survive

To survive the end of oil, China has resurrected an old German technology from World War II: turning coal into plastic

by

While the world assumes that China’s energy transition is based exclusively on solar panels and electric vehicles — and, in part, it is, consolidating as the first great ‘electrostate’—, reality hides a much darker side. Faced with the outbreak of the Third Gulf War, Beijing has not even flinched. Beyond its immense strategic oil reserves, the secret of its resistance lies in an even more daring maneuver: the resurrection of German technology from World War II. An old German technology. Faced with the instability of oil imports, China has perfected the use of coal to produce petrochemical products. This synthesis technology (historically known as the process of fischer–Tropsch) was originally developed by Germany to sustain its military economy during World War II. Although it is widely known in the chemical industry, its main defect has always been the enormous pollution it generated. China has improved it. Far from settling for an outdated process, Chinese researchers have radically improved it. According to the state agency Xinhuaa team from Peking University has achieved a historic breakthrough by adding a minimal amount of methyl bromide (five parts per million) to the catalytic process. This surgically “turns off” the pathway that forms carbon dioxide as a byproduct, reducing these emissions from 30% to less than 1% and opening the door to near-green manufacturing to convert coal-derived synthesis gas (syngas) into olefins, the building blocks of plastics. At an industrial level, expansion is already a fact. As detailed South China Morning Postin Turpan prefecture (Xinjiang), construction has just begun on the world’s largest coal-to-ethylene glycol (a toxic compound used for plastics and antifreeze) project, with an astonishing capacity of 2.4 million tons per year. Even, as the magazine highlighted ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineeringresearch is being carried out on how to integrate this process (called PFTO) to chemically recycle tons of plastic waste, converting it into syngas and then back into light olefins. Did you see it coming? It is not the first time that China decides to take sides and prevent rather than cure. The Asian giant has decided to completely decouple its industry from maritime vulnerabilities and Western influence. “This is not China’s war, but Beijing began preparing for it years ago,” points out The New York Times. Everything accelerated during Donald Trump’s first term, prompting President Xi Jinping to demand complete “self-sufficiency” that would insulate China from any disruption to foreign supply chains. Time has proven them right. The war in Iran has brutally increased the price of crude oil, suffocating international petrochemical competitors that depend on black gold. In contrast, local Chinese coal has only gotten cheaper. According to Reutersthis has been a financial triumph: shares of companies such as Ningxia Baofeng Energy, which produces millions of tons of chemicals from coal, have risen 30% since the start of the conflict, while traditional Asian refiners such as Rongsheng Petrochemical have lost up to 27% of their stock market value. Furthermore, the Chinese media analyzed by Carbon Brief They insist on a unanimous nationalist message: in the face of a real emergency, coal is the only resource that the nation truly controls, acting as the great “ballast” guarantor of its national security. A change to other sectors. The change is undeniable. As revealed Bloombergthe country’s main coal miner, China Shenhua Energy, has cut its overall budget by 16%, but has almost doubled its investment in coal-to-chemical conversion, from 2.5 billion to 4.1 billion yuan by 2026. But at a devouring pace, as The New York Times provides information that measures the phenomenon: in 2020, China used 155 million tons of coal to manufacture chemicals; by 2024, the figure jumped to 276 million, and in 2025 it grew another 15%, single-handedly exceeding the total annual coal consumption of the entire United States. The research center CREATE confirms this trend in its reportconfirming that the use of coal in the chemical industry grew by 20% year-on-year only in the first half of 2025. Added to this is that, as the American media explains80% of Chinese nitrogen fertilizer (a third of the world’s supply) is already made with coal rather than oil or gas, allowing Beijing to keep its product at less than half the global market price. Behind it there is a very high cost. All this bold industrial maneuver has a severe climate cost that is already setting off international alarms. China’s draft 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) has set extremely cautious climate goals. As the experts explain CREATE and collect Financial Timesthe set goal of reducing carbon intensity by only 17% is “disappointing” and leaves room for the country’s emissions to continue growing between 3% and 6% in real terms over the next five years. This new government plan de facto reverses the international promise to “phase down” coal consumption, replacing it with a consumption “plateau” and explicitly protecting the large-scale expansion of the coal-based petrochemical industry. Only chemical projects already planned to be built between now and 2029 could increase China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 2%. The forecasts are resounding. According to Bloomberg, By 2030, China’s chemical roadmap will massively stop using oil as a primary fuel (thanks to the adoption of its electric vehicles) and will take advantage of its modernized facilities to seek 85% self-sufficiency in all advanced materials and chemicals, displacing traditional giants. A feared crisis of overcapacity. The European ideas laboratory MERICS warns of collateral consequences: The Chinese domestic economy, with consumer confidence stagnant since the pandemic, has no way to absorb all this gigantic new production of materials and plastics. As a direct result, Chinese factories are forced to export their immense surpluses to the rest of the world at fire sale prices. This aggressive price war propelled China’s trade surplus to a stratospheric record of $1.2 trillion in 2025. According to the complaint MERICSthese massive exports are cannibalizing the industrial base of other nations; In the European Union alone, up to 500 manufacturing jobs are being lost daily due to the total … Read more

If the question is how to survive the tsunami of information in the age of AI, the answer is simple: learning not to read

by

This morning I counted the open tabs on Day, my browser. Twenty-five. There was a Counterpoint analysis there that I opened five days ago to read “as soon as I can” but that I haven’t touched yet. A very good looking thread from X. Three newsletters to medium scrollwaiting for me like half-done homework. And so on a few more things. I’ve been writing about technology for fifteen years. My job is literally to read, filter and think about what I read. And yet, or precisely because of that, it is increasingly difficult for me to distinguish when I am informing myself from when I am simply moving my eyes. We have been treating reading as a virtue in itself for centuries. “Read more” has always been the universal advice, the automatic response to almost any shortcoming. AND tmade sense when the problem was the scarcity of sources. But the problem began to be different and we continued the same, with the same reflection. The mistake is that we have transferred the respect and moral inertia that we had for a good book to formats that do not deserve it. We read an endless thread of X, a marketing PDF or a newsletter inflated feeling that passing your eyes over that text is a meritorious act by default. It is no longer. Or at least, not always. I know this goes against me. AI has broken the equation in a way that borders on absurd comedy. Today anyone generates a ten-page report on any topic in three minutes. Any creator inflates an idea of ​​a paragraph until it fills a thousand words without adding a single new piece of information, just trash. And the great paradox is something we saw coming a long time ago: Our best defense is to use that same technology. We live in a loop where A machine lengthens a text to make it seem important, and we use another machine to summarize it for us in three bullets and thus save us the procedure. Some give the badge and others neutralize it. The amount of text available is no longer related to the knowledge it contains. There are more words than ever because it is easier than ever to generate them, but It is not at all clear that there are more ideas. What is growing is the pressure to consume them all. I feel like, often, that fear of being left out seems like intellectual curiosity when what’s underneath is simple FOMO. Traditional functional illiteracy consisted of deciphering the letters but not understanding a word of what they said. The new one looks more like the opposite: We understand each text perfectly, but we have lost the ability to decide if it deserves to be read.. We don’t filter. We do not rule out. We don’t say “this is bullshit that doesn’t give me anything.” Not enough. And we don’t do it because discarding information is something that we continue to feel like a loss, like an act of laziness that gives us away. But it is just the opposite. The ability to not read (identify in three seconds that something is not worth your next ten minutes) is today an act of intelligence that contributes almost as much as reading itself. And for that you need to develop your own red flag. In my case, if a text promises a revelation but the first paragraph is pure introductory nonsense, get out. If I sense grandiloquent adjectives and filling robotic structures, out. If there is not a single piece of data before the first scroll, on the run. I don’t even mention the monoline structure so common in X and LinkedIn. There, it directly catapults. When ChatGPT arrived, many of us thought that the risk of AI was that people would stop reading. It may be worse: that you read more than ever without thinking more than ever. Let it process without digesting. Accumulate information like someone who accumulates open tabs, with the vague promise of returning to them. We know he won’t. We never go back. I know this because I haven’t closed those twenty-five tabs all week and in the end I will close them all at once, without reading them, with a mixture of relief and guilt. But I have begun to understand that closing tabs suddenly after having selected the most interesting thing is a very healthy practice. In the end, the new functional illiterate is too much like my browser this morning: overloaded with tabs, full of promises to read, and completely unable to process a single more idea. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka

the heir of the DVD to survive streaming

by

Video StoreAgea distributor founded by former Sundance Festival programmer Ash Cook, sells independent films on encrypted USB drives and splits the revenue 50/50 with the filmmakers. The project arrives at a time when the festival circuit no longer guarantees distribution for the majority of titles and physical support is experiencing a recovery that no one expected. The origin. Ash Cook spent years as a programmer at the Sundance festival, specializing in independent film, always listening to the same conversation. Filmmakers, sales agents, distributors and acquisitions managers agreed on the same diagnosis: independent film distribution was broken. The Cook’s response to these questions was to found Video StoreAge together with Aidan Dick, head of communications for another specialized festival, Frameline, with a specific proposal: to sell indie films on encrypted USB drives. The company launched its first collection in February 2026 and has several presentations planned in Los Angeles on March 18, 19 and 21. The first USB includes, among other titles, ‘Heightened Scrutiny’ by Sam Feder and the extraordinary ‘The People’s Joker’ by Vera Drew (which you can check out on Filmin), a trans autobiographical parody of the Batman universe that has accumulated a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. The data. In 2025 only 19 films coming from Sundance Distribution was secured in the United States, compared to 30 in 2024 and 38 in 2019. Only 11% of films selected at top-level festivals end up selling rights to the entire world. By 2025, only half of the ten documentaries in competition at Sundance found distribution. They are very weak numbers and some professionals blame the streaminglittle concerned about this independent cinema, by ending an entire sector of medium-sized distributors that absorbed the most risky titles. The third way. Video StoreAge’s proposal is similar in spirit to a DVD: a physical copy of the movies, they can be played on any computer, and it is yours forever, without depending on platforms. Each quarter, the company releases a collection of five feature films and five short films on encrypted USB drives (using patent-pending technology). Files are played using a built-in player and cannot be copied or ripped. They are sold by quarterly subscription, in individual packages, or combined at the buyer’s choice. The short films are free extras. How the money is distributed. Video StoreAge splits the profits 50/50 with the filmmakers and only acquires the physical distribution rights, leaving the filmmaker free to seek distribution in theaters, streaming platforms or any other means. At the moment the scale is modest, around 20 titles in the first year. A partnership with the latest alternative festival Slamdance (perhaps the most notable indie festival outside of Sundance) allowed them to offer two titles as limited editions during the festival itself, ‘Danny Is My Boyfriend’ and ‘The Bulldogs’, before their official release. The return of the physicist. Curiously, this happens in a very peculiar context: DVD, Blu-ray and 4K UHD sales fell just 9% in 2025, compared to declines of more than 20% in the previous two years. The unexpected culprit: Generation Z and for two reasons. First, the fatigue of streaming and second, the unreliability of digital catalogues, with films that disappear without prior notice due to expired contracts or tax reasons. All this while the premium 4K UHD segment grows 12% year-on-year. The parallel with the resurgence of vinyl is inevitable, although at the moment this return of DVD does not have an industrial infrastructure behind it to support it, but it does have many specialized publishing labels such as Criterion or Arrow. What remains to be resolved. There are questions to answer: Video StoreAge has not detailed the technical specifications of the medium or publicly addressed issues of long-term durability of flash memories, a weak point compared to pressed optical discs that, when well preserved, do not suffer data degradation. On the other hand, the target audience for this product, willing to pay for indie films on an alternative physical medium, is small. Enough to be profitable? In Xataka | For years Blu-ray resisted streaming: now Sony has decided to close the chapter on its home recorders

is to survive long enough to get the uranium out of there

by

Extracting radioactive material in conflict zones is one of the more complex missions that exist and usually requires highly specialized equipment, millimeter protocols and logistics comparable to that of a large-scale military operation. Plus: unlike other interventions, it is not enough to reach the objective. Because exposure time, safety of the environment and subsequent transportation are critical factors that they condition everything. Nuclear objective without clear plan. Officially, the United States has presented the war against Iran as an operation aimed at preventing Tehran get nuclear weaponsbut reality is stubborn and somewhat more ambiguous. Because while the official discourse insists on eliminating this threat, operational decisions show that the focus is right now in degrading missiles and dronesnot so much in securing enriched uranium. This contradiction has generated criticism even within the own political systemby showing that there is no clear strategy to solve the key element of the problem. The core of the problem. It we count a week ago. In reality, the critical point is not the bombed facilities, but the material that has survived to those attacks. We are talking about hundreds of kilos of highly enriched uranium that remain buried in underground complexes like Isfahan or Natanz, protected by rubble and structures designed precisely to resist attacks. That stock, a prioriis enough to bring Iran closer to a nuclear capability if it decides to reactivate, making it the most valuable and dangerous asset in the conflict. The strategic dilemma: leave. And here emerges the key idea that defines the entire “nuclear” situation: the United States’ problem right now is not simply to invade Iran, but survive long enough to get the uranium out of there. The reason? Recovering that material would involve deploying hundreds or thousands of soldierssecure hostile perimeters, excavate collapsed tunnels, and operate for days under constant threat from drones, missiles, and asymmetric attacks. The difficulty, therefore, is not only in locating it, but in maintain the forces on the ground the time necessary to extract and evacuate it safely. Extreme complexity. Experts describe this hypothetical mission as one of the most complex never raised in recent war history. Mainly because it would be necessary to coordinate special forces, engineers, protection units and air resources, in addition to create improvised infrastructure to transport the material out of the country. All this in an environment where every minute increases the risk of casualties, sabotage or contamination, and where the operation could last longer than expected without guarantees of total success. The uncomfortable alternative. There is, as almost always, a plan B. Given this scenario, the option that seems to prevail right now is the simplest: avoid operation and rely on deterrence. There is no doubt, this implies assuming that the uranium will remain in Iran, under indirect surveillance, with the apparent threat of new attacks if an attempt is made to recover or enrich it. Plus: this solution does not remove the “official” problem which gave rise to an entire war, if anything it only freezes it, leaving open the possibility that the country reactivates its program in the future. A latent risk. Under these scenarios, the result stages a conflict that has weakened capabilities visible, but has left intact the most determining elementor at least the one that has given rise to giving free rein to the war machinery to two (+1) nations. Meanwhile, the kilos of buried uranium have become a permanent pressure factorboth for Iran and its adversaries. And, above all, it reveals a most disturbing paradox, because you can win an air war and still lose control of the central strategic objective. Unless, of course, that wasn’t the goal. Image | x In Xataka | The US has asked all its allies in Hormuz for help. The answer he received was anticipated by Spain before anyone else: “no” In Xataka | The world is desperately asking Ukraine for its antidote to the Shahed. And Ukraine has decided to keep them for its war

The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The problem is that now it needs its oil to survive

by

In December 2025, we said goodbye to the year by telling Vladimir Putin a resounding da svidániya (До свида́ния). The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, pompously announced a political agreement to end Russian gas imports (both by pipeline and liquefied) by 2027. The political message was crystal clear: Europe wanted to show that it was no longer dependent on Moscow. The blackmail was over. But in its eagerness to celebrate the blackout of Russian gas, Brussels forgot a small detail: Putin’s oil still runs through the veins of Eastern Europe. And the embargo, in reality, has lasted very little. Barely three months later, physical reality has imposed itself on diplomacy. Today we find ourselves with a brutal paradox: the same European Union that designed an unprecedented economic war architecture against Moscow, and that asked its citizens to make sacrifices in the name of collective security, is now pressuring invaded Ukraine to open the tap on Russian crude oil. Deep down in the Kremlin, Putin always knew that the laws of politics rarely win against dependence on infrastructure. The epicenter of this crisis has its own name: the Druzhba pipeline (Interestingly, “friendship” in Russian). As revealed by an exclusive from Financial Timesthe EU is pressuring kyiv to allow inspection and repair of this infrastructure that transports Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. The problem lies in a Russian attack that occurred on January 27. As detailed ReutersUkrainian Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal confirmed that a bombing severely damaged the sensors and internal equipment of the infrastructure. The story is expanded by the CEO of Naftogaz, Sergii Koretskyi, in statements to Financial Times: The attack caused a storage tank with 75,000 cubic meters of oil to catch fire, unleashing a fire the size of a football field that took 10 days to extinguish. Ukraine claims that repairing this in the middle of war is slow and dangerous. However, Hungary and Slovakia do not buy this version. According to EuronewsPrime Ministers Viktor Orbán and Robert Fico have created a joint investigative committee, demanding immediate access to the area. Orbán has gone further, accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of lying and orchestrating “state terrorism” and, together with Fico, demands that an independent investigation mission be deployed on the ground to verify the damage, something that kyiv refuses for security reasons in the middle of the war. The perfect storm in the Middle East Europe is not asking Ukraine for this favor on a whim, but out of pure survival. And to understand it you have to look to the Middle East. The recent coordinated attack by the US and Israel against Iran, which culminated in the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has unleashed chaos. The Iranian response has caused a blockage de facto of the Strait of Hormuz, 20% of the world’s daily oil supply passes through this maritime funnel. The impact has been devastating: hundreds of ships are paralyzed, insurance premiums have shot up by up to 50% and the daily cost of renting a supertanker has risen by 600%. This has destroyed European plans.As analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera emphasizesEuropean sanctions have collided head-on with thermodynamics, and thermodynamics has won. With the EU’s gas reserves at 30% in mid-February, Qatar’s LNG trapped after the Hormuz blockade and the alternatives of Norway, Algeria and the US at the limit of their capacity, Europe has been left without a plan B. “The EU does not return to Russian oil because it wants to, it returns because it has no other option,” says Perera. So, are we once again dependent on Russia? For some EU countries, dependency was never cut. According to The Moscow TimesHungary and Slovakia continued to enjoy legal exemptions from European sanctions and were almost 100% dependent on the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, receiving some 150,000 barrels per day in January. The reason is purely economic, since Russian crude oil is between 13% and 20% cheaper. Although Croatia has offered its Adria pipeline (JANAF) to ship non-Russian oil to these countries, Euronews explains that Budapest resists. Orbán considers that it is not commercially viable, demands that Croatia allow the passage of sanctioned Russian oil and defends that its energy security cannot be an “ideological” issue. Curiously, while Europe suffers from its dependence, Russia observes the crisis of its allies from afar. According to an analysis of the cnnFollowing Khamenei’s death, the Kremlin has issued strong verbal condemnations but has refused to provide real military aid to Iran. Ukrainian military analysts note that Russia even refused to “blind” Israeli radars using its bases in Syria. Moscow, bogged down in Ukraine, does not have the resources to open new fronts, demonstrating that its alliances are more transactional than strategic. The pipeline crisis has mutated into lethal financial blackmail for kyiv. As noted Financial TimesHungary has vetoed the approval of an EU aid package for Ukraine worth €90 billion (scheduled for 2026-2027). Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó made it clear: there will be no money until oil flows through the Druzhba again. In Brussels, the European Commission is looking for shortcuts. Euronews points out that complex legal options are being consideredsuch as invoking Article 327 (which prevents countries excluded from an agreement from blocking the rest) or using the withholding of defense funds (the SAFE program) to pressure Orbán, who is in the midst of an election campaign. In the midst of the crossfire, diplomacy tries to survive. Deutsche Welle reports that Zelensky remains open to negotiating an end to the war with Russia. Although the talks were scheduled for March in Abu Dhabi, the instability in the Middle East due to Iranian missiles has led the Ukrainian leader to propose moving the dialogue table to Switzerland or Turkey. The great silent winner and European weakness While the West hyperventilates, calm reigns in Asia. China foresaw this scenario and he has been shielding himself for years. During 2025, $10 billion was spent … Read more

In 2020, humanity was confined by covid. And that caused a species of bird to modify its beak to survive

by

During the COVID-19 pandemic the world stopped completely. Something that scientists have named ‘anthropause‘: a sudden silence of human activity that left many of us confined at home and that even affected nature. This effect was so extreme that even a species of bird changed its beak as science has now seen. The study. Although in the past we saw some disorders in nature, such as the appearance of wild boars in Barcelona or dolphins in Venetian ports, now a team from UCLA has gone further. a study published in PNAS indicates that a population of urban birds modified his physical anatomy in record time. The objective they had was to survive the absence of humans at that time. But the most surprising thing is that when everything returned to normal and humans began to go outside, the birds returned to their original beak. The dilemma. To understand the discovery, you first have to know the protagonists: the dark eyed juncos. Some small birds that are very common in the field of the University of California in Los Angeles. Before 2020, these birds had short, wide beaks. Something that makes perfect sense, since they were in an environment full of students and, therefore, His diet was based on leftovers. that were left This is why it needed to have a robust beak to handle these ‘artificial’ foods. In contrast, their relatives that live in wild forests have longer, thinner beaks, designed like precision tweezers to search for insects and seeds hidden in vegetation. The pandemic. When UCLA closed its doors in 2020 and the students disappeared, so did the easy food. And this was where the university researchers saw a unique opportunity to study what happens when you eliminate humans from the ecological equation. The results. What was seen in this case is the new generations of reeds that were born precisely in this time of ‘loneliness’ they developed longer and thinner beaks. All this because since there was no human garbage, they had to behave like wild birds again, foraging on the ground and looking for food alternatives. But what was most fascinating happened after the reopening. As soon as students (and their snacks) returned to campus in 2022, the morphology of the peaks quickly reverted to the urban form with a short, thick shape. This is ultimately an extremely rapid evolutionary change that is very rare to see. A change of mind. What makes this study so relevant to the scientific community is the speed of the field. Generally, we think of evolution as a process that takes thousands of years. However, what we observed here suggests that urban species have a much more elastic capacity for adaptation than we believed. Since it’s not just the peak. Previous studies by the same team had already noted behavioral changes: during the pandemic, these birds lost their fear of humans, becoming less aggressive and more curious, although that behavior also readjusted with our return. Its importance. This case is a brutal reminder of our ecological footprint. We don’t just alter the climate or the landscape; our mere presence and our waste acts as an evolutionary force that shapes the biology of the animals around us like these birds. The UCLA rushes have taught us that nature is not static; It is a dynamic system that reacts to our habits almost in real time. The question that remains in the air is: if a couple of years of silence changed the shape of a bird, what other invisible changes are we causing without realizing it? Images | Vincent van Zalinge David Mitran In Xataka | The insects of Antarctica had been living peacefully for thousands of years. Until microplastics arrived

Since I know that combustion cars will survive 2035, there is one that I dream about. And it’s not a Porsche or a Ferrari

by

If you are one of those who like the world of automobiles, it is almost impossible that you have not heard about it. The European Commission has proposed maintaining cars with combustion engines. Indeed, we have not been wrong. Europe has not approved anything yet, the European Commission has made its proposal and now it has to be approved by the European Parliament and the Member States (the Council of the EU). Seeing how positions within the European Union have evolved in the last three years, everything indicates that if this proposal is not approved we will see something very similar to what has already been published. This proposal, as we tell in this article, anticipates a future where, indeed, we will have combustion cars. But they will be restricted to a few exceptions. With the obligation to maintain the average emissions below 11.6 gr/km of CO2 in its fleet To avoid possible fines, brands will have to continue selling enormous volumes of electric cars. The measure has been called by some analysts such as Mathias Schmidtt of “Porsche amendment”. And it is these types of vehicles that will continue to have combustion engines at exorbitant prices. Luckily, if everything goes the same, we can continue to see a Porsche 911 with a combustion engine or a Ferrari with its good V12. But it seems almost impossible for us to see affordable cars with this type of technology. Does that mean that every sports car will be electric? Most probably will be. But if this new regulation is approved, at least the door will be open to seeing a type of vehicle that we have little studied in Europe. One with which Mazda wants to keep alive a sports option in its range. The new wording opens the door for our dream of seeing the Mazda Iconic SP becoming a reality to be closer. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? Let’s dream about him It was November 2023 when Mazda dropped a bomb at the Tokyo Motor Show. It was at that time when he presented the Mazda Iconic SP, a beautiful prototype with retractable headlights and proportions halfway between the Mazda MX-5 and the Mazda RX-7two of his legendary cars. Very few details were given about the car but enough to understand that its return may be viable even with the expected emissions reduction. It was said that it was an extended range electric car. That is, a kind of plug-in hybrid where a rotary engine supports the vehicle to generate electricity and send it to the battery. The electric motors are what drive the wheels by taking electricity from the battery. A battery just enough for daily trips in electric mode but supported by a rotary motor allowed the car to have 370 HP but, above all, a weight of 1,430 kg. A low figure for an electric car, in line with Mazda’s philosophy of always trying to keep weight at bay. And the company has made it very clear on repeated occasions that they do not believe in electric cars with long ranges, among other things because of the excess weight it causes in their cars. He Mazda MX-30 electric and its 1,720 kg weight is a good example of how batteries affect this aspect. But its extended range version is also a good example of how they are already using this technology. The passage of time, however, seemed to be making things complicated for the company. In a recent interview with Coachhis Masahi Nakayama, head of the sports car’s design, said that it was the car of his dreams and that “technically it is viable” but the problem was in the costs. It has logic. For a brand as small as Mazda, putting a vehicle that will presumably be niche on the road is a huge risk. The eccentricities, the different cars, are reserved for huge companies like Toyota or vehicles that can remain on the market. If the company could not emit CO2 emissions in Europe in 2035 it would be another market that would be closed. The European market is, in fact, the most interesting market for this car. In China, customers They have looked at another type of vehicle more technological inside. In the United States the electric car is not taking off and There doesn’t seem to be any intention for it.. Only Europe and Japan seem to be areas where sales can be made, but the first market still has a ban on selling cars with combustion engines approved, which prevents a commercial life long enough to guarantee its viability. However, approving the European Commission’s proposal leaves the door open to seeing this sports car on the street. First because it would be complying with the regulations and second because, given that it is a niche car with few sales expected, it would be easy to offset the emissions with other vehicles from the firm or with the purchase of emissions credits. It remains to be seen, however, the future of Mazda in Europe. The restrictions are so tough over the next 10 years that they threaten to thin the firm’s product portfolio. Right now, its only competitive electric comes from China and the second model It will also be a purely Chinese car. The rest of its range is made up of cars with large combustion engines with emissions that go well above the 93.6 gr/km of CO2 with which they have to comply in 2027. What is certain is that a change of this type in the regulations paves the way for a different car. One of those cars that are worth dreaming about to break the monotony of an increasingly standardized market. Photo | Mazda In Xataka | Mazda wants to reinvent the electric car with an electric car that is not entirely electric. In China they have improved the idea

Australia’s idea to survive its own solar success

by

In Australia, solar energy has gone from being the promise of the future to a problem of the present. There is so much sun, and so many panels, that the electrical grid is reeling from excess production. During the middle of the day, millions of rooftops feed electricity back into the system, generating more energy than the grid can absorb without losing stability. At that time, wholesale prices fall to zero and even negative values. The solution that the Australian government has found is as simple as it is disruptive: giving away electricity for three hours a day. The challenge of excess. Australia has been experiencing its particular energy paradox for years: the transition towards renewables has advanced so quickly that the system is beginning to suffer its consequences. More than four million homes —one in three— have solar panels on their roofs. This distributed generation already produces more electricity than all the coal plants still active. According to Reutersthe program, dubbed “Solar Sharer”, will allow millions of homes to access three hours of free energy a day, even those who do not have solar panels. “People who can move their electricity consumption to the zero-cost period will benefit directly, whether or not they have solar panels and are homeowners or tenants,” explained Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Energy for everyone. The plan is not optional for electricity companies: the Australian Government will require them to offer three hours of free electricity each day during the midday solar peak. The measure will start in 2026 in New South Wales, South Australia and southeast Queensland, and will be extended to the rest of the country if it works as expected. To make it possible, the Executive will modify the Default Market Offer (BMD)the benchmark fee that limits what retailers can charge. From now on, that rate will include a daily slot of zero cost, just when the grid is saturated with solar energy. Participating households must have a smart meter and reorganize their consumption: run the washing machine, charge the car or turn on the air conditioning when the sun is at its highest. A double objective. On the one hand, it seeks to relieve pressure on the grid and reduce emissions. According to the Financial Timesthe plan seeks to utilize excess solar capacity and rebalance the electrical grid to reduce dependence on coal and gas. Tim Buckley, director of the Climate Energy Finance think tank, called it an “obvious” measure, as it will create a “demand pool” in the middle of the day, helping to stabilize the system. The Australian Government has been committed to accelerating the energy transition for some time. In 2022, Bowen set a goal for 82% of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030, as detailed by Reuters. Initiatives like the Solar Sharer They are added to the subsidy for domestic batteries, which will allow part of that free energy to be stored for night use. Not everyone is happy. The Australian Energy Council (AEC), the consortium that brings together the main electricity companies, criticized the Government for not having consulted the sector before the announcement. Its executive director, Louise Kinnear, warned that “Lack of consultation risks damaging sector confidence and generating unintended consequences.” Additionally, some companies fear the plan will increase network costs and force smaller retailers out of the market. According to FTemployers fear that the measure will distort competition, although defenders of the plan assure that the real risk is not acting in the face of a saturated network. Despite this, large players such as AGL Energy and Ovo Energy have shown willingness to collaborate with the Government to define the technical details. From Australia to Spain. The Australian proposal has sparked interest in other sunny countries, especially in southern Europe, where solar energy has also grown explosively. From there the inevitable question arises: can we replicate it in Spain? Being one of the largest photovoltaic powers in Europe and with negative price episodes In the electricity market, it is logical to consider this possibility. However, the Spanish electrical system goes through a phase of instability: while the south of the peninsula produces more solar energy than it consumes, the north continues to depend on gas plants, the only ones capable of providing the “inertia” necessary to stabilize the network. Although the hourly tariff system and smart meters would allow the Australian measure to be technically replicated, the European framework prevents offering free electricity directly. The price is set in the wholesale market, managed by OMIE, and the State cannot intervene except through subsidies or discounts. In short: Spain has the sun and the technology, but not the regulatory flexibility. As noted by analyst Joaquín Coronado“we have the generation of the future, but we continue to use the crutches of the past.” The global experiment. Giving away electricity to avoid a collapse of the grid may seem contradictory, but it contains a lesson about the energy transition: the problem of the 21st century will not be producing energy, but managing it. While Europe debates how to lower the bill, Australia has chosen to share its excess. If the plan works, it could become a reference for other countries with strong solar penetration, such as Spain or Italy. In the words of Minister Chris Bowen“the more people take advantage of the offer and transfer their consumption, the greater the benefits will be for everyone.” Perhaps the future of energy is not just about paying less, but about using light when the sun gives it away. Image | Unsplash Xataka | 75% of the universe is made up of unknown matter. Australia has gone down to look for him in a mine

We are going to see a lot of strange things as platforms fight to survive

by

The platform war is increasing, and given the atomization that we have been seeing for years (each production company with its own platforms), we started attending to some apparently unnatural pairings but that make all the commercial sense in the world. The latest: Netflix wants to promote content that it had not entered into until now: podcasts. To do this, it partners with another digital communication giant, Spotify. From the digital hand. Netflix and Spotify have signed an agreement which can mark a turning point in the world of streaming audio and video. The pact will allow Netflix to distribute a selection of video podcasts produced by Spotify Studios and The Ringer, the label founded by sports journalist Bill Simmons and acquired by Spotify in 2020. The official launch is scheduled for early 2026 in the United States, with international expansion plans throughout the same year.​ Everyone against YouTube. The alliance places both companies in a competitive position against YouTube, until now a benchmark in the long-form video format with conversational content. Unlike what happens on the Google portal, where the main financing model is advertising, Netflix will not include ads, while Spotify will maintain control of the podcast advertising inventory, which reinforces its business strategy based on creator monetization more than in dependence on the user and subscriptions. The programs. Due to the language barrier, not well known outside the United States, although that could change. The initial catalog will include 16 video podcasts. Some of them are: The Bill Simmons Podcast: sport and pop culture. The Rewatchables: analysis of iconic films The Dave Chang Show: conversations about food culture. Conspiracy Theories and Serial Killers: true crime. Dissect: in-depth analysis of historical records. Also abundant sports programs, a specialty of The Ringer: The Ringer NBA Show, The Ringer NFL Show and Fairway Rollin’. Spotify and podcasts. Since 2023, Spotify is increasing its presence in the podcast landscape after years of heavy investments. The company invested more than a billion dollars in famous exclusive contractslike those of The Joe Rogan Experience or Call Her Daddy. But high costs and the evolution of the podcast landscape led it to abandon the exclusivity policy. For some time now it has decided to reinforce its bet on videosince the video podcasts register a growth twenty times greater than audio-only programs, according to account TechCrunch. Netflix wants variety. As for Netflix, this fits perfectly into its diversification policy: Ted Sarandos, co-CEO, had already advanced in April 2025 the intention to incorporate conversational and experimental video content. It is normal for it to join forces with Spotify to fight Youtubewhich has grown noticeably since the public began to stream your content from television. Two super two. The alliance also allows Spotify to avoid the high infrastructure costs that would entail maintaining its own streaming service. streaming videowhile Netflix obtains a volume of new content that does not require large production investments. It is a beneficial collaboration for both content giants: while Spotify expands the spaces where it can be consumed, Netflix diversifies its catalog with a reasonable investment. Header | kit in Unsplash / Netflix In Xataka | Spain is one of the most important “sets” in Europe: the platforms already invest 2,000 million in filming here

125,000 years ago the Neanderthals ate bones to survive. Today we discovered that they were right

by

In the police comedy Brooklyn 99during a party the detective Charles Boyle meets the gastronomic writer Vivian Ludley, with whom he talks about the last meal on earth. The policeman, in a clamor for his love of French food, chooses El Hortelano: a tiny French bird that eats a single bite, with skin, viscera and bones. “A challenge to God”, They call it. Vivian replies that the practice is illegal, But he confesses that he had academic permission to try one: “The peak was very crispy,” he recalls with fascination. The scene may seem eccentric, but opens a question that is not less: what is in the bones that makes them so valuable – at the same time so controversial – in the history of food? Western oblivion. For centuries, the bones were a natural part of the human diet. The neardentals They came to ride “Fats of fat” in places like Neumark-Nord (Germany), where 125,000 years ago they broke bones of deer, horses and cattle to extract marrow and heat fragments with water until obtainable lipids. It was not a whim: it was survival, a way to avoid the so -called starvation of the rabbit, caused by eating too much lean protein without sufficient fat. Later, many cultures continued with practice. In sub -Saharan Africa, for example, rural communities even chew long bones as part of the daily diet. In Asia it is common to eat flags and fins of fried fish until they are crispy. And in Europe, popular cuisine always turned to the thorns of canned sardines and anchovies, softened by sterilization. However, speaking today of what bones are as such, this practice of consuming them disappeared. Most meat reaches the clean, boneless plate, ready to avoid discomforts. The bone has been relegated to the secondary paper of the broth. As Chef Jennifer McLAGAN explains: “We no longer see bones as useful. People consider them a discomfort, something to get rid of.” But that perception begins to crack through The search for “superfood”and the bones are on the table again. What is inside the bones? The short response would be essential nutrients. But I will not be so simplistic, the bones are mainly formed by calcium and phosphorusin addition to containing iron, magnesium and potassium. In protein terms, up to a 25 and 33% of the content of an animal It corresponds to collagen, a key structural protein for bones, skin and joints. In my case, I discovered it by accident. After an injury doing crossfitthe traumatologist told me about the importance of collagen To recover fabrics. Beyond prescribing supplements – which also opened the door to the veal bone broths, rich in natural collagen. It was my first conscious contact with this part of the animal we usually throw without thinking. Science behind. In a National Geographic report describe how bones They are one of the denser tissues in nutrients: they provide collagen, fat marrow and minerals. But science clarifies. An article, Posted in Frontiers in Nutritionpoints out that the benefits are modest: some trials show minor improvements in skin and joints, although with methodological limitations. A meta -analysis in Orthopec Reviews It points positive effects on bone and articulating health, but insists on the need for broader and standardized studies. In addition, we are not designed to bite hard bones: they can splinter, damage teeth or pierce the digestive tract. And large animals bones tend to accumulate heavy metals such as lead or cadmium, which advise against consuming them in excess or un controlled dust, According to Healthline. The heat and pressure of the long broths allow to extract collagen and minerals safely, and some studies They suggest a certain benefit when ingesting collagen peptides. However, the reviews of the studies consulted coincide: Quality trials are missing, with standardized protocols and clear clinical markers. A new trend? The interest in bones does not happen in a vacuum. A couple of months ago, the “Carnivorous Diet” for Babies: families that offer ribs or cord to their children as part of the Baby-Led Weaning. Health and expert authorities They coincide in which to introduce meat from six months is recommended by its iron and zinc. But they warn that a strictly carnivorous diet in babies lacks fiber and vitamin C, essential nutrients for development. At the same time, startups in Europe and Asia experiment with powdered bone -based products: breads, sausages, patches or nuggets that incorporate calcium and collagen without bothering the consumer. According to National Geographicthe initial results are positive: when the bone appears as an invisible ingredient, acceptance is high. Collagen is more present. Korean cosmetics and social networks They have converted To the collagen in a global phenomenon, associated not only to joint or bone health, but above all to beauty and anti -aging. From facial creams to soluble coffee powders, the promise is to erase wrinkles, combat sagging and rejuvenate the skin. However, skeptical voices such as that of the surgeon Afshin mosahebi Remember that scientific evidence It is limited and that, by ingesting it, the collagen does not reach the dermis: it decomposes in amino acids like any other protein. The bone broth is a nutritious and comforting classic, but Not a guaranteed age. The real secret to aging well is still in basic habits: do not smoke, protect from the sun, maintain a balanced diet and sleep enough. An unexpected return. Of the “fat factories” Neanderthals to Korean cosmetics, bones have accompanied humanity in multiple forms. Today they return to the scene between broths and collagen powders. The difference is that, this time, they do not arrive as a resource of survival, but as a market as a product: what was previously thrown, is now sold as a trend. Image | Freepik Xataka | Boomers trust pills and supplement, generation Z in “functional snacks”: two ways to look for the same

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.