thought

We thought smoking was no longer fashionable among Gen Z. Until Sabrina Carpenter and Jeremy Allen White arrived

by

For decades, the cigarette starred in some of the most iconic images in popular culture. In the imagination of journalism, that reporter from the last century always reappears leaning over his typewriter, surrounded by wisps of smoke while writing an urgent chronicle. In television fiction, that scene evolved into Carrie Bradshaw typing on her Mac with a half-consumed cigarette butt in her New York apartment. And in the cinema, the cigarette was almost a visual code: from the dark seduction of Humphrey Bogart to the melancholic aura that enveloped so many classic characters. Smoke, more than an accessory, functioned as a symbol of charisma, mystery or vulnerability. All of that seemed to be extinguished with the advance of anti-smoking laws. The terraces they cleared themselves of smokeHollywood moderated its use and audiovisual culture stopped associating the cigarette with glamour. The gesture was relegated to a stale past, linked to the strong smell of bars before the ban. But something unexpected has happened: the cigarette has returned. And it has done so hand in hand with the only sector capable of resurrecting what seemed forgotten: celebrities. The visible return of the cigarette to pop culture. The warning signal came from the mecca of cinema. According to a report from the anti-smoking organization Truth Initiativehalf of the movies that debuted last year included cigarettes, cigars or tobacco. In addition, it detected a 110% increase in representations of tobacco in programs aimed at young people between 15 and 24 years old, and a quadrupling in the most viewed series. The figures confirm the obvious: the cigarette has regained prominence. And, to give a couple of examples, it is being observed in music: Sabrina Carpenter appears in the video clip for Manchild smoking and posed for some photographs wearing a corset made from packets of Marlboro Gold. In cinema, films like Saltburn, Materialists or Oppenheimer They have returned tobacco to an almost omnipresent place. Fashion has not been an exception either, during New York Fashion Week, models they smoked on the catwalk as another accessory. And there is still something else, I couldn’t forget about social networks. The Instagram account @cigfluencerscreated in 2021, publishes images of celebrities smoking and has accumulated more than 80,000 followers. The cigarette as a symbol? The most curious thing about this phenomenon is that it is not mass tobacco consumption that is returning, but rather its aesthetics. That nuance is essential to understand what is happening. The point is that the cigarette returns as part of the revival Y2K and aesthetics indie sleaze and heroin chicthat mix of grunge, decadent glamor and soft rebellion that dominated the 2000s and that today inspires fashion, music and social networks. In this framework, the cigarette functions as a retro accessory, a vintage gesture that provokes more visually than addictively. This aesthetic dimension also operates as a narrative tool. In a report for The New York Times point out that the cigarette re-emerges as a symbolic resource on screen: Dakota Johnson smokes in Materialists to underline the emotional emptiness of his character; Jeremy Allen White, in The Bearuses smoke to intensify his melancholy; Sabrina Carpenter holds a makeshift mouthpiece in an ironic tone. According to the medium, the cigarette does not get in the way of the shot: it fills it with aura, drama and texture. And the fundamental question, does it have attraction for young people? There is a component of minimal rebellion. According to the BBCsmoking functions as a gesture of light transgression within a generation accustomed to self-care, permanent surveillance and implicit norms of well-being. The aesthetics brat popularized by Charli XCX It combines hedonism, irony and a touch of nihilism: a perfect territory for the cigarette to recover its provocative role, more suggestive than dangerous. Hence, the great paradox when observing the real behavior of Generation Z. While they watch celebrities smoke on screen, young people consume less and less substances. Already we have explained in Xataka how they are succeeding coffee raves —alcoholic-free daytime parties, where you dance with a cappuccino in hand—, and Tinder registers a boom in dry datingwith one in four young people preferring alcohol-free dating. In other words, cool aesthetics no longer have anything to do with actual habit. Should we worry? The problem appears when cultural trends intersect with health data. The WHO remember that tobacco It kills more than seven million people a year and that there is no safe level of exposure. EPData confirms that its global consumption has fallen from 32.7% in 2000 to 22.3% in 2020, but institutions like the CDC —cited by Wall Street Journal— warn that repeated exposure to tobacco images increases the likelihood that young people will start smoking. In fact, the BBC collected testimonies from American doctors who already observe cases of young people who, after normalizing vaping, have switched to cigarettes because “it gives more credibility” or is “more aesthetic.” Constant exposure to so-called “digital smoke”, pointed out by the Spanish Association Against Cancercan normalize a habit that seemed on the way to disappearing. However, a study carried out by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) showed that Tinder profiles of smokers receive between 29% and 52.7% less matches. Young people do not want to date someone who smokes, but they do want to consume – from a distance – the aesthetics of cigarettes on screens. The contradiction is clear: in the video clip it adds glamour; In real life, it reduces romantic interest. Fad or cultural turn? Perhaps the cigarette has not completely returned: perhaps its ghost, its iconography, its gesture has returned. Aesthetics are back, not addiction. The smoke, not the habit. But while celebrities hold it up as if it were just another jewel in the photo, health organizations remember that tobacco continues to kill half of those who don’t quit. And although on the screen it is pure aesthetics, in real life it is still a tangible risk. The cigarette, that old protagonist of classic cinema, today experiences its … Read more

We thought we’d seen ‘Doom’ running on all types of devices. Until someone tried it with a ticket printer

by

We’d seen ‘Doom’ run on almost every device imaginable: from a Texas Instruments calculator until a modified pregnancy test, passing through the Touch Bar of a MacBook. The community has been proving for years that if something has a screen and some kind of processor, someone will try to run Doom. We thought the bar couldn’t be raised any higher, until someone decided to do it in an unexpected place even for this challenge: a ticket printer. Beyond the technical, this challenge has something almost philosophical: it is not about seeing if ‘Doom’ works, because we know that the game can run on very limited hardware. The question is whether we can do it on devices that, in theory, were not designed for that. Closed devices, with a very specific function, that suddenly become small gaming platforms. This transformation of the everyday into something unexpected is what keeps alive the question “what if you can also execute it?” A printer with the soul of a computer. The device chosen by the channel Bringus Studios It is not a conventional ticket printer. It is a solution created for small businesses, capable of printing receipts and running typical point-of-sale terminal applications from the same computer. That integration explains why it includes an embedded operating system, USB ports, its own connectivity and even an original Windows 7 Pro Embedded sticker. For those who used it back in the day, it was simply a point of sale terminal. For those who find it today, it is much more than that. When the creator decides to open the machine, the exterior appearance gives way to a metal structure more typical of an industrial computer than a receipt printer. Under the cover appear screws, SATA cables, internal USB ports, a motherboard and even a small integrated speaker. There are hardly any concessions to the design, everything is ready to function for hours in a commercial environment. Instead of a peripheral accessory, what you find is a complete computer, hidden under a functional and robust chassis. Play Doom on a paper screen. Once it was discovered that the machine could behave like a complete computer, the next step was inevitable: running ‘Doom’. The content creator turned to software rendering, adjusted the brightness and contrast to suit thermal printing, and turned the paper into the game’s visual output. Each frame was printed as a monochrome image, creating a sort of roll-up screen at its feet. The result was neither comfortable nor efficient, but it was extraordinarily ingenious. Too hot for a normal game. The system was capable of printing ‘Doom’, but was not prepared to do so for minutes at a time. Many scenes generated a lot of black, causing the thermal head to get hotter than intended. There came a point where the printer would pause printing or output messy and unintelligible sequences. The author used an external fan to prolong the session, while the paper piled up on the floor and the behavior of the game became so unpredictable that one almost had to play by pure intuition. The experiment did not end with Doom. When testing ‘Half-Life,’ the result was different: the game’s visual style seemed to fit better on thermal paper and produced clearer images. The author began to print scenes that did allow hallways, doors or characters to be distinguished with a certain clarity, to the point of wanting to save them. He even replicated one of the classic moments of the game, the microwave in the laboratory, and confirmed on paper that the pot ended up exploding. Despite the lag of several seconds between what was happening in the game and what appeared on paper, the scenes were still legible enough that I wanted to keep them. It was no longer just playing, it was documenting it. What started as a simple printer ended up being a reminder of why this challenge continues to fascinate so many people. It doesn’t matter if the result is impractical, illegible or full of paper: the important thing is that it worked. The game was run, the printer printed the images and it was demonstrated that even a routine device, designed to work silently behind a counter, can end up becoming an experiment worth telling. Images | Bringus Studios In Xataka | The Internet has been filled with videos with the new trailer for ‘GTA VI’. The only problem is they have all been made with AI

We thought this bug was a pig. Now we know that it was two meters tall, weighed a thousand kilos and was a killing machine related to whales.

by

Almost 200 years ago, a paleontologist found some completely improbable bones. They thought about it a thousand times, tried to find some sense in it; but everything ended in the same delirious image: that of a huge pig with the capacity to destroy everything in front of it. And that’s what we called him for decades: the ‘pig from hell’. What we have just discovered, two centuries later, is that we know almost nothing about them. Now they are even more terrible. But what really is a ‘hell pig’? It is the popular nickname by which entelodonts are known; an extinct family of large prehistoric mammals that lived about 30 million years ago. The bug was described for the first time in the 1840sbut it was in the early 20th century that paleontologists assumed it was closely related to pigs or peccaries. It was not something irrational: on a strictly physical level, entelodonts looked very similar to modern-day pigs. Two meters tall, weighing more than a thousand kilos and jaws capable of crushing bones, but pigs nonetheless. With “crushing bones” we are falling short. Recently, a team from Vanderbilt University could examine in detail the teeth of these animals and, thanks to three-dimensional models of dental microwear, they have managed to turn around everything we thought we knew about the role of these animals in North American ecosystems 30 million years ago. Your conclusions they leave no room for doubt: “the largest specimens were capable of crushing bones with an efficiency similar to or even greater than that of lions and hyenas.” Luckily, they weren’t very smart; And, according to the researchers, “it has a brain-body relationship similar to that of reptiles, so they were very unintelligent creatures.” A complex story. At first, experts thought that this monstrous animal was a born hunter. Then, partly because of this familiarity with pigs, they came to the conclusion that they were omnivorous animals, capable of eating small animals and carrion. Now, thanks to this team, we know that they were most likely at the top of the food chain of their ecosystems. This, in fact, raises the possibility that different species (or subspecies) occupied different ecological niches. However, there are curious things. To begin with, entelodonts have nothing to do with pigs. In fact, they are closer to whales and hippos than anything else. But, above all, it shows us the difficulties we continue to have in understanding our past. Little by little, we are understanding that if our way of looking at the past conditions the futureour ability to understand what the world was like 30 million years ago will radically change many things we think we are. And the best thing is that, even though I get melancholic and retrospective, everything we know makes it clear that the “pig from hell” is more infernal than ever. Image | Carnegie Museum of Natural History In Xataka | The deaths of cows, reindeer or rhinos are not a mystery: they are the consequences of a curse, that of “large animals”

We thought Stanford, MIT, and Harvard were leading in AI. There is a Chinese university that surpasses them all

by

To the northwest of Beijing there is a university campus that is not only the most prestigious in the country, it is also one of the most influential universities in the world in science and technology, even surpassing institutions of the stature of MIT or Stanford. It is called Tsinghua and some of the most important technological projects of the moment are being developed there. Change of focus. Tsinghua has been in operation since 1911, although it was not until 1952 when it became a polytechnic university. Among its former students there are figures of the stature of Nobel Prize in Physics Chen-Ning Yang and President Xi Jinping himself. From its inception, Tsinghua’s focus was the training of Chinese students who were going to continue their studies in the United States. Today that approach has completely changed. In the midst of an AI career, there is a nationalistic spirit and students tend to stay and develop projects in their native country. Leaders. They count in Bloomberg that Tsinghua University stands toe-to-toe with the best universities in the world. According to the US News rankingis the best university in the world in engineering, chemical engineering and electronic engineering; has second place in civil engineering and nanotechnology; It is third in materials science and fourth in computer science. There it is nothing. Intellectual property. Tsinghua is also the university with the most papers on AI among the 100 most cited and leads in patent registration, outnumbering MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Harvard combined. According to LexisNexis data analyzed by Bloomberghave registered 4,986 patents on AI and machine learning in the last 20 years. In 2024 alone they registered 900 patents. However, according to the Stanford AI Indexthe most influential patents remain in American hands. Startups. The university not only focuses on training, it also has a startup incubator called X-Lab from which at least 900 startups have already emerged since it was created in 2013. They are currently very focused on projects related to artificial intelligence. The founders of startups such as Moonshot AIthe creators of the model Kimi K2either Sapient Inca startup that develops “hierarchical reasoning models” based on how the human brain works. They affirm that it is the way to achieve AGI, a different approach to that pursued by companies like OpenAI with LLM or WLM (world models). that LeCun recently defended. Chip war. Efforts are also being made in Tsinghua to give China a boost in the technological war with the United States. The clearest example is the chip created by a group of university scientists and it is 3.7 faster than NVIDIA’s A100. Not only that, the chip, called ACCEL, is also much more efficient. At the moment its mass production has not been achieved, but the innovation is there. Image | Tsinghua University In Xataka | Four decades ago, China decided to invest in training millions of engineers. Today that plan gives it an advantage in the race for AI

When we thought we had seen all kinds of rehearsals for an invasion, China makes science fiction: robots taking over an island

by

At the end of 2024, several military studies from Beijing were published outlining six different scenarios if future unification with Taiwan goes awry. So we tell that the Second World War I advised against all them because, in essence, there was talk of an invasion of the island. From then until now so much China as Taiwan have carried out all kinds of drills under the war scenario background. What you haven’t seen until now is that China has a plan B: robotic wolves. Mechanized herds. This week and through images and videosChina has shown to the world a new generation of autonomous combat systems in an exercise that simulated an invasion of Taiwan. On the landing beach, the traditional “human waves” of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were replaced by swarms of machines: suicide drones and well-known robotic quadrupeds like mechanized wolves. These units, developed by the state-owned China South Industries Group Corporation (CSGC), represent the first attempt to convert amphibious operations into a scenario dominated byor artificial intelligence. The broadcast images State television CCTV showed these metal “wolves” running across the sand ahead of human troops, detecting obstacles with LiDAR sensors, thermal cameras and autonomous navigation algorithms. Wolf specification. Of 70 kilos of weight and capable of carrying 20 more, these robots were divided into attack, transport and reconnaissance variants, managing to reduce the time between detection and destruction of the target to less than ten seconds. In fact, in one symbolic sequencea single human operator simultaneously directed nine robots and six drones from a 3D interface, while the devices cleared barbed wire and trenches for infantry. @elsa50356 “Breaking from China! The PLA’s latest amphibious landing drills—drones take the lead, and robotic ‘wolf packs’ rush the beach! The future of warfare is here!” 🚀🪖 #PLADrills #ChinaMilitary #Drones #RobotArmy #MilitaryTech ♬ 原创音乐 – Elsa Swarm intelligence. The training, called “Landing Operation in Taiwan” was part of an assault test coastal exercise carried out by the PLA 72nd Division, under the Eastern Theater Command, the unit operating in front of the Taiwan Strait. For the first time, quadruped robots performed as a spearheadfollowed by waves of FPV drones bombing simulated enemy fortifications. In total, the attack cycle was cfour times faster than that of a conventional square. This deployment is part of the EPL’s strategic shift from mass doctrine (the so-called human wave tactics) towards what Beijing calls “smart sea and land tactics,” a doctrine that prioritizes automation, cooperation between unmanned systems and data-driven decision making. The buts. However, the exercise itself revealed vulnerabilities: these wolf robots They lack armor, are easily detectable in open fields and one of them was destroyed by light fire. Chinese analysts they recognized limitations, but they stressed that the goal was not perfection, but rather to demonstrate that the army is willing to progressively replace human soldiers with swarms of coordinated machines. Ukraine in the shadows. The Chinese Army has incorporated direct lessons from the Ukrainian war into its maneuvers, where drones have redefined tactical and logistical effectiveness. According to Chinese military media like Daiwanthe PLA is applying the knowledge extracted from that conflict in its ground training, anticipating a future where hundreds of robots advance at 30 or 40 km/h in coordinated waves. The parallel is clear: if Ukraine demonstrated that a cheap drone can destroy a tankChina wants to prove that a network of smart machines can break coastal defenses in a matter of minutes. The current exercises, which until recently were limited to traditional landings, are already a general rehearsal of algorithmic warfare, where the human decision is reduced to an initial order and autonomous systems execute the rest. Strategic competition. Plus: The accelerated development of these systems occurs while the United States reinforces your deterrence strategy in the Indo-Pacific. According to the CIAan eventual Chinese invasion of Taiwan could occur before 2027, and the Pentagon has designed the so-called hellscape strategy: Saturate the strait with thousands of drones, submarines and unmanned vehicles to slow down Chinese forces and buy time for reinforcements to arrive. Beijing, aware of this, is creating units specialized in war against swarms, equipped with software capable of detecting, tracking and attacking targets without human intervention. Companies like Norincoanother state giant, have presented vehicles like the P60powered by the DeepSeek AI model, which can recognize targets, avoid obstacles and operate in logistics support or combat missions. A future of machines. He China’s advance towards an AI-powered war demonstrates both its technological ambition and its practical limitations. The images of robots breaching simulated beaches are as revealing as their failures in the face of enemy fire. However, beyond immediate effectiveness, Beijing’s message is unequivocal: the future of the war in the strait of Taiwan will be decided by the speed of the algorithms, not the number of soldiers. In that race, China seeks to transform mechanized warfare in smart warreplacing brute force with computational precision. The question is no longer whether robots will be present in the next invasion, but how many will be able to think, coordinate and eliminate before the first human makes landfall. Image | CCTV/China In Xataka | Less than 150 kilometers from Taiwan, the US does not stop accumulating missiles. It’s the closest thing to preparing for war. In Xataka | China has asked Russia for an airborne battalion and training. That can only mean one thing: they are preparing a landing

We have returned to an era that we thought forgotten. That of the nuclear threat of the US and Russia launching their reply: Poseidon

by

In recent days all roads trace a common landscape: from Moscow exhibit and test “superweapons” that defy traditional categories (autonomous nuclear torpedoes, nuclear cruise engines, and indefinite-range missiles) while in Washington the political and media reaction accentuates a dynamic action-reaction that could return the world to an (il)logic of open competition between nuclear powers. Someone should stop it. Poseidon. He Russian Poseidon has returned to the forefront as the epitome of the hybrid between a fantasy factory and a real military program: an unmanned, reactor-powered underwater vehicle, conceived to transport a nuclear warhead to coastal targets or naval groupings, operate at great depth and high speed and (according to the official Russian narrative) bypass conventional defenses. The impact figures published in Moscow (speeds between 60–100 knots, operational depth ~1,000 m, “megaton” capacity that some sources stretch up to 100 Mt) feed the symbolic dread. However, analysts remember physical limits and Soviet precedents that qualify both the real effectiveness and the plausibility of “tsunami” type effects capable of sweeping away cities. In practice. Thus, the majority agrees that Poseidon It is best described as a capability designed for political and strategic cost: suitable to reinforce a “second strike” or to be used as a system of intimidation, not necessarily as an everyday weapon in an escalated conflict. Burevestnik and a persistence. We told it last week. Along with the torpedo, Russia has shown the Burevestnik (a nuclear-powered cruise missile that promises essentially unlimited range) and other platforms that the Kremlin lumps together under the label of “invincible weapons.” These initiatives obey a logic of modernization that combines technological ambition, industrial vulnerabilities (sanctions, reliability problems) and media staging: the public demonstration of tests does not detonate charges, but announces theoretical capabilities and forces adversaries to regroup resources and doctrine. Continuity with the Soviet tradition of studying large-scale underwater effects and the historical experience with essays they show that ideas can persist even when physics and engineering limit their real usefulness. Washington’s response. The political reaction in the United States, personified by presidential statements about “restarting testing” and public instruction to military departments, has been immediate (and disorderly). The announcements arrive in a critical moment (with the New START treaty close to expiration and with China throwing uncertainties about its own nuclear growth) and can be read as strategic messages, instruments of pressure and, sometimes, as gestures directed at the internal public. One thing remains clear: Trump’s formulation was more than ambiguous and it is not clear whether it refers to nuclear detonations (critical/non-critical), increased testing of delivery systems, or increased sub-critical experiments and simulations. There is no doubt, this ambiguity is dangerous because conditions perceptions and responses international without the technical and legal scaffolding that a decision of shock would demand. Burevestnik How “nuclear” is prescribed. On TWZ Several experts consulted describe the practical path to resume nuclear detonations: The president can order actions, but execution requires the involvement of specific agencies (Department of Energy, NNSA and national laboratories), budget authorization from Congress and logistics focused on the Nevada National Security Site as the only realistic site for contained underground testing. In any case, the deadlines they are long: A “simple burst” could be organized in months, a useful instrumented test would require 18–36 months, and a new design development program would take years. Furthermore, the cost would be high and would most likely provoke retorts from Russia, China and others, reigniting a cycle of arms races that post-Cold War agreements had managed to tacitly contain. Technical dimension. The technical usefulness of returning to explosive tests to maintain the national arsenal is, obviously, discussed: US laboratories maintain that, thanks to advanced simulations, subcritical experimentation and vast historical data, the reliability of nuclear warheads can sustain without detonations. The tests would serve, in theory, to validate new designs and increase confidence in specific features. In practice, they would reopen the door to developments that amplify offensive capabilities and complicate the balance of terror, in addition to generating environmental and proliferation risks. The media theater. Plus: not everything is technology. There is a strong performative component. Putin and the Russian media apparatus have known convert essaysimages and statements in one power narrative which includes synchronies with popular culture (television series) to magnify its psychological impact. In Washington, the improvised communication from social networks it has a similar but less institutionalized effect: statements without clarifying technique or procedure can be interpreted as a political will to rupture and push allies and adversaries to take asymmetric measures. Geopolitical consequences. The costs of a back to testing are not limited to budgets: there is talk of reactivation of the nuclear race, of degradation of international trustor the erosion of regulatory regimes (the CTBT and the verification architecture), in addition to a probable expansion of arsenals by China and other actors who do not participate in treaties today. Added to this is the risk that the US internal debate (political polarization, legislative pressures and the dynamic of “showing” without a technical roadmap) will generate hasty decisions. Worse still, the media normalization of “anti-coastal weapons” or “Frankenstein” torpedoes may facilitate usage doctrines that lower the threshold for tactical uses of nuclear weapons, an especially dangerous prospect. Uncertainty. In summary, the news of the last days They are, more than anything else, a warning: we are witnessing the sum of three processes (modernization and Russian technological experimentationpoliticization and theatrics of deterrenceand American answers marked by tactical uncertainty and political haste) that, together, fuel a dangerous inertia. The question is no longer just whether Poseidon either Burevestnik are fully operational, it is whether the international community, and especially the capitals with decision-making power, will recover the technical prudence and diplomatic rigor necessary to contain the escalation. Image | US Space Force, Russian Defense Ministry, Los Alamos National Laboratory In Xataka | Last week, Russia launched its fearsome Satan II nuclear missile, Putin’s “invincible weapon.” It came out regular In Xataka | There is something more disturbing than “a Chernobyl”: it … Read more

If you thought the AI ​​bubble was worrying, it’s because we hadn’t entered its next phase: debt

by

Big technology companies have issued $75 billion in bonds and loans between September and October 2025: Meta leads with 30,000 million. Followed by Oracle (18,000 million in bonds plus a loan of 38,000 million). And Broadcom (27 billion). The figure is equivalent to what these three companies used to borrow in an entire year. Why is it important. The shift from liquidity to debt marks a turning point in the AI ​​race. For years, these companies financed their infrastructure with cash flows, but now they are resorting to debt: Debt not linked to bonds has gone from 15% to 30% of its capital. The money trail. Oracle has closed the largest syndicated loan (a joint loan by several banks to a single client) in its history: 38 billion for data centers. Meta, for its part, is allocating its 30,000 million to campuses in Virginia and Oregon. And Broadcom uses them to strengthen its semiconductor division and its network equipment. The threat. Paying the interest on all this debt now consumes 15% of these companies’ operating profits, compared to 10% a year ago. And the cost of borrowing has risen: corporate bonds are near their most expensive levels since 2022. If the energy bill rises by 20% – a more than likely scenario given the stress on electrical networks – or if AI does not generate the expected revenue, these companies could see their credit rating reduced and trigger a chain crisis. Yes, but. Large investors continue to buy these bonds, attracted by returns of 6%. Money flows because official interest rates are at 3.75%so lending to these technology companies seems like a good deal. The problem is that any sudden change in rates can make these bonds lose value. And fast. At stake. Debt finances the AI ​​revolution, but also makes it more fragile and technology companies continue to increase their investment. If inflation returns or profits fail, the same debt that accelerates innovation could become a liability. Investors, meanwhile, continue to win; but they assume the risk of the storm. In Xataka | Apple is resisting the push for AI PCs because AI PCs have caused complete indifference Featured image | Towfiqu barbhuiya

We thought dinosaurs were on the verge of extinction before the meteorite. we were wrong

by

The most emblematic mass extinction in Earth’s history without a doubt occurred up to 66 million years ago. It marked the end of an era like the Cretaceousand with it, the disappearance of dinosaurs that were not birds. But what was that extinction really like? This is the big question that experts have asked themselves and that it is already beginning to have light. For decades the scientific community has debated whether dinosaurs were already in decline before they abruptly went extinct or whether they were wiped out while they were still thriving. This is where the new has had an impact published study in the magazine Science in which the Spanish researcher Jorge García-Girón from the University of León participates, who sheds light on this debate. Simply put, the research refutes the idea of ​​a prolonged decline and suggests that dinosaurs were diverse and divided into distinct ecological regions just before the asteroid impact. The fossils of the south. Much of the uncertainty about this issue comes from a bias in the fossil record. The only well-dated faunas that span the extinction boundary come from northern North America (in the famous Hell Creek Formation). This made it impossible to know whether the extinction pattern observed there was a global or local phenomenon. In this case, the research team focused on a fossil-rich unit much further south, in the San Juan basin of New Mexico, known as the Member Naashoibito. The age of this formation has been a matter of controversy for years and was often considered much older. But now by applying geochronology techniques with Argon dating and magnetostratiography, the study has finally achieved precise dating. The results are conclusive: the Naashoibito Member dates back to the latest Cretaceous, which corresponds to up to 66 million years. This means that the fossils found there, which include a variety of species, preserve some of the last known non-avian dinosaurs. They lived a maximum of 340,000 years before the asteroid impact and were contemporaries of the Hell Creek fauna. Separated by weather. This finding is crucial because, for the first time, it allows us to compare two different faunas from the same end of the Cretaceous. And the result refutes the idea that we had all about decline in our minds. And the study not only dates the fossils, but also uses powerful ecological models to analyze the diversity of terrestrial vertebrates throughout North America. The results show that, far from forming a homogeneous and cosmopolitan fauna, the dinosaurs maintained high diversity and clear endemism until the end. In other words, it can be said that the dinosaurs were “strong” and divided into distinct regional assemblages. In this case, the study identifies two clear bioprovinces in the north and south that remained stable during the late Cretaceous. What separated these faunas? The analysis suggests that the main factor was temperature. More than a simple geographic division, different dinosaur communities were adapted to different climates. For example, the data propose that warmer southern regions may have been more tolerable for sauropods, while colder, more temperate northern regions were more suitable for hadrosaurines. The conclusion. The sum of the evidence points directly to the fact that non-avian dinosaurs were abruptly annihilated at the end of the Cretaceous. They were not in a decline as was thought, so they did not have this factor on top of them that would already condemn them to extinction if the disastrous event on Earth had passed. Instead, it has been seen that its ecosystem was diverse and biogeographically compartmentalized. Extinction in this way was sudden and, as the later fossil record demonstrates, was followed almost immediately by the rapid diversification and rise of mammals. Images | Vaibhav Pixels In Xataka | A museum kept bones for 20 years that they thought were rubble. Now we know that Mexico had its own T-Rex

If anyone thought that no one was going to want the statue of a 300 meter bull in Spain, it is because they know very little about Spain.

by

in summer we count the beginning of something that was difficult to catalog. The Spanish Academy of Bullfighting launched the proposal to build a monumental sculpture of none other than 300 meters in the shape of a bulla statue that aspired to become a tourist and cultural icon comparable to structures such as the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, taking as its hallmark a symbol historically associated with Spanish imagery. If there was any doubt about the reception, there are already cities giving everything for “their” bull. A symbol. What we know: that the project foresees an open metal structure, of a modular type, with viewing points on the horns and a commercial and cultural complex at its base, financed with private capital but conditional on the receiving municipality giving up a large plot of land (at least 650 meters long) and assume urban integration and permits. Although the idea started as a sectoral initiative aimed at reinforcing the public presence of bullfighting, the mere announcement, of course, has generated opposite reactions: while for some it is an opportunity for international projection and an economic claim, for others it is an aesthetic and ethical provocation that aims to whitewash a controversial practice with art. The race begins. At this time we know something else: there are “cakes” to be obtained monster. After the initial rejection of Madrid, Castilla y León has taken advantage by concentrating the majority of the candidates and placing Peñafiel and Valle de Valdebezana in an advanced phase by having delivered specific location plans, which places them ahead of other municipalities that have only expressed political will without proving technical feasibility. Peñafiel, with a deep-rooted bullfighting tradition and an urban environment that already has the Plaza del Coso as a singular element, it has claimed to have a “privileged” location that would meet the requirements and that could also be provided with complementary services in the future, avoiding the need for provincial or regional support by having a PGOU that allows it to grant licenses on its own. Extra ball. The Academy demands, as a next step, the higher institutional support except in those cases in which municipal planning allows acting without this filter, which has redoubled the interest of competing municipalities in ensuring their administrative legitimacy as soon as possible. The economic argument. The promoters defend that the structure would be a tourist attraction engine capable of activating commerce, employment and notoriety for the host town, especially in territories of inland Spain with problems of visibility and population flight. It is proposed that the monument would act not only as a visitor attraction, but also as a consumption anchor in its immediate surroundings thanks to restaurants, shops and thematic cultural programming that would allow the tourist flow to leave local income and prolong the stay in the destination. Hence municipalities like Peñafiel or interested towns in Zamora and Salamanca see this option as a way to complement or reorient their tourist offer beyond seasonal campaigns or specific events, without direct budgetary cost if the bulk of the investment ultimately remains in private hands as the promoters promise. What people say. The initiative is not exempt from rejection: Opposition public officials consider it extravagant, disproportionate and out of context, while animal rights groups and critics of bullfighting denounce that the sculpture constitutes a symbolic glorification of a practice associated with animal suffering, disguised as monumental art and intended to provoke rather than unite. This front further argues that the scale distorts the landscapeimplies extreme visual impact and transfers to the public space an identity icon that does not have social consensus, which would turn the monument into a permanent focus of dispute. The tension between both narratives (territorial revitalization vs. symbolic imposition) has already accompanied the project since its embryonic phase, anticipating a debate that could intensify if the choice of headquarters crystallizes in a specific location. Peñafiel one step ahead. Thus, Peñafiel is currently positioned as one of the more serious candidates by having that bullfighting tradition, explicit political will and apparent urban planning capacity to house such a structure, to which is added the identity argument of being able to go from being known for its unique Plaza del Coso to hosting what would be the greatest architectural symbol of modern bullfighting. Meanwhile, local authorities recognize the magnitude of the challenge logistical and anticipate a long process, although they consider that the reputational and economic return would justify the bet. The Bullfighting Academy continue evaluating plans, accessibility, impact and viability, while other localities finalize institutional support to avoid losing position. The project thus enters a decisive phase in which vision, land, permits, social legitimacy and strategic impact are confronted before a destination is selected for an object that, not yet built, already produces political, aesthetic and cultural effects. Image | Spanish Academy of Bullfighting In Xataka | Someone thought it was a great idea to propose a sculpture of a bull over 300 meters high. There are already cities waiting to welcome it In Xataka | The “cayetans” are going to make noise in the squares. And it’s not just because of the love of bullfighting.

Who or what excavated the ravines on Mars? The answer is even stranger than we always thought

by

For years, we have seen images of strange grooves in the dunes of Mars that seemed to have been carved by liquid water, feeding the hopes of finding conditions for life. But the reality, as often happens in these fields, is much stranger and fascinating as shown a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters which not only confirms that the culprit is carbon dioxide ice, but has discovered a completely new mechanism that seems straight out of science fiction. The study. Dr. Lonneke Roelofs of Utrecht University, lead author of the study, described it in a way that will be familiar to many of us: “I felt like I was watching the sandworms from the movie Dune.” And it’s no wonder. In his experiments, he saw blocks of dry ice not only slide, but literally burrow and dig into the sand with explosive force, a phenomenon never before observed. Recreating Mars. To solve the mystery, the research team used the martian simulation chamber ‘George’. Inside this two-meter cylinder, they recreated the conditions of Mars’ thin atmosphere, which has a pressure of only 700 pascals compared to Earth’s 100,000 pascals. The experiment was simple: place a tray with dune sand, adjust the inclination and drop blocks of CO₂ ice from the top. Here the process that was being sought was that of sublimationthe direct passage from solid to gas. On Earth, this is a calm process, but on Mars it is extremely violent. The enormous temperature difference between the ice and the sand on which it is located, combined with the low pressure, causes the CO₂ to expand explosively and generate immense force. Results. In this case, the team discovered that the ice blocks moved very differently depending on the steepness of the slope. On steep slopes (>22.5º) the ice block slid rapidly, at about 0.8 m/s, over a layer of gas, almost floating. This movement created straight, shallow channels with almost imperceptible ridges. This is something that coincides with the channels seen in the highest parts of the Martian dunes. In the case of gentle slopes is where the real magic happened. The block moved very slowly, at about 0.0003 m/s, and instead of sliding it was partially buried in the sand. Explosive sublimation threw grains of sand ballistically in all directions, carving a deep channel beneath the block and with high ridges on its sides. This ‘digging’ movement perfectly explains the deep channels, high ridges and sinuous curves that for so long They baffled scientists. But finally, when the block finally stops at the foot of the dune, the sublimation effect continues to occur and generates the characteristic pits. The importance. These findings are very relevant to understanding Mars as a planet. First of all, the results confirm that one of the most active and striking phenomena is driven by CO₂ processes, without the need for have liquid water. In addition, it gives us a physical model that explains all the strange characteristics of the ravines. Sharp curves, for example, are not due to the flow of liquid, but to an excavating block that changes course due to small irregularities in the terrain. Finally, the formation of these ravines requires very specific conditions, such as sufficient accumulation of CO₂ ice in winter and sufficient solar radiation in spring to heat the sand and cause violent sublimation. In short, the mystery of the grooves in the Martian dunes has been solved, and the answer is not the water we long to find, but a violent and exotic physical process, more typical of an alien planet. Images | Daniele Colucci POT In Xataka | NASA has a plan to speed up our arrival on Mars: crash things into its surface

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.