solution

Spain has more and more forests and fewer resources to prevent fires. Their solution: fire donkeys

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Over the last decades, the fight against fires has been reinforced thanks to the use of drones, satellites and AI camerasbut in some regions of Spain they are proving that there is a simpler and more effective tool: “firefighter donkeys”. As the fire becomes a major problem, devastating hectares of forest and populated areasmore and more areas of the country see herds of horses as a valuable ally against llamas. Nothing our ancestors didn’t know. Fire donkeys? As is. It is not about using chicks to carry water drums, shovels or hoses, but rather taking advantage of the skills of these animals to keep the forests cared for, clear the undergrowth and, in this way, prevent forest fires from advancing uncontrollably. Its role is so important that there are those who already use that expression directly: “firefighter donkeys”a graphic and powerful way to claim its function. What exactly do they do? Pasture. Give free rein to your voracious and insatiable appetite. It may not seem like a big deal, but when we talk about groups of dozens and dozens of donkeys that advance in packs along hectares of forest, feeding on grasses and bushes, their effect is crucial. Their ‘crews’ help keep the fields clean, which, in the event of a fire, makes it difficult for the flames to find fuel to feed them and help them spread. As they advance, the donkeys create firebreaks in areas that are not always easy to access with machinery. What’s more, they do it so well that they are already being used to maintain firewalls. And where are they used? One of the clearest examples is found in Catalonia. Over there six years ago Joan Cedó Sans laid the foundations for what it is today Tivissa Donkey Firefightersa non-profit organization that pursues a double objective: to give abused or abandoned horses a chance and, at the same time, take advantage of their voracious appetite to keep the mountains cleared. A textbook “win-win” that guarantees the animals a peaceful existence, care and good nutrition and, in the process, prevents you from mounting them (every time most affected due to depopulation) become flammable traps. How did it start? The Catalan initiative started in 2020 with a bunch of donkeysalready had 28 animals in 2022 and is now around 60 individuals, a large herd that moves through the mountains of the region cleaning public and private lands. The headquarters of the organization is in Tivissa, Tarragona. “The 2013 Tivissa fire happened very close to where I have the horses and I thought the animals could help clear the undergrowth and prevent fires,” explained Joan Cedó a few years ago Diary of Tarragonawhere he remembered how the project began with only three horses from a Swiss couple who wanted to return to their country and did not know what to do with the animals. Does it only apply in Catalonia? No. In fact, Donkey Firefighters It was not even the first initiative of that type in Spain. Years before they had started doing something similar in Andalusia, where since 2014 a group of horses from the association The Happy Burrito is dedicated to carrying out a similar work in the surroundings of the Doñana National Park: they graze, devouring dry brush, grass, weeds… elements that at first glance may seem harmless but that, in the event of a forest fire breaking out, represent food for the flames. In Galicia either The Basque Country It is also possible to find similar initiatives. It’s not surprising at all. More and more organizations are demanding the role of herding and the cattle to keep areas that have been affected by depopulation clean. In 2022 Barcelona itself activated an experiment with more than 200 sheep, goats and lambs to keep the Collserola undergrowth at bay and reduce the risk of fires. Nothing they haven’t already tried in Portugal. Why donkeys? That’s the million dollar question. Beyond the value of giving abused or abandoned chicks a second chance, why turn to these animals and not other smaller ones, such as sheep or goats? Cedó makes it clear on CNN: “The work that donkeys do, neither goats nor sheep can do.” Not only do they weigh more than sheep, which allows them to crush and compact the dry grass in their path, equids are also characterized by their insatiable appetite. They move slowly, but constantly and they do not dislike the dry grass that becomes so dangerous with fires. Images | Julio Romero (Flickr) and Gabriel Fdez (Flickr) In Xataka | The mere existence of donkeys has been a mystery of natural history for decades. One we have solved

Ryanair seemed to have condemned Santiago airport with its departure. Solution: flights to New York

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The year 2025 was marked by the withdrawal of Ryanair aircraft from Spanish regional airports. The company, complaining about the supposedly excessive rates charged by Aena, eliminated routes and reduced frequencies. The result has been a huge decline at some of these airports. One of them is Santiago de Compostela. But the Galicians are already looking beyond the Atlantic. The withdrawal. A few months ago we said that Galicia is the Autonomous Community that has lost the most passengers since Ryanair reduced frequencies and canceled routes at Spanish regional airports. During the first quarter of the year, only the A Coruña airport grew within the region. Activity in Vigo fell slightly, with 3.4% fewer passengers. But it was the march from Santiago de Compostela that did the most damage. Compared to two years ago, the company’s activity is 80% lower and passenger volume has plummeted. In the first quarter, Aena data They say traffic was down by almost 25%. It is an important figure but it is serious because last year it already fell another 14% in that same period. And the decline has been consolidated in the first half of the year, sinking its activity by 40%, they report in Preferential. a nuance. It must be taken into account that in the first half of the year, Aena has been carrying out improvement work on the asphalt of the runways at the Santiago de Compostela airport, so activity has been stopped for just over a month on alternate days from January to May. An unexpected solution. The curious thing is that the drop in traffic has eased in recent months. The connections that Ryanair used at this airport maintained routes between Seville and Valencia with Galicia. A solution that, despite the improvement in rail trafficit’s still much faster. But they explain in The Spanish that from Santiago de Compostela they hope to alleviate part of the fall with two new connections. One of them to Amsterdam, the other to New York/Newark airport. And it is that United Airlines already operates a line with three weekly frequencies to connect the two sides of the Atlantic. Beyond Spain. Since Ryanair turned its back on the airport, the number of international destinations has been growing. The first city with a direct connection to join this new stage was Marrakech, they explain in The Galician Post. The offer is expanded with Amsterdam or Cork, in Ireland. All of these routes are operated on alternate days but enhance the international image of the airport for routes that, previously, had to go to other autonomous communities. Covering gaps. Another piece of good news for Santiago de Compostela is the connection with Jerez thanks to Vueling. At least during the summer, activity has been increasing in both national destinations (Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Barcelona or Bilbao) and international destinations (London, Paris or Dublin). Those gaps that Ryanair has been leaving are being absorbed, at least partially with an increase in frequencies, by rival companies. And the Irish company has lost ground to Vueling and Wizz Air in recent times. Although they maintain almost record numbers, its market share has sufferedagainst these latter companies. Photo | Nastya Dulhiier and Trevor Hayes In Xataka | The new EU border system is leaving people without flights. Ryanair has a solution: close check-in early

Anthropic was accused of stealing books to train its AI models. Their solution has been simple: pay

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A federal judge in San Francisco has given the final green light to the $1.5 billion agreement between Anthropic and a group of authors and publishers that They reported her for using her books without permission to train Claude. And after extracting millions of books from digital libraries without authorization, and from physical bookstores to scan and destroy en masse, everything has ended up being settled with money. What has happened? Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin definitively approved this Monday the agreement that Anthropic reached with the plaintiffs, as collect Reuters. The figure was already known since last year, when Judge William Alsup gave his preliminary approval, but this last step was missing for the money to begin to be distributed. How we got here. A group of writers sued Anthropic in 2024 accusing her of using copies of her books to train Claude without her consent. Judge Alsup ruled in June 2025 that training AI with copyrighted books falls under “fair use,” a decision that set an important precedent for the entire industry. The judge also clarified that, although training with those books was legal, Anthropic had broken the law by downloading more than 7 million copies from digital portals without authorization and storing them in a kind of internal library that was not necessarily intended for training, according to explains Reuters. That specific point was going to be decided in a separate trial, with compensation that could skyrocket to hundreds of billions of dollars. So to avoid this, Anthropic preferred to make an agreement. Between the lines. As we explained some time ago, the court documents that came to light revealed the real scope of the project, baptized “Panama”, and with which the company came to physically buy and scan millions of bookscutting their loins to digitize them and then recycling them. Before going this route, Anthropic employees, including its co-founder Ben Mann, had downloaded books directly from unauthorized repositories such as LibGen. The company has always maintained that this content was never used to train a business model, but it was precisely that part of the process that took it to court. How much and to whom. The distribution is made at a rate of about 3,000 dollars per work, out of an estimated total of 500,000 titles between authors and publishers, according to details TechCrunch. Aparna Sridhar, deputy general counsel at Anthropic, said in a statement that the company reached this agreement in 2025 after the ruling that recognized training with books as fair use, and added that more than 91% of the affected authors and publishers have already claimed their share of the payment. For his part, Justin Nelson, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, has called the settlement “historic” and has stated that it represents the largest copyright recovery ever achieved, according to collect also Reuters. Not everyone is satisfied. Some authors have raised objections, arguing that the amount was insufficient, benefiting plaintiff’s lawyers too much or unfairly leaving out certain rights holders. Judge Martinez-Olguin has rejected these arguments, considering that they did not realistically reflect the risks of having gone to trial, and approved fees of more than $101 million for the lawyers, below the $187.5 million they had requested. according to Reuters. Some authors and publishers directly opted out of the agreement and have their own lawsuits against Anthropic that are still ongoing. Why it is important. This closure does not resolve the underlying legal debate for the rest of the sector. And since it is an agreement and not an appealed ruling, Alsup’s decision on “legitimate use” will never reach an appeal court, so it does not constitute binding jurisprudence, as underlines TechCrunch. Each judge is free to interpret similar cases in their own way, and that is just what is happening with the lawsuits opened against Google, Meta, Midjourney and OpenAI for similar reasons. Cover image | Anthropic, edited by Xataka In Xataka | It took 15 years for computers to improve the productivity of companies. AI may take longer for one reason: sabotage

The US has found the solution to its hospital staff shortage: Filipino virtual nurses

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In a hospital ICU, the staff remains attentive to the vital signs of all admitted patients, ready to act if necessary, or at least that is what we think it is. In many American hospitals, some of that work is being monitored in real time and thousands of miles away by nurses in the Philippines. Welcome to healthcare outsourcing. What is happening. They tell it in Rest of World. The United States has a deficit of almost 80,000 nurses and the way they have found to cover that lack is to outsource the service to independent contractors located in the Philippines. From there, thousands of nurses and assistants monitor patients and perform administrative tasks for a fraction of the salary they would earn if they were working in person. This is how it works. One of these virtual nurses says that he managed to monitor up to ten ICU patients at the same time, but highlights that “We did not make decisions about medical care, we only informed the staff nurses.” The virtual nurses cannot administer medication or perform procedures, but rather they are dedicated to monitoring the patients’ vital signs and notifying them if they notice anything strange or if they have forgotten to give them the medication. They also carry out other more administrative tasks such as giving discharges, filing records or making appointments. Much cheaper for the hospital. A virtual nurse is much cheaper at the hospital than an in-person one. In the United States, the average hourly wage for a registered nurse is $45, while working remotely from the Philippines is between $5 and $10 per hour. According to the Philippine Health Information Management Association (HIMAPfor its acronym in English) hospitals that outsource this service can save up to 70% in personnel costs. In addition to saving, a Mount Sinai Hospital study concluded that integrating this remote service benefits staff nurses, who perceived “a reduction in administrative burden, uninterrupted completion of clinical tasks, and the feeling that their overtime hours had been reduced.” And more profitable for the worker. The other side of the coin is that, in the Philippines, it is more profitable for a worker to be a virtual nurse than in person. They tell the story of Alice, a nurse who earned $100 a month working in a Filipino hospital and, after starting to work for a telehealth company, has quintupled her salary. HIMAP estimates that there are 210,000 Filipinos working full time for the US healthcare sector and the sector already moves $4.5 billion a year. Nursing shortage. In the US, the problem worsened after the pandemic with exhausted staff who have been leaving the profession. In addition to remote nursing, laws have also been put in place that recognize platforms that offer on-demand nursing services such as Clipboard Health or Nursa. But the shortage also affects the Philippines, which is one of the countries that has “exported” the most nurses since the 1960s. It is estimated that a quarter of immigrant nurses in the US are Filipinos. This remote format does not force them to emigrate, but it is still a way to divert work and feed domestic shortages. Why Philippines. From the Philippines they do all kinds of tasks such as control robots remotely either bring LinkedIn to Western managers. That the country has become a powerhouse in the outsourcing of services responds to several factors. The main one is that almost half of the citizens have a very good level of Englishbut it is also because they have a long history in outsourcing customer service for Western companies and there is already an entire industry created around it. And of course the economic issue: these workers are much cheaper than hiring someone in person. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | This humanoid robot promised to do our housework. For now it’s a $20,000 puppet

“Quantum computers are the solution to tritium that will fuel nuclear fusion”

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The nuclear fusion It promises us clean and practically unlimited energy, but it has been stuck for decades by an obstacle that is difficult to overcome: fuel. The reactors tokamakthe most frequent in experimental projects, work fusing deuterium and tritiumtwo isotopes of hydrogen that when combined release a helium nucleus and a neutron that is ejected with an energy of about 14 MeV (megaelectronvolts). The problem is that the tritium It is an extraordinarily rare isotope on Earth. It is only formed naturally in the atmosphere due to the interaction of cosmic raysand in tiny quantities. In this scenario, for nuclear fusion to have a future as a real energy source, scientists need to find an efficient strategy that allows them to produce tritium in an artificial and sustainable way. This is the context in which the latest research carried out by the Cleveland Clinic, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, IBM’s TJ Watson Research Center and Michigan State University, all in the US, is drawing a lot of attention. And for the first time a team of scientists has used a quantum computer to identify the molecular configurations of the material that acts as a tritium “breeding blanket” within a nuclear fusion reactor. FLiBe: the molten salt that can save fusion The material identified by this quantum machine is called FLiBe, and it is a molten salt composed of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride. Inside a reactor tokamak The neutrons released by the fusion plasma impact this molten salt that covers the internal walls of the vacuum chamber, and it is this process that is responsible for producing tritium. Finding the optimal FLiBe configuration is the key to making fuel production viable on an industrial scale. This approach allows you to rule out less promising options in advance, saving time and money. A quick note before moving forward: the technique used by these researchers is known as quantum computing focused on supercomputing, and it is the same as Cleveland Clinic has previously used to simulate protein configurations of thousands of atoms. Applying it now to the chemistry of fusion materials is a novelty. The result of this strategy has been the identification of nine different molecular configurations of the FLiBe material, each with its own electronic structure, atomic behavior and molecular bond strength. Tom Beck, a computational chemist at Oak Ridge Laboratory, has explained that quantum computers are essential tools for accelerating the discovery and design cycles necessary to produce enough tritium to fuel fusion reactors. However, it is important that we temper our expectations. The nine configurations are, for now, simulations, and still have to be validated in the laboratory before making the leap to a real reactor. What this approach does allow is to rule out in advance the least promising optionssaving time and money on experiments that might otherwise go nowhere. IBM researcher Jerry Chow has added These results reinforce the idea that quantum computing is already a practical tool capable of solving problems that have eluded chemists and engineers for years. For now, nuclear fusion still does not have a closed solution to its fuel problem. However, for the first time a quantum computer has put concrete candidate materials on the table with which to begin solving this enormous challenge. Image | Fusion for Energy (F4E) More information | Science Alert In Xataka | The start-up of the largest nuclear fusion reactor on the planet is delayed by a decade. These are the reasons for the ITER gap

After 40 years in the Galician sea, the radioactive drums are in a critical state of deterioration. The solution may be worse than letting it be

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“There is no life down there.” For decades it was almost a legend among activists and oceanographers: a giant landfill, with hundreds of thousands of radioactive drums, abandoned in the abyssal plain of the Atlantic. The problem is that there was life and they were killing it. A little less than 300 nautical miles from Cape Fisterra in Galicia – just over 500 kilometers – the Nodssum Project, which is already on its third expedition, has sounded the alarm. Far from the myth, French scientific missions They located thousands of barrels, went down with manned submarines, photographed leaks and measured radionuclides above what was expected. 220,000 barrels They only found a thousand. The rest, some 100,000 tons of nuclear waste, lay at the bottom and was carried away by the currents, its contents scattered. Now, with just over 3,500 barrels located, it is concluded that they are suffering from an “advanced state of deterioration”, according to researchers from the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). A cemetery under the Atlantic. Where does all this come from? The drama began in 1946. And until the early 1990s, British, Dutch, Belgian, French and other European ships continuously dumped low- and medium-level radioactive waste at the bottom of the Atlantic. They are concentrated in an area of ​​about 10,000 square kilometers, at a depth of 4,000–5,000 meters. It is, without hot cloths, the third largest landfill of canned nuclear waste known on the planet. Inside there are no fuel rods, but rather civil and military nuclear waste: sludge, gloves, laboratory equipment, medical remains, resins, contaminated scrap metal, encapsulated in cement or tar to withstand the pressure of the deep ocean. When the landfill began to be mapped, they did not even document 1% of the total. To date, just over 3,000 barrels have been located, identified with the autonomous robot UlyX and high-resolution sonar. A longliner and a lot coraxe. The They came between two freighters that were dumping garbage to the Atlantic Trench. The press took notice and that practice bounced around in newspapers around the world. The protests had an effect, because the European body in charge of controlling this waste declared a moratorium on discharges. Moratorium that is still in force today. The first NODSSUM-I campaign focused on making the invisible visible. since a decadethe expedition has been expanding the mapped area to about 140 square kilometers, with densities of about 20 drums per square kilometer and more than 3,350 barrels cataloged. The great novelty came with the manned submarine Nautile, which made it possible to directly observe the state of the barrels at more than 4,000 meters deep. It was then that the real state could be noticed. Barrels in the last. Corroded surfaces, colonization of anemones, open cracks in dents and leaks of encapsulating material – with tar and cement overflowing – in some containers, in addition to the detection of radionuclides above what was expected. The sea salt is slowly eating away some brass lacking the necessary security. The expedition has taken 345 samples of sediment, about 5,000 liters of water and specimens of abyssal fauna (fish, amphipods, small crustaceans) to analyze them in the laboratory with precision one hundred times greater than that of the instruments on board. To date, no “anomalies” have been found in the sediments and, although the radionuclides are below legal limitsthey do exceed all previous estimates. Rescue them… or leave them where they are. The current objective is to contain the threat. Can 200,000 drums be removed from the bottom of the Atlantic? Technically, yes; Politically, economically and in terms of risk, things get complicated. The Nuclear Safety Council insists on a clear message: the Galician and Cantabrian coastal waters do not show significant levels of radioactivity, below the limits set by Spanish and European regulations. And Spain does not even have responsibilities, since it did not dump waste into the Atlantic trench. In fact, the problem goes beyond the astronomical cost: many barrels are so degraded that they could disintegrate in the lifting process. If deterioration continues, will there be greater problems resulting from bioaccumulation? How does it affect the abyssal food chain? This is exactly what you are looking to answer. At the same time, we are trying to study this deep habitat full of organisms adapted to a darkness that now coexists with an 80-year-old nuclear legacy. Images | BNG (by Wolcott Henry), Flickr (owned by Tomas Vazquez) and Campagne NODSSUM, CNRS, Flotte oceanographique française. In Xataka | 800 meters deep in a 175 million year old rock: Germany’s solution to nuclear waste In Xataka | The big problem with nuclear energy has always been its waste. Russia can now recycle them up to five times

Your desperate solution is to cover the windows with aluminum foil

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If there is a culture shock that we Spaniards suffer when crossing the Pyrenees, it is not the meal times or the language, but the painful absence of blinds and even air conditioners. Under normal conditions, it is a simple architectural anecdote, but during a sustained heat wave like the ones we are experiencing, it becomes a public health issue. A new remedy. During the last weeks of June and the beginning of this July, France and Germany have seen thermometers exceed the dangerous barrier of 40 ° C. Temperatures for which these countries were not prepared, and that is why they are resorting to different home remediessuch as cover the glass with aluminum foil kitchen towels or thermal blankets. Two measures that respond to the desperation of seeing how their houses heat up and do not have a barrier like we can have in Spain to block the impact of the direct sun. But in addition, we are also seeing how the heat It is becoming a political weaponwith different parties promising million-dollar aid funds so that citizens can install air conditioners. It has logic. Both private homes and some hospitals in Paris have joined this initiative due to the lack of air conditioning systems, and it is not a simple TikTok eccentricity, but rather it makes a lot of sense. The reason is that aluminum has a very high reflectance, being able to bounce between 95% and 98% of solar radiation. Normally, when sunlight passes through bare glass, the energy is converted to heat as it hits the floor and interior furniture, creating the dreaded “greenhouse effect.” By placing aluminum foil or thermal blankets on the windows, the radiation rebounds before heating the room. A simple gesture that can reduce the interior temperature between 5 and 7 ºCwhich is an abysmal difference that greatly reduces the discomfort caused by such high temperatures. It is not infallible. Turning the living room into a kind of spaceship is not an architectural panacea nor is it free of problems. Here Vicent Parasie, French architect, in statements collected by La Vanguardia point that this is an “emergency, economical and superficial solution, since it does not alter the home.” The architect warns that these patches can never replace adequate sun protection elements or good insulation. In fact, he points out that if the aluminum is placed inside and without adequate space, the thermal radiation rebounds and is trapped in the glass itself. This causes extreme overheating of the glass which, in cases of severe thermal stress, can fracture or burst. On the other hand, if placed outside, domestic aluminum deteriorates quickly due to the elements. The Spanish solution. All this phenomenon has revealed the enormous structural advantage of southern Europe in the face of new climate scenarios. And the difference between Spain and France in the face of this type of extreme heat episodes lies mainly in our better response to an architectural and cultural adaptation that we already have as standard. Our Mallorcan blinds or awnings are top-of-the-line technology against heat. As we have seen, the simple gesture of lowering an awning or a blind is capable of lowering the interior temperature by 4 or 5 ºC in a safe and long-lasting way. In Xataka | Popular wisdom is not always right: the great heat myths that we should avoid in summer

North Korea’s new frigate looked like a 21st century ship. Until you look at the sides and discover their solution against drones

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In October 2000, the US destroyer USS Cole suffered an attack with a small boat loaded with explosives while refueling in Yemen. The attack led the United States Navy to reinforce the use of machine guns heavy weapons to protect their ships against short-range threats, a decision that is once again gaining prominence today for a very different reason: drones. A frigate with great aspirations. The new Kang Kon It represents North Korea’s biggest leap in surface ships. Although Pyongyang classifies it as a destroyer, its displacement about 5,000 tons places it closer to a frigate by international standards. On paper, the ship brings together almost everything you would expect from a modern design: dozens of vertical launch cells for missiles, a main gun, point defense systems, electronic warfare and cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The most striking detail. However, the broadcast images After the latest tests of the ship they have diverted attention to a much more unexpected element. At least a dozen heavy machine guns can be seen along one of its sides. 14.5 millimeter KPVdistributed between remote-controlled double mounts and other positions integrated into the superstructure. The scene turns out almost disconcerting: a frigate that seems designed for the 21st century, at the same time uses a solution reminiscent of the great naval combats of the past. The Kang Kon was seen firing its machine guns during a demonstration last week The war in Ukraine explains it. Although at first glance it may seem like an extravagance, the logic behind this configuration responds to a very current threat. The drone proliferation aerial and unmanned vessels has forced many navies to reinforce the short-range defense of their ships with additional small-caliber weapons. Russia has been incorporating additional machine guns, remote weapons stations and even improvised protection structures for years to try to stop drone attacks, an experience that North Korea has been able to observe very closely thanks to their growing cooperation military with Moscow. A weapon with more than half a century of history. Plus: KPVs are not exactly a modern system either. Designed by the Soviet Union At the end of World War II, these machine guns continue to be used in many countries due to their power and range against light targets. Your ammunition 14.5 millimeters It can destroy drones, speedboats or lightly armored vehicles, which explains why a weapon conceived decades ago is once again gaining prominence in a scenario dominated by much more recent threats. Survival remains the great unknown. The abundant Kang Kon weaponry It does not clear up doubts about their ability to survive in a high-intensity conflict. The TWZ analysts They consider that a ship of these characteristics would be one of the first objectives of any adversary and that North Korea will hardly be able to build enough units to give depth to its fleet. The reason? Even if it incorporates technologies of Russian origin, converting a missile-laden platform into a truly resilient ship requires much more complex sensors, training, coordination and operational doctrine than adding new weapons on deck. A ship that reflects how naval warfare is changing. The Kang Kon It leaves a striking image because it summarizes one of the great paradoxes of current conflicts. Long-range missiles, radars and electronic warfare represent the most advanced naval technology, but defense against drones has brought back the spotlight to surprisingly simple solutions. that one of the most modern frigates North Korea’s proud display of a heavy machine gun battery speaks volumes about how the war in Ukraine is redefining design priorities in even the newest warships. Image | North Korea State Media In Xataka | A small river lost between Russia and North Korea is testing something much bigger: China’s patience with both. In Xataka | South Korea has just entered the most exclusive club on the planet. And China and North Korea are not exactly calm

“3D prefabricated houses can help alleviate the housing crisis, but they are not a structural solution”

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When the mayor of Madrid, José Luís Martínez-Almeida, presented his first promotion Built “in wood with prefabricated 3D modules” it defined its objective in a simple way: to make housing cheaper by “reducing deadlines.” The Municipal Housing and Land Company (EMVS) stated that they would promote the “construction of 800 homes developed with this system” in the community. The question is obvious: is this system really scalable and a solution to the housing crisis that Spain is experiencing? Tenders for multi-family buildings like the one in Madrid with industrialized systems are beginning to become common. “There are similar cases in Andalusia and the Valencian Community, with different industrialization systems, both in 2D and 3D, with wood, concrete or steel,” says Gerardo del Río, civil engineer, commercial director at the Guerola construction company, which has a 3D industrialized building factory. For Margarita de Luxán García de Diego, architect and emeritus professor of Graphic Expression at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), this technique “is practically in an experimental phase.” still must move forward to improve and avoid limitations that condition it and “rigidize its use,” he clarifies. While industrial warehouses and single-family homes have been built with industrial systems for many years, high-rise construction such as hotels and educational centers is more recent, clarifies Gerardo del Río At the level of Spain there are very few buildings built and completed completely, with the enclosure and partitions with “3D printers in situ”. So far it has been done comprehensively in buildings up to two stories high. It also requires particular conditions so that the 3D printers can be placed and maneuvered. Regarding whether printed buildings can lower the final price, the architect points out that it is possible if the client is the developer, which is unusual. On the other hand, whether a builder or a real estate company sells them depends on the final price they want to set. Of course, they shorten construction times “as long as the project is very well resolved and decided in all its parts, including details and installations.” The challenge of making cheaper Carmen Díaz López, architect, doctor in Civil Engineering and professor and researcher at the Higher Technical School of Architecture of the University of Málaga, has the same opinion: “Industrialization makes processes cheaper, reduces uncertainty and improves efficiency, but that does not always automatically translate into a drop in the final price for those who buy or rent. The savings are clearer in time, management and cost control than in market price, unless there are measures that guide these solutions towards affordable housing.” In a town in Soria They have carried out a pilot construction test of seven industrialized homes. According to the mayor of Langa de Duero, “the homes are divided into modules, which means they can be practically assembled in three days.” Of course, the final shots would still be missing. While the Madrid project used wood, here the prefabricated elements are made of concrete. “They are different systems. The first consists of a multi-family building intended for an urban environment and the second is single-family homes for a rural environment,” explains Gerardo del Río. “It seems to me to be a good initiative in the face of the housing crisis, especially in areas as depopulated as Soria, and even more so being from Soria,” he adds. “These projects can help alleviate the housing crisis because they allow us to build faster and with greater cost control, something very relevant in a context of lack of supply,” highlights Carmen Díaz López. But the expert warns that “they are not a structural solution on their own: the housing crisis also has to do with land, regulation, financing and the functioning of the market. They are a useful tool, but they must be part of a broader housing policy.” “The ideal is for the initiative to be taken by the public sector, making land available to the private sector to build or construct housing directly, which can subsequently be managed by the administration itself or by the private sector through concession contracts,” says del Río. Margarita de Luxán highlights that industrialized homes They are not a panacea either. to housing prices and the lack of houses to live in. “The housing crisis and its solutions depend on many and very complex things, not only on construction techniques or materials,” he explains. For her, printed buildings are “a small part of the many approaches that must continue to advance.” In the current circumstances “they are marginal to define them as a generalized solution given their scale and conditions.” Render of the Loreto development, in Barajas, prefabricated in 3D. To address rural depopulation, projects like the one in Soria have, for Díaz López, potential if they are integrated into a territorial strategy. “Their main advantage is that they allow housing to be activated in places where today it is barely built, which can facilitate the arrival of new profiles: from young people to people who telework. But housing, by itself, does not fix the population: for there to be a real impact, services, connectivity, employment and a certain demographic stability are needed,” he highlights. “Its impact will depend on how it is scaled and, above all, if it is linked to a public strategy capable of converting that construction speed into truly accessible housing,” he adds. From the point of view of sustainability, the industrialization of housing has clear advantages for the professor at the University of Malaga: less waste, greater energy efficiency, better quality control and more precise execution. But the underlying debate is not only technical. “Industrialization can change how we build, but it does not solve on its own why housing remains inaccessible. The challenge is no longer so much technological as it is one of scale, governance and access model,” he concludes. In Xataka | Luxury homes in the US are selling like hotcakes and experts think they know why: AI In Xataka | In Vancouver they are building a … Read more

Nvidia’s solution to reduce water consumption in data centers to zero aims to be genius: use hot water

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Nvidia has announced a system of liquid cooling very special. Above all, because the concept of “refrigeration” is a bit confused here. The company has managed to reinvent this type of systems, and according to those responsible “the challenge of water consumption for data centers it is practically solved.” That’s saying a lot… or isn’t it? Jacuzzi cooling. The own Nvidia engineers They begin the description of their system by talking about how in jacuzzis the water is usually between 38 and 40 ºC, a temperature that makes most people last about 15 minutes in them. And the funny thing is that Nvidia’s new AI servers can use liquid cooling with water that is even hotter: up to 45ºC (113ºF). That is precisely the key to making the entire system efficient. Goodbye to fans. Nvidia’s new Rubin architecture claims to be the first in the world with an end-to-end liquid cooling system. At Nvidia they seal the server boards and eliminate noisy fans that shoot noise levels above 85 decibels. Elementary physics. The concept behind this idea is counterintuitive, but also brilliant. The chips generate so much heat that a liquid composed of 75% water and 25% propylene glycol entering at 45ºC is capable of absorbing the thermal load dissipated by these chips. The fluid absorbs that heat and ends up leaving the circuit at around 55ºC without the performance of the processor degrading at all. Good for 45ºC. The key is that Nvidia starts from that starting temperature of the water, which is 45º. In a liquid cooling circuit in PCs, the liquid is usually between 25 and 30 ºC. Here Nvidia manages to ensure that with this initial temperature the thermal difference with the outside air is high enough for the system to work passively in most temperate climates. The heat is expelled by gigantic external radiators. Water is only needed on the first fill. Even more interesting is the fact that this water circuit only needs to be filled once for the entire useful life of the plant, at least in theory. This eliminates traditional systems that use evaporative cooling towers. These systems consume enormous amounts of water, and according to Nvidia this makes it possible to cut water consumption of data centers by almost 100%. But. Although Nvidia’s idea is promising, the company only talks about what happens within the four walls of data centers. The impact internally in the data center is extraordinary, but what about outside? The problem, they explain on TechCrunchis that data centers they need a lot of energyand both the generation of that energy and the creation of the chips themselves used in data centers can fold either triple to the consumption of the data center itself. The gas and coal bill. Although renewable energies are increasingly covering a greater part of the needs in these data centersthe use of coal and natural gas will continue to be very notable in these facilities. According to the International Energy Association (IEA), these two sources will continue to represent 40% of the total used in AI data centers until at least 2030. And the generation of both types of energy requires vast quantities of water: natural gas plants they use 1.17 liters of water for every kWh of electricity they generate. Coal ones are even worse, requiring 2.2 liters per kWh. Good news, but not so good. The system devised by Nvidia can solve the problem within data centers and is even promising when it comes to reduce noise levels generated by these facilities. However, there are still equally important challenges to ensure that water consumption in other phases of this cycle is not so colossal. It is a good step, without a doubt, but the room for improvement is still notable in this area. In Xataka | Jensen Huang has taken a look at the idea of ​​putting data centers in space and has come to one conclusion: let’s not freak out

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