sense

The oldest human remains in Antarctica are more than 200 years old. The problem is that it doesn’t make any sense.

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In 1912, the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott He arrived at the South Pole convinced that he would be the first to set foot on it. There he found an unexpected surprise: a tent with the Norwegian flag and a letter from Roald Amundsen They showed that someone had been more than a month ahead of him. The history of polar exploration is full of “firsts” that, with the passage of time, have ended up being revised. The remains that should not be there. Antarctica has never had a permanent population. When humans arrived on its shores, it was already a continent too cold and isolated to be inhabited without modern technology. That is why it is so disconcerting that the oldest human remains found there belong to a deceased woman. between 1819 and 1825just when the first documented explorations of the continent were just beginning. A half-buried skull. The discovery occurred in 1985, when the Chilean biologist Daniel Torres Navarro found a skull partially buried on Yámana beach, Cape Shirreff. Years later they appeared other scattered bonesincluding a femur, which probably belonged to the same person. Analysis suggests that she was a young woman, possibly of Chilean origin, whose death occurred sometime between 1819 and 1825. The chronology turns the discovery into a puzzle. The problem is not only who that woman was, but when she died. The first confirmed observation of Antarctica is usually attributed to the Russian expedition of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in 1820. If the dating of the remains is correct, the woman lived exactly during the period in which the first expeditions were just beginning to approach the continent. This temporal coincidence makes it extremely difficult to explain how he ended up in one of the most inhospitable regions on the planet. The first Russian expedition to Antarctica (1819-1821) The hypotheses and the mystery. Researchers are considering several possibilities. The first suggests that he could be part of a group of seal hunters from the 19th century who abandoned it after his death. The second proposes that she died on board a ship, was buried at sea (as was common then) and that the currents, together with scavenging birds, They would later disperse their remains to the beach where they were found. None of these explanations have been proven and, four decades after the discovery, new remains have still not appeared that would allow us to reconstruct what happened. The alternative. While that enigma remains open, another study invites us to review another of the great certainties about the continent. Researchers at the University of Otago maintain that Polynesian sailors, and in particular the explorer Hui Te Rangiorathey were able to reach the Antarctic waters already in the 7th century. The hypothesis is supported by Maori oral traditions which describe a frozen ocean, large masses of ice and a dark, fog-covered landscape, descriptions that some specialists consider compatible with the Southern Ocean. Between legends and archaeological evidence. The authors of the study make it clear that these traditions do not constitute a definitive demonstration that the Maori ever contemplated Antarctica. However, they do question the idea that the history of the continent began exclusively with European expeditions of the 19th century and claim the role of indigenous traditions in the reconstruction of the great oceanic explorations. If this interpretation ends up being confirmed, the first human contact with the southern tip of the planet would be more than a thousand years ago to what usually appears in history books. Two investigations that force us to look with different eyes. The two studies They speak of very different times, but they converge on the same conclusion: we still know surprisingly little about the first human contacts with the most isolated continent on Earth. One suggests that Polynesian navigators could have arrived much earlier than previously believed. The other remembers that the oldest human remains found there belong to a woman whose presence remains extraordinarily difficult to explain. Two centuries after his death, the biggest mystery is not who he was, but why he appeared on the only continent where, quite simply, no one expected to find it. Image | US Embassy, Bourrichon In Xataka | The map of Antarctica has been made for decades. And yet we just found something that changes what we knew about her. In Xataka | Antarctica was practically the last corner of the Earth immune to touristification. That’s ending

In the Mediterranean it no longer makes sense to talk about a “tropical night” because almost all of them are.

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On June 21, the thermometer at Almería airport did not drop below 30.8ºC throughout the night. In fact, at seven in the morning the temperature was exactly the same as it would have been on an August afternoon twenty years ago. It seems like an isolated event (after all, it is the first time that we have encountered a minimum like this in the Mediterranean in June), but it is not. Just a handful of days later, the AEMET experts made it quite clear: it no longer makes much sense to talk about “tropical nights” in the Mediterranean because almost all summer nights already are. That is, almost no drops below 20 degrees. The June heat wave was (quite) exceptional. Not only because the 22nd and 23rd were the warmest June in the country since at least 1950; nor because the average peninsular anomaly was 7.1 ºC. The most striking exceptionality occurred in the early morning: according to the same AEMET24 of its 86 main stations marked the highest minimum in the historical series. That was the symptom. But the problem is another. A problem that has to do with an indicator that jumps so much that it has stopped meaning something just when we need it most. Or, at least, when we are most aware of the lack of it. In 2025, A CSIC research team published a work in Environment International in which he analyzed 178 cities, separating the effect of warm nights from that of warm days. Their conclusions indicate that nocturnal heat is associated with an increase in mortality of up to 3% and that this effect is independent of daytime heat. The mechanism is also dramatically simple: if the early morning does not ease, the body does not recover, sleep is degraded and cardiovascular or respiratory pathologies worsen rapidly. Why should we care? Because southern Europe is among the regions hardest hit by temperature changes. But there is something else: the same CESIC studyexcess mortality due to nocturnal heat in Spain is concentrated in the interior (Granada, 3.56%; Madrid, 3.45%; or Córdoba, 3.44%) while the Mediterranean coast is holding up much better (Barcelona, ​​0.56%; Alicante, 0.55%; or Almería 0.46%). That is, the problem is adaptability to these types of phenomena. Something in which the coast wins because it has been suffering from it (to a lesser extent, but suffering from it) for many years. The future we are going to. AEMET projects to go from the current 22 heat wave days per year to 47 at the end of the century with intermediate emissions. Preparing is no longer an option if we don’t want to. paint the windows of half the country with chalk or white yogurt. Image | Christian Van Der Henst In Xataka | Beyond gazpacho and salmorejo: Spain’s hidden summer dishes that are crying out to become popular

There are a lot of people replacing the oil on ham toast with coffee and orange. And oddly enough, it makes sense.

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“You insist on putting olive oil on our Iberian ham toast and this is like putting sugar on top of a chocolate cake.” Víctor Sanchego did not know it, but with those words was about to make thousands of people prepare the strangest breakfast we’ve seen in a long time. How come you don’t have to add oil to the ham? Sanchego’s argument is that “the fat of Iberian ham contains more than 60% oleic acid, the same component of extra virgin olive oil.” Therefore, as happens in a perfumery when we have already worn several colognes, when we mix oil and ham at the same time our taste buds become saturated. “Instead of helping it enhance the flavor, it is subtracting it,” says the ham man. The reality, of course, is more complex. The general idea is true for Iberian ham: adding oil (especially if it is an intense and complex one) blurs the flavor profile and can actually oversaturate the bite. This, however, does not happen with the rest of the hams or with the rest of the oils. It is, so to speak, a borderline case. And a well-known one, at that. The normal thing when we talk about Iberian ham, in fact, is that it is recommended to enjoy it alone or with an accompaniment that cleanses the palate, such as a piece of neutral bread. Nobody usually proposes eating a plate of ham with a glass of EVOO on the side. The striking thing about all this is not that. The striking thing is the coffee with orange zest. Because Víctor Sanchego does not propose to eat ham with white bread, nothing like that. He suggests smearing the bread in a mixture of black coffee and orange peel, toasting it and, now, putting the Iberian ham on top. It’s a strange thing, yes; but we cannot define it as madness either. We said before that the ideal thing is to eat Iberian ham with something that ‘cleanses the palate’ and Sanchego’s idea goes directly there: coffee, due to its dry and intense qualities, allows us to enhance the organoleptic properties of our ham. Is it the most interesting decision? Well, the truth is that I couldn’t say. On a theoretical level, there could be dozens of similar combinations that fit better with our usual organoleptic repertoire; but without a doubt it is bold and many of those who try it (on social networks) They are delighted with the result. And that, without a doubt, is good news. Not because of the ham, not because of the coffee, not because of the orange zest. It’s good news because culinary Talibanism It is a practice that greatly impoverishes our understanding of food. And it limits us for no reason. Being open to ‘playing’ with products as iconic as Iberian ham is a symptom of a gastronomic maturity that, used well, can help us resolve problems in a much simpler way. big problems of the food security of the century. Image | Stephan Coudassot | Nathan Dumlao In Xataka | We’ve been telling ourselves for 100 years that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day.” The problem is that it is not true In Xataka | We’ve gone from “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” to “I grab something quick and stick with it.” And that has problems A version of this theme was published in 2025

incremental games. And it makes perfect sense

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The video game is an interactive medium. Even genres like walking simulators have some of the best mechanics in the industry (there are moments of ‘What Remains of Edith Finch‘ either ‘Mixtape‘ which are impressive), but there are a type of games that are made so that we play as little as possible. They are the ‘idle games‘, games designed to be played alone or with as little attention as possible from the player. Within the same genre there is a twist: incremental games in which there is a certain strategy to achieve that objective of jplay less and less and get bigger rewards. They have a lot of pull. And also all the sense in the world. The psychology of games made so you don’t play First of all, we must make some concepts clear. Incremental games are titles designed so that the numbers within the game do not stop growing. Progressively, we get larger numbers, more resources or more power. At the beginning, we must pay some attention, but the goal is to achieve optimize the game so that we don’t even have to look at the screen. ‘Idle Slayer’ is an example of this type of game: the character advances alone and we only have to pay attention at certain moments to optimize the achievement of those resources, but the doll advances whether we look or not. If we pay attention, resources will increase faster, but it is not totally necessary either. More than Marathon in the last 24 hours Then there are the incremental games. These are already more active and require us to pay attention by clicking on the screen or making frequent decisions. The goal is the same: to reach a point where there are even systems that click for us, prioritizing automation. The most normal thing is that genres intersect because, really, they are not separated. ‘Idle Slayer’, ‘Cookie Clicker‘ (which may be the most famous) or ‘AdVenture Capitalist’ are clickers at first and end up becoming ‘idle’ games in which the goal is the same: automation of everything. Are they big sellers? Well, they are not at the level of large productions or the most played games at all times on Steam, but they do tend to have communities of around 500 or 1,000 people at any time. They are good ‘distractions’ to have there on a second monitor while we do other things, with the satisfaction of seeing how the numbers on the screen go up little by little. In short: we invest, we make decisions with what we earn and the idea is to automate. And the most interesting thing about incremental games is, precisely, the psychology behind them. In some studies that have been made about this type of games (two very good ones are “Play to wait” and “Busy doing nothing? What players do in idle games“) details what tools they have to hook us and encourage us to “play”. The keys that stand out are: Continuous progress: Even though the actions are simple, we see rewards and have a constant sense of progress. Reinforcement and anticipation: Waiting is not empty, since when we get a reward, we are already planning the next one. Motivation cycle: we wait, we collect the prize, we reinvest to achieve improvements. Planning: The fun is not in the immediate reward, but in what we will get in the future when those investments bear fruit. And the low cognitive load: we can resume them at any time and they are suitable for short sessions. Those are the main characteristics why these games are liked, but then there are the psychological levers that they activate, those “brain tickles” that make us want to continue playing. What comes into play here is the reward system with that feeling of “the next improvement is coming, so I’m going to take five more minutes”, but also elements such as the accumulation effect that comes into play when we see multipliers that give the feeling of personal effectiveness and, above all, that we don’t have to pay attention. Known as “delegation of action”, the player outsources that work to the system and the pleasure when playing comes precisely because the numbers get bigger and bigger without us having to make an effort, so we have a certain satisfaction in feeling that the world moves forward without our surveillance, but that it is generating rewards for us. You may think that it is empty dopamine, but the satisfaction and attraction of the genre is also marked because there is a certain planning on our part. With what we have achieved, we buy some improvements and not others because this way we will get the rewards we are looking for. In turn, that satisfaction does not come only from the rewardbut rather that we feel that we have made the right decision to obtain said reward. Although I have sometimes had times of being “hooked” on some of these games, they are not really my type. As a curiosity, yes, they are fine, but in the end those mechanisms and the dopamine they generate do not make much of an impact. I like the reward of a ‘type game’ better.Devil‘ either ‘Destiny‘ which, in the end, is based on the same thing, but with a much clearer and more direct interaction on my part. Except ‘Rusty’s Retirement’, that game is spectacular and I really liked it, Now, I completely understand why these incremental games are so successful. In Xataka | Independent analysts agree: “The Steam Machine is an expensive curiosity, not a gaming device for the masses”

In the midst of an extreme heat wave, the French have started painting their windows with white chalk. It makes perfect sense

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Yes, we are in 2026. Yes, there are air conditioners, very effective fansair conditioners and even paintings ultra-white (literally) with such a reflective capacity that they help refresh the surfaces on which they are applied. And yet, despite all that, in France there are people who are opting for a very simple method to withstand the heat: painting their windows with chalk. So much so that the demand for blanc de Meudona calcareous clay extracted from the quarries of Meudon, near Paris, has been shot in hardware stores. Looking for solutions at 40ºC. In the middle of the heatwave and with the Paris thermometers fooling around with 40ºCthe logical thing is that people start buying air conditioners, fans, fans and ice bags. In France, however, there is another item that has been as or even more in demand these days: the blanc de Meudona white powder made up mostly of calcium carbonate. The new toilet paper. It is so requested that a few days ago Le Parisian dedicated an extensive report in which he explains that there are craft stores that are depleting their supplies of blanc de Meudon and businesses that have run out of stock. Even people who order it online receive it late. “My wife went to all the DIY stores in Auray and couldn’t find it,” confess to Western France Philippe, a Frenchman who had no choice but to go to another town to buy white chalk. There are those who already compare their compulsive purchasing with what they experienced with toilet paper during the pandemic. @daphneblt I have tested the astuce of the blanc de Meudon 🕵🏼‍♀️🥵 Comme vous j’ai vu passer cette astuce partout sur mon fil d’actualité, although je n’arrivais pas à en trouver, tous les magasins étaient en rupture de stock 🫠 Le dosage : 1 dose of pour + 1 dose of water and form a small liquid to apply on the fenêtres to reflect the light (in théorie) ☀️ And the white of Meudon c’est de la craie donc réduire en poudre des craies ou bien utiliser de la poudre d’argile blanche c’est la même chose 👀 Mon verdict: c’est mieux que rien et je suis passée de 36/37 à 35 degrés dans mon appartement parisien sous les toits (cc Yann Barthès 🤠) orienté sud 🤔 Bon c’est mieux que rien, évidemment si vous avez des recos je suis preneuse, parler de l’aluminium qui apparemment colle aux vitres et de la couverture de survie qui visibly réchauffe les voisins d’en face 😭 Bon courage à tous et allez voter en 2027, vu l’état currentuel des choses c’est le geste avec le plus d’impact qu’on puisse faire (avec le fait de manger moins de viande 🥩) ✨🗳️ One of my first thoughts to Bernard Arnault who probably passed all the same since we are on a yacht, on a private jet, in a climatized villa or on a private island. ☠️ #responsibleconsommation #consommermieux #cunning #blancdemeudon #ecoresponsible ♬ are original – daphneblt Why’s that? He blanc de Meudon It is not a new product. On the contrary. It has always been marketed, although it is normally used in houseworksuch as cleaning cutlery or marble. Also it’s usual that merchants use it to cover their store windows during renovations. Basically the blanc de Meudon It is a calcareous material that is mixed with water to form a whitish paste with a milky texture. These two peculiarities (composition and color) have made it a popular and cheap resource to cool homes in the heat of the heat. It is not a new remedy, but in the last month it has gained followers thanks to articles and videos that sell their supposed benefits. Of course, the method is simple: the clay is mixed with water until it forms a paste and then, with the help of a brush, it is spread directly on the windows. The result is not what is called aesthetic, but its defenders say that it helps to refresh the houses. A couple of degrees less. In reality, there is little surprising about it. White surfaces are known to reflect sunlight and heat. In fact, commercial paints can cool at 1.7ºC the opposite side of the surface on which they are applied and there are researchers working on ‘ultra-white’ versions able to reflect 98% of social radiation. Some studies claim that, with an appropriate combination, daytime temperature could be reduced in more than 7.5º. @abou.addict J’ai testedé un truc à 3€ contre la chaleur, maintenant c’est en rupture partout.. Une astuce simple et qui marche partout: dès que tu as une fenêtre exposée plein sud que tu ne peux pas protéger avec des volets ou un store, le blanc de Meudon fait office de bouclier anti-chaleur. On dilute, on apply on the glass, and the remaining piece beaucoup plus fraîche. Ça marche also bien dans une école, une mairie, un bureau ou chez soi: partout où il ya du vitrage qui prend le soleil toute la journée et qu’on ne peut pas équiper autrement. On availability I posted this astuce l’an dernier et elle a fait plus de 600 000 vues, donc on la repartage avant la prochaine vague de chaleur (et pendant qu’on en trouve encore, parce que ça part en rupture de stock). #canicule #cunning blancdemeudon maisonfraîche #fraicheur ♬ âm thanh gốc – Coach sportif – Coach sportif “An excellent option”. Added to these advantages are those offered by calcium carbonate. “Chalk is primarily composed of CaCO3. It absorbs very little sunlight, even in the visible range, which gives it its white color. Additionally, it does not absorb UV radiation and very little near-infrared light, making it an excellent choice,” comment Xiangyu Li, Purdue researcher, told the BBC. On the France3 channel they assure that only covering the windows with blanc de Meudon can be earned between two and three degrees of indoor comfort. It is not the same as an air conditioner, although it is also much cheaper. … Read more

In Galicia there is a town that every summer recreates a Viking landing with ‘drakkars’. And it makes perfect sense

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If you want to experience a Viking landing in your flesh, a historical representation that includes longships like those used by Nordic people in the 9th century to sail the seas, warriors with axes and medieval fortresses, you don’t need to travel to Scandinavia. In Catoira, a Galician town of just over 3,000 inhabitants, they celebrate every summer a pilgrimage that for a few hours turns the Ría de Arousa into the scene of an epic battle. The most interesting thing is its background: it is not a whimsical festival, but rather a tribute to the role that the town played centuries ago in the defense of Galicia. Vikings in Galicia? When you think of Vikings, the first thing that comes to mind is Scandinavia and the Nordic navigators who centuries ago, between the 8th and 11th AD, dedicated themselves to sailing, trading and plundering across Europe. However, every summer Catoira, a small town in the province of Pontevedra, celebrates a pilgrimage focused precisely on the Vikings. It has been doing so for more than six decades and with such success that its celebration has achieved the seal of international tourist interest and, in just one week, attracts more than 100,000 people. Not bad if we take into account that in the town they live 3,300. An old connection. Catoira celebrating a Viking party makes all the sense in the world. The town may be more than 2,000 kilometers from Norway, but centuries ago it played a crucial role in repelling raids by the normative pirates (also Saracens) who came to Galician lands in search of loot and, above all, an easy access route to Santiago de Compostela. To understand it, you must first understand the strategic geographical role of Catoira, a town located at the inland end of the Arousa estuary, near the mouth of the Ulla. If the pirates wanted to reach Santiago, where the 9th century The tomb of Saint James the Greater was located, it offered them an ideal access door. “The key and seal of Galicia”. The local rulers soon understood the role that the Catoira area played and that is why they fortified it with the West Towersa medieval defensive system located at the head of the estuary. Today we preserve two of the seven original towers that between the 9th and 10th centuries They allowed the locals to stand up to Norman raids. “The Vikings who arrived in Galicia in the 9th and 10th centuries with the intention of plundering our lands encountered resistance from the troops of the Castellum Honestiwhich during that time prevented the Norman armies and Saracen pirates from ascending the river, to the point of this fortress being considered the ‘Key and seal of Galicia’”, remember the Catoira Town Hall. A party… and a tribute. A few decades ago, in 1960the members of the Ateneo do Ullán decided to remember the heroic past of the town with an act that basically commemorated the landings in the lands of Ullá. As the City Council explains, it began as “a meeting of friends with cultural concerns”, a celebration without major pretensions. Over time, however, the party gained strength. In 1965 a company took over the organization and during the next quarter of a century the pilgrimage continued to grow and increase its impact beyond Catoira, Pontevedra and even Galicia. It grew so much, in fact, that between the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s the City Council decided take charge of the organization. What had started as an improvised act gained the status of international holiday. There are no Vikings without longships. Proof of how much the pilgrimage expanded (and of its vocation to continue doing so) is that the event incorporated several longshipsthe characteristic warships used by the Norse and Germanic tribes. In 1993, the first one was built, named ‘Torres de Oeste’, and over time two others were added: ‘Frederikssund’ and ‘Ardglass-Catoira’. These are not more or less approximate copies. To make the first, a group of expert Catoirense craftsmen traveled to Denmark, where they studied Viking boat-building methods and were inspired by the Skuldelev 5a longship found in Denmark. The ‘Frederikssund’ is also an adaptation of an authentic 11th century ship, the Gokstadlocated in Norway. Ironies of history, today Catoira’s heroic past is celebrated with a pilgrimage in which the protagonists are the Vikings and in which (of course) there is no shortage of medieval markets, shows, seafood and red wine from Ulla. Images | Council of Catoira, Spain tourism and Xunta de Galicia In Xataka | When the Romans arrived in Galicia, they encountered the enemy they feared most: a river that stole their memory.

PAU students have become obsessed with Gardening FP. It actually makes complete sense.

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Everyone manages their nerves as best they can (or knows how). A few weeks ago, while thousands of young people were preparing the PAUthe old ‘Selectivity’, a tiktoker called Ikero800 published a comic video in which he joked about the future that is presented to students with bad grades. The piece, which lasts just 15 seconds, shows a telephone with an incoming call that reads “FP de Jardinería” while the tiktoker hum those three words over and over again to music Joseph Haydn background. Funny or not, has gone viral. But… Does it make sense? Reducing tension. To understand it you have to go back a few weeks back, when thousands of young people from all over Spain were glued to their desks reviewing the last lessons before the PAU, the test in which many risked access to their dream career. To relieve tension and pulling sarcasm, Ikero800, a tiktoker with almost 11,000 followers, he published a video in which he jokes about the outlook that was presented to those who failed. What panorama? The average cycle (FP) of Gardening and Floristry. Or at least that’s what Ikero800 slides into his video, in which he hums over and over again “Efepé gardening…” while a Haydn trumpet concerto plays in the background. In the image we see the young man dancing, the capture of an incoming call in which the same thing is read (“Gardening FP”) and a text that explains: “POV: you fail all the course exams and see how the gardening FP is approaching.” As a video says more than a long explanation, here we leave the link: @ikero800 Did you like my gardening FP song? ♬ original sound – Ikero800 @danistudyy 😭🤣all of us who have exams right now😭🫣 This would have been my lucky case that proxus.es saved me from this and helped me get good grades, I hope I don’t get caught in the body and paint exam students university high school humor ♬ original sound – Ikero800 15,900 videos (and counting). The truth is that the sketch it worked. So much, in fact, that Ikero800’s video is on its way to 87,000 likes and his joke has transcended far beyond his account. The original audio of his piece, in which the tiktoker humming out of tune ‘gardening ephepe’ while Haydn plays in the background has already been used around 16,000 times. The staging changes, but the ‘soundtrack’ is always the same. Same as the message: most people use it to joke about their PAU or their grades. “POV: there is one day left until the PAU and it starts to ring,” one publishes while recording himself studying. “We when we see the language exam tomorrow,” shares another in a video in which a group of teenagers are seen in a garden with a pot and a shovel. The list goes on and on (and on and on). Why is it important? Beyond its viralitythe joke is interesting because it reflects a reality that transcends TikTok, networks or the Internet: accessing the dream university career is increasingly difficultwhich translates into an extra burden of anxiety for students who are risking their future. It has always been like this (the Selectivity already left similar scenes), but the situation seems to have worsened due to the pressure endured by the most in-demand degrees. Last year elEconomista.es did a study analyzing a selection of degrees and universities and concluded that in just one decade the cut-off marks had risen on average by 24%. From the 7.78 average in the 2015-2016 academic year, it had gone, according to the newspaper’s calculations, to 9.63 in 2025-2026. elDiario.es did a similar exercise and although their data do not coincide, the general trend does: their estimate shows that in just one decade it went from 6.85 to 8.05. Racing inflation. If before there were only four careers that required a outstanding grade 13 (or higher), last year that was already the price to pay to access some 70 degrees. a few weeks ago The Mail did a similar exercise in Galicia and concluded that in almost 80 formations the cut-off score had suffered the effects of ‘inflation’, that is, it had increased in just a couple of years (2023-25). In another hundred the trend was the opposite. The pressure it is not the same in all training courses and stands out above all in double degrees, Mathematics, Computer Science and certain training courses in the scientific field. With this data, we can better understand the TikTok publications in which students show their reactions upon learning about their PAU grades or jokes like that of Ikero800, who, given the success of the video on the Gardening FP, published other similar videos (the music changes) about the Plumbing FP, Welding FP, Sports FP, Cooking FP or even “FP of Churrero”. Are FP that bad? Not at all. What’s more, the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services of Madrid recalls that in certain cases FP has become “a much more attractive path than university” in the eyes of students who finish the Selectivity. At least if we talk about employability. According to a study cited by the agency, last year between 73% and 79.5% of VET graduates were in active employment, a percentage that drops to 66% among university students. Of course, the membership rate depends a lot on the type of training we are talking about. For example, according to U-Ranking in the degree of Medicine or Computer Engineering it exceeds 90%. What Social Security says. The disclosed data in 2025 by Education show that the average affiliation rate in the first year was 36.2% among those who graduated in 2020-21 in Intermediate Vocational Training and 51.1% among those with Higher Education. These percentages grow as the years go by. The third year is around 63.5% among higher graduates and 72.1% in dual modality. If we talk about university degreesIn general, the average affiliation rate is 49.6% after the first year, 65.6% in the … Read more

Space data centers seem crazy. They make a lot more sense than it seems

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“Space, the final frontier” became a classic pop culture phrase thanks to the series Star Trek. Now there are those who complete it with “… data centers”, because that is what Elon Musk certainly wants to achieve, and he has a plan to achieve it. At first glance it seems crazybut it turns out that the idea is not at all crazy. Free cooling, nothing. As explained in a very deep report in Semianalysismany analysts support the idea by defending erroneous premises. The space, for example, does not offer free cooling. Since there is no atmosphere, heat is not dissipated by convection, and huge and expensive thermal radiators are necessary. Solar energy is also interrupted in low orbits (LEO), so satellites must be placed in sun-synchronous orbits, a resource that is beginning to become saturated. The current cost does not compensate. The analysis carried out in this study for the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for a currently standard 30.5 kW cluster (with two servers with 16 Nvidia B300 GPUs) does not add up. Deploy this infrastructure In space it is necessary to invest 4.1 million dollars, when doing the same on Earth costs 1.4 million dollars. Space data centers are currently 260% more expensive than on the planet’s surface. Bad business. Space transportation makes everything more expensive. He biggest problem What affects these costs is the costs of transporting the material to space. In that proposed example, of the $3.1 million total cost of space infrastructure, $1.6 million is due to launch. But there is also the problem of the useful life of this data center: on Earth these facilities pay for themselves in 15 years, but in space wear and radiation in orbit reduce the operational life of the particular satellite to only five years, which multiplies those capital expenses dedicated to the project almost by 20. The first bottleneck is the chips. Even solving these problems, the main obstacle is simply semiconductor manufacturing capacity. The demand for TSMC’s N3 wafers and the supply of HBM memories is much higher than the supply even without this idea of ​​​​space data centers. That would add even more demand to an absolutely saturated system. But there is also the (lack of) energy. The reason why Musk wants to promote this idea as soon as possible is that obtaining power supply for terrestrial data centers is increasingly complicated. Thus, getting a connection to the electrical grid in Virgnia (USA) already takes seven years. Companies are creating their own power generation plants to solve this problem. Even so, according to the study, it will become increasingly more expensive to access this supply: they estimate that the cost of “terrestrial energy” will be above 20 million dollars per MW when this decade ends. That’s why Terafab. To solve this first bottleneck, Elon Musk has launched its colossal Terafab project in Austin. It is a huge chip manufacturing factory that will need 10 GW of electrical power to produce one million semiconductor wafers each month. The plan takes into account that 80% of the chips produced are destined precisely for space data centers. Starship changes the equation. But Starship stands in front of all these problems. SpaceX hopes to be able to reduce launch costs significantly in the coming years, going from the current $1,400-1,800 per kilo for the Falcon 9 to just $250 per kg for the Starship. This, together with the improvement in radiator and solar panel technology, will reduce the cost gap with terrestrial infrastructure. Now it is 260% more expensive, but at the beginning of the next decade it will be only 30% more expensive and will achieve economic parity by 2040. But. The accounts could therefore come out in the medium term, but it is necessary to take into account other factors as the so-called long-term computing cost. On Earth, between 3% and 6% of GPUs in data centers fail each year and require manual replacement by a technician. In space that option disappears, so it is necessary to oversize the satellites with 20% chips to provide redundancy and thus absorb potential radiation failures. In Xataka | Aragón is quietly becoming a data center “powerhouse” – now it has taken a crucial step

Despite the fact that it has been losing population and readers for years, Japan does not stop opening new libraries. And it makes perfect sense

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Japan has increasingly less people (in general). And less fond of reading (in particular). Despite one or the other, for years the country has been experiencing a curious phenomenon: its library network does not stop expanding, with hundreds and hundreds of new reading positions. To be more precise, Nikkei estimates that in 2024 there will be around 3,400 libraries spread across Japan, which is equivalent to 800 more than those that operated in 1999. The big question is… Why? The great paradox. In a country with less and less people and in which the passion for reading is losing ground, the logical thing would be for libraries to close. In Japan the first and the second happen (fewer people, fewer readers), but not the third. The curious thing is that he is not only avoiding the closures of reading positions. It is increasing them. Anyone who wants to find a place to read books at no cost has it much easier today than it was 25 years ago. Reviewing the data. To understand the paradox, it is necessary to first review three pieces of information. The first is the evolution of the Japanese population. According to World Bank Group, in 2024 they will reside in the country 123.9 million peopleconsiderably less than the 128 million it reached in 2010. And the medium and long-term outlook is not much better. The latest statistics Officials reveal that, far from slowing down, the decline in the birth rate is reaching historic figures and is advancing faster than the authorities anticipated. If nothing changes, in 2050 the population will fall to about 100 million. Less people, fewer readers. That is the second key. If we talk about reading, the problem is not so much that there are fewer Japanese as that those who exist seem less and less interested in literature. In 2018 the Agency for Cultural Affairs launched a survey to find out how often their fellow citizens read. He discovered that among those over 16 years of age the percentage of those who read less than one book a month was around 40-49%. In 2023, this indicator had already risen to 62.6%. Another 27.6% said they read between one and two books a month. As if that clue wasn’t clear enough, the number of bookstores open in Japan fell about 30% in just a decade. And the surprise came. With these figures on the table, the fact that just disclosed Nikkei and with which we started this article: today in Japan there are 30% more libraries than in 2000. Of the 2,600 public centers (in the hands of municipalities and districts) in operation at the beginning of the century, there were 3,400 in 2024. In 1996 they did not even reach 2,500. Although Japan is not far from it the country with higher ratio of reading seats per inhabitant, the increase is considerable and some libraries can even boast of moving hundreds of thousands of users a year. The Tenmonkan one, inaugurated in 2022, is around 700,000 people annually, many of them young people under 30 years of age. How is it possible? The big question. And the answer is simple: in Japan the libraries are not only more numerous, they are also they are changing. They are still reading spaces where one goes in search of books or a quiet room in which to devour a novel or study, but they are also places of socialization. Something similar to community centers, only with shelves full of books. “Residents use libraries very often. Together with auditoriums and museums, they attract people and create a lively atmosphere,” points out Katsuyoshi Kinoshita, head of the Foundation for the Advancement of Libraries. The “third place”. “They are spaces where people not only read books, but can also enjoy story-telling and other events or relax in a cafe,” confirm to Nikkei Fumihiko Suzuki of the Daiwa Research Institute. This openness has turned libraries into a kind of “third place” for many Japanese, a reference space beyond their homes, jobs or schools. Access is free, you can stay there as long as you want, there are always people and they often offer alternative activities to reading: events in auditoriums or for children, historical materials, museums… They are, in short, “meeting places.” Is it something spontaneous? Not quite. As explains Sadao Uematsu, of the Japanese Library Association, the phenomenon is partly explained by the “mergers” promoted at the beginning of the century, when “many reading rooms in community centers were converted into municipal libraries.” The success achieved last decade by some projects focused precisely on reading spaces encouraged other municipalities to get on the bandwagon. In recent years the pace of library opening has slowed down, but even so the phenomenon has aroused the interest of international institutions such as the World Economic Forum, which in February dedicated it an extensive analysis that connects the ‘boom’ of libraries with another of the phenomena that mark Japanese society: aging. In a country in which those over 65 years of age represent more than 29% of the population, spaces with community activities have become a key element for the well-being of the elderly. Against this backdrop, libraries have become valuable allies. Images | Olegs Jonins (Unsplash) and Yanhao Fang (Unsplash) In Xataka | While Japan’s population is sinking irremediably, Tokyo is growing. There is an explanation: ikkyoku shūchū

I have tested the Logi Dock, the combination of USB-C hub, speaker and microphone for video calls. It’s a sum that makes a lot of sense.

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I have been working from home for nine years. It wasn’t long ago that I realized that my laptop, a 2021 MacBook Prois the answer to a question that no one has ever asked me: “what do you want, power or flexibility?”. I answered flexibility, but I didn’t know until it was too late. The MacBook Pro is always on the table, but sometimes it also travels or I take it to the cafeteria when my head demands a different environment. It is a desktop computer that from time to time has to go outside. Logitech, who knows a lot about peripherals and how we work, has understood this very well. The Logi Dock is not just a hub of ports to compensate for the fact that recent laptops are not as generous in ports. It is a value proposition that goes beyond: it is an operations center that stays on the desktop while the laptop comes and goes. One USB-C cable to connect everything when you arrive, one to disconnect everything when you leave. That, in practice, has a higher value than what appears on a specification paper. Behind the dock there…: HDMI 2.0 (4K, 60Hz, HDR). DisplayPort 1.4 (4K, 60Hz, HDR). 2 USB-A (USB 3.1 at 5 Gbps). 2 USB-C (USB 3.1 at 5 Gbps) 1 extra USB-C on the side with 7.5W fast charging. and USB-C upstream dedicated to 100W for the laptop. All in a single connection strip that you never touch again. What it does not have is Thunderbolt, Ethernet or card reader. View of the ports of the Logi Dock. A side USB-C is missing, designed primarily for charging the mobile phone. Image: Xataka. There’s that USB-C on the side. Image: Xataka. Immediately the most important question about this product appears, which deserves a completely honest answer. A hub USB-C generic costs between 30 and 80 euros. This dock right now it costs from 276 euros on Amazon. What justifies paying five or ten times more for the Logi Dock than for a simple hub USB-C? That’s the gist. The short answer is that it depends on whether you need what’s extra, not whether you appreciate what’s equal. Ports are ports. What sets the Logi Dock apart from any other hub random are two things: the speakers and the microphone. And that changes the equation… for a specific user profile. In my case, I have had it connected to the MacBook Pro M1 Pro and the Huawei MateView 28 inches. Keyboard, mouse, Scarlett 2i2 interface with the Rode PodMic for the podcastand charging the laptop at 100W. A cable from the Mac to dock. Everything resolved. I start with what does not have a hub anyone and it does have the Logi Dock: the speakers. My Huawei monitor has a built-in speaker that does the bare minimum. And those on the MacBook, which stays closed to one side, are “trapped.” With a hub Generic would have solved the connectivity, but not the audio: the Logi Dock provides good speakers and a microphone designed to not sound boring during video calls. The buttons are designed to be used as quick access during video calls, and also to join them directly with Logi Tune. Image: Xataka. Image: Xataka. The Logi Dock’s 55mm drivers with their side-mounted passive radiators produce full-bodied sound, some bass, and enough clarity to listen to music while working. It is not an audio monitor. But it doesn’t pretend to be either. In the video calls in which I have used them, giving up the headphones, the microphone beamforming six capsules works well. My interlocutors do not complain and background noise is reasonably attenuated. The real argument for the Logi Dock is not that it is the best at anything, but that He’s good enough at everything at once. The texture of the fabric mesh, in macro photo. Image: Xataka. Three months of use have also shown me where it is weak. No Thunderbolt, no Ethernet, no card reader… The touch buttons on the top panel work fine, but calendar integration via Logi Tune is the most dispensable part: with the Mac you already have your notifications, and join a meeting with a tap on the dock It is a shortcut that in practice you almost never use. It sounds like a function forced in to reinforce its proposal and better justify its existence. In my opinion that value is not there. What you do use, every day, is the most difficult to quantify: the absence of friction. He dock It’s been plugged in for months and has never given me a single problem. does not ask drivers to reinstall or annoying updates, the ports work well and there is no audio that is lost when waking the Mac from sleep. Is it worth paying five times more than a hub generic? If your desktop already has good speakers and a microphone, or if you simply prefer using headphones, probably not. Buy the hub cheap and you will save. But if in your case the Logi Dock becomes the only real speaker on the desk, the microphone in meetings and the only cable that connects and disconnects the laptop every day, then the comparison is no longer with a hub of 60 euros. It is with “a hub “more speakers, more microphone, plus the convenience of everything coexisting without conflict in a single block.” And that last comparison is won by the Logi. Featured image | Xataka In Xataka | The Nike Mind 001 are the strangest shoes I have ever tried. And that is precisely why they are being sold This device has been provided for testing by Logitech. You can consult how we do reviews in Xataka and our relations policy with companies.

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