stop

“stop copying what the industry develops”

by

In 1969, the first message in the history of the Internet was as ambitious as it was brief: it was supposed to be “LOGIN”, but the system crashed after transmitting just “LO”. That failure was born inside DARPAthe great military laboratory of the United States that would end up lighting the network that moves the world today. Half a century later, the Navy seems to want to repeat the play: let the market do its thing and reserve truly disruptive innovation for what only war needs. The great course correction. The United States Navy has just assumed something that had been hanging in the air for years: its innovation system had become too slow, cumbersome and, above all, redundant. Rachel Rileyhead of naval research, has put on the table in the Defense media an almost brutal idea for its simplicity: stop spending public money on copying what private industry is already developing on its own. His message has been direct: if there are possible benefits, private capital will eventually arrive. The military mission, therefore, should not compete with that, but rather focus on what no one else wants or can finance. “Stop copying.” That’s the core of doctrinal change. For decades, the Office of Naval Research functioned as a large parallel laboratory that often followed paths similar to those of the private sector. Now the order is different: reduce bureaucracy, simplify processes and assume that speed matters more than ever. Riley summed it up with a phrase that sets the tone for this new stage: “speed is the word of the year in our business. Stop copying what the industry builds.” Ultimately, it is a strategic admission: in a technological war, time is already worth as much as technology itself. What only the State can build. The new frontier according to Rileyis in those capacities that do not have a civil market. His example was devastating because it was simple: “there is no commercial need for very quiet tubes that move underwater for a long time.” He was talking, of course, about submarines. That phrase sums up the new investment criterion: if the market will never do it, the Pentagon must do it. And that weighs especially heavily in 2026, with the AUKUS agreement underway and submarine warfare recovering centrality in the Indo-Pacific against China. From experiment to real war. The best example of this transition It’s the Sea Hunter. What began as an experiment in 2017 to hunt submarines and clear mines has taken almost a decade to become a real operating asset. That period is precisely what the Navy wants to reduce. The problem is no longer proving that something works, but integrating it before it gets old. The logic is clear: fewer eternal laboratories, more prototypes that reach the fleet quickly. The rescue that changed the conversation. The proof that this model is beginning to work came just weeks ago: a Saronic Corsair autonomous naval drone rescued for the first time to two downed pilots of a Boeing AH-64 Apache off the coast of Oman. The most revealing data was not only the rescue, but time: four months from the first test to a successful real mission. For the Defense Innovation Unitthat is exactly what they are looking for: rapid iteration, immediate adaptation and practical usefulness, even for functions that the system had not even been designed to fulfill. The war of autonomous masses. Be that as it may, the real bottleneck is not in building one drone, but a hundred. Both Riley and Jarred Conley agreed on the same obsession: Go from a human controlling a drone to a human controlling entire swarms. Riley ridiculed many of the current approaches as “little kids playing football,” all running after the same goal without coordination. That’s why the Navy is studying how insects and birds are organized to convert that biological logic into military doctrine. Because the next revolution will not be the individual drone, it will be something more like the intelligent mass. Bureaucracy as an internal enemy. If you like, the most important thing about all this is that the Navy seems to have understood something that the war in Ukraine has been proving for years: Innovating fast matters more than perfecting slowly. For decades, the Pentagon believed it could control every phase of development. Now he begins to accept that his role must be another: detect gaps, finance them and let the industry do the rest. The warning is clear and powerful: the military future no longer seems to be won by inventing everything, but by knowing what is worth inventing. Image | Jasmin Aquino, US Army In Xataka | 230 years ago, the Navy made something that is still useful today: an extremely accurate map of the Bay of Cádiz In Xataka | The US moved its aircraft carriers away from Asia to protect them: China has just published a manual to hunt them from 3,000 km

This is how he arrived eleven days ahead of schedule to his first big stop

by

The tunnel boring machine Mayrit This Tuesday, he crossed an important checkpoint in his journey to leave everything ready for expand line 11 of Metro Madrid. And it has burst into the gap of the future Madrid Río station, on Paseo de Yeserías, thus completing the first major geological section of the work, which is the crossing under the Manzanares River and the M-30 tunnels. The Minister of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Jorge Rodrigo, was present at the event to receive the machine. At a good pace. At around 5:30 p.m., Mayrit starred in the cale, the technical name given to the moment when the two excavation fronts (the one that starts in Comillas and the one carried out from the Madrid Río side) meet and are aligned. Just like they count From La Razón, first came a dull noise from the bowels of the earth, then some loose stones and, finally, the impact of the cutting head breaking the station screen. Rodrigo celebrated it as “a moment of joy and pride,” according to the media. The breakdown also occurred eleven days earlier than expected. Numbers. Mayrit began its journey on March 26 from the future Comillas station, in Carabanchel, and in just over two months it has excavated 1,116 meters of tunnel, equivalent to 21% of the total planned for this branch. In its progress, it has installed 656 concrete rings, each one formed by seven rhomboidal-shaped voussoirs, which constitute the definitive covering of the gallery. As well as point El Diario, to cross under the M-30 and the Manzanares, the machine had to descend following the maximum admissible slope in railway infrastructure, around 35 thousandths, and ascend again until reaching the level of the station. Why has it gone faster than expected. The average pace has been about 15 meters per day, with peaks of up to 35 meters at the most favorable times. The general director of Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Miguel Núñez, explained that the key has been the soil: peñuelas clay, a soft material that can be found in the underground of Madrid and that behaves “very well” under the pressure of the tunnel boring machine. “We have doubled the theoretical yields because the geological characteristics of the soil, the latest generation machinery, and the segment rings that we have changed have made it reliable and safe to advance at that speed,” counted Núñez in statements collected by Europa Press. The change in the design of the voussoirs also helped, which became more rhomboidal in shape to improve fit and installation speed. Qtechnical plowing. For the next two weeks, the machine will remain housed in the future Madrid Río station. And this Tuesday only the head has arrived, since the remaining 98 meters of the tunnel boring machine will finish entering in the coming days. The idea is that it undergoes an in-depth review. Technicians will replace the most worn cutting head tools, check all computer and structural systems, and get the machine ready for the next leg. The next stage is the longest. Once reviewed, Mayrit will head to the Palos de la Frontera station, its next stop, 1,613 meters away, which is the longest stretch between two stations in the entire expansion. The Ministry’s forecast is that it will arrive there before the end of the summer. Then it will continue towards Atocha and, finally, Conde de Casal, which is the end point of the branch. In total, Mayrit still has more than 4,100 meters ahead of the 5,227 planned between Comillas and Conde de Casal. The seasons. In addition to the front of the tunnel boring machine, it should be noted that the works at the Comillas, Madrid Río and Palos de la Frontera stations are around 70% completed, while Atocha is at 50%. According to they count from 20 Minutos, Madrid Río, specifically, has three levels that reach more than 20 meters deep. The overall progress of the entire work now exceeds 45%. The project in perspective. This section is just one piece of a much larger scheme. As already we have reviewed other times, the investment in this phase exceeds 740 million euros and Line 11 is designed to become the great diagonal of the Madrid Metro network: 33.5 kilometers from Cuatro Vientos to Valdebebas, with 20 stations, connecting points such as Atocha, the airport or the future Formula 1 circuit in Ifema. The total investment in the project exceeds 2.5 billion euros and the works will be carried out in phases until 2031. The General Director of Infrastructure estimates that the complete excavation will take between 13 and 14 months, which would place the end of drilling around May or June 2027. Cover image | Metro Madrid and Community of Madrid In Xataka | Spain and Morocco have been dreaming of a tunnel under the Strait for 40 years. The great enemy of the project is called Umbral de Camarinal

There’s a reason you stop to pet any cat you pass on the street (and it says a lot more about you than you think).

by

There’s something that happens to me every time I walk down the street and pass a cat. It doesn’t matter if you’re perched on a wall, looking out of a window, or just sitting on the sidewalk watching the world go by. Arrest. Greetings. I extend my hand slowly, wait to see if it comes closer, and if it does, I pet it. It is not a conscious decision: it is automatic. It also happens to me with dogs or any other animal that crosses my path. For a long time I thought it was just a personal quirk. But it turns out not. Psychology and neuroscience have been studying exactly that gesture for years—that almost uncontrollable impulse to seek contact with a cat—and what they have found says much more about who we are than what appears at first glance. The first thing to understand is that in this bond, the cat has the last word. It’s not like petting a dog, which usually comes alone and enthusiastically. Cats are selective, unpredictable and much less invasive in their displays of affection. Therefore, what science says about this exchange has a particular complexity. a study, collected by Science Alert measured the hormone levels of owners and cats during 15-minute sessions of physical contact at home. The results were eloquent: when contact was relaxed—stroking, gentle hugs, rocking—oxytocin levels rose in both people and animals. But there was an indispensable condition: the interaction could not be forced. Cats had to be able to walk away if they wanted to.. “The hormone flows when the cat feels safe and comfortable,” the study authors wrote. What would happen when that condition was not met was just as revealing. According to Vice owners who tried to hug cats that didn’t want to be hugged saw their oxytocin levels drop, not rise. And the same would happen in the animal. The forced hug does not activate love: it turns it off. There is something deeply human in that. Oxytocin, cortisol and a 150 hertz purr Oxytocin is the hormone that scientists call “love” or “bonding.” It is the same one that is triggered when we hug someone we love, when a mother sees her newborn child, when there is real trust between two people. That it also appears in contact with a cat—and that it appears in the cat as well—is not a minor fact. The connection with animals and the increase in oxytocin is not new in scientific research. A review published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2012 already documented that interaction with animals produced measurable increases in oxytocin and reductions in cortisol, the hormone associated with stress. But studies on cats in particular came later and with important nuances. Researchers in Japan published in MDPI Animals an experiment with 32 cat owners: those who freely interacted with their animals showed significant hormonal changes compared to non-contact rest periods. A 2002 study already documented that the increase in oxytocin generated by gentle contact with cats helped reduce cortisol and, consequently, blood pressure and even the perception of pain. It is one of the works collected by Laura Elin Pigott, professor of Neuroscience at London South Bank University, in his analysis published in The Conversation. But there is a third player in this equation that is often overlooked: the purr. According to a synthesis of research collected by PetShun the frequency of a cat’s purr—which ranges wildly between 25 and 150 hertz—falls within what specialists call the “biomechanical stimulation range.” It is literally the same range of frequencies used in clinical vibration therapy to promote tissue repair and bone density. Some studies suggest that Listening to that sound can reduce cortisol levels by 10% to 20% in just 15 minutes of exposure. It’s not magic or intuition new age. It is physics and biochemistry. With a dog the bond is automatic. With a cat, you have to earn it But not all animals produce this effect in the same way. And understanding that difference is key to understanding what it says about you that you are looking for cats. In a 2016 experiment, scientists measured oxytocin in pets and their owners before and after ten minutes of play. The dogs saw an average 57% increase in their oxytocin levels. Cats, just 12%. The difference, according to researchers collected by Science Alertdoes not reflect feline coldness but rather evolutionary history: dogs were domesticated for millions of years for constant visual contact and dependence on humans. Cats, no. That’s why they reserve that hormonal surge—and that confidence—for the moments when they feel truly safe. In other words: with a dog, the emotional bond is almost automatic. With a cat, you have to earn it. And that completely changes what it says about the person looking for it. What stopping on the street to greet a cat says about you A study from Nottingham Trent University, published in PLOS ONE by Lauren Finka and her team with a sample of more than 3,300 cat owners, found something that at first seems striking: certain personality traits observed in the owners also appeared in their cats. The researchers’ hypothesis is that cats could be reflecting, in part, the personalities of those who care for them. It is not a minor fact: it suggests that the relationship is not one-way and that the human-feline bond is so real that it leaves a mark on both. On the other hand, research on people who prefer the company of cats consistently points to certain shared traits. a study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications analyzed 319 young adult cat owners and found that pet attachment was positively correlated with empathy, emotional regulation, and perceived social support. In other words, Those who build a solid bond with their cat tend to also have greater empathic capacity in their human relationships. This finding connect with what Faunalyticsan organization that synthesizes research on the human-animal bond, has documented: people who live with companion animals are … Read more

We fill the field with solar panels to stop climate change. We have unintentionally saved 122 species of bees

by

There’s a hum under Minnesota solar panels that engineers didn’t put in the plans. It is a biological, dense, ancient hum. Beneath the photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity, 122 species of native bees have found something that has been disappearing from the fields of half the world for decades: flowers. It’s not a coincidence. It is the result of a management decision that costs money, requires planning and that, according to the latest science, is producing results that no one expected when the first solar panel was installed in a meadow. The bees are disappearing. A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolutionwith data from 681 agricultural fields on three continents and more than 19,500 specimens of 910 species of wild bees, reached an uncomfortable conclusion: pesticides and habitat loss are reducing bee populations in an additive, independent way, without one factor compensating for the other. That is, having more natural habitat around a field does not neutralize the damage from pesticides. And reducing pesticides is not enough if the habitat has disappeared. They are two different problems that require two different solutions. The work, led by Anina Knauer and researchers from Agroscope among other institutions, found that pesticides not only reduce the number of bees: they also reduce their functional and phylogenetic diversity. Communities not only become smaller, they become simpler, less resilient, less able to cope with future shocks. A desert with seasonal flowers. In Iowa, in the heart of the American Corn Belt, 72% of the territory is covered in corn and soybean monocultures. Less than 0.01% of the original prairie remains standing. This is what researchers at Iowa State University publish in BioScience described as “an extreme example of landscape simplification”. Bees literally have very little to go to. And when the soybeans stop flowering at the end of summer, there is nothing. The colonies enter what science calls the feast-famine dynamic: the festival of flowering followed by famine that kills hives before winter. This is the background scenario. An agricultural world that urgently needs more pollinator habitat, free of pesticides or with minimal exposure. And in that desert, solar panels are doing something no one expected. 14 floors. 122 species. And an unexpected star. A team of researchers led by Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar of Western EcoSystems Technology and James McCall of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory asked a very specific question: Of all the plants that can be grown under and around solar panels, which ones actually establish? And how many bees can they hold? The work, published in Environmental Research Communicationstested 101 plant species in eight different seed mixtures at three solar farms in the tallgrass prairie region of Minnesota. After three years of monitoring, 14 species of flowering herbaceous plants had successfully established themselves. With those 14 species as a starting point, the researchers cross-referenced the data with an exhaustive catalog of plant-bee interactions from the same region. The result is that those 14 plants can support 122 unique species of native bees, 24% of all bee diversity in the state of Minnesota, which has 508 documented species. The star of the system is Zizia aureathe golden Alexander, a yellow flowering plant that blooms early in the season. Alone, it supports 67 species of bees. And 36 of those species—30% of the total study—only visited Zizia aurea among all the plants studied. If it is not in the seed mix of the solar park, those 36 species have nothing. Not all flowers are worth the same. The study also documents an important nuance: bumblebees, the group of pollinators with the most species in decline—three of the eleven species of Bombus of the study are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN: B. pensylvanicus, B. terrestrial and B. fervidus—they don’t get along with Zizia aurea. Only one species of bumblebee visited that plant. Bumblebees prefer Monarda fistulosathe wild bergamot, visited by nine of the eleven species of Bombus of the study. The practical lesson: there is no universal mix. The design of what is planted must respond to what is to be conserved. And what if there are pesticides in the surrounding fields? He study by Toth and colleagues in BioSciencewith more than a decade of data on strips of native prairie embedded in corn and soybean fields in Iowa, systematically reviewed chemical contamination in that type of habitat. Pesticides arrive—neonicotinoids, pyrethroids, fungicides—but in concentrations that, for the best studied species, are below the damage thresholds. And most importantly: the concentrations are no higher than in the rest of the surrounding agricultural landscape. They are not an ecological trap; They are an island of resources in a sea of ​​fields that already have pesticides on them anyway. In addition, a diet rich in quality pollen—exactly what these plants provide—makes bees better tolerate chemical exposure. Nutrition acts as a shield. The authors of that work themselves explicitly point out that their conclusions are applicable to “other types of landscape improvements for pollinators such as hedgerows, pollinator gardens, solar installations with pollinator habitat.” It is not a journalistic extrapolation. It’s in the text of the paper. If there are flowers inside there are bumblebees. If field studies answer the “does it work now?” published in Global Change Biology by Hollie Blaydes and colleagues at Lancaster University answers “will it still work in 2050?” The team modeled the 1,042 operational solar farms in Britain under three socio-economic scenarios for mid-century: a sustainability scenario, an intermediate scenario and a fossil development scenario with maximum agricultural intensification. The main finding is compelling: the management of the solar park is the main determining factor of bumblebee density within the park, above land use changes in the surrounding landscape. Solar parks last between 25 and 40 years. That means decades of stable habitat in landscapes that are going to change and possibly get worse for pollinators. And there is an economic angle that is not minor either. Colonies located near diverse native vegetation avoid feast-famine dynamic which in monocultures weakens … Read more

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

by

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

Türkiye seemed immune to the drop in birth rates. Now his Government is desperate because it does not know how to stop it

by

In Türkiye 2025 was the “Year of the Family” and the decade ahead of us (2026-2035) will be that of “Family and Population”. It’s not a coincidence. Just like many other countries from Europe, Asia or America, the Turkish Government increasingly looks with greater concern its declining birth rates. Specifically there is two data that worry Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s team: the number of births has been falling since 2014, which has dragged the fertility rate to its lowest level so far this century, far from what is necessary to keep the population stable. The problem is that neither the “Year of the Family” nor the rest of the measures deployed by Erdoğan seem to be running too much. What has happened? That Türkiye has not managed to avoid the demographic winter that hits other countries in the world, such as Japan, South Korea either much of Europe. It is not just that the birth rate is falling or that the country’s demographic engine is showing clear signs of having caught the flu. The most revealing are the ‘pro-birth’ initiatives and above all the statements of Erdoğan encouraging his fellow citizens to have more offspring, which shows that the issue is generating more and more suspicion in Turkish institutions. In March, the Turkish Minister of Family and Social Services, Mahinur Ozdemir Goktas, expressed it clearly (and dramatically) during an interview: for the Executive, demography has become “a question of survival.” “Our strongest strength is the family,” the leader stressed after recalling that in a matter of 27 years Turkey has experienced the same decline in birth rates that has taken nine decades in other nations. Number of births and total fertility rate, 2001-2025. What does the data say? The last ones, published This same week by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) they draw a very unflattering scenario. In 2025, 895,374 babies were born in Türkiye, a bad figure no matter how you look at it. To begin with, because it represents a drop of 4.78% compared to 2024 and the lowest figure in the entire historical series disclosed by TUIK, which dates back to 2001. As if that were not enough, it aggravates the decline in what is known as the ‘total fertility rate’, which has been moving away from the levels necessary for years to keep the population stable. Why are they important? Of all the TUIK indicators, the ‘total fertility rate’ is probably the one that worries Ankara the most. And it is logical. It basically shows the number of children that, on average, a woman is expected to have throughout her reproductive life (between 15 and 49 years old). In 2001 this indicator stood at 2.38 births. It was good data because it far exceeded the necessary rate (2.1) to keep the population stable without having to take into account other factors, such as immigration. The problem is that since 2014 that indicator has been receding steadily until it remained at 1.77 in 2020, 1.49 in 2024 and 1.42 last year. In fact, 2025 has been the ninth consecutive year in which Turkey falls below the ‘replacement rate’, which means that if Turkey does not want to lose population in the future it will probably need the arrival of foreigners. The crude birth rate has also plummeted in the last five years. Total fertility rate by province, 2025. Can it go further? Yes. He latest report of TUIK suggests that the trend is far from stopping. If in 2017 the organization registered 57 provinces with a fertility rate insufficient to keep the population stable, last year that list had already skyrocketed to 76 territories. What’s more, what has grown the most is the number of provinces with the worst birth rates. If in 2017 there were only four with a fertility rate of less than 1.5, last year 59 provinces were in that situation. What’s more, in all of Türkiye there were only five regions where the replacement rate reached (or exceeded) 2.1. In general, Turkish women not only have fewer children, they also have them later. The average age of mothers in the country at the time of giving birth has skyrocketed in recent years, going from 26.7 in 2001 to 29.4 in 2025. There are a dozen provinces in which, on average, women do not have their first child until they are almost 30 years old. In Artvin or Istanbul, in fact, the average age for new mothers is 29 years old. What does the Government think? Türkiye’s fertility rate may have been declining for years, but still stays above of the EU average (1.34) and of course in countries like Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Spain or Mala, where this indicator does not even reach 1.2. Despite this, Erdoğan has elevated demography almost to a state issue. In fact, he has not hesitated to cross out “disaster” the country’s low birth rates and “betrayal” of fertility control. “Why not have at least four children, or five?”, recently reflected the Turkish leader, leader of the conservative AK Parti, who on other occasions has already warned that the nation is seeing its average age increase (around 34 years old) and the weight of the elderly population. What have they done about it? Beyond political discourse, its Executive has promoted different pro-natal measures. In April Parliament supported extending maternity leave eight to 16 weeks and last year Erdoğan himself advertisement that the Executive would increase its financial aid to families that have children, with the payment of 5,000 liras after the birth of the first-born. “We are also implementing financial aid per child of 1,500 liras per month for the second child and 5,000 liras per month for the third and subsequent children,” advanced. The big question is whether these measures will have an effect and will encourage Turkish births. What do people think? That’s what he tried to find out a few days ago The New York Timesthat interviewed to several Turks to find out if they would … Read more

We have spent years looking for how to stop muscle fragility as we age. The answer was hidden in garlic

by

Aging brings with it a series of inevitable tolls, and one of the most limiting is loss of muscle mass and strengthwhich is a problem known as sarcopenia. This can cause a person to not be able to move comfortably around their home, causing them to have significant limitations in their daily lives. But now we have seen that there is a compound in garlic that can help us delay this agingalthough without being magical. A new study. Now, a promising new study published in the prestigious magazine Cell Metabolism has identified a specific compound derived from garlic that improves age-related muscle function. But we must keep in mind that we are not talking about the raw garlic that we add to the pan and which for many has a horrible taste, but rather about a very particular metabolite present in the aged garlic extract. The protagonist. This study focuses specifically on S-1-propenyl-L-cysteine ​​(S1PC), which is one of the metabolites that is generated during the aging process of garlic. This is where we can find a little help to delay aging. But it is essential to avoid the promises of “anti-aging elixir”, since eating raw garlic daily will not provide you with the necessary doses of this compound to replicate the results. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that it is not a “cure against old age”, but rather a solid therapeutic target to combat muscle fragility and sarcopenia. A surprising connection. The most fascinating thing about the study is not only what S1PC does, but how it does it, since when ingested it directly activates an enzyme called LKB1 that encourages adipose tissue to secrete a key protein called eNAMPT into the bloodstream. This protein is essential, since when it reaches the brain it acts on the regulatory centers of systemic metabolism and causes nervous and chemical signals to be sent from the brain that drastically improve the function of skeletal muscle tissue. Just what we want to improve in aging. Your results. To verify that this mechanism really works, the researchers carried out tests in both animal models and humans. Here, aged mice, after being administered the metabolite S1PC, improved their muscle strength and reduced markers of frailty related to aging. In the case of humans, the team conducted a human clinical trial using aged garlic extract, and the results confirmed that consumption of this compound raises the levels of eNAMPT that we have discussed before. But the most interesting thing is that the effect is greater in those people with enough body fat, which makes sense, since this protein is released by the adipose tissue itself. Images | wirestock at Magnific In Xataka | It is possible to convince an AI that shoving garlic up your ass is a good idea. You just need the right words

steal materials from the asteroid belt (with a stop at a gas station)

by

We haven’t built yet bases on the Moonbut already there are those who think in that future in which settlements can be built on Mars. If our satellite is a challenge, the red planet is already the pinnacle of complexity. Therefore, although there is still a lot of time for it to be viable, it doesn’t hurt to think about strategies. A good example is the proposal just made by a team of scientists led by aerospace engineer Serena Suriano. His proposal is based on one of the main problems that the space masons: the lack of materials. In the absence of suitable metals for construction there on Mars, they would have to be sought in the vicinity of the red planet. To do this, they propose “looting” the asteroid belt. It’s not that easy. In the asteroid belt There are metallic asteroids that could be mined for necessary metals such as molybdenum. But there is a problem. Traveling to these asteroids to take construction materials to Mars is not like taking the car on a Saturday to go to Ikea. In that case, the biggest handicap is the families that overcrowd the spaces. In the case of asteroids, the main problem is the orbital dance necessary to leave Mars, reach the asteroid and return. Luckily, these scientists consider that the problem could be solved with a couple of pit stops. An (almost) imaginary ship. When making calculations, it is normal to start from the parameters of a ship that actually exists. For this reason, these scientists have made simulations with an imaginary ship that is not the same, but looks like quite to the SpaceX Starship. The most powerful imaginable today. The ship in question weighs 120 tons, can carry a payload of 115 tons and hold up to 1,100 tons of fuel. This would mean a delta-v of 6.4 km/s. And what is that? The delta-v is a measure of the amount of effort necessary to carry out an orbital maneuver. In simpler terms, it is the change in speed that can be achieved by burning all the fuel in a ship. In this case it would be 6.4 km/s. The problem is that to reach the metallic asteroids that could be mined to build on Mars, taking into account the necessary orbital spins, a delta-v of 10 to 12.8 km/s would be needed. It can be solved. These scientists have designed a plan that includes two pit stops. The first would be on the metallic asteroid itself. Once the materials have been extracted, on the way back we would have to stop at a type C asteroid. These contain volatiles such as water and hydrocarbons, which would facilitate a process known as production on site of propellant. In other words, the type C asteroid would be used as a gas station, using its resources as propellant to continue the trip. If these stops are made, the necessary metals could be obtained with a delta-v of 6.4 km/s. The imaginary ship looks like Starship, but it is not the same 22 pairs. In total, there are 22 pairs of metallic asteroids and C-type asteroids in a 20-year window starting in 2040. This means that, from that moment, when it is assumed that trips to Mars and the construction of bases could already be viable, there would be more than 20 mine and gas station options to bring metals to the red planet. In total, 200 tons of metal could be obtained in that period. It may not seem like much if we consider that it is little more than the payload for a single trip. But fuel needs to be optimized. The loading process on site of propellant is carried out at a rate of 2 kg per day. To fill the tank it would take about 1,500 years. Logically, that is not viable, so you have to go with the tank half full and, therefore, adjust the payload. Why 20 years? For the trip to take place, it is necessary that the orbits of Mars and the asteroids are correctly aligned. It’s as if the road to Ikea only opens once every few years. Therefore, many trips could not be made. Building an entire base would take a lot of time, but it’s something you have to take on. A solution. If chemical propulsion is changed to solar propulsion or nuclearit would be much easier to extract metals from asteroids and, possibly, the deadlines would be shorter. However, these scientists have chosen to make their calculations with the only viable technology today. Maybe in the future the trip will be a little shorter than all this. Of course, building a base will continue to be a very, very long process. Many generations of humans would retire looking at those works. Image | NASA | SpaceX In Xataka | Elon Musk says it will take 1,000 Starships and 20 years to build the first sustainable city on Mars

Neighbors in Chile tried to stop an Amazon data center. Justice has left a clear message with its decision

by

Artificial intelligence has been part of our lives for a long time, often almost without us stopping to think about what is behind it. We use it as if everything were happening in an invisible layer: models, algorithms and, perhaps, servers in some remote location. But we can also look at it from another perspective. The infrastructure that supports that world is very real: it has a location, consumes resources, requires permits, involves enormous investments, and can also alter the environment of those who live nearby. That is one of the great debates that is beginning to accompany the rise of AI: the cloud also has neighbors. They lost the case. A specific case leads us to Huechurabanorth of Santiago de Chile, where Amazon plans to build a data center. The initiative had received a favorable Environmental Qualification Resolution in July 2024, but not everyone was convinced that the project had been evaluated accordingly. That concern reached the judicial route through a claim presented by Patricio Hernández Valenzuelaa resident of the area, and the Second Environmental Court resolved on April 9, 2026 to reject ita decision that leaves the data center in a position to move forward. A very specific concern. Hernández questioned whether the environmental evaluation of the project had not adequately taken into account a possible high voltage line that, according to his approach, would be necessary to power the data center. The criticism was not minor: if both infrastructures were linked, they had to be analyzed together. For residents, not doing so meant leaving relevant impacts on the environment out of the analysis. The key to the failure. The court’s reasoning involves clearly separating both pieces. The ruling concludes that the data center and the eventual high-voltage line cannot be considered to form a single initiative, among other things because the Amazon project does not include that infrastructure as part of its design. Furthermore, the planned electricity supply does not depend on its own installation, but on the network managed by third parties, which reinforces the idea that these are different projects. Without joint evaluation. Once the existence of a project unit has been ruled out, the court concludes that an integrated environmental assessment is not appropriate. The sentence explicitly states it: “it has been proven that between both initiatives there is no relationship of functional interdependence that conditions their execution.” This nuance is key, because it implies that the data center can operate using the available electrical infrastructure, without the need to subject its viability to a future high voltage line which, in any case, would have to be evaluated separately if it were to be considered. Beyond the legal debate. The Amazon project has very specific dimensions on paper. The data storage center in Huechuraba is designed to operate for 30 years, with an estimated investment of 205 million dollars. It would be built on an area of ​​10.9 hectares, with a construction of 21,350.07 square meters, in the street of Américo Vespucio 1055. From the company, collects Reutershave pointed out that the design of the infrastructure focuses on minimizing energy and water consumption, and maintains that the plan met environmental requirements. Chile as a hub. The Huechuraba project is not an isolated initiative within Amazon’s strategy. Amazon Web Services has proposed an investment of more than 4,000 million dollars in Chile over 15 years to build, operate and maintain its infrastructure in the country. The idea is to turn Santiago into its third major center in Latin America, after São Paulo and the central region of Mexico. Factors such as connectivity through fiber optic cables are added to this context. The concern of those who live nearby. Beyond the investment and digital infrastructure they promise, data centers are often accompanied by very specific concerns: high electricity consumption, use of water for cooling, heat or noise generation, and their fit into environments that, in many cases, have environmental or community value. Google did not have the same path. The case of Amazon is not the only one that has gone through this type of debate in Chile. Google had obtained initial approval in 2020 to build a $200 million data center in Cerrillos, southwest of Santiago. However, the project’s journey was different. In February 2024, the Second Environmental Court decided to partially reverse that permissionand months later the company announced that it would not continue with the initiative as it had originally been proposed, opting to start a new process from scratch for a project in the same location, but with a redesign based on air cooling. Electricity enters the scene. If we broaden the focus, the debate is not limited to a specific project, but to the system’s capacity to absorb this type of infrastructure. A Systep reportpublished on September 23, 2025 with data from the National Electrical Coordinator, indicated that, taking 2025 as a starting point, the electrical demand of data centers in Chile could increase by 270% in five years. The same projection places this consumption at around 1,207 MW in 2030. These figures help to understand why the energy issue has become one of the central axes when talking about the expansion of the cloud and AI. Images | Xataka with Nano Banana In Xataka | In 2024, Big Tech spent absurd amounts of money on AI. In 2025, they managed to spend 77% more

While everyone was looking at Hormuz, Russia has found a much bigger secret route. And drones do not stop arriving in Iran

by

During the Cold War, Western intelligence services came to suspect that some Soviet freighters that apparently transported grain or machinery were actually hiding military equipment and technology sensitive under false covers. The problem was that, once inside certain internal routes controlled by Moscow and its allies, tracking them became extraordinarily difficult even for the greatest naval powers on the planet. While the world watches Hormuz. For months, the Strait of Hormuz has become the perfect symbol of Western pressure on Iran: US aircraft carriers, oil tankers diverting routes, marine insurance fired and constant threats on one of the great energy bottlenecks on the planet. However, while all international attention was focused there, Russia and Iran have been consolidating a much less visible and probably much more uncomfortable route for Washington: the Caspian Sea. It The New York Times said the weekend. This enormous space of inland water in northern Iran, usually ignored in geopolitical analyses, is being transformed into a true strategic highway to move goods, drones, military components and technology away from the direct reach of the United States. The photo. The most revealing image came when Israel bombed the Iranian port of Bandar Anzali, in the heart of the Caspian, in one of the most significant attacks of its campaign against Iran. The target was not in the Persian Gulf or Hormuz, but hundreds of kilometers further north. It was a clear sign that real logistical warfare no longer revolves solely around the most famous strait on the planet. The route that keeps Iran alive. The importance of the Caspian for Tehran has grown spectacularly since the pressure on Hormuz intensified. Russian and Iranian ships now transport wheat, corn, sunflower oil, animal feed and all kinds of of essential supplies who previously arrived via more vulnerable routes. Four Iranian Caspian ports are working at full capacity to absorb this growing traffic, while Moscow has begun to redirect millions of tons of goods that previously crossed the Black Sea. It turns out that the true strategic core is not in the cereal. According to US officials, Russia is using that route to send drone components to Iran to help it rebuild part of the arsenal lost during the last fighting with Israel and the United States. The relationship is especially symbolic because for years It was Iran that supplied Russia with Shahed drones for the war in Ukraine. Now the flow has partially reversed: Moscow manufactures its own versions under license and returns technology, components and military expertise to Tehran using the Caspian as a protected corridor. A perfect sea to avoid sanctions. The great advantage of the Caspian for Russia and Iran is that it is an extraordinarily difficult to control from outside. Unlike the Persian Gulf, where the US naval presence dominates much of the maritime traffic, in the Caspian they can only operate the five coastal countries. The United States cannot intercept ships there or impose direct blockades. Furthermore, a large part of the ships sail with transponders offdisappearing from satellite tracking systems and feeding an increasingly opaque network of “ghost ships.” In fact, Western analysts describe the Caspian as the ideal place for discreet military transfers and sanctions evasion. Dark shipping traffic has skyrocketed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and both Moscow and Tehran have perfected methods to hide real shipments, routes and operators. It is no coincidence that Ukraine attacked the Russian port of Olya in 2024, accusing it of being a logistics center for the transfer of Iranian drone components. Nor that Israel Bandar Anzali will hit. Everyone seems to have understood that a logistical rearguard is being built there that is much more resistant than it appears. Moscow’s strategic obsession. Plus: for the Kremlin, the Caspian is not just a temporary solution derived from sanctions or the war in Ukraine. Russia and Iran have two decades imagining a gigantic trade corridor that connects the Baltic with the Indian Ocean, crossing Russia, the Caspian and Iran to avoid routes controlled by the West. The project includes new portsrailway lines and renewal of aging fleets, although many of these plans remain on paper due to lack of resources and the geographical difficulties of the Caspian. Still, the war has accelerated the strategic logic behind that idea: creating an alternative system of commercial and military circulation outside the reach of Western sanctions. For Putin, furthermore, the balance is delicate. Needs to support Iran as a regional ally and military partner, but do so in an all-too-visible way could deteriorate even more so its relationship with Washington and with several Arab countries important for Russian energy trade. The Caspian offers precisely that: sufficient support, but far from the media and military focus that Hormuz dominates. America’s great blind spot. Much of the Western concern arises from a very uncomfortable feeling: for years, the Caspian hardly occupied any space in American strategic planning. Experts in Washington recognize that the region functions almost like a black hole diplomat divided between different military commands and bureaucratic departments. Thus, while the world observed aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf or drones over Ukraine, Russia and Iran took advantage of an immense, opaque and difficult to monitor geographic space to weave a logistics network that connects both conflicts. The problem for the United States is not that the Caspian completely replaces Hormuz, because it cannot do so, especially in massive oil exports. The real problem is that even under extreme military pressure, sanctions and naval blockades, Iran continues to find ways to stay connectedrearm and receive outside support. And each drone, each component and each shipment that silently crosses the Caspian reinforces an increasingly evident idea: while everyone was looking at the Strait of Hormuz, Russia and Iran they were building an alternative route much more difficult to stop. Image | PexelsNASA In Xataka | We sensed that Iran’s attacks on the US had been important. In reality, they were devastating In Xataka | While the whole world looks at … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.