Scientists

Scientists have connected 200,000 human neurons to a chip. And he made them play ‘Doom’

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If they tell us that human neurons are playing ‘Doom’, the first thing we would think of is science fiction. However, that is exactly what the Australian company Cortical Labs has shown with your CL1 system: about 200,000 live neurons grown on an array of electrodes on a chip, capable of receiving information from the game and responding through electrical patterns. We are not talking about conventional artificial intelligence, but rather biological tissue interacting with software through an interface designed for that purpose. Human neurons and ‘Doom’. The demo isn’t just launching the game and letting something random happen. In the material shared by Cortical Labs, those responsible explain that the system receives signals from the video game environment and generates electrical patterns that translate into the character’s actions. This is a form of learning in which the system modifies its response depending on the result obtained. The key here is not skill, but the ability to adapt, which, according to the company, they are managing to train and mold in real time. How the interaction loop is established. For the experiment to work, it is not enough to display images on a screen. According to CTO David Hogan, an independent developer managed to convert the game’s visual signal into “electrical stimulation patterns” that are applied directly to the cell culture. These stimuli provoke electrical responses in neurons, and certain firing patterns translate into specific actions within ‘Doom’. In this way, the system creates a closed loop in real time in which each decision has an immediate effect on the virtual environment. look back. In 2021, the same company managed to make a system based on more than 800,000 neurons play ‘Pong’an experiment that required years of scientific work and specific training. That precedent laid the foundations for what would later become the CL1, the equipment presented at the Mobile World Congress in 2025 as the world’s first commercial biological computer. As we explained at the time, the system combines neurons grown on silicon with software called biOS, responsible for exchanging electrical information with living tissue. It is advisable to adjust expectations. The system, it should be noted, falls far short of advanced human performance. Brett Kagan of Cortical Labs emphasizes that the experiment is not intended to replicate a miniature brain, and rejects the direct comparison: “Yes, it is alive, and yes, it is biological, but it is actually used as a material that can process information in very special ways that we cannot recreate in silicon.” The emphasis, therefore, is not on skill, but on the type of processing that this biological substrate allows. Starting point. In the video, the team encourages researchers and developers to interact with the CL1 open API. Cortical Labs hopes to address progressively more demanding tasks than a classic video game, although the video itself also recognizes that there is room to fine-tune the feedback of successes and errors. For now, what we have is a proof of concept that shows potential, but whose path will depend on what others manage to build on this platform. Images | Cortical Labs In Xataka | Sam Altman has spent his entire life saying one thing and doing exactly the opposite. And this time it didn’t even take 48 hours.

The US has cut programs for research and science. Europe and Spain are recruiting their scientists

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The Trump Administration has cut substantially the funds allocated to finance universities and, with them, the research projects that were being carried out, as as they point out from Nature. So American scientists have had no choice but to look for solutions to the draconian cuts in their country. Europe in general, and Spain in particular, they have become a magnet unexpected for all that talent, with programs that promise stability and million-dollar resources. Talent drain. According to information from the Ministry of Science, the call for the ATRAE program, aimed at incorporating researchers of international prestige with experience abroad in Spanish R&D centers, received 254 applications for the 2025 call. This implies an increase of 32% in applications, marking a historical record, because in 2023 no applications arrived from that country and in 2024 they only accounted for 16% of the total. 33.5% of them came from scientists from the US, which represents more than double that of previous editions. Finally, the scholarship program has selected 37 researchers in a program that allocates 38.9 million euros. Of the selected researchers, 56.7% come from American institutions and universities. Scientists who choose Spain. The Country collected the reasons why some of these researchers had decided to leave the US to continue their work in Spain. Vincenzo Calvanese, a 43-year-old Italian researcher who works at the Josep Carreras Institute in Barcelona after a decade in the United States, says that “many of my colleagues are having a very difficult time because of the political and economic events that affect science.” He encourages other colleagues to follow in his footsteps in Spain or other countries in Europesince the program represents “one of the few opportunities to ensure the future of research and some professional security.” ​Audrey Sawyer, a 43-year-old American hydrogeologist who has joined the research team at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, expresses a similar concern: “I have never seen a situation like this in the US. I feel very bad for the researchers and students, they are very talented and are facing serious challenges.” Although she applied before the most recent cuts, she clearly sees how federal funding affects areas like biomedicine and climate change. Europe: a troubled river gains fishermen. According to a survey made by Nature Among the US scientific community, 75% of researchers have seriously contemplated emigrating due to the cuts and layoffs promoted by Trump. In this scenario of uncertainty, Europe fights back taking out the nets to try to attract a good part of that talent dissatisfied with cuts in US research. The EU has doubled the funding of the European Research Council (ERC) with 500 million euros to provide it with more resources for these new researchers under the umbrella of the program Europe horizon. Spain distributes the incorporation of these new researchers in a balanced way: Catalonia receives 35.1% of the funding provided by these new scholarships, Madrid receives 29.7%, and entities such as the CSIC host 29.7% of the researchers. In this way, local research is reinforced with international talent, new students are trained and more funds are attracted from international competitions. The exodus is not only about science. The desire to leave the US does not only occur in the scientific field, some EU countries have doubled the number of residency applications and citizenship of US citizens. It is the case of Irelandwhich went from receiving 31,825 in all of 2024, to 3,692 applications during the month of February 2025 alone. Europe’s response to those requests has been different, tightening requirements to obtain residency or, as in the case of Spain, eliminating the “Golden Visa“which granted a residence permit in exchange of an economic investment. In Xataka | Of course digital nomads love Oviedo. It’s not because of the way of life: it’s because they charge 90,000 euros Image | Wikipedia, Unsplash (National Cancer Institute)

We have been obsessed with microplastics for years. There are more and more scientists who believe that there is something wrong

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Up to 18 studies that affirmed the presence of microplastics in human organs they have just been challenged due to possible technical and control failures. And, although we have been obsessed with them for years, the truth is that it should not surprise us: we have known it almost from the beginning. Studies suggesting its presence in arterial tissue or in the testicles they have been receiving public criticism from the beginning. And the famous study that talked about the presence of microplastics in the brain was pure scientific fraud. None of this invalidates environmental concern, nor does it deny human exposure to these types of particles. It simply indicates that we have gone too far. And what is there many people taking advantage of it. What exactly happened? So far this decade, environmental contamination by microplastics has become a central issue that has not only generated a research boom, but has also promoted rules and regulations. And it is logical, the global use of plastics (which reached 460 megatons in 2019) is on its way to tripling by 2060 and that perspective makes its impact an issue to take into account. However, media interest is obscuring the fact that a good number of studies are being launched to make statements without a methodological solidity behind them to sustain them. What really is the problem? In reality there are many problems. To begin with, the very term ‘microplastics’ is deliberately broad and confusing: we are talking about a myriad of things (fragments, fibers, films or particles) of numerous sizes and compositions. Its use is useful to be able to speak globally about the problem, yes; worse, it is generating in the population the idea of ​​”colored confetti” sneaking through the organs of animals and plants. Then came everything else. This is possible because this “everything else” has an explanation that is as simple as it is worrying. As Sergio Ferrer emphasized“the detection of plastics at these size scales is an extremely complex analytical process and the urgency to publish information about their presence in remote places (even in the human body) can favor the appearance of these high-profile publications.” In other words, the problem is another. As Hannah Arendt said, we often do not know how to distinguish between a refuge and a trap. The (almost hysterical) concern about microplastics, the tendency to legislate in a hurry in response to the social mood and the lack of rigor of the media (problem in which it is inevitable that we include ourselves) have turned this topic into a trap. Because, as I say, everything seems to indicate that (even though we don’t have a teaspoon of them in our brains) microplastics are a problem. All that remains is for us to accept the type of problem they really are, not to overreact and to take action on the matter. Image | Naja Bertolt Jensen In Xataka | When Tap Water Tastes Like Hell: The Invisible Chemistry of Drinking Water That Explains Why It Tastes How It Tastes (And Why It’s One of the World’s Greatest Inventions)

Two scientists tried to publish a paper on why we get belly button lint. And that’s where his problems began

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In 2005, writer Mark Leyner and doctor Billy Goldberg published ‘Why do men have nipples?‘, a hilarious popular science book in which they answered very crazy questions: from the reason why hair comes out of our ears to the physiological reasons why asparagus perfumes our pee. However, they were not able to answer a key question: where did the fluff of the navel? Four years later, Georg Steinhauser wanted share your answer with the world. According to him, navel lint was mainly related to abdominal hair. According to him, the hair collected the fibers from the clothing and directed them to the navel. He did experiments for three years removing breasts to see the differences! But no one wanted to publish it. Nobody? No! A magazine populated by irreducible mad scientists still resists, as always, the most basic control practices of contemporary scientific publication. Welcome to the world of ‘Medical Hypothesis‘. Against the “gentrification” of science In recent years, “evidence-based” things They have enjoyed unprecedented fame. From politics to medicine, thousands of professionals have turned to science in search of solutions to respond to the problems of an increasingly complex society. However, all that glittered was not gold: again and again We have once again reflected on one of the blind spots of the approachthat science is, by nature, conservative. Not in a political sense, but in an epistemological sense. That is, we know better what we have; but when what we have doesn’t work, it’s a problem. A problem because, without resources to investigate new optionsare forced to implement interventions that do not work, leaving many professionals with their hands tied. For good reasons, yes. But with his hands tied. It is not strange, of course, that there are people who want more diversity. This is the case of ‘Medical Hypotheses‘, the most WTF science magazine of the last 40 years. ‘Medical Hypotheses’ was founded by the physiologist David Horrobin who directed it until his death in 2003. Horrobin, who was already himself a controversial figure (the British Medical Journal defined as one of the greatest “snake oil salesmen of his time”), made a magazine in his image and likeness. Fun, refreshing and dangerous In theory, the idea was to build a respectable forum to debate unconventional ideas unconstrained by current scientific publishing standards as a way to boost the diversity threatened by academic monoculture. ‘Medical hypotheses’ wanted to be a place to bring intuitions, extravagant ideas and crazy theories. In a world like the scientific one full of certainties and phrases in the present indicative, Horrobin’s magazine was all the y-sis and conditionals. That makes it a profound magazine. fun and refreshingbut it also does a bomb box. You can also read a study that relates heels with schizophrenia that one about the similarities between people with Down syndrome and Asians. These days, without going any further, a study is circulating in tabloids around the world about If we can abandon ourselves so much that we end up dying due to pure psychology. For years, the world was a party in ‘Medical Hypotheses’. In the first issues, pioneers from some of the most developing fields of the time wrote. But its main asset is also its main problem. It is a magazine that requires a very skilled editor to be able to navigate controversial terrain without publishing malicious and even dangerous work. The end of the party When Horrobin died in 2003, he was replaced by Bruce G. Charlton. Horrobin had written down that he was the only person he truly trusted to continue his work. At the end of 2009, an article in which he stated that “there was no evidence that HIV caused AIDS” was published in the magazine. The party was over. The paper had been rejected in all research area publications until it ended up in ‘Medical Hypotheses’. He scandal It was capital and Elsevier, owner and publisher of the magazine, fired Charlton a few months later. Furthermore, in an attempt to contain the damage, Elsevier introduced a review system halfway between the original system and the peer review of traditional publications. That clearly went against the magazine’s reason for being and Hundreds of researchers protested against the decision. ‘Medical Hypotheses’ is, in some ways, a symbol of the risky, indomitable and (often) reckless science that we still need, but it no longer plays a central role in public debate. Today, the preprints (and the repositories that store these open drafts — with arXiv.org at the head) fulfill that function. A function that, despite making our lives difficult, is best never missed. In Xataka | This frog is so photogenic that it is now on the verge of extinction In Xataka | Spain turns in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe. It is part of a geological plan: close the Mediterranean Image | Pexels

Scientists have investigated what happens to your brain when you play video games. And they have surprising news

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There is something strangely comforting about dissonance. Sometimes, while I’m fighting with a crochet hook trying to make a scarf not end up looking like a dish towel, I like to put the TV channel in the background. TacticalGramma. Michelle is 59 years old, she is a proud grandmother and, while I clumsily count wool stitches, she is annihilating entire squads in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 with a precision that any teenager would want for themselves. The scene has that visual irony: technology has not come to isolate us in a basement, but to rescue our neurons from rust. For decades, the social narrative sold us that video games “rot” the brain; Today, science is beginning to suggest that, if you want to reach 60 with good mental agility, perhaps you should take control. The brain clock. A study published by Nature has managed to compare the health of neural connections with the person’s actual age—what is known as brain clocks. The team led by Carlos Coronel-Oliveros has discovered that players who are experts in strategy titles like StarCraft II They have a mental structure that is much more resistant to the passage of time. On average, the brains of these players function with the agility of someone four years younger, according to a statistical estimate based on neuroimaging models. An efficiency phenomenon that neuroscience calls Brain Age Gap (BAG). When Sudoku is no longer enough. While classic brain games are isolated and repetitive tasks, an action video game forces the brain to manage an avalanche of information in real time. This level of constant demand—planning movements, reacting to attacks, and filtering out distractions simultaneously—forces neurons to reorganize. To reach this conclusion, the research team used research techniques whole-brain modelingcombining fMRI with machine learning algorithms capable of detecting subtle patterns in connectivity. The results showed more efficient integration in the so-called “frontoparietal hubs”, key regions for attention and executive function that are usually among the first to deteriorate with age. Changes in brain hardware. This apparent rejuvenation has a physical reflection in the structure of the brain. Science has found that, just as a muscle develops with exercise, certain key areas of players become denser and more robust. Studies in Scientific Reports and Translational Psychiatry reveal that those who regularly play action titles have more “gray matter” in regions responsible for coordination, attention and making quick decisions. It is as if the brain had expanded its information highways to react sooner and better to each stimulus. But the most useful change is the refinement of our visual “filter.” Research in PLOS ONE show that the players They develop a superior ability to ignore unnecessary noise. It’s not that they see more, it’s that their brain has learned to process only the information that really matters to win the game, optimizing the energy expenditure of the visual cortex. The ‘learning to learn’ factor. What is truly significant is not being more precise within the game, but the impact on the ability to continue learning. A study in Communications Biology showed that video game training Action speeds up the speed at which people learn new tasks, even when they are unrelated to the game. As they explain psychologists Daphne Bavelier and C. Shawn Green, these games train the brain’s attentional control. The result is improved cognitive adaptation, valuable in an ever-changing technological world. But experts still debate the degree of “far transfer”—that is, the extent to which being a keyboard whiz makes you better at managing a real crisis or a complex spreadsheet. When the benefit runs out. Even so, it is advisable to lower your enthusiasm. Most of these studies they are correlational: they do not allow us to state with certainty whether playing transforms the brain or whether certain already “agile” brain profiles are more inclined to enjoy video games. Furthermore, the effects vary depending on age and life context. Side B is not minor either. Researchers warn that excessive exposure can cause cognitive fatigue and sleep disturbances. The World Health Organization recognizes the video game disorder as a real problem when gambling becomes a compulsive behavior. The neural benefit depends on the balance that if the challenge stops being stimulating and becomes automatic or addictive, the protective effect disappears. Not just any game will do. Another key point is that not all video games produce the same effects. The strongest benefits are seen in action and real-time strategy games, which require quick decisions and multitasking. As experts point outonce a game stops being difficult and becomes mechanical, brain plasticity stagnates. Speed ​​and time pressure seem to be essential ingredients for keeping machinery in shape. There is something hopeful about seeing someone like TacticalGramma master a digital environment. The science doesn’t say that video games are a panacea, but it does suggest that brain aging doesn’t have to be a one-way path to decline. Perhaps the secret to a healthier brain is not in a pill, but in our ability to continue to face what is difficult and accept the frustration of constant learning. For now, I’m going to leave crocheting for a while. Image | freepik Xataka | The art of self-deception: why our brain defends our mistakes even if it knows we are wrong

According to scientists, global warming will most likely lead to an Ice Age

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We usually imagine the climate change like an endless ascending line: more heat, melted glaciers and more acidic oceans. However, science has just put on the table a hypothesis that is not very intuitive: under certain extreme conditions, global warming does not end in hell, but in a real freezer. And the plankton, which seems harmless, has a lot to say in this regard. The identified. A team of researchers from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and the University of Bremen has identified an instability in the carbon cyclea “glitch” in Earth’s climate operating system, suggesting that an ocean that is too warm and depleted of oxygen can trigger massive global cooling. The geological thermostat. To understand this finding, we must first look at how the Earth regulates its temperature in the long term. The classic mechanism is silicate weathering. Which basically means that when there is a lot of CO₂ in the atmosphere along with heat, it rains more and this rain dissolves the silicate rocks, dragging the carbon and the nutrients it stores to the sea, such as phosphorus. That’s where plankton uses that carbon to build their shells and, when they die, they sink, trapping CO₂ on the seabed. And although it may seem like good news that they store this gas that is seen as a great enemy on the seabed, the fact of reducing its concentration It means that the temperature drops. A paradigm shift. Until now, scientists saw this as a stable “thermostat”: if it is hot, the system works to cool the environment, and if it is cold it works less intensely. But now something radical arises: the thermostat has a catastrophic failure mode. According to their simulation models, when the system is coupled to the cycle of marine nutrients and biological productivity, the regulation can be unstable. And this is where the ideas of a future ice age begin. The plankton trap. For researchers, if we continue with extreme warming on our planet, erosion will increase to bring nutrients to the ocean. Something that will undoubtedly be appreciated by the phytoplankton and the algae that will accumulate it and when it dies, it will create an area in the water where there is not a hint of oxygen. In an ocean without oxygen, phosphorus once again dominates sea water which will create a vicious cycle where the algae They will consume large amounts of oxygen. The result is that the ocean floor begins to ‘suck’ CO₂ from the atmosphere at breakneck speedwhich is much faster than volcanoes or human activities can replenish it. The result is clear: a thermal collapse that can lead to a severe glaciation similar to what the Earth has experienced in the past. We had other fears. Right now on the table we had the suspicion that the collapse of the AMOCthe ocean currents that move water between various locations, will lead us to this situation. And they have a very important function: moving warm water from the tropics towards the north through the surface and cold, dense water towards the south through the depths. Something that a priori regulates global temperature. Global warming. A priori, anyone might think that continuing to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is the solution to this. But the authors issue a warning: geological times are not human times. We are talking about a mechanism that operates on scales of hundreds of thousands of years, and that is why it will not cool the planet either in this century or the next. In fact, researchers suggest that if this mechanism were activated today, it would be an excessive correction that will occur long after we have suffered the consequences of global warming. The fragility of the system. The carbon cycle is not a simple scale that stays in balance, but is quite dynamic and complex. This is somewhat difficult, since it can easily become unbalanced. The idea that the planet can “overreact” to heat by causing extreme cold reminds us that the Earth has regulatory mechanisms that are indifferent to the survival of human civilization. Images | Javier Miranda Alberto Restifo In Xataka | The Earth is entering climate collapse with its first point of no return. Our only salvation is technology

There are scientists deliberately causing earthquakes in the Alps and they have a good reason for it

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In the heart of the Swiss Alps, more than a kilometer underground, a team of scientists is doing something that sounds almost insane: cause real earthquakes. And it is not that they want to destroy a country, but just the opposite: they want to understand earthquakes better to look for ‘warnings’ before they occur. Right now There is a lot of mystery around earthquakessince it is not well known how they are produced, and this means that we do not have clear information about when they will occur in a specific area. And it is something fundamental for us, since having a ‘witness’ to warn us that an earthquake is coming will allow us to notify the population so that they can protect themselves and avoid significant human and material losses. The idea. The FEAR project (Fault Activation an Earthquiake Rupture), led by researchers at ETH Zürich, are looking for answer the big question: how to detect the signs that announce an earthquake before it happens? For this, in the Bedretto’s underground laboratorygeologists have drilled a tunnel through an active fault. Through the controlled injection of water—and, soon, hot water—they are triggering microearthquakes of magnitudes less than 1. Their goal is to observe, with a densely distributed network of sensors, how ruptures occur and what physical conditions trigger them. But… Why the Alps? In this case, the natural conditions offered by the Alps are ideal to carry out these experiments. The enormous pressure of the mountains on the faults generates tensions that, with the slightest change, can release seismic energy. In this way it is known that in these conditions an earthquake is going to occur at some point and what they do is anticipate it and control it with many measuring equipment. Ground disturbed on purpose. The microearthquakes induced by the Swiss team have a curious parallel with another practice known for less scientific reasons: seismicity induced by the fracking industry. In regions such as Oklahoma and Texas, the discharge of wastewater into deep wells has also generated thousands of small earthquakes, providing scientists with valuable models of how water alters the friction between plates. But the FEAR project differs in detail with respect to what the industry can do for its work: absolute control of the environment. While industrial operations cause unwanted earthquakes, they cannot be controlled. But in the Alps we specifically seek to know what happens in the seconds before a rupture. Throughout 2024 and 2025, their tests will escalate until they cause earthquakes of magnitude 1, a level weak enough not to be perceptible on the surface, but enough to modify the stress state of a fault. If they manage to correlate specific patterns with the energy released, they could establish predictive models applicable to active seismic zones that would be an advance in the understanding of how the Earth releases its internal energy. They are not alone. In different countries there are many similar projects that try to understand earthquakes. For example, in Japan the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE) center pierces the seabed off the coast to reach the fault where future large earthquakes are expected to occur. Something fundamental when talking about a very affected area by earthquakes. In Iceland the DEEP EGS (Enhancing Geothermal Systems) program has also registered many microseisms due to the injection of geothermal fluidsoffering direct data on how faults become unstable. A great challenge. The challenge remains enormous: no model has managed to predict an earthquake with temporal and spatial precision. But experiments like the one at the Bedretto Underground Lab offer something that didn’t exist before: a way to study the actual physics of seismic fracture initiation. Images | Çağlar Oskay Marco Meyer In Xataka | China built the Three Gorges Dam with three objectives. Got a fourth: changing the Earth’s rotation

Spanish scientists have created a material that swallows 99.5% of light. And it is great news for renewables

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At first glance they look like invisible needles, thin to the extreme and tiny like a thousandth of a human hair. A group of Spanish researchers has created ultra-black nanoneedles that absorb up to 99.5% of the solar radiation they receive, a record figure that not only sets an optical record, but will increase the efficiency of solar thermal plants. Made in Euskadi. The discovery comes from the Thermophysical Properties of Materials group at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). There, the researchers have designed a surface composed of copper cobaltate nanoneedles—a mixed oxide of copper and cobalt—with exceptional optical properties. Its ultra-black tone and its resistance to humidity and high temperatures make it ideal for solar tower receivers. According to tests, the material achieves an absorption of 99.5% of sunlight, surpassing black silicon (95%) and carbon nanotubes (99%). “We are looking for ultra-black materials for more efficient solar towers,” noted researcher Íñigo González de Arrieta. A change for solar energy. In concentrating solar thermal power plants (CSP), hundreds of mirrors reflect and concentrate sunlight towards a central tower. There, heat is used to melt salts that retain thermal energy and allow electricity to be generated even when the sun has already set.The key is to take advantage of each photon: if the receiver material reflects part of the light, that energy is lost. And this is where the new nanoneedles come into play. Until now, the most used material was black silicon, with an absorption level of 95%. The new nanoneedles, on the other hand, could raise that figure significantly and, with it, make solar thermal energy, one of the most promising clean sources in countries like Spain, more competitive and profitable. Beyond the blackest black. Carbon nanotubes seemed unbeatable: dark as a vacuum, capable of trapping almost all light. But they had an invisible enemy: the heat and humidity deteriorated them quickly. The copper cobaltate nanoneedles, developed by the Basque team, endure what their predecessors could not. They withstand temperatures above 700 degrees without losing effectiveness and, in addition, they are more stable. In solar towers, that difference can translate into more energy and less maintenance. A real impact. Dr. Renkun Chen, from the University of California, San Diego, is collaborating with the Basque team and the United States Department of Energy to study the feasibility of applying nanoneedles to industrial solar plants. “We observed that these nanoneedles performed better than the carbon nanotubes used until now, and that their performance increased when coated with zinc oxide,” Chen explained.. However, González de Arrieta himself clarifies that there is still some way to go: the next pilot-scale tests will determine if the process is economically viable and if the material can be produced industrially without losing its optical properties. Darker, brighter. Ultrablack nanoneedles are an example of how nanotechnology applied to energy can have a direct impact on global sustainability. The UPV/EHU team plans to continue developing new compounds with better thermal and optical conductivity, designed to withstand the challenges of future solar towers. Promoting this renewable energy offers many advantages: it is totally clean and can also be used when the sun does not shine,” recalled González de Arrieta. And if everything goes as expected, the future of solar energy could be, paradoxically, darker than ever. Image | Flickr Xataka | In the midst of a trade war, there is a battle that China has already won: that the world depends on its new energy

A giant wave is sweeping across the Milky Way. Scientists currently don’t know why.

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Our galaxy, Milky Wayis far from a quiet place. It spins, it wobbles and, as a new study just revealed, it also undulates. New ESA data have discovered a colossal wave, baptized as “the great wave” that propagates through the galactic disk in a very similar way to the waves that we have in a pond when we throw a stone. The study. This phenomenon, which has been identified by the team led by Eloisa Poggio of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy, is a “corrugation “large-scale vertical” that is superimposed on the already known deformation that our galaxy constantly suffers. In essence, we are facing a wave that causes entire stripes of stars to move “up” and “down.” Great proportions. It is nothing like the waves that we see on our beaches, of course, since we are talking about something on a galactic level. In this case, astronomers know since the 50’s that the disk of the Milky Way it’s not flatbut rather it is deformed (or “warped”) at its edges. Now this study adds an additional structure that no one knew was there. Thanks to Gaia’s incredibly precise measurements, which map the 3D position and 3D motion of stars, the team was able to analyze two populations of young stars: giant stars and classical Cepheids. These maps revealed a gigantic wave that is now coming to light. The figures. In order to understand the magnitude of this phenomenon, we can take into account the following parameters of this phenomenon: Height: the movement of the stars is about 150-200 parsecs, which is up to 650 light years above and below the galactic plane. Length: The structure spans at least 10,000 light years and possibly up to 20,000. Location: affects a vast section of the outer disk, in regions located tens of thousands of light years from the galactic center. The test. The most fascinating thing about the discovery is not just the shape of the wave, but the evidence that it is moving. “What makes this even more compelling is our ability, thanks to Gaia, to also measure the motions of stars within the galactic disk,” explains Poggio. To understand it, the team used a perfect analogue: the wave of a stadium. If we were to freeze the wave that is made in the stands of a stadium, we would see some people standing (the crest), others who have just sat down (the back part) and others who are about to get up (the front part). Something similar happens in the galaxy. The astronomers discovered that the stars with the highest vertical position (the crest) were not the same as the stars with the highest vertical velocity. The maximum speed point was displaced, with a 90º approach phase difference. This phase difference is irrefutable proof that it is a propagating wave. And not only that: the stars inside the corrugation also show a systematic radial motion of 10-15 km/s outward. The conclusion is clear: it is a wave that travels from the interior of the galaxy to its furthest reaches. There is a mystery. Researchers have measured the wave, but don’t know what caused it. The main hypothesis is that the Milky Way suffered an encounter or collision with a smaller dwarf galaxy, but it is not 100% certain. Previous simulations have shown that interaction with a satellite galaxy, such as Sagittarius, can excite exactly these types of vertical waves and corrugations in the galactic disk. This “big wave” is much larger and located much further away than the famous Radcliffe wavea filament of gas about 9,000 light years long located near our Sun. Although both are undulations, scientists believe that they are two different characteristics, although they do not rule out that they may be related in some way. Since the young stars studied (giants and Cepheids) were born from galactic gas, the team suspects that the wave not only carries the stars, but also the gas itself from the disk. The stars would have simply inherited the motion of the gas from which they formed, preserving a “memory” of the wave. Now the investigation must continue. Astronomers are looking forward to Gaia’s fourth data release, which will provide even more precise measurements and help create detailed maps to perhaps finally reveal the origin of our galaxy’s undulating heart. Images | Dns Dgn In Xataka | When stars formed has always been one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. And we are closer to solving it

a paradox that baffles scientists

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It is one of the cruelest paradoxes of modern neurology: women are diagnosed with the Alzheimer’s disease almost twice as many times as men. And the question in this case was obligatory: why? The first theories They pointed to brain agingpointing out that women’s brains deteriorate faster. But now, everything has changed radically. A published study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Not only does it disprove this hypothesis, but it reveals just the opposite: the brains of healthy men seem to age and shrink faster. But even so, the expected effect is not what we see in the prevalence of the disease. Until now, studies on sex differences in brain aging have produced conflicting results. While some suggested a greater loss of gray matter in men, others pointed to a more pronounced deterioration. The method. To clarify this picture, an international team of scientists has carried out one of the largest analyzes to date. To do this, they analyzed 12,638 longitudinal brain MRIs of 4,726 cognitively healthy participants (2,181 men and 2,545 women). The participants, in this case, aged between 17 and 95, underwent at least two brain scans at an average interval of 3.3 years. This allowed the researchers to observe not a still photo, but actual structural changes in the brain over time, controlling for factors such as head size. Further deterioration. The results, after adjustments, were surprisingly clear: Men experienced greater volume and thickness reduction in more brain regions than women. Men showed a more pronounced decrease in cortical thickness in regions such as the cuneus, lingual gyrus, and parahippocampal. They also showed a greater reduction in surface area in the fusiform and postcentral cortex. For example, the postcentral cortex, responsible for processing sensations such as touch and pain, decreased at an annual rate of 0.20% in men compared to 0.12% in women. Furthermore, in older adults it was seen that men also showed greater contraction in key subcortical structures such as the caudate, putamen and nucleus accumbens. In contrast, women only showed greater surface area reduction in the superior temporal sulcus and greater ventricular expansion in old age. The conclusion. The study’s main conclusion is as compelling as it is puzzling: sex differences in age-related brain decline are “unlikely” to explain why women have a higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s diagnoses. Amy Brodtmann, a researcher at Monash University, agrees, adding that if these changes were responsible for Alzheimer’s, we would expect to see greater deterioration in women in areas crucial for memory, such as the hippocampus, something the study did not find in its main analyses. This forces the scientific community to look for other explanations. The results suggest that the higher prevalence of Alzheimer’s in women is likely due to factors other than brain atrophy due to age. There are nuances. The authors of the study themselves recognize that the disease is a complex phenomenon. One of the limitations of the study is that the sample of participants had higher educational levels than the general population, a known protective factor against Alzheimer’s, which may not be fully representative. Furthermore, the study introduces a fascinating nuance. When the researchers adjusted the data not for chronological age, but for remaining life expectancy, several of the differences disappeared. In this scenario, women even showed a greater decline in hippocampal volume. This could indicate that terminal, near-death brain changes play an important role, but more research is needed to confirm this. Images | Natasha Connell In Xataka | You don’t need more hours in the day. All you need is to understand how the brain works to work better with less.

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