proves

We thought that growing up defined the genus ‘Homo’ from its beginnings. Massive analysis proves we were wrong

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For decades, paleoanthropology has tried to decipher at what exact moment in our family tree we took the big “growth spurt” in our height to go from being relatively small people to the heights we see today in our environment. The classical anatomical belief held that the appearance of our genus was accompanied by a drastic and immediate increase in body size, but little by little We are learning more exact details. A new study recently published point out that the evolution of our body mass was not a sudden jump that defined all the first humans equally at the same moment, but rather a much more complex and gradual process than we thought. What we believed. Traditionally, several evolutionary models suggested that the origin of the genus Homo marked an abrupt anatomical boundary. It was assumed that the first humans quickly developed bodies much larger than those of the australopithecines, thus justifying new locomotor and energetic adaptations for the new ‘functions’ that we would acquire on a daily basis. To test these competing hypotheses, the research team has not simply compared fossil estimates in isolation, but has used advanced statistical tools on a data set composed of 386 specimens spanning 21 different taxa. This methodological rigor allows us not only to compare raw sizes, but also to take into account phylogenetic non-independence, size variation within the same species and the margins of uncertainty inherent to the fossil record itself. When did we take the growth spurt? The results of the analysis are statistically conclusive and rewrite the previous consensus, since, contrary to the classic hypotheses, the researchers found very weak support for the idea that the increase in size was a defining and transversal characteristic of the entire genus. Homo. Instead, the data show strong evidence that the marked increase in body mass occurred exclusively in species of Homo later, explicitly excluding the Homo habilis. That is, the first representatives of our genus continued to maintain a relatively modest size and the true biological leap that led us to scale our body proportions occurred later in the evolutionary lineage. It wasn’t that simple. As New Scientist points out, understanding body size is essential to understanding our past. However, for scientific rigor, the article of PNAS It stands as the essential primary source compared to more generalist readings, since, while there are voices that tend to look for immediate “cause and effect” narratives, the strict biological data of this study demonstrate that human evolution rarely works with changes that occur overnight all at once. That is why this work eliminates the “noise” of previous speculation by integrating multiple variables into a single analytical framework, and the result is that it was selective pressures and millions of years that modeled the physiology and size of the modern human being. In Xataka | The first “social network” in history is 57,000 years old, it was made up of hunters and gatherers and served to avoid extinction

The San Fermín bulls fight against TikTok and against modern times. And the ‘Joker’ proves that they are losing

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He wanted to be the protagonist in the San Fermín running of the bulls and he has achieved it. At least for a few hours. He more or less complied with the dress code of scarf and red sash, espadrille, white shirt and pants. But he was dressed up like the Joker. Not in vain do they know him as the “Joker” of the bullswith his green hair and that crazy look. With millions of views on their networks, the arrest and proposed sanction was not due to a matter of bad taste, but rather for converting the confinement into content and skipping a couple of digits from the public ordinance of Pamplona. After climb onto a balcony and do everything the performance so much in the square As in the races, the Municipal Police reduced it and stopped him. The case summarizes a phenomenon that has been growing for years. The Sanfermines continue to be a centenary festival, already converted into a huge set for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Every morning, dozens of runners look for a viral image and, meanwhile, the Municipal Police continues with its technique of tightening control to prevent the race from becoming a (more) dangerous spectacle. Mobile phones are still prohibited. Smart glasses too. In fact, this creative apogee has even forced the type of surveillance to change. Years ago the problem was cell phones. The municipal police told us that smartphones are not confiscated, but that runners are “invited” to leave the course. But things have changed. The use of smart glasses capable of recording video from the runner’s point of view has put the entire police force on alert. In just three running of the bulls during San Fermín 2026, the Municipal Police seized 54 glasses recording within the tour. All of them failed to comply with article 11 of the Ordinance, which prohibits the use of any image or sound device without express authorization. The violation is considered serious and can result in fines of between 601 and 6,000 euros. Who is the Joker behind the mask. Just like ElPaís has documentedthe name of this white label Joker is Lacey Mrzena. He landed in Pamplona from Chicago (Illinois), already dyed green and with his face made up. He seems to love the DC Comics villain and calls himself Straighdroplace. The arrest occurred after touching the bulls, he defied the municipal officials and reoffended despite police warnings. The Police insist that the costume does not constitute no violation. What is punishable (and sanctioned) are the behaviors that put the safety of the rest of the runners at risk. What can or cannot be done in the 850 meters that separates a good handful of bulls from a hundred people running these days, from last July 6 to today, closing day, is perfectly indicated after years of reviews: clothing, objects or behaviors that make the race difficult must leave the course in order to maintain “the good order and security of the running of the bulls.” More and more expulsions and sanctions. The “Joker” is just one of many. The Local Civil Protection Board confirmed several complaints during the holidays for reasons such as calling the attention of the cattle by shouting, climbing on urban elements or recording while they ran without permission or license to do so. Any distraction can cause a chain fall among dozens of runners and that is where the real danger lies. These objects can be confiscated for hindering progress on the course, the runner can be expelled and disciplinary proceedings can be initiated. And, of course, if the person reoffends or disobeys the agents’ orders, they can end up detained and fined with sanctions that “depend on the criteria of dangerousness and people involved according to each case”, as explained to us from Udaltzaingoa. The algorithm rewards risk. With videos that, until replicatedexceed the average number of TikTok views, the conflict of violating the ordinance in Pamplona seems to be worth it to some. In recent years, videos have proliferated that seek to be increasingly spectacular at popular festivals or mass events, even using drones and editing the speed to resemble professional sports content. In San Fermín the incentive is evident. A video recorded just a few centimeters from a bull can accumulate millions of views in a matter of hours. The more extreme the scene seems, the greater its diffusion. That incentive clashes with the philosophy of confinement. The Joker is just the scapegoat for an event that many sign up for just to see it. “What is this about confinement?”” from within. A battle impossible to win. The Municipal Police recognizes that technology evolves faster than those controls that many skip in the bullfightas is the case of selectivity reviews, with new radio frequency detectors. Every year new recording devices appear that are smaller and harder to detect. Smart glasses are the latest example that previously preceded GoPro and similar cameras. Meanwhile, the authorities maintain the same message: running requires doing it without cameras, without cell phones and without elements that distract participants. Virality is no exception. The “Joker” will probably disappear when San Fermín ends and we will see him again next year. Because the phenomenon lends itself like a magnet to any massive party that serves as a global showcase. And because, in practice, it is extremely difficult to prevent someone from being willing to risk a fine—or worse—to get the perfect video. Images | Flickr (Jonan Basterra) / Own edition In Xataka | Pamplona has discovered the definitive trick to break the rule: running in San Fermín filming it with glasses. The Police have another opinion

SK Hynix is ​​betting that the memory cycle is dead. He proves it by doing just what always killed him.

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SK Hynix debuted on the Nasdaq with a rise of 13% last Friday, after placing $26.5 billion in the largest IPO of a foreign company in the history of the United States. And that money does not go to dividends or buybacks. He is going to build more factories. What has happened. The South Korean has sold 177.9 million ADRs at $149 eachwith a premium of 2.9% over its price in Seoul, something unusual in this type of placement (they usually come out at a discount to attract buyers). Demand has multiplied the available supply by seven. On the first day of trading, the title reached $170. With this operation, SK Hynix becomes the second South Korean company to exceed $1 trillion in capitalizationafter Samsung. In the last twelve months its stock has risen more than 630% in its home market, Seoul. Why is it important. The memory sector has been trapped in the same pattern since the nineties: Excess demand. Huge investments in capacity. Oversupply And price collapse. It has happened in 1997, in 2001 and in 2008. This time SK Hynix defends that AI has broken that pattern forever, that the demand for high-performance memory has no foreseeable ceiling. And to demonstrate it, it does the only thing that lit the fuse in the three previous crises: pouring billions into expanding factories just when margins are at historic highs. In figures: SK Hynix controls just over half of the global memory market HBMwhich NVIDIA GPUs need to train AI models. Its operating margin for the first quarter of 2026 was 72%, with a net margin of 77%. Together with Samsung, it has committed more than $500 billion to two new manufacturing complexes. The fund for extreme ultraviolet lithography equipment alone amounts to about $7.9 billion. The context. All this has a technical reason: the 16-layer HBM4. NVIDIA has asked SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron to have it ready before the end of 2026, when the previous 12-layer standard has not even entered mass production. Stacking 16 layers forces each wafer to be thinned to 30 micrometers, a third of a hair, with an almost zero margin of error: a single defect ruins the stack. SK Hynix has already shown a 48 GB module and plans to mass produce it this quarter. Samsung lags behind, with a yield per wafer of just 10% at the beginning of the year. Micron has preferred not to risk: it has already sold all of its HBM4 production from 2026 and postpones the jump to 16 layers until 2027. Whoever wins this race keeps the orders for the next NVIDIA GPU platform, where SK Hynix would already supply around 70% of the memory. Between the lines. The market says it believes in the end of the cycle, but it does not act as such. What you say vs what you do: In June, a simple comment from SK Hynix about slowing down part of its AI memory business led to the fifth-worst day in Kospi history. Micron, its reference in the United States, continues to grow a lot, but no longer at the rate of a few quarters ago. Yes, but. SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron together control more than 90% of the market and face a lawsuit for alleged price pact in the jump from standard DRAM to HBM. And all three are expanding capacity at the same time, with the Micron factory in New York without contributing real volume until 2028. When all this production arrives together, the sector will return to the usual question: what happens when supply catches up to demand. SK Hynix is ​​betting that, with AI, the answer is no longer the same. In Xataka | 0.3 nm chips have a definitive date: the IMEC laboratory has found a way to extend the life of silicon Featured image | Xataka

They both believe that time proves them right.

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The US and China have signed a technological truce. However, as Chris Miller, the author of ‘The Chip War’in your newsletterthey have not signed peace at all. What they have agreed is a strategic pause in which both powers believe that time is on their side. Each one has their own theory of how they will win the game. And these theories are radically different, as can be expected in the current confrontation scenario. The Administration led by Donald Trump has made an important concession: has allowed Nvidia to deliver its second chip to some of its Chinese customers for artificial intelligence (AI) more powerful, the GPU H200. Their most advanced hardware is still subject to strict restrictions. However, this maneuver does not reflect any type of generosity: selling the H200 generates income for Nvidia and its allies, while the truly strategic chips (Blackwell and Vera Rubin) remain, in theory, out of Beijing’s reach. The Trump administration’s logic is this: if AI is going to be the engine of the economy and geopolitical power for decades to come, the US only needs to maintain its advantage on the technological frontier long enough for that advantage to become structural. At the base of its strategy lies the conviction that the general artificial intelligence (AGI) will transform the world irreversibly. The truce gives it time to consolidate that advantage and for its AI models to prove their economic value before China can catch up. The structural fragility of the truce The way in which the Chinese Government is reading the current situation is very different. When Chinese leaders talk about “major changes unseen in a century,” they mean a rebalancing of the industrial world order, not a revolution in language patterns. The most eloquent proof is the one that Chris Miller points out: If Xi Jinping was genuinely worried about running out of computing power, he would have accepted the H200 GPUs that Trump is so keen to sell him. And he hasn’t. Behind the scenes each party sharpens its knives for a new wave of supply chain conflicts China is playing with a different logic. Xi Jinping has warned to provincial governments that they should not treat AI as an uncontrolled spending race: “When developing new quality productive forces we should not rush or launch all at once (…) China must not abandon the old for the new. New technologies must be integrated into existing sectors.” This is not skepticism about AI. In fact, the Chinese leader has described it as an “epoch technology” comparable to the Industrial Revolution or the birth of the Internet. What he defends is a clear prioritization: first the industrial bases, then the digital superstructure. The inherent problem with a truce in which both sides believe they will win is that it is inherently unstable. Neither side has confused the technological truce with peace. China has continued to ship some rare earths to the US, while Washington has postponed several previously delayed restrictions looming over Chinese chipmakers. Still, behind the scenes each party is sharpening its knives for a new wave of supply chain conflicts. China’s current industrial push spans semiconductors, AI, biotechnology and batteries, and is focused on capital-intensive and relatively job-poor sectors. This strategy suggests that the Chinese government is willing to accept certain internal social costs in exchange for accumulating strategic capacity. The US, for its part, is betting that this capability will become irrelevant if AI rewrites the rules of the game before China can deploy it. Both bets are coherent. Both can be wrong. And that, more than any tariff agreement, is what makes this truce so provisional. Image | Gage Skidmore | Wikipedia More information | Chris Miller In Xataka | The condemnation that afflicts China: after decades of manufacturing a competitive desktop processor, it is six years behind

the graph that proves that Europe plays something else

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Today the rich are richer than ever and there are more of them than ever in the history of humanity. However, their distribution throughout the planet is very different from how they did a decade ago because, quite simply, there are countries where the ultra-rich grow more. Only in this last five years, 162,191 new ultra-rich “appeared”, that is, 89 people crossing the economic threshold of 30 million dollars a day (the barrier of high net worth individuals, or HNWI for short). Understanding where money is concentrated is the first step in anticipating investments, influences and geopolitical tensions. The club of the very rich. The graph you see below these lines has been prepared by Visual Capitalist and orders the states of the world according to two parameters: how many new ultra-rich people gain and how fast that club of very rich people grows. Combining the two makes sense: a high number may not be that high in a broad-based country like the United States, and a high percentage increase implies that something new is making people rich there. The data comes from the real estate consultancy and wealth manager Knight Frank through its report “The Wealth Report 2026“, which uses its own economic growth model including variables such as GDP growth, inflation, interest rates or the behavior of financial markets. Where there are more and more rich people. Visual Capitalist Why is it important. In a sentence: because money calls money. Where the ultra-rich live, capital also comes: buyers of luxury properties, investors in startups, investment funds, demand for high-level services… On the other hand, these people who concentrate wealth are also the subject of regulations in order to reduce economic and fiscal inequalities in a kind of tug-of-war of attracting and retaining capital in the face of economic imbalances in welfare economies. The United States is a factory of the rich: It is home to almost 40% of all the world’s rich people with more than 10 million dollars, almost double that of China (second). In the segment of 100 million or more, it also exceeds 40% of the world total. The explanation for this accumulation of wealth lies in a mix of a highly developed stock market, low tax pressure on capital, a mature and solid entrepreneurial ecosystem, and a legal system that firmly protects private property. Between 2021 and 2026, the US has added almost 67,000 new ultra-rich people, triple that of China. It is the largest manufacturer of great fortunes on the planet, notably compared to the second. That economic phenomenon called India. India is the most interesting case on the entire list because it combines speed and scale. In the last five years, its population of ultra-rich grew by 63.4% thanks to technological entrepreneurship, the digitalization of the economy and the development of its capital markets. It is not inherited or extractive wealth: it is wealth created by entrepreneurs and companies. Thus, the Asian giant has already taken bronze after the United States and China and is imposing a ferocious pace: India already has 207 billionaires and by 2031 the projection points to 313, 51% more. It is, in short, the only country that simultaneously appears in the top positions in both percentage growth and absolute volume of new great fortunes, thus becoming the economy with the greatest potential for private wealth creation in the next two decades. Europe is on another roll. Europe grows piano piano and not without internal tensions. Germany, Switzerland and France occupy third, fifth and seventh place respectively in terms of increase in ultra-rich people, but if we look at the speed of growth, they almost disappear from the ranking in favor of unexpected ones like Romania or Greece. The problem is not so much the numbers but the fiscal pressure, and stricter regulation where private property collides head-on with the welfare state. However, within the continent itself there are tremendously unequal policies, from the Swiss tax haven to France and your plan to tax the richest. Those covered: Poland, Qatar, Indonesia and Vietnam. Just a decade ago these countries did not appear in any pool of private wealth, but there is Poland as the outstanding leader in percentage growth of ultra-rich people between 2021 and 2026 with 109.2%, which has meant going from 1,442 to 3,017 individuals. Qatar follows with an increase of 106.9% and then Türkiye, with 93.6%. It is, in any case, double or triple the average. Of course, there is an essential nuance: they start from very small bases, hence in absolute terms they are still small groups compared to Germany or France. In the next five years the ranking is completed with other emerging countries: Indonesia leads the projections with an expected growth of 82%, followed by Saudi Arabia and Poland with 63% each. Just behind, Vietnam with 59%. What do they all have in common? Improve the scenario for private capital: more legal certainty, accelerated industrialization and in the case of Middle Eastern countries, almost zero taxation accompanied by residency programs for large assets. In Xataka | The countries with the highest number of billionaires among their population, brought together in a very revealing graph In Xataka | Seven of the ten largest fortunes in the world in 2026 are due to AI: this illustrative graph makes it very clear Cover | Visual Capitalist

A seven-dimensional black hole model proves that Stephen Hawking was right, to say the least.

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For a long time it was thought that black holes could only grow, since nothing escapes from them. Later, Stephen Hawking dismantled this theory, pointing out that radiation can come out of its interior and that, in fact, with this process the black hole it is fading away little by little. This hypothesis generated a new paradox; since, according to quantum mechanics, information cannot be created or destroyed in a quantum system. If the information cannot be destroyed, when the black hole disappears, where does all the information it stored go? This question has been a mystery until a team of scientists from the Slovak Academy of Sciences It occurred to him to do simulations in a 7-dimensional system. A reminder about black holes. a black hole It is an astronomical object so massive that its gravitational pull does not allow anything to escape from it. Not even the light. At a certain distance from the black hole is the event horizon, which is that point of no return from which everything is attracted towards its interior. Hawking radiation. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking launched a hypothesis which destroyed the idea that nothing can escape from a black hole. According to him, if we take quantum physics into account, there is something that can do it. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that a vacuum is not empty as such. Particle-antiparticle pairs continually form and appear and disappear. If this occurs in the vicinity of the event horizon, it could be that one of these particles is attracted towards the black hole, while another manages to escape from it, being slightly beyond the point of no return. That exhaust extracts energy from the black hole. This is what was called Hawking radiation. Disappearing black holes. We have all heard the famous formula from Einstein’s theory of relativity: E = mc². Since c is a constant, if there is energy, there must also be mass and, therefore, if energy is lost, for the constant to be maintained, mass must also be lost. That means that every time a black hole loses energy it is also losing mass. They are very massive objects, they would take a long time to turn off, but they finally do. The paradox arrives. Initially, many colleagues saw Hawking’s hypothesis as nonsense. However, today it is much more accepted. However, it is undeniable that it poses problems, such as the black hole information paradox. Where does the information go? Twisting space-time. The solution to the mystery has been possible by putting aside the theory of general relativity and analyze the problem with a somewhat more complex one: the Einstein-Cartan theory. The first points out that mass and energy can curve space-time. On the other hand, the second points out that it can also twist. For scales that are not excessively small there is no difference. However, when moving to tiny scales and therefore very high densities, This torsion plays an important role. A 7D model. Quantum physics models are often made in 4 dimensions: the three we all know and time. However, the authors of the recently published study took three more into account, so that the effects of the Einstein-Cartan torsion could be analyzed. Thus, they saw that when the matter of a black hole collapses its density increases greatly and, therefore, the twisting of space-time is detected. This gives rise to a repulsive effect, which counteracts the gravitational attraction that would normally take place in the engrossing hole. As a result, the evaporation of the black hole stops, which remains in a stable state, generating a remnant with a mass of 9×10⁻⁴¹ kg. A remnant with a lot of information. This tiny remnant is capable of storing all the information of the matter that the black hole contained. Specifically, these scientists’ models suggest that the remnant of a black hole the size of the Sun could store up to 1,515 × 10⁷⁷ qubits of information. Therefore, Hawking’s hypotheses are still valid and there is not even a paradox that dismantles them. At least this is not the lost information. Image | ESO (Wikimedia Commons) | ASA/Paul Alers (Wikimedia Commons) In Xataka | In 2009 Stephen Hawking hosted “the party of the century.” No one came precisely because Stephen Hawking organized it

Europe fled from Russia’s gas to fall into the arms of the United States. The Third Gulf War proves that it was a trap

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Behind troop movements and sea blockades for the Third Gulf Warthere is a much quieter script twist that is shaking the foundations of the continental economy: false European security. A problem that comes from the other side of the pond. After the energy crisis due to the Ukrainian War (still valid), Europe thought it had solved its great energy vulnerability by changing the gas that arrived through Russian gas pipelines for liquefied natural gas (LNG) that crossed the Atlantic in ships from the United States. The idea of ​​the European Union was to bet its imports on Washington to diversify sources and avoid future geopolitical blackmail. However, the American lifeline has turned out to be punctured. With the global market in maximum tension due to the war in Iran, the US is not guaranteeing European supply and makes gas subject to trade wars and political whims. The real Achilles heel. Europe now depends on the United States for two-thirds of its LNG imports, according to the center for economic studies Bruegel. As global supply falls due to the conflict, Asian buyers — who traditionally sourced from the Gulf — are competing aggressively for flexible gas ships. The result is a bidding war to the highest bidder: according to Bruegelseveral shipments of American LNG have already been diverted from Europe to Asia in the midst of the conflict. At the diplomatic and commercial level, the situation with our “savior partner” is enormously unstable. In the midst of this crisis, Donald Trump has come to criticize European allies, urging them on social networks to “get their own oil,” according to Bloomberg. As if that were not enough, political friction over the conditions of the trade agreement between the EU and the US has caused senior US officials to threaten retaliation, casting serious doubts on Washington’s previous commitment to sell $750 billion in energy products (including its precious LNG) to the European bloc. The price of the “green illusion”. The impact of this imbalance is being brutal for European pockets. According to the Financial Times Based on data provided by the European Commission itself, the bill for EU fossil fuel imports has increased by 14 billion euros in just 30 days of conflict. Gas prices have experienced a rise of 70%, while oil prices have become more expensive by 60%. This puts in front of the mirror what in Euractiv have baptized as “the green illusion” of Europe: a glaring structural failure in the energy transition. Despite having invested nearly one trillion euros in renewable energy, the European Union’s energy dependence on imports remains at 60%, practically the same figure as in 2004. An ineffective design. The reason for this price contagion lies in the very design of the European electricity market. By operating with a marginalist system, the most expensive technology (usually gas) is the one that sets the price of electricity for everyone, as explained in Strategic Energy. In countries heavily dependent on gas to generate electricity, such as Italy, gas sets the price 89% of the time, exposing citizens directly to international volatility. However, there is hope if you do your homework. In Spain, the enormous growth of wind and solar energy has caused the gas only mark the price of electricity 15% of the hours, much better shielding the country against these external shocks. In fact, it’s not all bad news: solar electricity generation has saved the EU from spending 2 billion euros in fossil fuel imports only in the first 20 days of March. And now what? It doesn’t look like we’ll get a break anytime soon. The crisis will not be brief, as the European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, has strongly warned. who has made it clear thateven if peace were declared tomorrow, prices would not return to normal in the foreseeable future. The European Commission is already finalizing a “toolbox” with emergency measures that will suddenly return us to the scenarios of 2022. On the table in Brussels is the possibility of recovering taxes on extraordinary profits that fell from the sky (windfall tax) for energy companies. Drastic measures in sight. Brussels also foresees drastic measures to contain demand based in the well-known 10-point plan of the International Energy Agency. This would translate into recommendations to Member States to encourage teleworking, reduce speed limits on motorways and promote both public transport and car sharing. At the strategic level, to stop the bleeding in LNG prices and prevent the US from playing against Europe with Asia over shipments, the think tank Bruegel proposes a radical solution: that the EU act as a bloc and coordinate its gas purchases directly with large importers such as Japan and South Korea to avoid a bidding war. The invisible problem. To understand the complete picture, we must talk about the great bottleneck that almost no one talks about: concrete and copper. European renewable deployment is colliding with a lack of capacity in electricity networks. According to a report from the climate think tank Emberat least 120 GW of planned renewable energy projects in Europe are at risk simply because the grid cannot support them. The logjam is monumental, with almost 700 GW of renewable projects stuck in connection queues awaiting permits across European countries reporting this data. And this is not just a problem of the macro plants of large corporations; It directly affects the average citizen. According to calculations in the same report, 1.5 million European homes could face delays in being able to connect the solar panels on their roofs due to obsolete distribution networks that do not have the capacity to take on the energy. A chronic gap. The underlying problem is a chronic gap in the system itself. As pointed out EuractivEurope has changed how it generates its electricity, but it has not electrified its real economy. Cars continue to burn oil, heavy industry continues to use fossil gas and the general electrification of the economy has been stagnant for ten years. Europe has spent … Read more

The owner of Mercadona believes that in a few years kitchens will disappear from homes. The consumption of precooked foods proves him right

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The forecast sounded so far-fetched, it clashed to such an extent with the gastronomic tradition of Spain, that it generated a considerable stir. Just a year ago, during the presentation of Mercadona’s accounts, Juan Roig surprised by predicting death (almost) imminent of domestic kitchens. “I said it and I maintain it: in the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens,” cried the businessman. In the future imagined by Roig we go from making our own food in the vitro at home to taking it already prepared from supermarkets, which have become an absolute reference for food. The sector data They confirm that, no matter how dystopian Roig’s prophecy sounds, it seems to be coming true. A percentage: 3.8%. Spain is a benchmark for the Mediterranean diet. But also, and increasingly, a country of families who are no longer willing to spend hours and hours in the kitchen. That’s what it suggests at least. the last balance of the Spanish Association of Prepared Meal Manufacturers (Asefapre). According to the data of the sector, in 2025, ready-made foods “reinforced their weight in the shopping basket”, with an increase in consumption of 3.8%. In total, 715,052 tons of prepared meals were sold, “a new record,” recalls Asefapre, which consolidates the trend of the last decade. Translated into hard and fast euros, sales rose to 4,309 million, with an annual increase of 5%. A figure: 18 kilos a year. To give us an idea of ​​what this growth means, Asefapre calculates that last year each Spaniard ate on average about 18 kilos of prepared dishes. As a reference it is almost the same amount of fish products that we Spaniards consume in our homes (another thing is the restaurants) throughout 2024. The difference between precooked and fish is that the demand for the latter takes time to increase. low hours (both fresh and frozen) while the former grows at a good pace. The latest balance sheet of the employers’ association reflects an annual increase of 4.7% in the consumption of prepared foods, a growth rate that comfortably exceeds that of food as a whole (0.6%). What do we eat? Asefapre segregate your data of sales, which offers us an interesting vision of what exactly we Spaniards consume. The cake goes to “refrigerated” products, with a sales volume of 330,602 t shipped in 2025, 5% more than the previous year. In second place are “frozen products”, with sales that amounted to 297,023 t (+2.5%). The “dishes prepared at room temperature”, very common in some supermarket chains, are quite far behind, with 87,426 tons sold, but they leave an interesting fact: their demand grew by 4.1%. From pizza to potatoes and pasta. If we go down to detail we see that what we Spaniards like most (at least it is what we demand most) are pizzas, the leading producer in the sector with a sales volume that amounted to 131,600 tons. They are followed by frozen potatoes, with 98,056 t, and pasta-based dishes, which totaled 72,405 t. The three categories grew, with sales increases ranging between 2.6 and 7.2%. Beyond the Spanish market, one fifth (21.4%) of the industry’s production ends up being exported. More than just strategy. At this point the question is obvious: Why do we buy more and more pre-cooked foods? What leads us to feed ourselves with prepared dishes, whether frozen, refrigerated or food sold at room temperature ready for consumption, like what Mercadona offers in its supermarkets? The answer is complex. On the one hand there is the sector’s strategy, which has increased and perfected its range of products, adding foreign dishes that aim in part at the growing population immigrant living in Spain. Beyond the efforts of the industry, the increase in consumption of prepared dishes also responds to profound changes at a social and cultural level. They increase the single-person householdsit gets complicated conciliation between professional and family life and even change the kitchen structure in the houses. Also our way of thinking, as Asefapre herself remembers: today it no longer ‘squeaks’ at us that they serve us a pre-cooked dish on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve or that in families there are no longer people willing to lock themselves between the stoves. Of new grandmothers and homes. “Grandmas are not like they used to be and prefer to go walking with friends, do pilates or travel,” he reflected during the presentation of the balance sheet the president of Asefapre, David Aldea. It is not the only cultural change he cited. Added to this are others, such as the fact that it is increasingly easier to find “homes with fewer members” or homes in which the space dedicated to cooking has been reduced to a minimum. The trend seems to confirm Roig’s prediction, which a year ago I already confirmed the good progress of Mercadona’s business line for ready-to-eat dishes, launched in 2018. “It is profitable and continues to grow.” Images | Andalusian Government (Flickr), Mercadona and Asefapre In Xataka | Mercadona has grown so much in Spain that for the US it is no longer just a supermarket chain: it is a “cultural phenomenon”

the new promise that a Singapore company proves

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There are short journeys that, even today, continue to depend on slow ships or air infrastructure that does not always make sense. In that middle space, a Singapore-based company has started to test a different alternative: a vehicle capable of moving at high speed without completely taking off from the water and without needing an airport. This is not an experimental concept, but rather an industrial program with a calendar, partners and routes being studied for 2026. What type of vehicle is it exactly? The proposal is specified in the AirFish Voyagera device developed by the Singaporean company ST Engineering AirX that does not quite fit into either the boat or airplane categories. It is a type vehicle wing-in-ground (WIG) that moves just a few meters above the surface thanks to the so-called ground effect, an aerodynamic phenomenon that compresses the air between the wing and the water, generating additional lift and reducing resistance. This principle promises to reach speeds of around 185km/h, and reduce resistance compared to conventional maritime options. The project advances. The public presentation took place at Singapore Airshow. According to the company, the vehicle is in the process of classification with Bureau Veritas since 2024, an international classification and certification society that must validate its safety before any regular operation, and whose resolution is expected in mid-2026. In parallel, the company has closed agreements with maritime transport operators to start services from the second half of that same year, always conditional on regulatory approvals. The first specific route on the map. The most immediate agreement places the operational debut on the route between Singapore and Batam, in Indonesia, where the operator BatamFast plans to use a unit of the AirFish Voyager. ST Engineering places this start in the second half of 2026. It is estimated that the vehicle could complete this journey in around 25 minutes thanks to speeds, well above the usual times of conventional ferries. If this schedule is confirmed, the connection would become the first commercial route in the world operated with WIG technology. The next deployment front is in India, where the operator Wings Over Water Ferries has announced its intention to lease and commission up to four units of the AirFish Voyager from the end of 2026. The initial strategy targets coastal states with strong tourism and regional transport demand, including Andaman and Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. In addition to the operation, the agreement contemplates exploring local assembly, manufacturing, training and maintenance capabilities, in line with the industrial initiatives promoted by the program. Make in India. The regulatory and technical barrier. Beyond speed or agreements with operators, the determining factor continues to be the certification framework. The company proposes that the AirFish Voyager be governed by maritime standards, a decision that would reduce infrastructure requirements and facilitate its integration into existing coastal routes using conventional port facilities. However, as we say, you still need to complete your certification process, an essential step to start providing any commercial service. Images | ST Engineering AirX In Xataka | The Strait of Malacca is not enough: China’s new obsession is to prevent the US from confiscating its ships

We believed that no open model could outperform GPT-5. A Chinese startup proves us wrong

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A Chinese startup called Moonshot just launched Kimi K2 Thinkinga gigantic open model with a trillion parameters that has done something that seemed almost impossible: surpass the best proprietary models from companies like OpenAI, Google or Anthropic. If we thought that “Open Source” models could never compete with GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro or Claude, we were wrong. what has happened. This “AI laboratory” had already announced Kimi K2 in July with that gigantic size of one trillion parameters, but now they have released the “Thinking” version with that same size (32 billion active parameters, Mixture of Experts architecture). According to those responsible, the model is capable of maintaining stable use of agentic tools over between 200 and 300 sequential calls. Or what is the same: it can chain long sequences of actions autonomously and apparently without error. The best of all is not that: it is that it surpasses GPT-5 or Claude Sonnet 4.5 in various tests and costs much less than those models. The benchmarks. Those responsible for Moonshot explained how Kimi K2 Thinking achieves the highest scores in Humanity’s Last Exam (general knowledge, 44.9%) and BrowserComp (agent browsers, 60.2%). He is almost at Claude’s level in the SWE software development test, and is also almost the best in another of those benchmarks, LiveCodeBench v6. It is true that in some tests still slightly behind of its “western” rivals, but the achievement is spectacular. More benchmarks. Those responsible for Artificial Analysis have shown their first conclusions after evaluating it with various tests. Thus, they highlight its behavior in agentic tasks that simulate that the model is acting as a customer service agent. In this test it obtained 93% of the maximum, surpassing all its competitors by far (GPT-5 Codex High obtained 87%, for example). They will do more tests, but for now the prospects are fantastic. And on top of that, cheap. On CNBC indicate that training the model cost $4.6 million, a ridiculous figure considering that training proprietary models like GPT-5 It cost about 500 million dollars according to estimates. Using the Kimi K2 Thinking API is also very affordable: $0.6 per million tokens in and $2.5 per million tokens out. GPT-5 Chat costs $1.25/10 respectively, while Claude Sonnet 4.5 costs $3/15 respectively. The details. The model makes use of an INT4 quantization to improve its efficiency without compromising the precision and quality of its responses. Its context window—the “size” of the data we can enter when making prompts—is 256k, a relatively modest figure for large models but still notable. And as a good open model, we can download it to use locally… if we have a real monster at our disposal. The model weighs 594 GB, and for example joining two Mac Studio M3 Ultra It is possible to make it work locally relatively smoothly at about 15 t/s. Alibaba is behindyes. Although the model is developed by an independent startup called Moonshot, this firm has been financially supported by Alibaba, which is becoming an absolute powerhouse in this field. Already not only conforms with developing its own models, which are outstanding (Qwen is the clear example), but is also financing the development of other models such as Kimi K2/Thinking. China and its love for open AI models. During the last few months we have seen how China dominated in the field of open AI models —not “Open Source”—. The Asian giant has adopted an overwhelming philosophy with increasingly better models but which until now seemed to be several steps behind the large proprietary models of OpenAI, Anthropic or Google. This is no longer the case. The race is lively. This achievement represents a new vote of confidence for the open models coming from Chinese companies. It is true that they are huge and that makes it very difficult to use them in practice by end users, but they present an interesting alternative for companies. Image | idnaklss with Midjourney In Xataka | There are many “internal” races within the greater AI race. And Alibaba is winning Open Source

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