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In 1962 the United States exploded an atomic bomb in orbit to create an anti-missile “wall.” The result was electrical chaos 1,000 km away

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July 9, 1962, an aurora appears in the skies of Hawaii, Tonga and Samoa. It would be strange for these phenomena to form so far from the poles, although experience has shown us that it’s not impossible. Even so, in this case the auroras were not formed by a solar storm, but by Starfish Prime, a US experiment that went wrong. Very badly. Basically, they decided to launch an atomic bomb into space to widen the ring of natural radiation that surrounds the Earth and, thereby, create a wall against Soviet missiles. They managed to distort it, yes, but not in the way they expected. Furthermore, by the way damaged electrical systems, satellites and telephones, caused blackouts more than 1,000 kilometers away and there were even fears for the health of the astronauts who would travel to the Moon 7 years later. As a result of that incident, an international agreement was signed to prohibit atomic testing in the atmosphere, outer space or the bottom of the sea. Since then, all countries have complied with it, although there are scientists who do not trust that it will continue to be done, so they have devised a plan curiously related to Starsfish Prime. Starfish prime. The Starfish Prime project consisted of the detonation in low earth orbit of a 1.44 megaton nuclear warhead. That is, they used a bomb 100 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima. The goal was to stretch the Van Allen belta ring composed of swarms of highly energetically charged particles that are trapped in the network of the Earth’s magnetic field. If the ring could be stretched, they thought it could incapacitate the Soviet missiles that posed a threat to the nation. They achieved the goal. But the rest of the consequences were too serious to want to repeat. More radiation. The amount of radiation in the Van Allen ring increased. By 1969, when the Apollo 11 astronauts they traveled to the moonthere was still a slight increase in radiation that they could absorb on their way to our satellite. Several studies were carried out to check if their health would be seriously at risk, but it was seen that the danger was manageable, so it was decided to continue with the mission. An international agreement. In 1963, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, in which they committed to freeing the atmosphere, outer space and the seabed from nuclear tests. Later, in 1967, was signed he International Outer Space Treatywith which the great world powers established a mode of action for the exploration and use of outer space. Since then there is no evidence that nuclear weapons have been sent into space. However, there are scientists who do not trust that other countries may be acting as agreed. One of them is Areg Danagoulian, from MIT, and the idea you had to solve it is, to say the least, curious. Neutron spallation. Danagoulian’s proposal consists of taking advantage of a phenomenon called neutron spallation, by which very high-energy particles are capable of causing atomic nuclei to expel their neutrons. And where have we seen that there are charged particles with a lot of energy? Indeed, in the Van Allen belt. This MIT scientist believes that if a satellite loaded with a nuclear device were to pass through this ring, something it necessarily has to do, its particles would cause the nuclei of the uranium atoms to lose neutrons. For this reason, it proposes to build a specific detector for this type of neutrons, which would be responsible for sounding the alarm if it detects said expulsion. Aurora seen from Hawaii A feasibility study. At the moment, Danagoulian has not built anything. Has carried out a feasibility study in which he demonstrates that his project is plausible. It is based on sound physics and the techniques needed already exist. If Russia had a nuclear satellite, as this and other scientists fear, it could be a useful device. Now, just because it is possible does not mean that it is easy. Neutrons coming from uranium would have to be differentiated from those from other elements and, furthermore, distinguished from those that could come directly from the Earth. There is a lot of work ahead. With Starfish Prime it was discovered that the consequences of an abrupt release of radiation in the Earth’s magnetic field can be very serious, whether it occurs artificially, with an atomic bomb, or naturally due to solar activity. It is important that we are prepared. Ideally, everyone will comply with the agreements; But, just in case, it doesn’t hurt to resort to detection techniques. Without a doubt, it is a much healthier way to take advantage of what the Van Allen belt gives us. Image | US Air Force 1352nd Photographic Group, Lookout Mountain Station/NASA In Xataka | SpaceX has launched 8,000 Starlink satellites in five years, but they are not enough. And we’re starting to understand why

chain models to refine the result

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During the last three years the models of artificial intelligence (AI) have improved a lot. Often the latest reviews of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or DeepSeek provide us with convincing answers to the questions we ask them or the tasks we ask them for. However, your first answer is usually not the best. It almost never is. If we settle for the first thing they tell us We will be underusing them and wasting part of their potential. Fortunately, there is a very simple strategy that can help us not to obtain a reasonably good answer, but to achieve the most accurate and reliable result. The optimal response. And it consists of chaining several AIs so that each one of them refines the work of the previous one. When we ask an AI for something, the model generates a response based on the context we have given it. If the context is scarce, the response can clearly be improved. Now, if the context is well defined but the request is broad, the AI ​​will tend to cover the ground in a reasonable way, although without delving into any specific aspect. No professional work is delivered in its first version. There is always a review, a criticism or an adjustment. The chaining of several AIs transfers exactly that logic to working with language models. And, as we are about to see, it is a very valuable ally. What is chaining multiple AIs and why does it work? What we propose to do is simply use the output of one AI model as input for the next one. Instead of asking an AI to do everything in a single step, we can divide the work into several phases. In this way, one AI generates the first result, another criticizes it, another refines it and a last one verifies everything. In this scenario, each model acts as a specialist with a different role. And the final result accumulates the advantages of each phase. It is important that we keep in mind that language models respond to the immediate context they receive, and not to an abstract objective. It is not that one AI is necessarily better than another. Our starting point is that a model that we ask exclusively to criticize a text is more effective than one that we ask to generate it and criticize it at the same time. Specialization improves the result. A model that we ask exclusively to criticize a text is more effective than one that we ask to generate it and criticize it at the same time Be that as it may, the ideal is that we illustrate this strategy with a practical example. Let’s imagine that we need to write a delicate email in which we intend to reject a collaboration proposal without damaging our professional relationship with the person to whom we are going to send the email. We can ask ChatGPT for the following: “Compose an email to reject a collaboration proposal from a supplier with whom I have a good relationship. I want the tone to be cordial, leave the door open for future opportunities and not sound like an excuse” The result will be a perfectly valid email. Maybe too generic, but valid. To improve it we can copy that text and give it to Claude with a prompt like this: “Act like a professional communication expert. This is a rejection email I wrote. Identify your three weakest points and explain how I can improve each of them” Claude will point out, for example, that the opening is too abrupt, that the phrase “leave the door open” sounds like an empty formula, and that the closing does not propose any concrete step. However, we are not done yet. Now we can polish it up a bit more by handing Claude’s output to Gemini, or even ChatGPT, with a prompt like this: “Rewrite this email incorporating the following improvements: (here we paste the three points that Claude criticized). Keep the same tone and length” Investing two more minutes in chaining three prompts instead of using just one can transform a correct result into an exceptional one. The result of this third step will be substantially better than the first. Not because no AI is more “intelligent” than the others, but because each of them has acted with a very delimited purpose. In any case, it is not essential that we resort to various AI models. We can also do the same with a single AI if we change the role in each message. Our strategy is the same: we will not ask a single prompt let him do it all. We will generate first, critique later, and refine last. We can even add a fourth verification step (“Is there anything in this text that could be misinterpreted?”) or adaptation (“translate it now into a more informal register”). Each additional step has a low cost and a high benefit. Invest two more minutes in chaining three prompts Instead of using just one, you can transform a good result into an exceptional one. Image | Generated by Xataka with a prompt created by Claude and submitted to ChatGPT In Xataka | ChatGPT blocking mode: what it is, what it is for, who can use it and how to activate it In Xataka | AI is replacing one of the most hated jobs in the world: the tailcoat collector

It is the result of thousands of years of trial, error and Pasteur’s germ theory

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Nowadays, a baby bottle is an everyday object, a safety standard sanitary that is made up of BPA-free plastics, tempered glass and high-quality silicone. However, behind this simplicity hides a great medical story about the origin of the baby bottle and the dark times he has gone through over the years. The origin. For a long time, the history of infant feeding was based on assumptions, but modern archaeological science has shed light on our ancestors. Here anthropological and archaeological studies have shown that non-maternal feeding practices have existed since Antiquity, evidenced by ceramic containers found in Greece, Rome and Egypt. But the most interesting discovery came from the hand from a publication in Nature in 2019, where researchers analyzed small terracotta vessels found in children’s graves from the Bronze Age and Iron Age. What they saw. Thanks to the analysis of isotopes and lipid residues adhered to the walls of the ceramic, the scientists confirmed the presence of ruminant milk in these containers. This is, to this day, the strongest direct chemical evidence for the use of containers that resembled our baby bottles in prehistoric times. A dark time. Moving forward in history, when traditional breastfeeding was not possible and wet nurses could not be used to feed the children, artificial feeding methods were used. But logically there were no baby bottles today, and that is why rudimentary alternatives such as rags and animal horns were chosen. However, pre-modern artificial feeding had a terrible cost, since between the 17th and 19th centuries, the first attempts to manufacture artificial feeding containers resulted in very high infant mortality. Because? Historical medical literature documents a direct and indisputable relationship between the use of unsafe baby bottles and the massive deaths of babies due to enteritis and diarrhea. At that time, the lack of hygiene turned these first containers into death traps full of problems. And this was a big problem, since at that time society began to see the population as authentic productivity machines. This meant that, if children died, there would not be enough workers in the future to continue growing the countries’ economies. It was about solving. To avoid this high infant mortality, at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, “drops of milk” were established. They were charities created in France to distribute free sterilized milk to mothers who could not breastfeed their children and did not have the resources to pay wet nurses. They also arrived in Spain with the opening of the first center in San Sebastián in 1902, but they were also seen in Barcelona or Madrid to try to solve a very important problem. The new bottles. The transition to the modern baby bottle depended on materials technology, as the 19th century brought the transition to glass bottles, but a crucial element was missing to emulate breastfeeding: a durable, elastic nipple. But here industrial technology came into play, and in 1844 Charles Goodyear discovered the process of vulcanization of rubber, which shortly after allowed the adoption of rubber nipples, representing an immense functional improvement compared to the horns and rags of the past. The triumph of microbiology. Having glass bottles and rubber nipples did not stop infant mortality immediately, as the real turning point came not from design engineering, but from microbiology. In the 1860s, Louis Pasteur’s original work on germ theory changed the paradigm of medicine, and Pasteurian bacteriology radically transformed hygiene practices, prompting public health reforms and the systematic sterilization of baby bottles and milk. So, the combination of three elements such as teats, glass and advances in microbiological hygiene laid the definitive foundations for the safe and modern baby bottle that we have in our homes today. There are myths around. There are some ideas around the baby bottle that are wrong, such as that it was invented by accident, and the truth is that the literature describes us a gradual evolutionary progress towards the result we have today. And although it is true that Charles Windship registered a patent of baby bottles in the American database in 1841, historians agree that there is no consensus to attribute the invention of the “first modern baby bottle” to a single person, since there were multiple patents for baby bottles throughout the 19th century. Images | Lucy Wolski In Xataka | One baby, three parents (biological): a promising fertilization technique that, for now, we will not see in Spain

Science has measured how dinner affects sleep and the result explains why you wake up craving sugar

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Almost everyone has experienced an annoying night tossing and turning in bed after a heavy dinner or fat. Under this pretext, science has gone one step further to demonstrate that the relationship between what we eat and how we rest is completely bidirectional, making what we eat determine whether we are going to rest better or worse. And the most surprising thing is that sleeping poorly can cause us to need to consume more sugar the next morning. A Granada studio. In February 2026 the magazine European Journal of Nutrition public a revealing investigation led by the University of Granada, where researchers monitored the habits of 146 adults with obesity. To do this, they used special watches to analyze accelerometry over a period of 14 days, to later cross-reference the activity data with dietary surveys of what had been consumed throughout the day. Prohibited items. One of the most interesting conclusions reached was undoubtedly the relationship between certain foods and poor rest. And to be clear, the elements that should be prohibited at our dinner are the following: Saturated fats. Eating excess protein and, more specifically, eating red meat for dinner. French fries, or fried foods in general, reduce the quality of sleep. Alcohol is one of the classics on this topic, since, although it generates a feeling of sleep, it destabilizes its quality. Large meals cause slow digestion and cause nighttime awakenings, preventing you from entering into a deep and restful sleep. Highly recommended foods. On the contrary, the passport to restful sleep seems to lie in another type of nutritional profile. Interestingly, carbohydrates, often demonized at night, were associated with better rest in this study. Although we are not talking about sugar directly from the sugar bowl, but rather complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice or potatoes, because help transport tryptophan to the brain. But in addition, the consumption of oily fish such as salmon or sardines is also recommended, since they are rich in omega-3 and especially tryptophan. The reasons. As we see, tryptophan is key in the diet to induce quality sleep, and it is no wonder. Biochemistry tells us that the tryptophan that we ingest through the diet is converted into serotonin and, subsequently, that serotonin is transformed into melatonin, the well-known sleep hormone. And for this chain to work we need very important factors such as vitamin B6, magnesium or zinc. But this also adds to a much less difficult digestion when talking about foods that are barely fatty and that do not require a lot of work on the part of our body and that do not invite reflux symptoms to appear that can be really annoying at night. Specific foods. With scientific support behind it We find the kiwi, since here a trial pointed out that eating two kiwis, one before going to sleep, reduces the time to fall asleep by 35%. But it also increases sleep duration by 13% due to its contribution of antioxidants and natural serotonin. Additionally, green leafy vegetables such as spinach, chard or lettuce provide magnesium and tryptophan. And if vegetables are not for you, we also have eggs, either boiled or in an omelet, which provides tryptophan and vitamin B6, along with the classic grilled chicken breast, which is also an excellent source of tryptophan. The rebound effect. However, the true clinical contribution of the research is to show that this problem is, in reality, a cycle that feeds on itself in a dangerous way. Here the researchers found that when participants experienced a poor night’s sleep, breakfast was marked by a higher consumption of sugars and a lower intake of fiber. Images | Slaapwijsheid.nl Debbie Tea In Xataka | We have accepted that “deep sleep” is the standard for sleep quality: science points in another direction

Samsung has made a lot of money from the memory crisis and its employees wanted their cut. Result: bonus of $340,000

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Employees at Samsung’s chip division were in high gear. And it is logical: your company is becoming gold thanks to the rise of data centers for AI. The demand for memory chips is extraordinary and that has caused Samsung’s market capitalization to skyrocket over a billion dollars. The company, yes, was being very selfish, but the threat of a strike He has made her see reason. The bonus of the crisis. Samsung Electronics workers have ratified a multimillion-dollar compensation agreement. One that will see employees of the semiconductor division receive an average bonus estimated at 513 million won (about $340,000). Agreement in extremis. The vote was approved by 74% of members of the majority union, and was closed in extremisbecause there were 90 minutes left before an indefinite strike began that threatened to paralyze this giant’s supply chains. The risk was too high. This agreement avoids a scenario that would have been catastrophic for the AI ​​industry. Samsung is the largest memory chip manufacturer in the worldand its modules power everything from mobile phones and electric vehicles to the GPUs used in AI data centers. Considering that the market is already stressed by the memory crisis and demand that far exceeds supply, adding this bottleneck would have had unforeseeable consequences. Only Saudi Aramco surpasses Samsung in estimated operating profits for 2026. Source: Bloomberg. Memory chips are pure gold. Samsung is on its way to close one of the most profitable years in its history, and its semiconductor division already indicated that its profits had multiplied by 48 in the first quarter of the year, an absolutely extraordinary figure. She is not the only one taking advantage of this phenomenon: SK Hynix and Micron They have broken the trillion-dollar market capitalization barrier for the first time. Some so much and others so little. Although the agreement has avoided a logistical disaster, it has also caused a very uncomfortable situation internally. The bonuses are linked to the financial performance of each business unit, which means that the 28,000 members of the chip division have benefited significantly, but the rest of the company has not. The differences are clear: Engineers in that division will receive bonuses of up to 600 million won ($400,000). They will share 40% of the total allocated as bonuses. Personnel in divisions such as home appliances or telephony will receive a testimonial bonus of just 6 million won ($4,000). They share 60% of the bonus, but there are many more in number, about 260,000 in total. The average salary of Samsung employees in 2025 was 158 million won (about $105,000) according to internal company information published in March. Unions divided. This asymmetry of 100 to 1 has caused great tensions to appear between departments, and this has also been noted in the negotiation and conversations in the union. While the majority bloc (which included the majority of workers in the semiconductor division) supported the agreement with more than 80% of the votes, the secondary union, which brings together employees from other divisions, rejected the document with only 21% of votes in favor. TM Roh takes action. The situation is so worrying that TM Roh, head of the device division, has sent an internal statement to try to calm things down. He has admitted that the results of the negotiation have left thousands of employees feeling “alienated, dispossessed and hurt by the company.” Top management has promised to monitor the conditions of each unit, but while Samsung has managed to control the chaos in its factories, it could have an even more disturbing problem on its hands. Image | Wikimedia Commons (Choi Kwang-mo), IntelUnsplash (Liam Briese) In Xataka | Samsung has just achieved a milestone that has not been recorded for eight years. The problem is that it is a mirage

Japan is suffering a record number of ramen shop bankruptcies. And it is partly the result of the “1,000 yen barrier”

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The ramen is almost a religion (gastronomic) in Japan. One, yes, condemned to adjust to a certain price range. Although bowls of noodles with soup, meat and vegetables are one of the symbols of Japanese cuisine and a draw for tourists, in the country ramen is seen as a modest dish for students leaving school or workers with a brief lunch break. A sort of ‘worker menu’. So much so that there is even talk of “1,000 yen wall”a psychological barrier to noodle bowl prices. The problem is that Japanese hoteliers have seen their costs increase until they are dragged into a critical situation: in 2024 they registered a record of bankrupt ramen shops and, although the situation improved significantly in 2025ruined businesses still number in the dozens. Bad season for business. That the expense sheet increases while the income sheet is conditioned by a psychological barrier that limits prices can only translate into one thing for businesses: problems. Japan’s ramen restaurants know this well, having been registering dozens and dozens of bankruptcies for years and in 2024 they even reached a record of closures. The data They come from the research firm Teikou and are eloquent. In 2020 there were 54 ramen restaurants condemned to bankruptcy, in 2021 there were 17, a figure that is largely explained by the aid given by the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2022 the bankruptcies rose again to 33. The following year there were 53, in 2024 a record of 79 bankruptcies and last year, the latest data available, 59 stores were declared bankrupt. For their study, Teikoku technicians mainly take into account those businesses that accumulated debts of more than 10 million yen (just over 54,000 euros) and have no choice but to declare bankruptcy. The key: the trend. The figure may seem low if one takes into account that throughout the country they are distributed more than 21,000 restaurants of ramen, but it is significant. Last year, in fact, he made the weapons fly due to the record of bankruptcies. The latest data from the sector are somewhat more positive, but are still far from ideal: dozens and dozens of businesses continue to close. However, there is another reason why the figures attract attention: the discourse. Local media and international They have spent time warning of the cascade of closures. There is who warns Furthermore, beyond the balance of bankruptcies, a significant number of establishments that remain open do so in delicate financial health. That is, they remain operational, but they are not well. Struck by costs. Bankruptcy figures may vary depending on the period analyzed, but what does not vary are the analyzes that talk about the causes of the ramen crisis. The diagnosis It is clear: the problem for the stores has been the rise in costs and the limited margin to pass it on to customers. In 2025 Washington Post cited a study from Teikoku Databank that concluded that the sum of the ingredients – including pork, pasta and seaweed –, labor and energy required to make ramen had increased by around 10% in three years. Other calculations They point out that the cost per client grew by 5% between 2022 and 2023. “Prices have been rising over time, but in the last three years they have been incredible,” recognized Tetsuya Kaneko, with a location in Tokyo. The ‘perfect storm’ of ramen. Tetsuya Kaneko assumed in fact that his case was not unique and “everyone in the sector is struggling.” At the end of the day, hoteliers have been forced to deal with a ‘perfect storm’ that works against them: inflationthe rise in import prices due to the weakness of the yen against the dollar and the increase in the cost of energy that had the war in Ukrainewhich also affected the flow of cereals. For three months now, the war in Iran has been added to this panorama, which has made transportation more expensive. “The example of ramen shops illustrates economic trends well because they have a hard time passing on increased costs to end consumers,” explains to the newspaper American Norihiro Yamaguchi, economist specializing in Japan at Oxford Economics. In his opinion, until 2022, consumers were hesitant about any price increase, but the reality is now different: “They have to accept the increase in the cost of living.” For all pockets. As if the situation were not complex in itself, ramen establishments have to deal with another challenge: prices. Or rather, the image that the dish has in the country and the psychological barriers that in a certain way determine its rates. It is not something completely unknown in Spain, where a similar logic operates in the menus of the day of the restaurants. “Ramen has always been a staple food for low-income people, students… I don’t want it to be out of reach,” Kaneko explains.. The “1,000 yen wall”. A quick Google search shows several references, both on blogs and specialized websites in Japanese culture as in diaries generalistswhat is usually called the “1,000 yen wall”, which in exchange amounts to about 5.4 euros. That round number marks the price ceiling that rarely exceeds a basic noodle bowl with broth, meat and vegetables. Or so it was until recently. Faced with the new scenario and the delicate situation to which many businesses have been dragged, those in charge have had to consider a dilemma: cross the 1,000 yen barrier or resign yourself to following in the footsteps of the 72 establishments closed in 2024 and 59 in 2025. Upload with apology included. A few months ago Kaneko I remembered how in 2023 it had to increase its prices by 50 yen, reaching 1,000 for a standard bowl. Another professional in the sector, Taisei Hikage, recalled how rates have changed in a matter of a decade: if 10 years ago there were basic noodle dishes for 500 yen, today the situation is very different. When he opened his own restaurant in 2023, he … Read more

They have measured the brain age of people who usually meditate. The result is that he looks six years younger

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The age reflected on our identity card does not always coincide with the real age of our organs. In the field of neuroscience, the “brain age” has become a fascinating biomarker to understand how our nervous system ages and what factors can protect it. And now meditation seems to have a fundamental role in delaying this clock at least during our rest hours. A new study published in the magazine Mindfulness has found that people who practice meditation At an advanced level they have a “brain age” during sleep that is almost six years lower than their chronological age. A striking fact that opens doors in the study of neuroplasticity and the role that this habit can have in the lives of many people. Although logically we must move away from the idea of ​​suffering a miraculous “rejuvenation” How it has been seen. To understand the finding, we must first understand how this “brain age” is measured, and here the researchers did not use MRIs to see the size of the brain, but instead analyzed the electrical activity through electroencephalograms (EEG) during sleep. Its evolution. Something that is known is that, as we age, the brain waves we produce when sleeping change in predictable ways. Under this pretext, algorithms have been used to calculate a “brain age index” based on these electrical patterns. With these data, if the brain produces waves typical of someone of a similar age, the index is similar to zero, but if waves are produced from someone older, the index is positive. The method. The research team evaluated 34 people who meditate at an advanced level, belonging to the discipline Inner Engineering with an average age of 38 yearsand compared their sleep records with those of several control groups who did not meditate. The result here was that people who usually meditate showed an index that corresponded to people six years younger. That is, their brains, electrically speaking and while sleeping, behaved like those of people almost six years younger, while the control groups showed values ​​close to zero or slightly positive. One more biomarker. The findings fit like one more piece in a scientific puzzle that has been years in the making. Previous research already pointed to global changes in the EEG spectrum and greater neuroplasticity, and it was even seen that regular meditation caused an increase in brain gray matter and a possible neuroprotective effect. However, from a clinical standpoint, it is critical not to confuse an EEG marker with literal rejuvenation. The fact that the brain shows younger electrical patterns at night is an excellent biological indicator of brain health, but this study does not clinically prove that meditation is a proven tool for reversing cognitive decline. You have to be cautious. In this case it cannot be categorically stated that meditating rejuvenates the brain because there may be other factors that have not been measured. We must also keep in mind that we are dealing with a study on only 34 people, so the sample should be increased with the aim of extrapolating it to the entire population. Images | Drazen Zigic in Magnific In Xataka | The best 18 meditation, relaxation and mindfulness applications to have better mental health

The result is clear, alarming and there is no turning back

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There is an unquestionable reality with the data in hand: In Spain it rains less now than 30 years ago. In fact, the climate has changed since the 90s: temperatures have risen, summers are longer and those rain patterns essential for activities such as agriculture or aquifer recharge are no longer what they used to be. The Spanish state is one of the regions of the planet where climate change is being seen more and better worse. In this climatic context, precipitation data tells a crystal clear story. Meteorologist Roberto Granda from Eltiempo.es has used AEMET Opendata records to draw maps that compare the average annual rainfall between the periods 1961–1990 and 1996–2025 in 71 stations with continuous data for more than 60 years. The first of these periods is not chosen at random: it is the reference climate norm fixed by the World Meteorological Organization, the global standard for detecting anomalies and trends. To distribute the values ​​between stations, Granda applied a geostatistical interpolation technique that incorporates the relief of the terrain, which makes it the most reliable method for mapping precipitation in a geography as irregular as the peninsula. The result is unequivocal: it rains less in Spain, and it is not something specific or local, but structural and widespread throughout almost the entire peninsula. In this climatic context, precipitation data tells a crystal clear story: meteorologist Roberto Granda of Eltiempo.es has used the records of the Spanish Meteorological Agency AEMET Opendata to draw maps that compare the average annual rainfall between the periods 1961 – 1990 and 1996 – 2025 in 71 stations, that is, with continuous data and for more than 60 years. It rains less in Spain and it is not something specific or local: but something structural and that affects almost the entire peninsula. Evolution of average annual precipitation in Spain. Roberto Granda with data from AEMET These first two maps collect the amount of precipitation in both time frames where it can be seen that he rain pattern continues: The north and northwest (Galicia, the Cantabrian coast and the Pyrenees) continue to concentrate the highest rainfall, above 1,500–2,500 millimeters annually, while on the other side of the scale is the southeast of Almería and Murcia, which does not reach 200 mm. But within that known pattern, absolute values ​​have fallen in practically all regions. With the data in hand, it rains less in Spain than it did 60 years ago Difference in precipitation from 1961 to 2025. Roberto Granda The most impressive map is exactly the one above these lines: the difference in rainfall between 1961 and 2025. At a glance it is clear that in almost the entire State the rain is in the red compared to 60 years ago, since the cartography is colored by beige and brown tones on almost the entire peninsular surface. The steepest falls, between 100 and 200 mm per year, are concentrated in inland Galicia, Extremadura and the central-western area. In this last area is Mediterranean aridification at its maximum splendor: the Mediterranean is one of the hot spots of climate change. Fortunately, there are some exceptionsbut they are localized: areas where the variation is practically zero or slightly positive. One of the most obvious is in the extreme northwest of Galicia, especially the Costa da Morte and the province of A Coruña, which maintains or slightly exceeds its historical records thanks to its direct exposure to Atlantic storms. Neutral or slightly greenish tones are also seen in some areas of the Navarrese and Aragonese Pyrenees, and in the corridor of southern Navarra and northern La Rioja, at the transition between the western Pyrenees and the Ebro valley. The meteorologist has also published year-by-year rainfall since the 1990s, allowing for a closer and more detailed analysis. Something that stands out considering the colors is that the variability has skyrocketed. The CSIC has an explanation: Oscillations between dry and humid extremes are precisely a characteristic of the Mediterranean climate under global warming. Precipitation per year. Roberto Granda Although the general trend is less rain, there is years that define the extremes. On the dry side, there are four years that stand out above the rest: the 94-95 biennium, devastating in the south and center of the peninsula, 2005 on the plateau or that 2012 that left reservoirs below minimum levels in half of Spain. At a quick glance, the 2017 orange draws attention: AEMET he rated it as one of the driest years since instrumental records exist. On the wet side, 96 – 97 stand out from what they had before and after, especially in the northwest and central. Also 2010 and 2013 show green and blue coverage well above the average. 2024 deserves special mention: it breaks a long streak and is the wettest year of the last decade in several basins. Of course, a wet year does not work miracles. The AEMET projections are not encouraging: this reduction in rainfall will worsen throughout the 20th century, with decreases of more than 20% in the south and southeast of the peninsula. With longer and more frequent rain events, the rain will be concentrated in more intense, concentrated and tragic events throughout the year. Because paradoxically, this pattern has consequences in both droughts and floods. In Xataka | The temperature your city will have in 2080, simulated on this disturbing interactive map In Xataka | How to see air quality and temperature with Google Maps Cover | Roberto Granda

In 1985, on the verge of being defeated by Pepsi, Coca-Cola changed its ancestral formula. The result was a disaster

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Coca-Cola had been the reference soft drink around the world for decades, but in the early 80s a very tough competitor had emerged: pepsi. The firm had been gaining more and more followers with advertisements in which they participated Michael Jackson, Michael J Fox either Cindy Crawfordand its success did not stop growing thanks to a spectacular advertising campaign called “The Pepsi Challenge”. Those ads seemed to show that people preferred the taste of Pepsi, and Coca-Cola managers, scared by the threat of being forgotten, decided to change the formula and create the so-called “New Coke.” That was a disaster and Coca-Cola ended up returning to its original formula. The Pepsi challenge was as simple as it was effective. The people who participated did a “blind tasting”: there were two glasses with unidentified cola, one with Coca-Cola and the other with Pepsi. In appearance they seemed the same, and behind them were the bottles with which each glass had been filled (or hidden under some paper cylinders). The result according to the advertisements was always himself. The taste of Pepsi won time and time again. Coca-Cola executives, who saw how their market share was constantly declining, began a gigantic project: the creation of a “New Coca-Cola” (New Coke) that would see its recipe modified for the first time since the creation of this drink in 1886. What happened The modification of the recipe was evaluated with market studies that were promising: the new Coca-Cola, sweeter, beat both the old Coca-Cola (the original) and Pepsi. Everything seemed to show that Coca-Cola had its winning drink. That made the company announce “New Coke” with great fanfare on April 23, 1985. Initially the reception was good, but criticism soon began to arrive, which increased: a lot of people wanted the old Coca-Colaand surveys conducted shortly after the launch showed how only 13% of people preferred “New Coke.” Coca-Cola ended up producing the original recipe again, which it called “Coca-Cola Classic” just two months after that launch, and some time later it directly stopped manufacturing its “New Coca-Cola” to stay with the classic, which also lost that adjective. Everything remained as at the beginning, but with a spectacular marketing failure and development in which the firm had invested 100 million dollars. Still, Coca-Cola recovered after the disaster. That attempt to compete, although a failure, seemed to resonate deeply with consumers, especially when Coca-Cola recognized its mistake and offered the “old Coca-Cola” again. By the end of 1985, Coca-Cola Classic was outselling New Coke and Pepsi. What happened? One of the problems was pointed out by Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘Intuitive Intelligence: Why do we know the truth in two seconds?’ (‘Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking’). In it he explained how the failure was in the nature of the blind tastings, based on “sips.” People, he explained, reacted positively to the sweeter taste of Pepsi when they only tried a sip, but that taste ended up being worse when you drank an entire can, and that is what according to Gladwell Coca-Cola failed to understand in its tests. The original Coca-Cola recipe proposed a much more appropriate balance for the capacity of the cans and bottles of this soft drink. At Coca-Cola they also tried to investigate what had happened, and the conclusion of those in charge was that they underestimated the public reaction of people who rejected the change. The response generated by that launch of the “New Coca-Cola” was astonishing, and signature collections and movements against the new recipe were organized that united many people in an unprecedented campaign. Of course: New Coke kept winning those blind tastings. It didn’t matter: the one that really won was Coca-Cola, whose current quota in the soft drink market is 44% in the United States, while Pepsi’s is 26%. In Xataka | Odyssey in the soft drink aisle: why drinking a Diet Coke in the middle of 2026 is an impossible mission In Xataka | The Coca-Cola recipe seemed untouchable. Until Europe first and Mexico later have decided to touch it Image | Unsplash

Someone connected an unprotected Windows XP PC to the Internet to see what would happen. The result is not surprising

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When Microsoft ends its support for security updates in its operating systems, it is not usually advisable to use a PC with said system unless it is for a specific and specific case. Eric Parker, content creator specialized in technology, wanted try with an experiment: use Windows XP today connected to the Internet and eliminating all types of protections. As you may have imagined, the PC has become a magnet for malware. In fact, in just 10 minutes, the operating system was completely compromised. Parker also helped make this happen for educational purposes and to demonstrate how dangerous it can be to use an operating system like Windows XP today. Windows XP without firewall and without NAT 10 minutes later: a magnet for malware The expert configured a virtual machine with Windows XP Service Pack 3 on a Proxmox server, also disabling its firewall and NAT (Network Address Translation) settings and replicating the connection conditions common in the early 2000s. To recreate this scenario, the researcher Completely disabled Windows XP firewall and assigned a direct public IP address to the system, exposing the machine without any intermediate protection. As seen in the video, in just ten minutes, the system showed the first signs of infection with the appearance of the “conhoz.exe” process in the Task Manager, which turned out to be a Trojan disguised as a legitimate component of the operating system. After downloading a compatible browser and continued use of the system, in a short time we see how the PC starts to accumulate malware from multiple unknown sources. The system had been a victim of several Trojans and malicious programs running from temporary folders. He was also the victim of a rogue FTP server that allowed full remote access to files, DNS modification to redirect traffic to attacker-controlled servers, and the creation of additional user accounts for attackers to maintain access to the system. A whole string of malicious processes that ended up hijacking the PC. Image: Eric Parker The key factor that allowed the rapid entry of all these malicious components was the vulnerability EternalBluepresent in unpatched Windows XP SP3. This security breach, which was later used by the famous ransomware WannaCryallows attackers to execute remote code without any user interaction. Parker explains that tools like Nmap allow cybercriminals to scan the network for vulnerable systemsquickly identifying exposed and unprotected Windows XP computers. A system that was crying out to be violated and a Windows 7 stronger than it seems The content creator himself admits that the conditions were as optimal as possible to get malware: disabled firewall, direct connection without NAT and unpatched system. Under normal circumstances, with a basic home router and the firewall activated, Windows XP would be significantly more protected. However, the risk does not disappear completely. The use of outdated browsers and the ease of privilege escalation on this operating system remain serious problems. And as shown in the experiment, once infected, The malware was able to automatically close security tools like Malwarebytes. To contrast the results, Parker performed the same test with Windows 7 under identical conditions. Surprisingly, after ten hours of exposure, the most modern system showed no signs of infectionevidencing the significant security improvements implemented in later versions of Windows. Now that official security update support for Windows 10 is ending soon, it’s good to take a look back and see how an outdated system can easily become compromised. Fortunately, today we have many more alternatives if we do not want to update to Windows 11. Cover image | Eric Parker In Xataka | FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 This article was originally published in Genbeta in June 2025 and is part of Genbeta’s “greatest hits” that we will discover here in the coming weeks.

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