suffering

They are suffering from delusions of grandeur

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Aaron Levie, founder and CEO of Box, has realized something: AI is causing some managers to suffer a certain disconnection from real work and believe that AI does things that in reality (for now) can’t do. for him it’s clear that what the CEOs of technology companies are experiencing is an “AI psychosis.” AI myths and realities. This year we are experiencing frenetic movements in the technology industry. Stock market valuations of technology companies skyrocket, but at the same time Mass layoffs accelerate. There seems to be an explanation gaining momentum in Silicon Valley: those in charge of technology companies are suffering from what Levie calls “AI psychosis.” There are in these moments some cognitive disconnectionand CEOs and senior officials believe that AI can do tasks today that in reality still require being under human control and expert judgment. There is a long way from saying to doing. According to the CEO of Box, managers are sensitive to this “delirium” because “they are sufficiently removed from that last stretch in which the work is done.” That is to say: a CEO sees a prototype of an AI model that generates a contract or a line of code and believes that is enough to declare that the work is done. However, it is not these managers who have to review that code in search of flaws or analyze contracts in search of misleading or false clauses that the AI ​​has invented. 100x Organizations. There is a particularly surprising case in this area. Zeb Evans, CEO of the project management startup ClickUp, recently said in X that had laid off almost a quarter of its employees after deploying 3,000 AI agents to do their job. According to him, the human employees who have remained in the company simply have to supervise the machines, forming what Evans called a “100x organization.” What the CEO sees vs. what he should see. The triumphalist messages of some companies and CEOs like Evans can be quickly contrasted with the data we have today. The decisions being made – for example, in the area of ​​layoffs that are often hidden behind the adoption of AI – should be based in improved productivity which at the moment does not exist. Some studies made it clear: A study from the University of California at Berkeley evaluated several investigations in this regard and concluded that “there is no robust relationship between the adoption of AI and an aggregate productivity gain.” Other investigation of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) indicated that AI had indeed improved productivity, but found “a productivity paradox, whereby perceived productivity gains are greater than measured productivity gains.” Finally, MIT researchers They created thousands of agents to work on various tasks and concluded that in many cases they did not perform those tasks with human quality. According to their estimates, AI models will be able to complete many tasks “with 80-95% success in 2029 with adequate quality,” but they will not yet surpass human workers. The new bottleneck. The danger of this “psychosis” is that by automating the production of content or code the problem does not disappear. It just moves. If everyone uses AI to produce more things, the bottleneck is precisely the managers who must manage and control the review of a volume of data that did not exist before. It is in fact just what Harvard Business Review denounced in a recent analysis. Levie made it clear: CEOs must “go down into the mud” and see what AI can and cannot do, because otherwise what they will end up having is true organizational chaos. Image | Hunter Race In Xataka | It is normal that CEOs of technology companies like AI. They are using it to “clone” themselves and not go to work

Japan is suffering a record number of ramen shop bankruptcies. And it is partly the result of the “1,000 yen barrier”

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The ramen is almost a religion (gastronomic) in Japan. One, yes, condemned to adjust to a certain price range. Although bowls of noodles with soup, meat and vegetables are one of the symbols of Japanese cuisine and a draw for tourists, in the country ramen is seen as a modest dish for students leaving school or workers with a brief lunch break. A sort of ‘worker menu’. So much so that there is even talk of “1,000 yen wall”a psychological barrier to noodle bowl prices. The problem is that Japanese hoteliers have seen their costs increase until they are dragged into a critical situation: in 2024 they registered a record of bankrupt ramen shops and, although the situation improved significantly in 2025ruined businesses still number in the dozens. Bad season for business. That the expense sheet increases while the income sheet is conditioned by a psychological barrier that limits prices can only translate into one thing for businesses: problems. Japan’s ramen restaurants know this well, having been registering dozens and dozens of bankruptcies for years and in 2024 they even reached a record of closures. The data They come from the research firm Teikou and are eloquent. In 2020 there were 54 ramen restaurants condemned to bankruptcy, in 2021 there were 17, a figure that is largely explained by the aid given by the Government during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in 2022 the bankruptcies rose again to 33. The following year there were 53, in 2024 a record of 79 bankruptcies and last year, the latest data available, 59 stores were declared bankrupt. For their study, Teikoku technicians mainly take into account those businesses that accumulated debts of more than 10 million yen (just over 54,000 euros) and have no choice but to declare bankruptcy. The key: the trend. The figure may seem low if one takes into account that throughout the country they are distributed more than 21,000 restaurants of ramen, but it is significant. Last year, in fact, he made the weapons fly due to the record of bankruptcies. The latest data from the sector are somewhat more positive, but are still far from ideal: dozens and dozens of businesses continue to close. However, there is another reason why the figures attract attention: the discourse. Local media and international They have spent time warning of the cascade of closures. There is who warns Furthermore, beyond the balance of bankruptcies, a significant number of establishments that remain open do so in delicate financial health. That is, they remain operational, but they are not well. Struck by costs. Bankruptcy figures may vary depending on the period analyzed, but what does not vary are the analyzes that talk about the causes of the ramen crisis. The diagnosis It is clear: the problem for the stores has been the rise in costs and the limited margin to pass it on to customers. In 2025 Washington Post cited a study from Teikoku Databank that concluded that the sum of the ingredients – including pork, pasta and seaweed –, labor and energy required to make ramen had increased by around 10% in three years. Other calculations They point out that the cost per client grew by 5% between 2022 and 2023. “Prices have been rising over time, but in the last three years they have been incredible,” recognized Tetsuya Kaneko, with a location in Tokyo. The ‘perfect storm’ of ramen. Tetsuya Kaneko assumed in fact that his case was not unique and “everyone in the sector is struggling.” At the end of the day, hoteliers have been forced to deal with a ‘perfect storm’ that works against them: inflationthe rise in import prices due to the weakness of the yen against the dollar and the increase in the cost of energy that had the war in Ukrainewhich also affected the flow of cereals. For three months now, the war in Iran has been added to this panorama, which has made transportation more expensive. “The example of ramen shops illustrates economic trends well because they have a hard time passing on increased costs to end consumers,” explains to the newspaper American Norihiro Yamaguchi, economist specializing in Japan at Oxford Economics. In his opinion, until 2022, consumers were hesitant about any price increase, but the reality is now different: “They have to accept the increase in the cost of living.” For all pockets. As if the situation were not complex in itself, ramen establishments have to deal with another challenge: prices. Or rather, the image that the dish has in the country and the psychological barriers that in a certain way determine its rates. It is not something completely unknown in Spain, where a similar logic operates in the menus of the day of the restaurants. “Ramen has always been a staple food for low-income people, students… I don’t want it to be out of reach,” Kaneko explains.. The “1,000 yen wall”. A quick Google search shows several references, both on blogs and specialized websites in Japanese culture as in diaries generalistswhat is usually called the “1,000 yen wall”, which in exchange amounts to about 5.4 euros. That round number marks the price ceiling that rarely exceeds a basic noodle bowl with broth, meat and vegetables. Or so it was until recently. Faced with the new scenario and the delicate situation to which many businesses have been dragged, those in charge have had to consider a dilemma: cross the 1,000 yen barrier or resign yourself to following in the footsteps of the 72 establishments closed in 2024 and 59 in 2025. Upload with apology included. A few months ago Kaneko I remembered how in 2023 it had to increase its prices by 50 yen, reaching 1,000 for a standard bowl. Another professional in the sector, Taisei Hikage, recalled how rates have changed in a matter of a decade: if 10 years ago there were basic noodle dishes for 500 yen, today the situation is very different. When he opened his own restaurant in 2023, he … Read more

While we were looking at gasoline, the Iran crisis has skyrocketed the price of asphalt. And the roads of half the world are already suffering from it

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A few months ago we published in Xataka an article with the following title: Spanish roads have a problem in 2026: repairing a kilometer of asphalt is more expensive than ever. It was February 26, 2026. In it we analyzed the problem that Spain had encountered. Our roads, prepared for a hot and dry climate (especially in the southern half) had suffered very intense days of almost constant rain. It didn’t take long for the holes to appear and neither did the complaints in the media and social networks about the supposed poor condition of the roads. Trying to understand if this is really the case or not and why it is estimated that the State needs to invest some of 13,000 million euros to fix themwe looked to see if it had become more expensive the price of asphalt in recent years. Something that, indeed, was reflected in the aforementioned article. But this, as we said, was published on February 26. Two days later, on February 28, we woke up to the news that the Government of the United States and Israel had launched a joint bombing offensive against Iran. The rest, we already know. Crisis in oil supplya battle for open and close the Hormuz canal and fuel increases for passenger cars and airplanes. But there is something that has also risen. And that something is called asphalt. More expensive than ever (now yes) And in less than three months, which seem to have lasted a lifetime, the headline has become outdated. At the end of last month, Asefma (Spanish Association of Asphalt Mixture Manufacturers) already warned that the price of asphalt was skyrocketing. According to this association, in March alone the average price of asphalt had risen 8.2%. Nothing compared to April, when it did so by 49.3%. He overrun of the final product is due, above all, to the increase in the price of bitumen that acts as a binder for asphalt and is where the increase in the price of oil has the most impact. Asefma has come to consider that the increase in the price of asphalt was putting at risk the viability of the signed contracts or even whether they will be fulfilled or completed if the works have already begun. The truth is that, beyond the possible pressure measures of the employers’ association that defends the interests of its associates, the price of asphalt has skyrocketed inside and outside our country. To understand why asphalt has become more expensive you have to understand what makes it up. The pavement of our roads is made up of dirt and stones that are compacted. They serve as a base but also cushion the weight placed on them to delay the breaking of the asphalt. This asphalt is a bituminous mixture that uses bitumen of different intensity depending on where the road is going to be built. Those that resist heat better tend to be less flexible and those that drain better tend to be more flexible. Therefore, the latter They can melt when temperatures are very high. All components have been affected by the increase in the price of oil. To begin with, the earth and stones have to be transported by heavy vehicles with very high diesel consumption, precisely the fuel that has become most expensive. The same thing happens with the refinement of bitumen or asphalt (what we ultimately step on). If energy costs rise, the price of this product rises. But, in addition, the price of bitumen is closely linked to the price of oil. This product is made from the densest oil in the barrel, the least usable in energy terms and the most expensive to convert into fuel. This product is what is refined to obtain bitumen and, with bombs falling on Iran and the subsequent response on neighboring countries, the production and export of raw materials It has been very diminished, obviously. The American company Victory Paving figure in an increase of between 2 and 3% in the price of asphalt for every 10 dollars that a barrel of oil rises. They also argue that the shortage is greater because the rise in energy costs has an impact on a drop in the production of refineries and these usually prioritize the production of diesel and gasoline over asphalt refining because the fuels are more profitable. Richard Hudock, president of Derry Construction Co., pointed out to the American media who had never suffered a crisis so serious in the 42 years that they had been working, ensuring that the impact of the price of oil on the raw materials and fuel to be able to operate their vehicles put their job at risk this summer. In Argus They point out that the situation in Africa is no better. They point out that the bitumen that reaches countries like South Africa has become almost exclusively dependent on trade with Greece and Türkiye, once the Middle East tap has been closed. This has caused the price of each freighter to triple. If the price of asphalt has grown in the United States, South Africa and Spain, doubts have also grown about what to do in these cases. In the first of these countries It has been proposed to delay the patching of certain streets or highways. But this can cause the problem to worsen and, even if the price of oil falls again in the future, the damage will be deeper and the investment to be made would have to be larger. And the problem is that in the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain we face the same problem. The winters In all of these countries it has been very cold or very rainy, so the condition of the asphalt has been compromised. In BBC They report that the United Kingdom had already increased the budget to repair its roads but that the increase in the price of oil has put this item in check. The result, as … Read more

The low cost companies of the United States are already suffering from the new oil crisis

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2.5 billion dollars. That is the figure that low-cost airlines demand from the United States Government in order to continue operating in the country. The rise in fuel prices has reached such a point that a handful of companies are beginning to see the wolf’s ears. And that wolf is called: bankruptcy. 2.5 billion dollars. The Association of Value Airlines, made up of Allegiant Air, Avelo Air, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Sun Country (all low-cost airlines operating in the United States), have asked the United States Government to create a liquidity fund of $2.5 billion to pay for the fuel they need to offer their services. At the meeting, they assure from Reutersairline executives, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and Head of the Federal Aviation Administration Bryan Bedford met. 111 dollars. It is the average ticket price offered by the low-cost airlines that attended the meeting. A figure that, they say, is impossible to maintain if the price of fuel continues to increase. And, according to his calculations, those 2.5 billion dollars It will be the increase in prices at the end of the year that they will have to assume if the market continues to be as volatile as it has been until now. According to their calculations, the rise in the price of oil has been such that it is forcing them to pay for fuel at twice the price they normally did. This puts their operations at risk to the point that, they say, the profit margin is so narrow that it puts the viability of the companies at risk. Ravine. Neither the White House nor federal aviation officials responded to questions from Reuters but by then it was already known that talks had been initiated to provide $500 million to Spirit Airlines. The airline, however, ended up bankrupt this weekend. The company, they explain in BBChad operated in the country for more than 30 years but since the hardest years of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was going through severe financial difficulties. The rise in fuel prices has been the last straw that has ended up leaving passengers on the ground. The Secretary of Transportation of the United States, Sean Duffy, has assured that the company already had serious problems before the country launched its first attacks against Iran. Now, 17,000 workers have lost their jobs overnight. It’s not the only one. Although the Spirit case has been the most striking (its business became such that in 2014 Morgan Stanley pointed it out as the airline with the greatest potential for its investors). but he withdrew his support in 2023), this airline has not been the only one in which bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of fuel has weighed on the heads of hundreds or thousands of workers. Latvia has had to rescue Air Baltic with a loan of 30 million euros and airlines such as Lufthansa or SAS have had to cancel thousands of flights to try to contain the hemorrhage. In the case of Lufthansathe company has focused on short-haul flights where profit margins are narrower, canceling more than 20,000 of them before the end of the year. For its part, SAS canceled more than 1,000 flights only last April. A warning (with buts). Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, has also not missed the opportunity to attack his rivals. In The Spanish They report that O’Leary predicts the bankruptcy of two or three European companies before the end of the year if the oil crisis continues. For the manager, WizzAir and Air Baltic would be the main candidates. However, some analysts have pointed out that they consider that the risk of reaching this point is lower among European companies. They point out that in the United States the strength of long-haul airlines is still very high and that, unlike in Europe, low-cost airlines have much less business. What they do not rule out, of course, is that flights will continue to be canceled en masse. less margin. The airline problem low cost It is similar to that of the gas stations serving cheap fuel. In both cases, very narrow profit margins are played in exchange for adding a large number of operations. However, the increase in the cost of fuel kills its business because it places its rates at the prices of its rivals. premium. In the case of airlines, as in the case of gas stations low costhave the added problem that fuel stock is usually small. Furthermore, in the case of aviation, variations in its price tend to be more damaging because its refinement and storage is so expensive and complicated that stocks are usually very small. Photo | Forsaken Films In Xataka | Ryanair asks to suspend the new EU border control system: many are missing flights due to the queues it generates

Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo raised prices wildly in 2025. Now they are suffering the foreseeable consequences

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Demand on trains has fallen. We could think that it is the direct consequence of railway chaos that has set in in the first months of 2026. But no. The last quarter of 2025 already anticipated turbulent times for high speed. And between October and December 2025, prices skyrocketed and demand fell. Now it is the operators who have to walk a tightrope. What has happened? That demand for high-speed trains has fallen significantly in recent months. According to data from Trainlinetrain ticket price comparator, the demand for these trips plummeted 30% after the accident in Adamuz (Córdoba) in the middle of last January. The data could indicate a distrust among travelers as a result, but not everything is explained by the possible fear that those who travel by train may have. And the volume of travelers at the end of 2025 had already fallen. It is something we know now with the publication of the latest report from the CNMCwho collects market movements with a quarter delay or so. Madrid-Barcelona. The consequences in this report are clear, the volume of travelers fell between October and December 2025 in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, where prices have settled and there is a smaller difference between companies. According to the CNMC, the main data are the following: Decrease in travelers of 13% compared to October-December 2024. Fall of the companies with the most expensive prices: -19% Renfe (95.58 euros) and -13.9% Iryo (76.89 euros). Rise of Ouigo (+12.8%) which has the cheapest prices (61.42 euros). The recorded data shows a brutal increase in prices. Renfe has been left without AVLO to fight for the floor price, which has triggered its average ticket but Ouigo and Iryo also multiplied the price of the average bill. In fact, the following increases were recorded compared to the previous year: Renfe: +40.2% Iryo: +69.0% Ouigo: +40.9% (Much) more expensive, less travel. The increase in prices in Madrid-Barcelona explains several trends: This broker is the least sensitive to price variations. Although the volume of passengers has been reduced, the increase in price has been much greater, so it is to be assumed that there are many travelers who continued to use it as round-trip transportation during the day for similar situations. The operators have finally had to raise prices to stop making losses. This has meant a reduction in passengers on Renfe (which, as we said, You no longer have AVLO service) and Iryo. Ouigo has grown by 12.9% but its places offered have also grown by 16.1%. In the rest of the corridors, only the Valencian has had a substantial price increase (+22.3%) and it has not suffered. Madrid-Seville (-1.9%), Madrid-Málaga (-5%) or Madrid-Alicante (+6.6%) have remained at similar prices. None of these corridors have lost travelers. What can we expect? A drastic drop in the volume of travelers. That is what we expect from the next CNMC report in which the results for January, February and March 2026 will be noted. There are many reasons that explain the result we expect. To begin with, the railway chaos that Spanish roads have become since the fateful Adamuz accident: The most affected. We already know that demand for trains has to fall irremediably given the cuts and speed restrictions that were recorded in the following days, but we must bear in mind that passenger confidence has been eroded since the accident. And not only because of a lack of trust in security, the problem is delays and inconsistency in arrival times. According to ABC65% of the trains arrived late last February. But it is that The Madrid-Barcelona corridor has been the most affected since clients relied on their Swiss punctuality for business trips. That has been diluted in recent weeks, with speed restrictions that are now permanent and road works. This has triggered air travelers, skyrocketing the price the same to the point that Iberia capped the prices of the Air Bridge at 99 euros. It remains to be seen if the companies’ alternative has been to lower prices. We will know that when the next CNMC report arrives and we can have a complete picture of how the market behaved and how operators dealt with these inconveniences when they were already rubbing their hands to raise prices. Photo | Alan Grant In Xataka | 150 years ago, Spain made a unique decision in the world. Ouigo and Iryo believe that Renfe is using it against them

What did Immanuel Kant mean when he argued that patience is not “a force of resistance, but rather one that hopes to make suffering satisfactory?”

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“Patience has generally been considered a virtue, but it has been very difficult to explain why,” said Paul Davies a couple of years ago. And he is right. Not only because we human beings have paid little attention to it, but because patience has something that makes it difficult to understand. After all, patience is too much like passivity, doing nothing, enduring whatever is thrown at us. What can have positive Be patient if the entire modern world has been built around autonomy, personal will and self-determination? Luckily, we have Immanuel Kant to get us out of trouble. An equivocal virtue. As soon as we stop to think about patience, we realize that it has no content of its own: it is always patience “for” something. And, of course, it is difficult to maintain that something is good in itself if it is little more than a psychological ability… Is patience for evil also a virtue? And Kant’s response is… admit it. For him, patience only acquires moral status if we complement it with something else; but staying there would be a mistake. We speak of “the ability to hold oneself in a position that does not offer immediate gratification without this absence of gratification being experienced as suffering”. The Kantian virtuous is not someone who suffers from duty, he is someone who develops sufficient moral strength so that this wait becomes a positive experience. That is, he is someone who is patient in the full sense: he is not someone who resists instinct, he is someone who actively experiences that wait. What the hell does all this mean? Basically, for Kant, although being patient only makes moral sense in virtue of something; If our logic is to “be patient” to obtain a result, everything is wrong. We will have fallen into the trap: if we look for it, we have already lost it. Although formulating it this way would horrify the Konigsberg philosopher, his vision of patience is very similar to the idea of ​​enjoying the process for its own sake. In more Kantian terms, we could talk about ‘moral satisfaction’: “an indirect enjoyment of the inner freedom that arises from the consciousness of mastery over one’s own inclinations.” And can this be trained? In several of his worksthe philosopher addresses the question of whether this ‘moral strength‘What we call patience can be trained. And his answer is yes; although, to tell the truth, in an unusual way. Because it is not about doing self-control exercises, nor conditioning yourself to inhibit specific stimuli. For Kant, what is really important is to train ‘moral attention’: focusing on seeing how our inclinations affect how we see things and the evaluations we make about them; glimpse what is best. Over time, patience will come alone. The most interesting image has to do with ‘writing’: fluency is not achieved by seeking fluency, it is achieved by writing a lot. Image | Xataka In Xataka | 2,000 years ago Epicurus had already understood the secret of pleasure: “Nothing is enough for those who have enough is little.”

Mobile phones in China are suffering the biggest price increase in five years. The culprit is not a manufacturer: it is AI

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Smartphones face a year of challenges due to the price of basic components such as RAM. The predictions They are already talking about increases of between 90 and 150 dollars for basic mobile phones, and between 300 and 400 dollars in the case of high-end mobile phones. AI is about to blow up an industry that has claimed its first victim: Meizu. Go for it, leave almost everything. I still remember that MWC last year when I stopped by the Meizu stand. I liked what I saw: new batch mobiles, with balanced hardware, the design and ROM that I fell in love with almost a decade ago and a shocking promise: the manufacturer was preparing its global launch. A history of mobile manufacturing in China, about to return to Europe as an alternative to manufacturers such as Xiaomi, Honor or OPPO. what has happened. Recently, Meizu has announced its exit from the smartphone market to focus their efforts on AI. In addition to the strong competition in its local market, the sharp rise in RAM prices makes it difficult for the manufacturer to be competitive against more established brands. It is a movement similar to that of ASUS, which He has said goodbye to his Zenfone family to focus on AI solutions and other types of products. The death of the quality-price mobile phone? 2026 will be a critical year for quality-price mobile phones. For years, manufacturers have been able to play with relatively comfortable margins: RAM abundance Component recycling A supply chain at your entire disposal The RAM giants have their shelves collapsed due to requests related to AI, and cheap modules have completely stopped being a priority. The dilemma. IDC analysts make it clear that we are witnessing a major shock in the supply chain. It’s not a temporary high: AI has completely changed market priorities, and things like RAM won’t stabilize in price anytime soon. Historically, we have normalized annual cycles and launches “just because”, even though there was no hardware or news to justify the launch of clone phones year after year. Maybe and just maybe, the price crisis will make manufacturers have to rethink their strategy. Image | Meizu In Xataka | Expensive and premium mobile phones are not a fad: they are the new standard, and Motorola knows it

The Canary Islands have been suffering total blackouts for years. Their salvation is a beast of engineering 1,145 meters under the sea

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A month ago, the destabilization of an old generator at the El Palmar thermal power plant in La Gomera caused a dramatic “cascade effect” that left more than 15,000 people without electricity, and without mobile coverage. This incident showed the extreme fragility from living in an isolated electrical system. However, the solution to this historical vulnerability no longer looks to the sky, but to the depths of the Atlantic. To overcome the abrupt volcanic orography and the extreme pressures of the Canary Islands seabed, engineering has had to design an “umbilical cord” unprecedented in the world, marking a before and after in the history of the archipelago. The end of isolation. In an effort to protect supply, Red Eléctrica de España (REE) has officially inaugurated the underwater interconnection between La Gomera and Tenerife. As confirmed by the REE itselfthe magnitude of the project translates into historic figures: an investment of 145 million euros for the cable laying, to which are added another 32 million destined for the two link substations located in Chío (Tenerife) and El Palmar (La Gomera). It is not a capricious work. How they collect local mediathe Canary Islands have suffered nine major “energy zeros” (total blackouts) since 2009. Tenerife and La Gomera have been among the islands hardest hit, so this infrastructure was born as a vital antidote to darkness. More than light. The implementation of this system completely alters the energy paradigm. As indicated ANDldiario.esboth islands cease to be solitary island systems and become a single network. From now on, if the rubber plant fails, Tenerife will inject energy instantly to avoid a blackout, and vice versa. But the scope of the work transcends mere security. As explained in detail in the REE statementcable is the key to decarbonization. La Gomera will now be able to generate much more renewable energy – mainly wind – than its population consumes. This green surplus will not be lost, but will travel along the seabed to Tenerife, drastically reducing the burning of fossil fuels on both shores. The technical challenge: engineering to the limit. Connecting two volcanic islands separated by abyssal trenches is not an easy task. As emphasized The Daythe 36 kilometer length of the cable descends to 1,145 meters below sea level. This extreme depth makes it the deepest tripolar alternating current link on the entire planet, snatching the record that linked Crete and the Peloponnese since 2021. To withstand the weight and crushing pressure of the ocean at these levels, engineering had to reinvent itself. To do this, they had to discard the traditional use of steel and lead, opting instead for an ultralight synthetic material armor and an insulation based on ethylene and propylene rubber. Caring for the environment was also a priority. In order not to destroy coastal biodiversity or alter shallow volcanic beds, from The Confidential detail that it was used the “directed drilling” technique: an underground microtunnel that allows the cable to exit to the sea hundreds of meters from the beach. Likewise, the terrestrial substations use GIS (gas-insulated) technology to occupy the minimum possible space, and their buildings have been camouflaged imitating greenhouses and agricultural terraces to integrate into the landscape. Laying underwater bridges. The milestone of La Gomera and Tenerife is just the beginning. Future planning, as pointed out The Daycontemplates the colossal challenge of joining Fuerteventura with Gran Canaria, an even greater challenge given that the distance between the two exceeds 100 kilometers. Parallel to the electrical revolution, the Canary Islands are experiencing an unprecedented leap in their telecommunications. As these local media detailthere are more projects like BASE 6, promoted by the public company Canalink. This is a new 328 kilometer fiber optic cable with a budget of 19 million euros that will link Tenerife with El Hierro, landing through a drilling on Tamaduste beach. This data highway, with a capacity of 5 terabits per second, seeks to eradicate the digital divide on the most remote island, guaranteeing services such as telemedicine or online education. The invisible network. The Canary Islands not only look inward. As contextualized by OCTSI (Canary Telecommunications Observatory), the archipelago has been functioning for decades as a global strategic node, surrounded by historic fiber rings and international connections such as Telefónica’s PENCAN cables, currently in the process of renovation. However, this strategic position has its geopolitical edges. An extensive report from my colleague for Xataka focuses on network extension from Canalink to Africa. The Canary Islands are financing a cable to the Moroccan city of Tarfaya with European funds. The problem lies in the fact that Morocco intends to extend this infrastructure towards Western Sahara, a movement that clashes head-on with the rulings of the EU Court of Justice and that threatens to place Spain at the center of a complex diplomatic and legal conflict with the Polisario Front. Overcoming geographic isolation. At 1,145 meters under the scrutiny of the waves, where sunlight does not reach and the pressure is unbearable, the heartbeat that unites two islands now runs. The Canary Islands are managing to transform their greatest geographical weakness—fragmentation and isolation—into a true global showcase of technological innovation. Little by little, the old and noisy combustion engines give way to a future that will be inescapably green, and deeply interconnected. Image | OCTSI Xataka | The Canary Islands are going to lay a submarine cable to Morocco. If Morocco decides to extend it, Spain is going to have a big problem

Going to the mountains to go hiking is increasingly popular in Spain. And those who are suffering are the golden eagles

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Go on the weekend to take a route through the countryside It is a plan that can be very playful and, above all, healthy for us humans. But… What happens to the native fauna of the area? This is a question that It’s starting to resonate a lot on the internet.by focusing on the impact that our presence in the mountains can have on the most emblematic species of Spain such as the golden eagle or the partridge that have begun to have a lesser presence. A technological solution. The main idea that was in mind was that the animals were crashing into the hikers and causing great damage to their presence on the mountain. But to solve this mystery, biologists chose to put a GPS device on the eagles to monitor what they were doing. And the reality is that they are not crashing into us, but rather they are fleeing. The result. In this way, when it is confirmed that we do not have any type of collision with the eagles that could respond to their change in behavior, we have to go where they go when we humans are in the mountains. The University of Valencia in 2019 led this investigationdetecting that without a doubt there is a “weekend effect.” This effect can be seen in telemetry data which shows that during Saturdays and Sundays, the eagles are forced to modify their hunting routes. All this to avoid humans who, among other things, may be scaring away their targets on the ground. A greater expense. When these birds have to go to other areas to look for food because of hikers, they have to cover a longer distance than they are normally used to. This only means greater physiological stress and energy expenditure that can compromise their reproduction or survival, even if they never touch a human. But in addition, this translates into a situation known as ‘Landscape of Fear’, where the animal perceives the human not as a physical obstacle, but as a potential predator, which triggers its stress and cortisol levels, affecting its ability to breed. The real threats. To understand the real danger that these birds are in, we must look at the different mortality statistics in Spain. In this case, although a sedentary lifestyle causes great discomfort to the animals, the causes of death are much more industrial and violent. According to the studies collected, such as those of the GER-EA projectthe main cause of death is collision with power lines and electrocution. This is followed by poisoning and shooting, with 13 and 8% respectively. But what is clear is that humans are not a direct cause of death due to collisions with us when we are sedentary in the countryside. Distinction matters. Stating that eagles collide with hikers may sound spectacular, but it diverts attention from the real problem that we can solve as mountain users. The study in Ecology and Evolution (2025) and data from Ecologists in Action They point out that the problem is Yontrusion into breeding areas. Climbing, off-road vehicles and off-road hiking near the nests cause the adults to abandon the nest or the chicks, leaving them exposed to the cold or predators. Images | Mathew Schwartz In Xataka | Japan has been looking at its bears in fear for months due to a record wave of attacks. Now he looks at them with something else: gluttony

Science is on the verge of achieving something that would end our human experience as we knew it: suffering

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The Holy Grail of modern pain medicine has always been the same: achieving the analgesic power of morphine without its side effects such as respiratory depression, addiction or tolerance. And although until now it seemed impossible, one study has suggested that the key is not to ‘numb’ the body, but to ‘attack’ the way the brain processes suffering. The study. A team led by Gregory Corder of the University of Pennsylvania has developed a gene therapy that acts as a “switch” for chronic pain. What is revolutionary is not just that it works, but how it does it: it eliminates the emotional distress of pain without erasing the protective physical sensation, keeping the patient safe but free from suffering. The problem is not feeling, it is suffering. Pain has two very clear components: one that is sensory, which is necessary to human survival (as it is to withdraw the hand when we get burned), and the other is the affective or the emotional. This second is what generates the feeling of constant suffering that can destroy the quality of life of a patient who lives with chronic pain or neuropathic pain that affects the nervous system, such as the hated ‘sciatica’. According to the study, titled, the researchers identified a specific group of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). These neurons are sensitive to opioids and are responsible for encoding the “unpleasantness” of pain, and this is where they have tried to attack, but surgically and without pills. The tool used. The scientists used a tool known as DREADD (Designer Receptors Activated Exclusively by Designer Drugs). To do this, through a viral vector, they inserted synthetic receptors specifically into the cingulate cortex neurons of mice with neuropathic pain. From there, they administered a drug that has no effect called DCZ. This compound, despite not doing anything to the body in mice, acts as a key that “turns off” the neurons that have been modified in their brain in a very specific way. The result. The chronic pain behavior disappeared and they began to act like completely healthy animals. However, when exposed to an acute thermal stimulus, they were able to withdraw their paw. In this way, his survival system was working, but his anxiety system was completely turned off. The AI ​​that reads pain. One of the biggest challenges in pain research is that mice can’t tell us “it hurts a 7 out of 10,” which is why scientists classically relied on biased tests. But this is over thanks to an AI called LUPEwhich is a Deep Learning platform and has the ability to analyze hundreds of hours of video of mice moving freely. But what is relevant here is that it has the ability to detect spontaneous micro-behaviors associated with pain that the human eye would miss. Thanks to LUPE, the team was able to objectively confirm that the pain relief was real and not an error of human interpretation. The opioid crisis. The most promising thing about the study published a few days ago is the security profile. Unlike morphine, which generates tolerance, that is, more and more doses of medication are needed to have an effect, and addiction, this gene therapy is completely the opposite. In this way, it does not generate addiction, meaning that the mouse does not have to seek a higher dose to maintain that sensation and the effect remained stable. The arrival of humans. Although the success in mice is resounding, the jump to humans is complex, since we are really different and requires many more safety studies. However, the path is set. The team is already planning the next steps towards clinical trials, although it is something that may take many years to become a reality in our daily lives. Images | Sasun Bughdaryan In Xataka | We have accepted that sport is “medicine” for the body. Now science is discovering its side effects

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