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“It’s probably not your mother.” Google has set out to end deepfakes in calls once and for all

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Google has just given a twist to its system for detecting possible fraudulent calls, focusing on one of the most current problems related to them: identity theft using deepfakes. Through an update to the Phone app, all devices with Android 12 and above will be safer than ever starting this month. The problem. Despite the efforts of both operators and the Government itself, in Spain More than 135 million calls were blocked and five million SMS with fraudulent intentions. Globally, about 30% of these calls have fraudulent intent They were deepfakes. According to data from the March 2026 Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment According to Interpol, the impersonation fraud led to more than 400 billion losses. How they achieve it. The scammers, as Google explains on its blogare able to spoof the phone number by routing calls through software. In other words, it is relatively easy to impersonate another person’s phone number and, when they call us, it appears as a sender that we have saved. If they manage to clone the voice using artificial intelligence, the result can be disastrous, since it is practically indistinguishable from reality. The new. Starting this month, the Google Phone app will be updated with automatic spoofing detection. It is an addition to the detection of SPAM which we already had, capable of detecting deepfakes in an advanced way. When a contact calls us and the Phone app is being used, the sending mobile phone sends a signal to our phone via RCS. So that? To verify that the call is coming from that contact’s legitimate device, and not from a scammer who has spoofed the phone number. That is to say: even if someone manages to copy a number and impersonate it, the additional authentication that Google requires when making the call cannot be replicated. How will we know. The feature will arrive globally in the Google Phone app and, in the event that a fraudulent call is detected, we will see a “it may not be X person” notice. If we decide to take it, it will be our responsibility. The curious thing is that, on the call screen, the impersonated contact will continue to appear. The main limitation of this function is that it depends on whether we use, yes or no, the Google Phone app. In other words, if they call us from iOS or using another application, this additional verification system is not required. In Xataka | Record spam calls to report: what the Spanish Data Protection Agency allows and how to do it

LaLiga wanted to fine VPNs that did not block IPs during matches. A court has been set up

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LaLiga has been waging an all-out war against football piracy for months and, with the support of a court ruling obtained in 2025, LaLiga had the power to ask operators to block certain IP addresses. The result? Websites that stumbled on match days due to some locks which were a clear example of kill flies with cannon shots. In a process in which it seemed that no one could stop these actions, LaLiga They got it in February of this year what seemed like another victory: a court in Córdoba ordered NordVPN and ProtonVPN Block certain IPs. Not even the judges themselves They knew if that could be done. and VPN tools evidently responded. Now another court in Córdoba has put some sense into all this, dismissing LaLiga’s request to impose fines on VPN platforms for failing to comply with the indiscriminate blocking order. The twist in the story of LaLiga and VPN blocks Through a release On its website, one of the companies affected by the initial ruling (NordVPN) has commented on the result of the ruling of the Commercial Court of Córdoba in what they have described as the dismissal of the request to impose coercive fines on NordVPN. The statement they have shared is the following: On May 19, 2026, the Commercial Court of Córdoba rejected LaLiga’s request to impose coercive fines on NordVPN for alleged non-compliance with the precautionary blocking order issued in February 2026. NordVPN had already warned at the time that the order was not technically viable without harming thousands of legitimate websites in Spain and abroad. Now, the court has accepted the independent technical evidence presented by NordVPN and ruled that it cannot be concluded that the company violated the order deliberately and without justification. The order issued in February required NordVPN to block a list of IP addresses that allegedly hosted unauthorized La Liga broadcasts. NordVPN’s technical experts have shown that target IP addresses change constantly, often within hours, meaning that the lists supplied do not correspond to the actual addresses at the time the blocking can be implemented. It was also demonstrated that the massive blocking at the IP level would have left thousands of completely legitimate websites without access for users in Spain and outside of it. After considering the conflicting expert reports, the court found a genuine technical dispute and ruled that the fines were not justified. It goes on to detail that this is a procedural resolution in the preliminary phase, so it does not resolve the underlying issue: the entire procedure that is still ongoing. nordVPN points out that it will continue to collaborate with the Spanish courts and points out that cloudflareone of the most affected in all this, also follows its own path of collaboration with the courts. What CloudVPN points out is that they are committed to the legitimate protection of intellectual property and the application of measures, but those measures must be proportionate, technically sound and respectful of both users and services that depend on the shared Internet infrastructure, stating that this massive IP blocking imposed on VPN providers, precisely, lacks all of these aspects. And most importantly, NordVPN points out something that is obvious: these measures “do not stop violators, who adapt in a matter of minutes while imposing real costs on legitimate users, companies and services that have no relation to the dispute.” In Xataka | LaLiga’s massive IP blocks are making life impossible for users, companies and developers. So you can claim

A drone has set fire to the perimeter of the first Arab nuclear power plant

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During the war between Iran and Iraq in 1982, a missile accidentally hit near the plant Iran’s Bushehr nuclear when it was still under construction. The incident sowed such concern international that for decades civil nuclear facilities in the Middle East were surrounded by a kind of unwritten taboo even in the midst of the region’s toughest conflicts. A drone and a border that no one wanted to cross. For years, Gulf monarchies assumed that their large energy infrastructures could be vulnerable to missiles or attacks on refineries, ports and pipelines. But there was one psychological line that seemed to remain intact: nuclear power plants. The fire caused by a drone in the perimeter of Barakah, the first nuclear plant trade of the Arab world, has changed that. Although there was no radioactive leak or damage inside the reactor, the simple fact that an unmanned aircraft reached the immediate surroundings of a nuclear facility in the middle of the war between Iran, the United States and Israel has opened a completely new scene for regional security. The Gulf has just entered unknown territory: it is no longer just about protecting oil and gas, but about defending civilian nuclear facilities against cheap, difficult to intercept and politically explosive attacks. Much more than electricity. The Barakah central It occupies a particularly sensitive place within the Emirati strategy. Built with South Korean technology and operational since 2021, it provides around of a quarter of the country’s electricity and represents the great project with which the Emirates tried to diversify its energy economy and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. That is why the attack has a symbolic burden enormous even if the damage was limited. Hitting the Barakah perimeter means demonstrating that no strategic infrastructure is completely out of reach of the drone war that already dominates the Middle East. Also launches another disturbing message: Civilian nuclear facilities are beginning to enter the risk map of modern regional conflicts. The Gulf War no longer revolves only around oil. The truth is that the evolution of the conflict is profoundly altering the security logic of the entire region. Since the start of the war, Iran has launched thousands of drones and missiles against the Emirates and other Gulf countries to increase the economic and political cost of the campaign led by the United States and Israel. Until now, much of the concern has focused on Hormuz, energy exports and maritime traffic. But he Barakah incident expands the problem into another, much more delicate dimension. An attack against a nuclear power plant, even if it is peripheral, immediately forces international alarms to be activated, involve the International Atomic Energy Agency and propose scenarios that until recently seemed unlikely in the region. The real problem. The most uncomfortable thing for the Emirates and its allies is that the attack proves again a reality that has already been seen in Ukraine, Russia or the Red Sea: even extremely rich and protected countries have enormous difficulties in stopping relatively simple and cheap drones. According to the Emiratesthree aircraft penetrated from the western border and one of them managed to reach the external electrical generator of Barakah despite the existing defenses. The scene perfectly sums up the current imbalance of modern warfare. A small drone can force the activation of nuclear protocols, trigger diplomatic tensions and generate global concern at a negligible cost compared to the gigantic air defense investments of the Gulf states. An increasingly fragile truce. The attack also arrives in one of the most tense moments since the ceasefire between Iran and the United States. Donald Trump has toughened his speech against Tehran (a few hours ago he even said he was about to attack Iran before to stop the operation), Israel speculate again openly with a resumption of the war and the Emirates has become the Arab country more aggressive against Iran during the conflict. Abu Dhabi directly accuses to Iran or its regional allies for having crossed an extremely dangerous line. The problem is that the Barakah incident demonstrates the extent to which the region has entered a phase where escalation can occur. through ambiguous attackscheap and difficult to attribute with complete clarity. And that makes every downed drone (or every drone what gets through) now has the potential to trigger a much larger crisis. Image | Store N., Wikimedia In Xataka | Iran is about to inaugurate in Hormuz a concept that has the shape of a global nightmare: the underwater toll In Xataka | Dubai has come to the same conclusion as Russia. To protect your oil from drones there is something better than missiles: giant cages

Someone has gathered more than 13 million public contracts and has set up the Google of public procurement in Spain

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Every euro spent by a State Public Administration must be traceable by citizens. We don’t say it, the law says it. But theory is one thing and practice another: if you try, you will discover that sometimes it is a long, tedious and sometimes almost impossible mission. Let me explain: when someone wants to know which company a public hospital or city council has awarded contracts to, the official search path forces them to go through different platforms ranging from Public Sector Procurement Platform state to autonomous regions such as those of the Community of Madrid, the Basque Country or Galicia, because there are CCAA (quite a few) that have their own system and do not publish in PLACSP. This fragmentation makes the search difficult, as details the Public Procurement Observatory. So an engineer has set out to solve it by building a search engine for Spanish public contracts. The “Google” of public contracts in Spain. jobsearch.com solves this fragmentation problem with a single search engine. It is an independent project that aggregates, cross-references and allows you to consult in seconds the public procurement information that the State publishes dispersedly on a long list of different platforms. More specifically, it draws from 10 official sources, including the State Platform (PLACSP), the Official Journal of the EU (TED), and regional platforms of Madrid, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Asturias and the Valencian Community, plus data from the Commercial Registry. The result is a search engine with around 13.4 million indexed contracts, without advertising, without tracking and with open source available on GitHub. Behind the project, Gerard Sanchezprogrammer and founder of BQuant and professor at the University of Navarra and the UPF Barcelona School of Management. Why is it important. Public procurement is not trivial: in Spain it moved more than 113 billion euros in 2024, the equivalent of 10.92% of GDP, according to the OIReScon Annual Surveillance Report 2025the official supervisory body of the Ministry of Finance. Each year a sum of money is allocated through procedures that must be public and auditable. The reality is that this audit is very difficult without tools. A CNMC report of 2019 highlights that public procurement represents between 10% and 20% of Spanish GDP and that Spain is one of the European countries with the lowest participation of companies in tenders: only one company participates in one in three state contracts. With data access tools that facilitate transparency, competition could be increased and the cost for public coffers reduced. Context. In Spain there are several laws that require public contracts to be published: there is the Law 19/2013 on transparency, access to public information and good governance with a triple objective of increasing transparency in public activity, guaranteeing access to information as a right and establishing good governance obligations for public officials, but also the Law 9/2017 on Public Sector Contractswhich is a transposition of European directives on public procurement. So the problem is not that there are no regulations, but rather their application and the dispersion of data. As explains the Public Procurement ObservatorySince March 2018, it has been mandatory for the entire public sector to publish the information on their contracts in the PLACSP, but the tool is also a headache as thousands of entities upload information manually and with free-writing text, which constitutes a continuous source of error. PreciselyBuscalicitaciones.com detects and documents these inconsistencies. How it works. Technically, the project downloads and normalizes the open data that each of those 10 official platforms publishes in structured formats such as XML, JSON, CSV. Each record is crossed with data from the Commercial Registry to enrich the information of the successful bidder. The search engine offers three main modes of use: search for contracts by winning company, contracting body, CPV sector or free text of the contract; see the complete history of awards of any company by its NIF and consult a public registry of contracts with anomalous amounts greater than 1,000 million euros. Yes, but. The first major limitation is structural: it depends on the quality of the data published by official sources and that quality can clearly be improved. If the source data is bad, the aggregator inherits that error. And we have already seen that sometimes it is and that it is certainly anything but homogeneous. On the other hand, this is the first version of the project and it shows: It has flaws and the coverage is not complete. Navarra does not appear on the list and sources such as the Valencian Community do not have an aggregate amount available, the Basque Country only has an amount in 106,000 of its 651,000 contracts and Catalonia has two separate entries with different coverage. On the other hand, the independent and altruistic nature of this public utility resource also has its B side: long-term sustainability, given its great magnitude. In Xataka | Someone has passed 12,000 laws and reforms to source code and now searching the BOE is no longer an ordeal In Xataka | The “ChatGPT for lawyers” exists, it was born in Spain and has just reached a milestone: becoming a unicorn Cover | Mockuphone and Gemini

NASA has an appointment with Mars today (although its ship already has its eyes set elsewhere)

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The Psyche spaceship, launched by NASA in 2023 to study the asteroid with the same name, it will reach its destination in 2029. However, today it will make its first stop along the way. If we stop at gas stations and roadside bars to stretch our legs and have a coffee, Psyche will approach Mars at almost 20,000 kilometers per hour, to tune some of its instruments while taking photographs worthy of the best wallpaper. In fact, we can already see some of them. Too close for space. Psyche won’t stop at the gas station like we did, but she will make a great approach. At 3:28 PM EDT (9:28 p.m., Spanish peninsular time), will be located 4,500 kilometers from the red planet. That, in spatial terms, is very little. Gravity assist. At this stop along the way, Psyche will take the opportunity to take some photographs and adjust her instruments, but she will also use Mars as a springboard to reach her destination faster. When a ship approaches a moving planet, it is attracted by its gravitational field. It does not touch the planet, but that interaction changes its trajectory and helps it gain speed with less propellant expenditure. We can imagine it as a ball being thrown towards a moving vehicle. This changes its trajectory and also gives it speed on the return trip. Psyche uses solar-electric propulsion, with xenon gas as fuel. Thanks to that push, known as gravitational assist, you can save quite a bit of propellant. A whole entourage. The result of this interaction will be studied by the two NASA rovers that are currently on Mars, Curiosity and Perseveranceas well as by American and European orbiters that are carrying out their respective missions. Not only photographs will be taken. Possible changes to the Martian surface and atmosphere will also be detected. first photos. Psyche has already taken a very interesting photoin which the night side of Mars is seen as the spacecraft approaches it. The result is something similar to a half moon, although logically it has nothing to do with it. The real goal. Thanks to Martian gravitational assistance, Psyche will reach the asteroid with the same name in 2029. This is located in the asteroid beltbetween Mars and Jupiter. Shaped like a potato and 278 km long and 232 km wide, it is a metallic asteroid, one of the least abundant types in that location. That’s why it’s so interesting to explore. In fact, it is believed that it is actually the iron-nickel core of a planet in formation that could not complete the process because it was destroyed by cosmic collisions. For all this, Psyche (the ship and the asteroid) has a lot to teach us about the birth of a planet and, possibly, about the dawn of the solar system. As we often say, to know where we are going, it is also important to know where we come from. That is what makes this type of research so important. Image | POT In Xataka | NASA has sent its spacecraft to observe a dead robot on Mars. The reason: seeing how it accumulates dust

It also serves to set up a mobile karaoke

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One of the things that the world of social media, vertical video, and content creation has taught me is that average image quality can be supported by almost anyone, but bad sound cannot. That a TikTok or Reel looks bad is passable, but if it doesn’t sound good, the rejection is immediate. We have the greatest proof of this when we open TikTok: the mobile is the default camerabut the audio capture device is usually a wireless microphone. There are several options on the market and today we must add a very interesting proposal from a brand that knows a lot about audio: JBL. The firm has just announced the new JBL EasySing Mic Mini. And yes, they come with a twist: you can set up the world’s largest duffel bag wherever you want. JBL EasySing Mic Mini | Image: JBL Why an external microphone? Because the microphone (“microphones”, really, it is normal that there are several) of mobile phones is not designed for content creation. Not at least in a professional or semi-professional way. Mobile phones use very small, omnidirectional MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) microphone systems. They have a very high noise floor, they distort if we bring them very close to the sound source and they are omnidirectional, so they capture all the sound around them. They are useful for making calls, for everyday video recording, and for guerrilla content like a quick story. Now, from 20-30 centimeters away its performance drops greatly, even more so if we record outdoors. While mobile video has evolved at breakneck speed, audio remains a pending task. That’s why a dedicated microphone is still a good investment when creating content at a higher level. JBL EasySing Mic Mini | Image: JBL JBL EasySing Mic Mini. That is the name given to JBL’s new proposal. This new microphone has a more compact format than the EasySing Mics available so far, which are more reminiscent of a normal microphone. The new Mic Mini comes in a more compact case that we can carry in our pocket or backpack, and includes two devices: the dongle (which we will connect to the speaker or mobile phone) and the microphone, which we can hold in our hand, attach to an accessory or clip it to our t-shirt using the magnetic clip. A dongle… The dongle has a USB type C, AUX and Bluetooth connection, so it can be connected to practically any device, be it a mobile phone, laptop or speaker. The connection to the microphone is via 2.4 GHz and the effective range is about 20 meters. At the expense of testing it, it is to be expected that the sound quality will be much better than what we can achieve by recording with the mobile microphone. JBL EasySing Mic Mini | Image: JBL …a little bit of AI… One of the keys to the microphone is the built-in AI system, which works de facto on the device itself. The device is capable of reducing noise, separating the voice from any song and improving our voice to reach high tones. And why would we want the microphone to separate the voice from a song? …and karaoke. Because one of the curiosities of this microphone is that it allows us to set up karaoke anywhere. Simply connect the dongle to a compatible JBL speaker and play music. The dongle itself will be in charge of analyzing the song and eliminating, if we want, the background voice so that only ours can be heard. We can leave 25% of the original voice to use as a guide, use it as a 50% accompaniment, or eliminate it completely. If we connect the microphone to the JBL One app we can also access voice effects and additional settings, such as an equalizer. JBL EasySing Mic Mini | Image: JBL Versions and price. The JBL EasySing Mic Mini will be available for 149.99 euros from June 2026. Of course, it has not arrived alone. In addition to this new microphone, which is the most different proposal in the catalogue, JBL has renewed its product range with the following products. JBL Live 780NC | Image: JBL JBL Live 780NC and 680NC: supra-aural headband headphones that mount 40 mm drivers, incorporate active noise cancellation and offer 80 hours of autonomy. The difference between the two is that the 780NC uses six microphones for noise cancellation, while the 680NC uses four. Both are compatible with Smart TX. JBL Live 4 | Image: JBL JBL Live 4: TWS headphones in stick in ear (Live Beam 4), in ear (Live Buds 4) and semi-open stick (Live Flex 4) formats with smart casing. The main novelty is Perfect Call 2.0, a six-microphone system to improve call quality; and the new smart case with a screen and more functions, such as checking notifications. JBL PartyBox 330 | Image: JBL JBL PartyBox 330 and JBL PartyBox 130: your new speakers to mount the backpack anywhere. They have up to 280W of power, lights and, of course, microphone compatibility. Images | JBL In Xataka | The best song to test the performance of your headphones, according to a sound researcher who has been using it for 35 years

set a flight ceiling

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In 2025, just over 33.8 million of passengers. The one from Ibiza scored 9.1 and the one from Menorca 4.2. Although this enormous flow of travelers includes both residents and people who fly for family, work or study reasons, a good part are tourists who want to spend their vacations on the islands. That makes Aena terminals the great gateway to the Balearic Islands. Also in the new goal of efforts to prevent mass tourism from devouring the archipelago. In fact, there are those who are already talking about setting a flight ceilingjust as it has been proposed to reduce the limit of tourist placesthe vehicle entrance or the cruises. What has happened? What the Balearic Islands want have more weight when deciding what to do with their airports. A few days ago your Parliament gave the green light (with the votes of PP and the Més formation) to a proposal which reinforces the voice of the autonomous community in the management and planning of Aena’s infrastructure. To go ahead, the measure must still obtain the approval of Congress, something that is by no means guaranteed, but it shows a key objective of the Balearic Government: to prevent its airports from continuing to be an unlimited drain for mass tourism. What exactly do they want? The original proposal It started from the eco-sovereignty Més formation and has moved forward after incorporating amendments proposed by the PP, the party that heads the regional Government. Its objective is very simple: to give more weight to the Balearic authorities when deciding what happens to its airport network, in the hands of Aena. It is not about transferring ownership of the terminals, which now depend on the State, but about moving towards a “co-management” when it is time to set rates, frequencies or operational capacity. Aena already works with coordination committees in which different administrations sit, but they are only advisory bodies. That is, the airport manager does not have to follow their recommendations. In the Balearic Islands they want to apply two big changes to that model. First, reinforce the weight of regional institutions in the archipelago. Second, that their reports are binding in certain cases. Why is it important? Because beyond reinforcing the capacity of the Balearic Islands to decide what happens with one of its great entry and exit doors, the proposal has a much more specific objective: to become a tool to combat tourist overcrowding. In fact, that idea flies over the original textpresented by Més per Mallorca and Més Menorca in 2025. “Airport policy conditions the balance between visitors and residents, to the extent that the intensity of the flow of tourists and the average period of stay impact human pressure on the islands and, therefore, the satisfaction of residents with tourism and of tourists with the destination,” collect the initiative. Do they argue something else? “In recent years, an evident disconnection between tourism policy and airport policy has been revealed, which has resulted in a progressive increase in the number of flights and arrivals to the Balearic Islands, in a context of containment of the number of tourist places,” affects Més’s proposal, which states that one of the objectives of the new organization would be to set a “ceiling” of flights, passengers and merchandise. The training recalls that the Balearic airports have gone from moving 31.9 million travelers in 2014 to 47.4 in 2024. 48% more in ten years. Is the debate settled? No. Although the proposal has gone ahead in the Balearic Parliament thanks to the PP amendments that have rethought part of the original document (a red line What remains is the binding nature of the committee’s decisions), there is still a process that is as necessary as it is complex: the approval of Congress. Vox has already rejected the proposal in the Autonomous Chamber and PSOE and Unidas Podemos have opted to refrain. The truth is that the Balearic initiative is even more ambitious than the recently agreed between the central government and the Basque Country, which involves creating a “bilateral body for collaboration, coordination and management” focused on the three airports in the region. What makes the Balearic Islands different? From Mes it is alleged that the fact that the Balearic Islands is an archipelago gives even more relevance to airport traffic management. Mallorca, Menorca and the Pitiusas are, however, more than just part of an archipelago. They are also a destination they pass through every year. millions of visitors and in which tourism leaves one of lime and another of sand: although the sector moves billions of euros also has stressed the residential market and caused friction with the local population, who already has gone out into the street to protest against overcrowding. Més herself has demanded in the past curb uncontrolled touristification. Do you only look at airports? No. The debate on the overcrowding of the Balearic Islands and the measures to limit it has also extended to the tourist places of the archipelago, the vehicle entrance or the cruise traffic. In its original proposal, Més focuses, however, on the “complete disconnection” between these initiatives and the activity of the island airports. “The existence of these seat ceilings has not translated, in any case, into a containment of the flight schedule, which has been growing year after year, even in high season,” argues. Now the region wants to provide itself with a new tool that gives it greater control over its terminals. Images | James Stevenson (Unsplash) and Wikipedia In Xataka | Europe is back in “February 2020”: Lufthansa has canceled 20,000 flights and it is just the beginning of the crisis

a wish list with everything you need to set up a base on the moon

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When NASA still did not know how Orion’s journey was going to go within the framework of the Artemis II mission (it left on April 1 and returned successfully ten days later), the North American space agency presented its “Ignition” project with an ambitious objective: to establish a permanent base at the lunar South Pole. He approach To achieve this, it requires spending 20 billion dollars in seven years and carrying out 81 launches. It is not only a roadmap, but also a wish list for the industry and international partners where it identifies the technological gaps that must be closed to convert one-time lunar exploration into permanent human presence. NASA’s plan. The strategy to set up a base on the moon is divided into three clear stages and is iterative: Phase 1 focuses on demonstrating that it can be reached reliably, validating the landing sites and carrying the first astronauts. The limit of four tons per trip will be reached. There are 25 launches and 21 moon landings planned. Phase 2 aims to establish initial infrastructure, manned missions every six months, and increase payload capacity to 60 tons. With 27 launches and 24 moon landings. Phase 3 already aims for continuous human presence, having the capacity to move 150 tons of cargo and prepare the lunar territory. With 29 launches and 28 moon landings. Why is it important. To begin with, because the South Pole of the moon allows access to frozen volatiles (mainly water ice) in permanently shadowed regions, which could enable the use of in-situ resources, an essential step for spatial autonomy. But although the lunar base is an achievement for humanity per se, we must not lose sight of the fact that NASA does it with another objective in mind: Mars. The moon is their testing ground. In fact, this base on the moon will be a testing laboratory for seven critical areas before establishing a human base there: nuclear reactors that operate in space, operating without constant help from Earth, understanding how long missions affect the human body, creating space supply chains, protecting against abrasive dust, avoiding contaminating other worlds, and designing systems that serve both the Moon and Mars. On the other hand, with the moon NASA intends to open a market where private industry assumes some services, reducing costs for the North American organization (and therefore, for citizens). Context. Unlike the Apollo missions, which landed in equatorial areas, there is now interest in landing and settling at the lunar south pole as it offers a unique strategic duality: craters that never see sunlight (and may have water ice) next to mountains that almost always have sunlight (for solar panels). Having access to energy and frozen volatiles scientifically, strategically and economically justifies the site selection. But working there is extremely difficult. The terrain is rugged, there are high mountains and deep craters, and there are extreme thermal and lighting challenges. The Sun remains low on the horizon, creating long shadows that make solar energy generation difficult and subject equipment to periods of extreme cold. For the astronaut team it will be hard: You will have problems seeing dangers and doing basic tasks, because the human eye does not adapt quickly between extreme light and total darkness and you will also have to access those pronounced craters for ice. What NASA needs. The document identifies functional gaps that the industry must help close, classified into six subsystems: Robotics: robots that unload and move cargo weighing hundreds of kilos, that are controlled from Earth, and that work near astronauts without danger. Communications: fast connections (over 500 Mbps) between the Moon and Earth, allowing lunar equipment to communicate with each other, and lunar GPS. Logistics: systems to connect pressurized modules and transfer water, oxygen and cargo. Housing: habitats that function from days to months, with gym and medical systems so that astronauts do not weaken, garbage management, and that survive voids between missions. Transport: small rovers to explore, large rovers (at 10 km/h) manned and autonomous, which work both in light areas and in dark craters. Energy: generate and store 5 kilowatts withstanding more than 5 days of total darkness, distribute electricity between equipment. How are they going to do it?. Essentially they will follow two strategies: Previous tests with commercial robotic missions before risking human lives. Although the technologies exist on Earth, they work differently on the Moon, so they need to fly to space to validate them for debugging. An example: from the manned flyby of Artemis II to the surface landing on the moon there will be an intermediate mission in 2027. Astronauts will test docking, life support systems and communications with commercial lunar landers from SpaceX and Blue Origin, but in low Earth orbit, where rescue is still possible. There will be interoperability. With common standards that allow systems from different providers to work together. Collaborative development of standards for power, coupling and communications will enable effective partnerships. NASA is seeking partners for nine critical areas: habitats, cargo transportation, small robots, large rovers, mapping lunar resources, sample storage, and advanced navigation. Yesyes, but. The mission is ambitious, essential for space colonization and the schedule is tight, but it also faces three main threats. For starters, basic information about the moon is still lacking. We do not know the accessibility of features of interest, such as rocks or craters, or how lunar dust behaves or something as essential as where exactly the ice is. On the other hand, politics kills space projects: according to the Planetary Society To date, they have already spent 107 billion dollars, largely due to the continuous changes in the programs carried out by the different administrations. Finally, it is worth remembering that this is a race. China and Russia also want put a nuclear base at the South Pole and whoever gets there first will decide the rules. That pressure to go against the clock can cause NASA to accelerate and make the mistake that the plan wants … Read more

Three findings about astronauts’ blood have set off all the alarms. Going to Mars will be more dangerous than expected

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We do not want to recognize it, we are not willing to accept it, we refuse to see it; but no, we are not made for space. And our persistence, in the context of large, long-duration manned missions, can cost us dearly. The last reminder has been the blood. The blood? Indeed. Three recent findings (accelerated destruction of red blood cells, platelet dysfunction in microgravity and somatic mutations of hematopoietic stem cells) make it clear that we still have a long way to go before we can enter the depths of outer space without putting our lives at risk. A giant elephant shaped like hematological syndrome. Because this is important, it is not a small health problem. None of that: we are talking about a whole hematological syndrome that affects us on numerous physiological fronts. And it makes sense: the blood leaves a lot to be desired. Is too prone to clots and too slow to clot when it is needed. Plus, he’s not very good at putting up with things either. in space more red blood cells are destroyed than are produced and that generates persistent anemia that can take up to a year to recover. This year it took place the first medical evacuation from the ISS and everything suggests that it will not be the last. A very real problem. That’s what the evacuation of Colonel Mike Finckethat space medicine is not a theoretical question. Even more so, taking into account that every time there will be more people up thereorbital health has become a key issue. What’s new? There is no big news, really: what is new is that an overall vision is now beginning to emerge. And that is giving us a clear idea of ​​the problems we face. For example, space increases the risk of thrombosis and bleeding simultaneously: they are two completely opposite things that have no clear pharmacological approach. And then? Simply be cautious. The new era of space exploration is going to expose us to the evils of space like never before. If we are not prepared, the ‘Gelsinger effect‘ may end up setting everything back a couple of decades. Image | Bradley Dunn In Xataka | NASA astronaut remains hospitalized after returning from space on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft

Psychology says that the best time of year to set resolutions is not January 1: it is now in spring

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It is a classic among many people: reach January 1 and resolve to go to the gym, eat better, learn a language or quit smoking. But in many cases by mid-February this purpose has already been abandoned and waiting for a new year to start the cycle again. We usually blame our lack of willpowerbut science has a much more compassionate and practical explanation, since, according to experts, winter it’s not the best time to change life. The real mental and biological “reset” happens now, in spring. It has a name. The basis of this phenomenon is known in psychology as the “fresh start effect.” Here our mind does not perceive time as an uninterrupted continuum, but as a book divided into several chapters, so the change of season, birthdays or the beginning of the month act as temporal milestones in which we seek to make this change in a lifestyleFor example. Because? Having a temporal milestone for the brain has an interpretation, and that is that it creates a psychological barrier that allows us to disconnect of our “imperfect self” from the past who, for example, smokes or doesn’t go to the gym. This is something that was demonstrated in 2014 in an investigation where it became clear that these symbolic dates such as birthdays restructure our temporal perception. Precisely in one of their experiments they compared how participants reacted to the same date presented in two different ways. The results. Based on this study, they compared two different dates: The first day of spring, since we are facing a temporary milestone and specifically 25.6% of respondents chose to set reminders to start new goals right here. In comparison, a normal day of any day was used, such as Thursday, where only 7.2% of participants showed motivation to make a habit change. That is why, comparing this data, it was seen that such a simple change of perspective can quadruple the intention to pursue healthy goals, causally validating that emphasizing a milestone as a “new beginning” triggers our motivation. The spring. Here the question we can ask ourselves is if the new year is also a temporal milestone because we begin a new year… Why is spring superior? The answer lies in biology and the environment. And while in January we are coldshort days and the dreaded economic downturn, in spring we have a progressive increase in sunlight. An environmental factor that joins a series of physiological advantages. When we talk about spring ‘altering blood’, we are not telling lies because it has been seen that sunlight raises serotonin and dopamine levels, drastically improving mood, increasing energy and a willingness to make changes. Furthermore, the end of winter eliminates physical and psychological barriers such as external cold and frees energy to begin investing it in creating habits. Motivation is not enough. Logically, we talk about factors that help, and seasonal change gives a boost to people. Psychologists here explain that the new seasons offer us the ideal mental framework to “evaluate” and plan fresh strategies without the weight of guilt from previous failures. However, there is a warning backed by scientific consensus: although symbolic dates are excellent psychological catalysts for starting a habit, the initial motivation always wanes. That is why, for the habit to last beyond the spring fever, it is strictly necessary to accompany this “rush” of energy with a solid structure, realistic routines and repetition systems. Images | Mink Mingle In Xataka | Three morning habits that will help you be happier and more productive at work, according to science

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