest in check but the return of the rains last year gave the producers a respite. Now the agricultural sector in Jaén has expressed concern about what comes in front. Crisis or regression to the average? Pessimism in forecasts. The coordinator of organizations of farmers and ranchers of Jaén (Coag Jaén) has shown her Concern for this harvest of the olive. Although the association indicates that it is still early to talk about forecasts for harvest, some areas of the province already estimate crops between 30% and 40% below the views last year. Producers They point out several causes Behind this pessimistic forecast, which cover warm episodes as well as the risk of pests, but also the natural phenomenon known as the olive grove. A little propitious meteorology. One of the factors that concern the coordinator is in meteorology. Specifically, the warm episodes we have been living since the end of May. The heat has advanced this year in which the thermometers in several areas of Andalusia came to exceed 40º before the end of the spring month. Of course, this problem may not be extensible to other regions. The rains in the mediterranean environment They could have a positive impact in the crops of the area. Farmers now expect temperatures not to fall during the beginning of the summer in order to reduce the risk of the arrival of Prays. And the pests. There are several pests that threaten the oil harvest this year and among them the most popular is perhaps that of Prays (Prays Oleae), also the so -called olive moth. Already in May, the Junta de Andalucía He warned of “algal levels of attack” associated with this plague. The life of this insect is closely associated with the olive grove and has several annual generations that can affect this plant. The data of the Board are based on the animal’s philophagous generation, which affects the plant leaf. Now the experts They follow the Antophagous Generationwhich affects the plant of the plant. The algodoncillo (Euphyllura Olivina) It is another pest that concern producers. It is another insect whose name derives from the “cotton” appearance that surrounds the nymphs of this invertebrate. The olive grove. Voccas or contracting is a natural phenomenon that occurs in numerous crops. The vocation occurs when crops have difficulties in producing for full performance for two consecutive years. As explained by the coordinator, although in some Jienenses areas the production of last season was “average”, some olive trees “already accuse the verter.” Looking for clues. As Coag Jaén points out in its statementit is still early for truthful estimates of what this year’s harvest will be. As indicated by the Agrarian Association, the olive grove has two “critical” moments for the demand for culture water. The first is the flowering that usually occurs between April and May; The second is maturation, in September. There will be so much to wait a few months before having a definitive idea about what the Cosecha will be like, but what do we know exactly about flowering? The pollen can give us a track. According to Coag Jaén’s own data, the pollen concentration peak in the air occurred on May 19, with 7,711 grains per cubic meter, “far from the maximum peaks of other years when 15,000 grains were exceeded”, in the words of the association. In Xataka | More and more giants get into the Andalusian field and in the olive oil industry. The last: Pepsico Image | Natalia Gusakova

Intel and TSMC lead the revolution of photonic chips. His problem is that China has just done fully in this war

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Douglas Yu, a TSMC executive, The biggest chips manufacturer on the planetwith responsibility in the field of systems integration Explain clearly The disruptive capacity of integrated photonic circuits: “If we manage to implement a good system of integration of silicon’s photonics We will trigger a new paradigm. We will probably be placed at the beginning of a new era. “ The photonic silicon seeks to develop the technology of this chemical element to optimize the transformation of electrical signals into light pulses. The most obvious field of application of this innovation is the implementation of high performance links that, on paper, can be used both to solve communications between several chips and to optimize the transfer of information between several machines. Advanced packaging technologies with which the main semiconductor manufacturers work, such as TSMC, Intel or Samsung, can benefit a lot from a communication mechanism between very high performance chips. And the large data centers in which it is necessary to connect a large number of machines, too. However, there is a particular discipline to which it would be wonderful about the advantages proposed by the photonic silicon: the artificial intelligence (AI). China plans to use this technology in AI, 6G communications and quantum computers Intel and TSMC are some of the companies that have been working on the development of their technologies linked to the photonic silicon, and, as we can intuit, this innovation is no stranger to Chinese companies and research centers. In fact, in mid -May 2024 the Institute of Information Technology and Microsystems of Shanghai (China) in collaboration with the Lausanian Institute of Technology (Switzerland) reached a crucial milestone. Until that time one of the fundamental ingredients of the integrated photonic circuits was the lithium niobate. The lithium tantalate allows the manufacture of large -scale photonic chips and with much lower costs This synthetic salt intervenes in the manufacture of these integrated circuits because its physicochemical properties allow it to optimize the conversion of electricity into light, but it has a problem: the industrial exploitation of this technology is conditioned by The high cost that each wafer hasand also for the size of each of them. What these scientists have achieved is to replace the lithium niobate with other semiconductor material whose properties are even more attractive: the lithium tantalate (litao3). Ou Xin, one of the scientists who have led this project, assures That in addition to paying better than the lithium niobate, the lithium tantaloate allows the manufacture of large -scale photonic circuit and with much lower costs. This is because the manufacturing processes are similar to those currently used to produce conventional silicon semiconductors. This is the context in which, according to SCMPthe chips center for integrated photonics Xplore (Chipx) of the Jiao Tong University of Shanghai has announced that it has started the production of 6 -inch wafers for photonic chips. Interestingly, this production line Use Lithium Niobateso it still has a room to advance and take advantage of the properties of the lithium tantalate. Be as Professor Jin Xianmin, the director of CHIPX, says that the photonic integrated circuits have a huge potential not only in the training and inference of AI models, the classical supercomputing and Quantum computersbut also in the development of communications 6g. Image | TSMC More information | SCMP In Xataka | Today China and the US have parked their differences for a good reason: they will analyze together the risks of AI

The girl is coming to an end. The problem is that meteorologists find no trace of what should follow him: the child

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Throughout the year and independently of its state, almost constantly, meteorologists from different parts of the world monitor the swings of the southern oscillation of El Niño, Enso for its acronym in English. It is not for less, to go and return apparently capricious of this climatic oscillation affects, to a greater or lesser extent the meteorology of half the world. In some areas it is much that depends on what happens in a narrow strip of the Eastern Pacific. A very uncertain panorama. The World Meteorological Organization (OMM) has published its latest update on The status of Ensothe oscillation between the events of El Niño and the Girl. According to the report, we are in the neutral area of ​​the oscillation: the girl vanished a few months ago but the boy does not finish appearing. The forecast draws an uncertain panorama: great probability that we stay in a neutral state But with the door open to a 180º turn: the return to the girl. The oscillation of the southern El Niño. A little context. The boy and girl They are the two faces of a climatic oscillation whose epicenter is in the central strip of the Eastern Pacific. When surface water in this oceanic region is heated we talk about the El Niño phenomenon. The El Niño phenomenon especially affects South America and more specifically west of the continent, where it usually makes rainfall increase, often causing extreme events such as floods. The child is also associated with impacts on very different regions, From North America to Asia. The other face of El Niño. El Niño’s last event vanished in mid -2024, giving way to the girl towards the end of the year. The girl It is the other face of this oscillation. If the main consequence of El Niño is an increase in rainfall on the Pacific coast of South America, the girl is associated with less rainfall and a greater probability of drought. The girl also left. In fact, the girl’s last event was shorter and more weak than expected. Back to the start box? The predictions included In the latest OMM report they point out that there is 70% probabilities that this neutrality between the boy and the girl is maintained between June and August, while there is a 30% probability that we return to A second event of the consecutive girl. In the longer term this second scenario Win probability: If we consider the period between July and September, the probability of neutral conditions is reduced to 65%, while the probability of a new event of the girl ascends to 35%. In any case, a transit to the child seems unlikely from here to September. When will we leave doubts? Spring is usually a time of weather uncertainty and that also applies to the oscillation between the boy and the girl. Meteorologists talk about the “Spring predictability barrier”, And once we transfer it we can have a better vision of what is expected this year. Will it affect us? It is clear that southern oscillation has an important weight in the Americas and especially in some areas. However, Enso is a global phenomenon capable of disrupting meteorology into the most disparate places, including Europe. If the child usually associates with warmer temperatures globally, the girl can make Europe and the rest of the world see lower average temperatures this winter. This can give us a new and small respite with respect to what we saw in 2024, the year in which we live the combined effect of the temperatures associated with climate change with an El Niño event that implied that the world began to beat numerous temperature records. In Spain, the end of El Niño’s last event brought us the end of the drought, and that is that experts point out that in terms of rainfall in Europe, Enso’s effects can vary between areas. In the southwest, the girl It is associated with more rainfallso the girl’s return could help keep drought at bay. In Xataka | 250 million years ago, 80% of earth species disappeared. These researchers believe it was a hyperniño Image | Climate.gov/nnvl

Sam Altman states that Chatgpt’s water and energy consumption is tiny. The problem is that it does not give evidence of it

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An email of 100 words generated by GPT-4 Consume 519 milliliters of water. That was the conclusion to which researchers at the University of California arrived a few months ago after analyzing this OpenAi model. Sam Altman, CEO of the company, has just yielded its own estimate on the consumption of water and energy of each consultation of Chatgpt. And it is very different. 1,000 times less than what was said. According to Altman, an average consultation in Chatgpt consumes much less than what had been indicated in previous studies. Your data are strikingand to understand them makes interesting analogies: “As production automated in data centers automates, the cost of intelligence should approach electricity. (People are usually curious to know how much energy consumes a chatgpt consultation; the average consult (0.32 ml); A previous study of Epoch ai corroborates the data that Sam Altman has now wielded. Source: Epoch AI. And the tests? Those figures mentioned by the OpenAi CEO have a problem: they have no visible support. He throws them without citing sources or explaining where he has taken them out, something that makes it difficult to believe. A Meta executive answered the question of How much consumes the inference AI A year and a half ago, responding that “only two nuclear reactors would be needed to cover it.” But previous studies coincide with Altman. Although he does not mention any evidence, in February, Epoch AI researchers precisely They published a study trying to estimate the energy consumption of chatgpt. In their conclusions they indicated that on average a chatgpt consult Previous report of the researcher Alex de Vries. Since then, of course, many things have happened. Too pessimistic. And as they commented on the study of Epoch AI, the difference comes from the fact that the models are today much more efficient than in 2023, when VRies conducted their study. So is the hardware in which these models are executed, and that estimate was also used a “especially pessimistic” approach. In Openai’s study they also threw an especially pessimistic estimate and pointed out that “most of the requests (A chatgpt) are much cheaper (energetically).” More studies. Another independent study published by Andy Masey in January 2025 reached a similar conclusion and claimed that “using Chatgpt is not bad for the environment.” It was based on EPRI data May 2024 that also estimated a high consumption of 2.9 Wh by chatgpt consultation. Estimated water consumption In data centersfrom A SUNBIRD studyit was also very modest compared to other online activities. Water consumption in data centers for various online activities. Source: Andy Masley. Fifte. Precisely the data of water consumption was another striking in that estimate of Sam Altman. According to him, a chatgpt consultation barely consumed 0.32 ml of water, “a quinceava part of a teaspoon.” The figure suggests that the water needed to refrigerate data centers that process these requests is much less than what was thought only one year ago. And training, what? These estimates focus on the AI ​​inference section, that is, our use of chatgpt that receives a consultation and processes it inferring (generating) a text result. Although Altman does not clarify it, he does not seem to include here the energy and water cost of training AI models, which is very high and makes thousands of Gpus They work at full power For months, with the consequent water expense in data centers to refrigerate all those components that dissipate high heat amounts. As I pointed out The researcher Ethan Mollick, GPT-4 probably used more than 50 GW to be trained, enough to give energy to 5,500 homes in a year. We continue without definitive data. Altman’s claims are as always striking, but the lack of clear evidence makes it difficult to believe these data. Other recent studies are more useful when it comes to reflecting this increasingly lower cost both in energy and water from the use of AI, but there are no accepted standards or a consensus on the true impact of energy and water consumption when using chatgpt or other AI models. Image | Lukáš Lehotský | Village Global In Xataka | The light price is again negative: it is a sign that the system needs a redesign

Spam calls are a problem for everyone and Apple knows. Its solution with iOS 26 has been stopping braking

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The mobile sounds and is an unknown number. The possibilities that there is a commercial wanting to sell you the last superooferta fiber They are high Or, in the worst case, it could be a Stofler getting through your bank. We have been talking about the problem of the so -called spam and fraudulent and so far no one has found a 100% effective solution. Yesterday Apple introduced us iOS 26a renewal that We have already been able to try And with a novelty that goes in this line, although the solution they propose is much more aggressive than those of the competition. The problem of unwanted calls. Commercial calls bother. They are abundant and it seems that they have the ability to call us when it comes to us. Even the government has taken letters in the matter and for a few days, Commercial calls from mobile numbers 600 or 700 are prohibited. But beyond wakeing us from the nap to improve our light rate, the real problem is in telephone fraud. The Fraudulent SMS They are incessant, but the scams also come by call. Through techniques of Vishing and Telephone spoofing We have seen how They can empty the account by passing through your bank. In view of such elaborate scams Both entities and the government have begun to take the problem seriouslybut despite efforts, we still can’t talk about the definitive solution. How the Apple call filter works. iOS 26 It will bring news in the telephone app and one of them is the call filter, which in Xataka we have already tried. If you receive a call from an unknown number, the iPhone automatically activates what they call live voicemail that asks the interlocutor who it is and the reason for the call. Once you have identified, the call appears on our screen and we can see the details that you have facilitated, so we can choose whether to respond or not. If we do not respond, the iPhone will tell those who call us that we are not available and will allow you to record a second message. By the way, whoever attends to the phone before us is Siri’s voice. This is how the calls of unknown numbers appear once the iPhone requests more information. Apple’s proposal is very different to what we were seeing in the competition. Here there is no filter as such, if we activate the live voicemail will affect all calls that reach us with unknown numbers. The only thing we can choose is whether the calls will be referred to Siri to request more information, to the voice mailbox or go to the list of unknown numbers. The configuration options offered by Apple. He Approach Android is more flexible and intelligent. A long time ago Android has functions to fight telephone spam. If we use Google’s APP we have different tools to fight with unwanted calls. It has a call identifier that tells us if they call us a business that is in the Google database and also If a number is suspicious of spam. Nor is it infallible and there are times when any call is sneak. If it happens, it allows us to mark the number as spam. As exclusive to the Pixel we have Call Assistwhich works similarly to Apple’s live voice mailbox. If we choose to filter the call, Google Assistant will ask about the reason for the call and will offer us a transcription. There is much similar, but an important difference: we choose what to filter and on the screen we will see before if a number is suspicious of spam, while Apple treats the same to all unknown numbers. This will alert Android of the scams. Image: Google With Android 16Google wants to go further and will be implemented Functions focused on fighting with telephone scamshow to prevent us from deactivating Google Play Protect or install apps from the browser. He will also be able to detect financial scams and alert us with a notice on the screen. Collateral damage. Apple sells its call filter as the solution to eliminate interruptions and in this sense is effective, but it can also be a problem because not all calls of unknown numbers are disposable. How many people will hang when listening to Siri’s voice asking why he calls us? Even though it is normal, it is still very unhappy and even counterproductive in certain scenarios as an emergency or if the doctor calls us. An intermediate solution. As we said, Android is not infallible blocking spam, but it does have some intelligence behind (and more will have when Android 16 arrives), while Apple opts to stop braking. Perhaps the exit is to find a solution halfway between the two where we can have more flexibility when limiting calls without risking to lose some important. Image | Ricardo Aguilar (Xataka) In Xataka | Liquid Glass, iOS 26, Macos Tahoe, Watchos 26, the new Games app and all the news left by Apple’s WWDC 2025

If the problem is too difficult, they give up immediately

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Machines do not think, that’s an illusion. We do not say it, a group of Apple researchers who have just published a revealing study entitled precisely (‘The illusion of thinking‘). In it these experts have analyzed the performance of several AI models With the ability to “reason”and their conclusions are striking … and worrying. Puzzles for the “reason”. The normal thing when evaluating the ability of an AI model is to use benchmarks with programming or mathematics tests, for example. Instead, Apple created several Tests based on logical puzzles that were totally new and that therefore could not be part of the training of these models. Claude Thinking, Deepseek-R1 and O3-mini participated in the evaluation. Models that crash. In their tests They checked Like all these reasoning models, they ended up starring Bruces against a wall when they faced complex problems. In those cases, the accuracy of these models fell resorted to 0%. It was also not matched that you granted more resources to these models when trying to solve those problems. If they were of some difficulty, they could not with them. They get tired of thinking. In fact, something curious happened. As the problems became more complicated, these models began to think no more, but less. They used less tokens to solve them and riddled before they could use unlimited resources. Not with help. Apple researchers even tried to give the models An exact algorithm that guided the models to find the solution step by step. And here, another capital surprise: none of the models managed to solve problems despite having those guided solutions. They could not follow instructions consistently. These graphs show the differences between models that do not reason (Deepseek-V3) with those who do (deepseek-r1) in low complexity (yellow), medium (blue) and high (red) problems. There are only advantages for “reasoning” in medium difficulty problems. In the high models they simply collapse. Source: Apple. Three types of problems. In their evaluation they divided the problems to be solved in three classes and verified if the reasoning models really contributed something to the traditional models that do not “reason.” Low complexity problems: reasoning models effectively surpassed those who did not have that reasoning capacity. Of course, they often think too much to solve these simple problems. Average complexity problems: there was still some advantage over conventional models, but not too much. High complexity problems: All models ended up starring these problems. Thinking, nothing. According to these researchers, the reason for this failure when reasoning in complex problems is simple. These models do not “reason” at alland all they do is use advanced patterns recognition techniques to solve problems. That does not work with complex problems, and there the foundations of these models are completely falling apart. Given these problems, if a model is given clear instructions and more resources should improve and be able to try to solve them, but this study demonstrates otherwise. Far from AGI. What these results suggest is that the expectation that these models have generated is undeserved: the current reasoning models simply fail to move from a certain barrier by adding data or computing. Some pointed to how reasoning models could be a possible way Towards the search for the AGIbut the conclusions of this study reveal that in fact we are not closer to achieving models that can be considered general artificial intelligence. They do not find solutions, they memorize and copy them. In fact, the study corroborated something that others defended in the past: These models simply have knowledge, and reproduce the solution they already had memorized when they find corresponding patterns that lead to that solution. Thus, these models could solve the famous problem of the Hanoi towers From many movements because they once know the solution can be applied systematically. However, in other puzzles they failed to the few movements. Stochastic parrots. Many of the critics of the AI ​​always They have defended That the generative models, reason or not, are basically parrots that repeat what has been taught. In the case of AI they detect patterns and are able to find/predict the following word/pixel when generating text or images. The result is usually convincing, but just because they have become extremely good when detecting these patterns and responding properly and coherently. But it is not new knowledge: it is to repeat the queya. They don’t think. Other critical experts of these expectations have been alerting us to alert us for the dangers of anthropomorphism of the IAS. I explained it Subbarao Kambhampti, from the University of Arizona, which, for example, analyzed the “reasoning” process of these models and their “chain of thought”. We use verbs like “think”, when they don’t think. They do not understand what they do, and that contaminates all the assumptions we do about their capacity (or lack of it). Do not trust what the AI ​​tells you. The behavior of these models confirms what is known since Chatgpt appeared on the scene. As convincing that these models may seem – “reason” or not – the reality is that they can make serious mistakes and make mistakes, although others certainly right. In fact there are cases in which these models do surprise by their ability to solve problems: In Scientific American A group of mathematicians were overcome by an AI model that managed to solve some of the most complex mathematical problems that they failed to solve, or that took longer to solve. Image | Puzzle Guy In Xataka | Copilot, Chatgpt and GPT-4 have changed the world of programming forever. This is thought of programmers

Xàbia set a capacity limit and access control in its two most famous coves. The problem is that nobody wants to take care of it

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In Xàbia they live around 30,000 people. At least according to the INE data, which only formally registered neighbors in the town. If we talk about the summer months and include visitors in the equation, the thing changes and that figure It multiplies exponentially. And it is understandable. Xábia is known for its landscapes, its gastronomy and beaches and coves as portitxol or grenadella. The problem is that this attractive threatens to be a collapse condemnation. One that this year promises Leave images of access to saturated sand. The beaches, face and cross. Having a beach near home in summer is a blessing. And an ordeal. Almost a year ago the residents of O Hío, in Cangas, a town in the Baixas Rías very popular for their sand, protest tourist that suffers every summer. To make clear their position on a Sunday they began to cross a village zebra crossing for minutes and minutes, blocking the traffic of access to the beach area. “The neighbors have the right to live. It is an avalanche of cars that not only contaminates, but affects everyone’s life because they park where they want,” regretted A neighbor. The Baixas Rías are not the only ones who deal with tourists in search of paradisiacal beaches. At the other end of the Peninsula, in Xàbia, the coves also attract thousands of vacationers, many of them aboard cars, which has forced the town to take action To control your transfer. Objective: Ordered beaches. Does Just a year The Alicante municipality presented a special device to control access to two of its most popular coves, the GRANADELLA and the Portitxolwith vigilantes in charge of supervising the passage and a regulated parking system in the street. The idea was simple: from June 1 to 21 (the “middle season”) the accesses were controlled only on weekends; From 21 that supervision became daily until September 13 and then the surveillance focused again on Saturdays and Sundays until October. It was not the only measure. Alicante Plaza Precise That in June 2024 the parking lot in PICT Tort began to be regulated, in the Cala Granadella, and La Barraca (Cala Portitxol). To avoid vehicle collapse, the City Council He chose to resort to a system with “barriers and payment”, which allowed visitors to park for almost all day (from 9 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.) paying nine euros for each vehicle. Once the parking lot was filled, the operators blocked access with barriers. “Avoid bottling”. And even City Hall He installed panels Informative on access roads to the coves so that drivers could know almost in real time the availability of parking spaces in Granadella and Portitxol. “The system tries to prevent the bathers from reaching the point where the control barrier is located and the parking lot is around,” I clarified The councilor of beaches. The idea was that these bathers could “opt for another beach and avoid bottling.” And arrived (almost) the summer of 2025. At the doors of 2025 Xàbia now meets a challenge, according to He revealed yesterday Levante-El Mercantil Valenciano. The newspaper ensures that the contest launched by the local government to take care of the control of access to Granadella and Portitxol seems to have not aroused the interest of any company. Last Monday the envelopes of the candidates opened and the executive discovered that no company had been presented. The exploitation of the service would not even attract the firm that assumed it in recent years. At the end of May Levant He already warned that Xàbia was approaching summer with the beaches without beaconing, anchoring buoys or supervision of access to the beaches. The tender of the surveillance, control and safety service in the coves of the town, which among other things aims to avoid the collapse of cars in Granadella and the Portitxol, would have been launched for a extendable year and a budget of almost 104,000 euros. Now, Clarify the newspaperthat hired has been deserted, the file has been filed and the coves face an uncertain horizon. “There are those who threaten to run over us”. The alleged disinterest in companies comes after drivers will alert last year of the encounters that live in the coves with choleric visitors. One of them admitted in August 2024 to Levante-El Mercantil Having met bathers who, when they find out that they cannot park in the area, take them with the workers, those who threaten or even love to run over. Without barriers or control, parking on the roads to Granadalla and the barrack also suppose a problem. When parking where they should not, cars complicate traffic and even reach hinder the step of firefighters and ambulances. In fact the sands already They have left saturation scenes. Images | Martin_vmorris (Flickr) 1 and 2 In Xataka | Spanish tourism faces the real risk of dying of success. There are already guides that advise three of its great destinations

We have a problem with plastic recycling. Japanese scientists have created one who self -destructs in the sea

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In summer, more than once we have been scared thinking that a plastic was, in reality, a jellyfish. Far from that triviality, a major problem is hidden. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)more than eleven million metric tons of plastics end up in the oceans every year. Although a new wave of change is brewing in Japan with plastics that get rid of. Short. A group of researchers from the Riken Center for the science of emerging matter and the University of Tokyo has developed a plastic capable of degrading completely in salt water in a matter of hours, As explained in a press release. The demonstration. The team has shown how a small piece of the new material disappeared in a container with marine water after being agitated for about an hour. Although no marketing plan has yet been detailed, the project leader, Takuzo Aida, He has affirmed Reuters That research has aroused great interest, even from the packaging sector. A deep problem. The urgency of this advance is framed in an increasingly serious environmental crisis. According to UNEPplastic pollution could be tripled by 2040, reaching up to 37 million metric tons annual in the oceans. Therefore, the investigation has not wanted to limit itself in the visible, but also in the microplastics that are infiltrated in all the ecosystems of the planet. Long journey. According to They have explained Scientists, this new material is the result of more than thirty years of research in supramolecular polymers. Unlike traditional plastics, which remain united by very resistant covalent bonds, they use weakest and most reversible links. This allows the material to maintain its resistance, but decompose rapidly under the appropriate conditions. The point. To achieve this, they needed a “passage key” that was in salt. Technically, They have detailed Reuters that the combination of hexametafostato sodium (a food additive) and ions of Guanidinio (employees in fertilizers) formed saline bridges that provided stability to the material. However, by immersing themselves in salt water, these bridges are broken and, within a few hours, there is no trace of the plastic. The resulting material is resistant, colorless, igniphed and not toxic. It can even waterproof with a hydrophobic coating, without losing your ability to break down if your surface is scratched or drilled. Although it has its limitations. As The project manager has indicated to Reuterswhen decomposing, plastic releases nitrogen and phosphorus, elements that can be reused by microorganisms or plants. However, if they accumulate in a uncontrolled way, they could alter coastal ecosystems, favoring phenomena such as algae flowers. To avoid this, the researchers propose a controlled recycling system in seawater treatment plants, which would allow to recover the materials and reuse them in new supramolecular plastics. Biodegradable, but enough? The novelty of Japanese plastic contrasts with the limitations of other called biodegradable plastics. According to the researchersmaterials such as polylactic acid (PL), although they degrade on land under industrial conditions, persist in the ocean, where they fail to break down and end up forming microplastics. Other more recent alternatives, such as certain recyclable plastics developed in Europe, offer greater durability and recyclabilitybut they still face similar challenges: slow degradation in the marine environment and dependence on specific management systems. One step further. That moment could be closer than it seems. Meanwhile, jellyfish will continue to be jellyfish. But at least, the plastic that imitates them could begin to disappear. Image | Unspash Xataka | We thought we had found a safe and sustainable alternative to oil derived. We have to keep looking

Flying to Mallorca costs only the Caribbean, the problem is that the airline business is no longer your tickets: it’s your clothes

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This week We counted That, if you have not reserved your vacation in the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands or one of those other “hot” points of the Mediterranean coast, the same may come out, or even cheaper, a stay in the Caribbean. The paradox is that the fault is not of the flights, it is from the hotels. In fact, the price of flying, without more, has not shot how it is usually pointed. What has really changed is the airline business model. Your ticket is no longer as important as what you wear. A billionaire business. It The BBC counted In a report this week that put figures to the business. What was once a standard service (billing a suitcase without cost, choosing a seat or receiving food on board) has been transformed by airlines into a colossal source of income. With the rise of low-cost companies in the mid-2000s, headed by Flybe And then replicated by giants such as American Airlines, collection was institutionalized by invoiced suitcases, a trend that today includes hand luggage (the last resolution in Europe It will bring tail) and with ideas increasingly “creative”. The result is a market of “accessory rates” that only in the United States generated more than 7,270 million dollars in 2024 by billed luggage, and that will globally reach the 145,000 million this yearrepresenting 14% of the sector’s income. This phenomenon has caused indignation between consumers and politicians, who accuse the airlines of applying the so -called Like “Junk Fees” (junk rates) camouflaged in the price End of the ticket. The luggage fever (hand). Given this scenario, millions of passengers have chosen to travel Only with hand luggageshooting the demand for small suitcases that meet the strict dimensions imposed by the airlines. He counted the medium British that marks Like Antler They have seen the searches and sales of compact models increase massively, while in social networks (Especially Tiktok) The content related to “luggage tricks” and suitcases tests in real airline meters has been popularized. Here are influencers Like Chelsea Dickensonwho have turned these types of videos into the core of their online activity, generating more impact than the content on the destinations themselves. In other words, the phenomenon demonstrates how the industry has even influenced consumption habits prior to trip. The legal controversy. We have been counting it. The growing collection even for hand luggage has caused a Formal reaction in Europewhere consumer organizations Like Beuc They have denounced a Several airlines (including Ryanair, Easyjet, Vueling and Wizzair) before the European Commission. They claim that these charges violate a 2014 judgment of the EU Court of Justice that establishes that hand luggage, if it meets reasonable weight and security requirements, cannot be an additional cost. However, the concept of “reasonable requirements” remains that gray area that still lacks a firm legal definition and that the airlines are grabbed, which allows them to continue applying charges according to their own criteria. In fact and as we said, the European Union has approved This week his position in favor of the regulation that will continue to allow airlines to charge for the hand luggage that travels in the cabin (yes, with the vote against Spain). The case of Indigo. The BBC counted that, in the face of the globalized tendency to monetize each service, some airlines, such as Indian Indiathey have remained out. Its executive director defends a policy of not charging for invoiced suitcases, arguing that prevents endless ranks and unnecessary conflicts in the shipping doors. Its operational model, which allows changes in just 35 minutes, demonstrates that an efficient logistics does not require squeezing the passenger for each basic service. This alternative, although marginal, emphasizes that there can be another type of relationship with the client in the air industry, challenging the dominant narrative of the sector. Between efficiency and abuse. In summary, the evolution of luggage collection reflects a paradigm change: the air trip has been fragmented in copper parts, leaving the passenger in a constant search for How to avoid paying further. While airlines defend their model in response to competition and the need for income, consumers and legislators question to what extent this strategy erodes the experience of flying. Thus, the hand luggage boom and the appearance of those “triprs of the trip” eager for visits reflect a culture of the minimum luggage as a form of economic resistance. If you want also, as forced adaptation to an increasingly hostile environment for the common traveler. Flying has ceased to be expensive, because what we carry with us is the real business. Image | Stockcake In Xataka | After the battle between the EU and the airlines for hand luggage, the rates and sizes remain for this 2024 In Xataka |

The price of negative light is a problem. It is also the biggest opportunity to reindustrialize Spain in decades

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See the wholesale price of light to zero euros or even negative has ceased to be an anecdote for become a daily phenomenon In Spain. Symptom that renewables dominate the energy mix, is a growing obstacle to the profitability of electricity, but is still cheap energy. And as such, it is the best opportunity to reindustrialize Spain in a long time. Why it happens. “Zero or negative prices are a symptom of abundance of renewable resources to generate electricity,” analyst Pedro Cantuel, who works in Ignis’s energy management, explains to Xataka. In the central hours of the day, when photovoltaic production is massive, renewables flood the network with a practically null marginal cost, which collapses prices in the wholesale market. The time to reindustrialize. The abundance of cheap energy puts Spain in a competitive advantage position against its European neighbors. If Spain can offer clean energy to a very low cost, it becomes a magnet for industries that devour electricity, such as data centers, metallurgy or new green chemical industry. “In the European context, I think this can happen, since Spain could offer more competitive electricity than some of its neighbors,” explains Sergio Fernández Munguía, engineer of the renewable sector and author of Windletter. “In a global context, industrial electricity in Spain is still expensive because the invoice includes many other items beyond the cost of electricity.” Who has to adapt to who. The industrial model of the twentieth century was based on a premise: the energy was available 24/7 at a more or less stable cost. The renewables have broken this scheme: their production is intermittent. The traditional solution is to store that energy with batteries or pumping centrals, but the high cost of these facilities has dragged their deployment. Fernando Rodríguez, an industrial engineer of the energy sector, believes that the true revolution is not only to attract the usual industries, but to create those of tomorrow. The solution, according to Rodríguez, is that the industry adapts to energy until there is economic storage, and not vice versa: “The industry of the future will have to work with greater inventories, as was the case before the imposition of the imposition of the Just in time“ Flexible and modular manufacturing. The idea is to design industrial processes that can operate in full load when energy is almost free and reduce its activity or stop when it is expensive, without losing efficiency. It is already happening in adaptable industries such as recycling, large -scale 3D printing or desalination, which can program their consumption peaks for maximum solar generation hours. Concrete cases? In the United States, the Alcoa Warrick aluminum giant already adjusts its production to the available renewable generation. In Germany, the School of Engineers of Munich and Linde have designed an ammonia plant that works both 100% and 10% of its capacity, adapting to the production of Hydrogen Grandolytic. The industry will be where renewables are. Rodríguez believes that an industrial relocation will be necessary, and gives as an example the failure of the German “electric highways, a project to carry wind energy from the north to the industrial south that will end up costing more than 140,000 million euros. “Industrial companies must relocate near the new centers of gravity of electric production,” he explains. In Spain, this means taking factories to areas with more sun and wind, creating development poles in places that until now were not industrial foci. If energy is free, who will build the central? The cheap energy avalanche has an inevitable counterpart that puts the entire system at risk. If prices are zero, producers’ income are also. “Negative or zero prices discourage new investments,” confirms Sergio Fernández. “Especially in photovoltaic, those who are making numbers for new plants will see that their expected income in the market is lower than a few years ago and, therefore, also their profitability.” A nipe castle. This problem not only affects future renewable plants, but also the support that guarantees that we have light when there is no sun or wind: combined gas cycles. “As the price of the wholesale market falls,” says Fernando Rodríguez, “the growing opportunity cost will leave investments to generation, transport, distribution and marketing without investors and without financing.” The long -term danger is evident: a total break in the investment that leads us to an obsolete and unable to meet future demand. Without a robust system, there is no possible competitive economy. To take advantage of the industrial opportunity, Spain has to strengthen its nipe castle, and it is not enough to touch the prices artificially. The attack plan. The first bottleneck is the electricity bill. Although energy in the wholesale market is cheap, the invoice is still expensive. For Pedro Cantuel, the solution goes through a “drastic reduction in the final invoice eliminating taxes, bringing system charges to the general state budgets and reduce regulated costs.” The second problem is oversupply. How is demand increased? Cantuel proposes to “encourage electrification to replace the consumption of winter gas with electricity.” And at an industrial level, support great consumers “with the same mechanisms that our German or French competitors have, facilitating the connection of new demand to the network. Spain before its historical opportunity. A turning point that can allow the country to reindustrialize sustainably and become an energy power in Europe. But time runs, and it is essential to “create a national long -term plan that provides stability and certainty to the sector,” claims Cantuel, who defines as a priority “set clear rules for storage and new vectors, such as hydrogen.” The relationship between electric and the government is enquisted by the 7% tax on the generation. Consumers complain that the distribution toll “far exceeds real network costs.” Defining the rules of a competitive New Spain requires a country plan that puts all interested parties to row in the same direction. Without an ambitious and coordinated plan, today’s abundance could become the precariousness of tomorrow. In Xataka | The light price is … Read more

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