turns

It turns out that a longevity expert has said something that makes sense. And the reason is the juices

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Peter Diamandis has returned. The famous doctor and engineer specializing in longevity has once again made simple dietary advice viral: “if you like oranges, eat them whole and not in juice.” And, to the surprise of all of us who closely follow the worldit’s a good idea. Beyond the joke, longevity is becoming serious. Very serious indeed. Since an open microphone confirmed to us in September that longevity is becoming a crucial issue for oligarchs of the present, it is impossible not to look at this community of researchers, influencers and entrepreneurs in a “different way”. However, the reality is obvious: most advice on how to live longer is a mix of cherry picking, scientific sensationalism and common sense. Ultimately, to the extent that society is increasingly obsessed with living longerthe ‘market’ for these types of ideas is growing (for better and worse). And Diamandis is a good example. As They explained in El Confidencialthis entrepreneur and researcher has a very long list of dietary ideas: from withdrawing dairy products due to the body’s inflammatory response to casein to avoiding red meat due to its saturated fats (basing his diet almost exclusively on vegetables and whole foods). As we saw a few days ago with other well-meaning advicethese kinds of ideas make some sense, yes. However, every heuristic has two sides: it illuminates a certain part of reality and helps us manage it more easily. But it hides other parts and makes it seriously difficult to be aware of them. But, let’s get to the juices. Because that is the latest advice that has been vitalized is precisely that: that the debate has never been “yes fruit” or “no fruit.” ¡Of course you have to consume fruit! The debate is how we consume it and in juice it is, possibly, the worst way. By squeezing the pieces of fruit, we not only reduce the fiber but we end up consuming something completely different: satiety is worse and sugar absorption is improved. When we talk about fruit being good, what we are saying is that we need the fiber it contains for its metabolic and satiety effects. Oh really? So much so that organizations like the AESAN they insist repeatedly that juice does not replace whole fruit. And yes, I know that for many it is a commonplace (and something very well known), but it never hurts to repeat it: the consumption of rooting fruit has fallen 14% in recent years. We already know that it is good advice, but also worse for longevity. Here, the truth is that the evidence is less clear. Above all, because it is never enough to ‘stop recommending something’, we must go further and put better options on the table. And yes, water is always an option. But unfortunately, it is not always a substitute for the social consumption of juices. Image | Zlatko Duric In Xataka | One of the leading experts on aging has just explained what he himself does to live longer. It makes sense

Working in a nuclear power plant is not the best way to avoid cancer. Now it turns out that its waste also serves to cure it

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If there is a terrifying and mainstream disease, it is cancer: after all, according to the WHOone in five people will develop it at some point in their life. Although in some cases the risk factors vary depending on the type of cancer, working in a nuclear power plant poses some riskas long as there is greater exposure to ionizing radiation, even if there are no accidents or more intense exposure through maintenance work. Paradoxically, the activity of nuclear power plants, which can cause cancer, also serves to generate the basis of the medicine to cure it. And we are not talking about a potentially distant study, but rather something that can already be materialized. In fact, the United Kingdom has already taken a step forward to transform some of its radioactive waste into anti-cancer medication. The world’s first lead-212 radiopharmaceutical ecosystem. Because in the UK they have closed an agreement between the public body Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the biotechnology company Bicycle Therapeutics for which the latter will have 400 tons of reprocessed uranium to extract the valuable (for the medical industry) lead – 212 for 15 years. Behind Bicycle is Sir Greg Winter, co-founder of the company and winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. This will provide them with the infrastructure to create the world’s first end-to-end lead-212 radiopharmaceutical ecosystem, from discovery to commercial supply. So explains it Mike Hannay, Chief Product and Supply Chain Officer at Bicycle Therapeutics. The benefits of lead – 212. Lead – 212 is an isotope used in therapeutic contexts thanks to its particular decay properties, so that it emits both alpha and beta particles. While the former provide high-energy, short-range cytotoxicity, the latter have a more extended range, targeting micro-metastasis. In a simplified way, this medically applicable isotope is essential for precision treatments against tumors resistant to other therapies. Thus, it carries radiation and acts directly on cancer cells to destroy tumors, minimizing the damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. This type of technique offers promising results in prostate cancers and neuroendocrine tumors of organs such as the intestine or pancreas. Extracting lead-212 is an arduous task. Converting the waste from nuclear power plants into cancer treatments seems like a fantastic idea for two reasons: because of the cure for cancer itself and the problem of dealing with radioactive waste, one of the great challenges faced by these energy industries, which have also explored other avenues such as take advantage of the remaining energy. But getting here has not been easy: the extraction process of this isotope has been carried out by the United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL) with a complex chemical process that requires the isolation of scandalously small quantities of the precursor material from the used nuclear fuel. Thus, first the Thorium-228 is extracted from the reprocessed uranium to later process it into Radium-224. It is then loaded into a lead-212 generator that has been custom-made for Bicycle Therapeutics’ needs by US company SpectronRx. This is a continuous regeneration, producing enough lead-212 to deliver tens of thousands of doses of precision therapy per year. The laboratory explains that the critical part is in the beginning: “The initial precursor material extracted is comparable to finding a single drop of water in an Olympic swimming pool.” From that minute amount, an even smaller fraction of lead-212 is separated. First discover the universe, then cure cancer. In addition to this unexpected use of nuclear power plant waste, in recent weeks a group of researchers from the University of York have evidenced in a study that the intense radiation captured in the beam absorbers of particle accelerators could be reused to produce materials used in cancer therapies. Those particle accelerators They are used, among other things, in experiments to discover the matter of which the universe is composed. In Xataka | The rarest element on Earth aims to cure cancer. And Europe is already accelerating its production In Xataka | We have been believing that bacteria are a weapon against tumors for 150 years. And finally we have discovered how Cover | Jakub Zerdzicki and Ivan S

Generation Z lists their emotional crises and turns them into infographics

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We recently described the Wrapped that have been born in the shadow of Spotify as real monstersand no wonder: companies in principle so barely linked to the recreational use that we give to Spotify, such as Linkedin or Wetransfer, reminding us that during the year, essentially, we have worked more than necessary. But summaries of the year, made by individuals and seen with a little irony and constructive criticism, can be very good. And so we come to the Crying Wrapped or summaries of crying of the year. #llanterawrapped. On TikTok, thousands of users (mostly Generation Z girls) are documenting all the tantrums they’ve had during the year. He hashtag #cryingwrappedand also #crywrapped They accumulate millions of views with videos that present, in PowerPoint presentation format or Spotify-style infographics, personal statistics on how many times they cried in 2025 (and also the year before), where they did it, at what time of day, what caused it and what their “highlight crying episodes of the year” were. Gloriously detailed. The categories include “crying due to personal relationships”, “crying in the office bathroom”, “crying while driving”, “crying caused by episodes of series”, or even rankings of songs that generated the most tears, because (and this is the important thing) we are not facing a list of misfortunes, but rather a fun and original form of emotional overexposure. There are bar graphs with the monthly evolution of the crises, others identify their “peak month of crying”… Following in the wake of the mythical viral video of user @rachel_ginterthis trend turns suffering into gamified content, making vulnerability hide behind the corporate and mechanical language of viral videos and power points. The Wrapped phenomenon. In 2016, Spotify launched its first Wrappedan experiment that would end up redefining how digital brands interact with their users. The streaming platform took the millions of listening data from each user (artists, songs, genres, total minutes) and transformed them into a visual narrative, designed to function as content on social networks. The result was remarkable: in 2024 More than 2 million people already expressed the desire for the feature to arrive in early November, almost two weeks before its official launch. The key to success, as Sprinklr tells it, lies in having converted individual information into “shareable entertainment based on personal data.” Wrapped not only reflects musical tastes: it is a statement of identity, and Spotify understood that, at the same time as giving it the attack on physical formatsunderstood that sharing music has always been a social act. Epidemic Wrapped. Spotify’s success created a domino effect that has transformed December into the month of personalized digital digests. Letterboxd, Duolingo, Reddit, Hulu, all the block streaming services… until the users themselves decided to start creating their own summaries. With Google Sheets, Canva templates to design infographics and apps like Notion To document each crying episode, these users have built emotional monitoring systems. And with this, they have turned Wrapped into viral language. The reality after the tantrum. Behind this epidemic of crying (funny because they themselves take it as a joke, of course), there is a not so funny reality: we are facing a generation going through a mental health crisis without historical precedent. He McKinsey Health Institute global study with more than 42,000 respondents in 26 countries revealed that 18% of Generation Z rate their mental health as poor or very poor. And to this is added that Gen Z’s relationship with social networks is deeply paradoxical: the same study says that this generation is the most likely to report negative effects of the use of digital platforms, but simultaneously more than half identify benefits such as self-expression and social connectivity. The same apps that fuel toxicity and anxiety are also spaces for identity and community construction. Humor as therapy. This is interesting UCLA analysis of dark humor on TikTokwhich analyzed hundreds of comments on videos about trauma, grief and existential crises, and came to the conclusion that for Generation Z these jokes function as “language of solidarity.” They do not trivialize suffering: they make it bearable by laughing at it. While the millennials Using sarcasm to create distance, Gen Z mixes irony with sincerity, adopting a confessional style that embraces vulnerability. But there is a dark side to this mechanism: this analysis explains that there is a fine line between humor as catharsis and the normalization of destructive thought patterns. Cry Wrapped operates exactly in that ambiguity: emotional processing or transformation of suffering into social capital? In Xataka | Someone believes that part of Drake’s 37 billion Spotify streams are fake. And it’s impossible to know

Christmas has become the big business of happiness, and that turns sadness into something revolutionary

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“The second most important fact about Christmas is that it is one of the times of year when the suicide rate increases.” This is how a text by Alasdair MacIntyre, one of the most important moral philosophers of the 20th century, begins. circulates on the internet every Christmas. We know that the data is not true (no more people commit suicide at this time) and, in fact, we are not even sure that this text was written by MacIntyre (although the reference also appears in his main work): However, it is something that keeps repeating itself over and over again. It will be because, despite the lights and the fanfare, there are many people who approach the ‘happy holidays’ as something deeply sad. The great Christmas dissonance. There are many ways to view Christmas, but in almost all of them there is something of a great social celebration of happiness. It is the time of sharing, of meeting loved ones, of reconciliation, of taking advantage of the time as if another spring were not going to come after the barren winter. But what if we don’t want/need/can feel that way? That is, what if in the middle of that chorus of messages, posters and songs that tell us that we should be fine, what we feel is that, simply, “we are not”? Usually, when the implicit norm is “feeling grateful, generous and happy”, anything that goes beyond that is perceived with a mixture of shame and self-criticism; puts on a “good face” (emotional performance) and fatigue, irritability and you end up burning. And everything we lack. “Christmas is also a recounting”, said the writer Gonzalo Torné. “It is the day that as children they taught us what our family landscape was, the people who were interested in us and whom we could count on. And the day that, absence after absence, we confirmed the fragility of what as children we learned as something stable.” The duels. It is a quite precise text: during this type of festival, all the duels that we carry behind us are also activated. It’s not just about “nostalgia”, it’s about everything a ritual of remembering absences on which we have built our lives. Just as the idea that MacIntyre mentioned at the beginning does not fit the data, the truth is that, among the population treated in psychiatric emergencies at Christmas, the “stressors that are repeated the most“are loneliness and being-without-family. A “pressure cooker.” Because, let’s face it, last year up to 20% of Spaniards They experienced political fights at some family dinner. Six out of ten, in fact, avoid talking about controversial topics not to argue: the great “polarization” is converting all in one problem (that adds to material stress and unequal loads). Many reasons, only one why. MacIntyre said that much of this is because “we have lost any ability to understand our lives as something that embodies a narrative structure—not to mention narratives in which there is hope for a happy ending.” No need to go that far. Everything seems to indicate that it is something simpler: Christmas runs the risk of becoming something sad when it becomes an emotional obligation. That is the great design problem of these parties, which, being made to “feel accompanied”, by contrast, make losses, inequalities and fractures visible. We need to reclaim sadness… also at Christmas. In recent years, and with increasing force, positive thinking has become fashionable. Ideas like “You have to be optimistic”, “Don’t give up” or “Always positive, never negative” have become true mantras of our time. But as he says the teacher Jose César Peralesfrom the University of Granada, positive thinking has serious problems that we overlook due to its friendly and adorable appearance. Our culture, increasingly full of characters, is gradually distancing us from a simple truth: that “we suffer, hate or are envious because they are the way we live reality. Denying it, embracing an irrational and meaningless positivism, is the contemporary way of denying ourselves.” Isn’t Christmas a good time to accept ourselves? Image | Bryan Heng In Xataka | Toledo promised them happy holidays with its 49-day mega Christmas. Until the neighbors said ‘not so fast’

The US bans Chinese drones and turns DJI into the new Huawei. It’s an absolutely crazy idea.

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States has decided ban all drones and critical components of these vehicles that have been manufactured in foreign countries. In addition to this, he has vetoed any team of communication and video surveillance from the largest Chinese manufacturers, and there is one name above all others: DJI. It’s another shot in the foot for the Trump administration. what has happened. Does almost a decade that some government officials in the US were asking for a veto on drones manufactured by Chinese companies, and that veto is now official. The FCC decision It will prevent this body from authorizing drones or critical drone components, something that is essential to be able to import them into the United States. The measure clearly affects DJI, which becomes the new Huaweialthough there is another firm, Autel, that will also be greatly impacted by the decision. Both come to form part of the so-called “covered list”. The reason is the usual one: to protect national security. It only affects (for now) future drones. The existing drones They will not be affected for the moment by the veto and their users will be able to continue using them. Stores that had models in their inventory and warehouses will be able to sell them normally, as the FCC’s action focuses specifically on future models. Thus, the decision is not retroactive, but that could change in the future and affect many models. What DJI says. Those responsible for DJI indicate in The Wall Street Journal that the company is prepared to be audited and highlights that independent analyzes have indicated that its products are completely safe. “DJI’s data security concerns are not based on evidence and instead reflect protectionism, contrary to the principles of an open market.” Drone pilots cry out to the sky. There are nearly half a million certified drone pilots in the United States, and in this segment between 70 and 90% of commercial drones used by local governments and hobbyists come from DJI. The measure therefore has an enormous impact on this entire industry in the United States. Many of these pilots are collecting drones and components to mitigate the impact of the measure. bad future. Greg Reverdiau, co-founder of the Pilot Institute in Arizona, conducted a survey in which 8,000 pilots participated. 43% indicated that the veto would be “extremely negative” and “potentially a cause of business closure”, and nearly 85% said they could stay in business for up to two years due to the prospect of not being able to access future DJI equipment and components. As this expert said, “People don’t buy DJI drones because it’s Chinese, they buy it because it’s available, very affordable, and capable.” DJI has no competition. And less, American. Eric Ebert, owner of a construction firm and user of these drones, explained the problem. “I’m American through and through. I drive a Chebrolet truck. But American drones can’t compete.” Ebert has a team of seven drone pilots who monitor wind turbine and solar panel installations. These weeks they have not stopped hoarding DJI drones and components “knowing what was going to come our way in 2026.” Protectionism…One of the companies that will benefit from the measure is Brinc Drones, a Seattle firm that sells them to more than 700 state agencies. Blake Resnick, its founder, explained that “it is impossible to compete with DJI unless you are subsidized by the state.” …and rear doors. In November XTI Aerospace, which makes helicopters, acquired a DJI distributor called Drone Nerds and also Anzu Robotics, which makes drones by licensing technology from DJI. As part of the agreement, the drone component manufacturing firm Unusual Machines invested 25 million. Guess who is a shareholder and board member of Unusual Machines: Donald Trump Jr, President Trump’s son. Image | jonas In Xataka | China conquered us with its cheap drones. Now the price of their pieces is skyrocketing for a reason that is not coincidental.

The 48fps format makes ‘Avatar 3’ hyperrealistic. It’s just what turns back part of the public

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The new installment of ‘Avatar‘ is distanced, in technical terms, from practically all the other films with which it shares the billboard: Cameron’s thoroughness when it comes to capturing his vision in images has led him to generate, for example, 45 different versions of the film adapted to the conditions of each possible type of theater. This has also led him to declare that the best format to see this third installment it is at 48fps. But not all cinemas are prepared nor does it necessarily have to be a dish to the taste of all viewers. What are 48 frames per second. James Cameron wants us to see 40% of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ at 48 frames per second, double the film standardconvinced that this system offers the most natural visual experience to capture the world of Pandora. However, all previous attempts to impose HFR (High Frame Rate) have failed, since ‘The Hobbit‘ until ‘Gemini‘ by Ang Lee. The reason: to the untrained eye, the image is too sharptoo similar to home video. The question that remains is: why does Cameron opt for a technology that systematically causes visual rejection in viewers? Why Cameron likes it. James Cameron maintains a personal position on HFR: he refuses to classify it as a cinematographic format, but rather defines it as a creative tool at the service of narrative, comparable to any other technical resource. Approximately 40% of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ has been shot at 48 frames per second, concentrating mainly on the underwater sequences and flight scenes where, according to the filmmaker, the increase in visual clarity enhances the feeling of spatial presence. How it works. Cameron’s technical strategy is articulated through the Variable Frame Rate (VFR), which dynamically switches between 24fps and 48fps according to the expressive needs of each scene. As Cameron explainshe framerate high is counterproductive in moments of dialogue or everyday interaction, where it generates an unwanted hyperrealism that emotionally distances the viewer from the fiction. Therefore, scenes with characters talking or walking remain in the traditional standard. The technical process is completed with TrueCutMotiona technology that allows you to adjust the level of motion blur and image smoothness scene by scene. This granular control is intended to avoid the dreaded “soap opera effect” that worked so poorly in ‘The Hobbit’. Cameron conceives of the HFR fundamentally as a technical improvement for 3Dnot as an autonomous aesthetic revolution. In Spain what is closest to Cameron’s proposal is lto Cinity technologyof Chinese origin, which only screens the Odeon network in five theaters and which combines 4K, 3D and HFR. Why does it look like that? The reason we see 48fps with that extreme smoothing effect is because cinema has operated at 24 frames per second since sound demanded standardization of projection speed a hundred years ago. Each frame captures the image for approximately 1/48 of a second, generating a motion blur that the human brain interprets as natural or rather, as “cinematic.” He HFR duplicates that information: 48 images per second with half speed motion blurwhich equals more sharpness in fast movements. The technical advantages apply above all to 3D projections, as Cameron assures: framerate High resolution prevents the image from blurring when panning, and reduces eye-straining flicker in 3D projections. It also helps maintain clarity in low-light scenes, where traditional 24fps results in blurry images. It’s your fault. What we must keep in mind is that the problem that we associate with 48fps It’s psychological, not technical.. Viewers have been trained for a century to associate 24fps with cinematic narrative and framerates superiors with television broadcasts. When the image is too sharp, the brain immediately detects the artifices of the staging. Digital effects, makeup, sets, everything is camouflaged with 24fps images, because we enter more easily into the lie of cinema. The HFR, however, is too clear, too revealing. Previous failures. The first major commercial commitment to HFR came in December 2012 with ‘The Hobbit’. Peter Jackson filmed his entire Tolkien trilogy at 48fps using RED Epic cameras, but the critical and public reaction was devastating because the image was too sharp, almost like that of a reality show. Technically there were no objections to the result, but at the same time it proposed an aesthetic opposite to what was expected from a fantasy story. The HFR versions were never released in domestic format, which makes them curious pieces of lost media in the digital age. Ang Lee went further with the semi-unknown ‘Billy Lynn’ and with ‘Geminis’, which raised the fps to 120. The first could only be projected in those conditions in six theaters around the world and the second, a few more but not many: fourteen in the United States. Both failed commercially, since the HDR versions were released covertly fearing a failure like ‘The Hobbit’. Once again the hyperstylized and fantastical aesthetic came face to face with the dizzying hyperrealism of 120fps. The exhibitors, in addition, they had to acquire HFR licenses for $500 for equipment that they would almost never use. In Xataka | It is possible that ‘Avatar 3’ will sweep and raise millions of dollars. And it is perfectly possible that you lose money despite it

Spain turns in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe. Form part of a geological plan: closing the Mediterranean

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Spain and Portugal are dancing to a different rhythm than the rest of Europe. They are moving clockwise and the consequence is clear: a long-term closure of the Mediterranean that connects the Iberian Peninsula directly to North Africa. The convergence between continents is slow, a few millimeters a year (so we will continue needing the tunnel between Spain and Morocco), but one thing is clear: another Pangea is on the way. And the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco will be a unit. In short. Continental plates move. Some separate, others collide, and that continental drift has caused the emergence the Pangea Ultima theory. In 250 million years, there will only be one continent. There is a long way to go for that, but now, some researchers from the University of the Basque Country have analyzed geodetic data that allows them to affirm that the Iberian Peninsula is rotating clockwise. This east-west rotation is driven by the convergence between the Eurasian and African plates, and the conclusion is clear: both are moving between four and six millimeters closer each year. This information is not new, but the researchers’ discovery is to specify the processes that take place at the diffuse boundary of the two western Mediterranean plates. Thanks, Gibraltar. Although the boundaries of other plates are well defined, this does not occur in the Western Mediterranean. There, the processes are much grayer, and there is something called “Gibraltar Arch” which plays an interesting role in this tectonic dynamic. To the east of the strait, the crust absorbs the deformation caused by the collision between the Eurasian and African plates. This ‘Gibraltar Arc’ acts as a buffer, but it has a consequence: in the west of the strait there is a direct collision between the plates, while in the east it is absorbed by the Gibraltar Arc. This lack of buffering from the southwest is what causes the clockwise rotation. Rotational strain rate field. Positive values ​​correspond to clockwise rotation, while negative values ​​refer to counterclockwise rotation. Active and potentially active faults are marked with solid and dashed gray lines, respectively. Double analysis. The researchers combined two types of accuracy analyzes to obtain these results. On the one hand, those of satellite deformation through GNSS system (Global Navigation Satellite System). Analyzing the data, they measured surface displacements with millimeter precision, relying on both permanent and occasional GPS markers. On the other hand, they also analyzed information from recent earthquakes that allowed them to determine the tectonic “stresses” in the area. They are independent data sets, but by crossing them they were able to draw a series of ‘lines’ that have allowed them to better specify the boundary between the plates. So that? Well, to better understand which sectors are in direct collision between plates and which are still more protected by the Gibraltar Arc. And the neighbors? The problem is that, although they claim that it is a rapid tectonic movement, this is true in geological terms. For us it is invaluable, but it also comes into play that we only have satellite data since 1999 and detailed seismic data since the 1980s. Even so, if with such a short range of data we have reached that conclusion in the annual approach, it is because the phenomenon is not in a hurry, but it does not pause either. And the most interesting thing is that this only affects the Iberian Peninsula. It is not that we are going to separate from France, since we ‘drag’ the rest of the continent thanks to the effect of the Gibraltar Arc, but we are not turning in the same direction as other neighbors. Italy, for example, experiences a counterclockwise rotation that exerts pressure in the alpine zoneand in the anatolian plate (where most of Türkiye is), there is also this counterclockwise rotation. Hello, Morocco. While in Turkey the consequence may be more earthquakes or mountain formations, this current speed of between 4 and 6 millimeters will cause, at some point, the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco to unite. This continental collision would close the Mediterraneanbut there is a lot left for it. How much? About 100 million years. They estimate that for 20 million years we will continue at the same speed, but within about 50 million years, things will gain momentum, accelerating the process and turning the region into one of the most active volcanic and seismic areas on the planet. It’s… foolish to worry. present utility. Now, beyond curiosity, the most immediate implication that the researchers point out is a better identification of active faults or areas in which previously unidentified tectonic structures could exist. Asier Madarieta-Txurruka, one of those responsible for the investigation, explains This information indicates where to look for these structures and boundaries to determine what type of folds and faults there may be. Thus, we can anticipate the type of earthquake that there will be and its magnitude in areas such as the Western Pyrenees or the region of Cádiz and Seville in which we know that there are numerous places with significant deformationbut we do not have well identified the active tectonic structures that cause them. And, although there is still a long way to go before the Alps and a new mountain range are founded across the peninsula and all of North Africa to Arabia, knowing better what we have right under our feet is much more useful. In Xataka | We knew that Africa was going to split in half. What we didn’t know was that it would happen so quickly.

We thought only marijuana growers were stealing electricity. Now it turns out that supermarkets too

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While the city slows down and most businesses close, some supermarkets continue to operate normally. They open at dawn, keep the lights on and the cold rooms running. For years, this constant consumption barely attracted attention. Until last December 2, a joint action by the Civil Guard, the National Police and the Urban Police revealed that several supermarkets in Barcelona were obtaining electricity through illegal connections to the grid. Under the magnifying glass. It was not a specific case or a single neighborhood. The inspections were distributed across Nou Barris, Sant Andreu, Sant Martí, Gràcia, Eixample and Ciutat Vella. In total, 26 supermarkets, and in 24 of them the electricity did not go through the meter. The Civil Guard opened proceedings against 26 people, of Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationality, for an alleged crime of electricity fraud. They were not small isolated businesses. Most operated as franchise supermarkets, some open 24 hours a day and belonging to well-known chains, according to The Newspaper. The performance, named Nihariwas carried out with the collaboration of Endesa technicians and Labor and Social Security inspectors, and ended with the immediate cutting off of supply in the establishments, as reported by the Urban Guard. Electricity tapped into the network. The investigation began after a complaint filed by Endesa before the Civil Guard, as pointed out The Vanguard. The electricity company had detected a suspicious pattern: businesses that, due to their activity and schedules, recorded anomalous or non-existent consumption in their contracts. Once inside the premises, the technicians verified that the electricity was obtained through illegal connections directly to the general network or public lighting. Manipulations without any type of protection or technical review, designed to avoid paying the energy bill. The fraud amounts to 2.85 million kilowatts, a figure equivalent to the annual consumption of 814 homes. A crime with risk of fire. The Civil Guard remembers, as collected The Newspaperthat illegal connections lack safety systems, adequate insulation and protection against overloads, which significantly increases the possibility of short circuits and fires. The danger is aggravated by the location of many of these supermarkets: commercial basements of residential buildings, with a large influx of people and proximity to garages, storage rooms and common areas. In this sense, the Urban Guard emphasizes that electrical fraud It is not only a crime against the energy system, but also a citizen security problem. Much more than light. The operation uncovered a wide catalog of irregularities. During the inspections, the National Police identified 59 people. Of them, five have been considered victims of labor exploitation and another five are in an irregular administrative situation. In addition, the Barcelona Urban Guard drew up 87 minutes for administrative infractions related to safety, hygiene and regulatory compliance. Among them, blocked emergency exits, absence of fire extinguishers, impractical bathrooms, lack of mandatory signs, sale of expired or spoiled food, and carrying out the activity without a license. For its part, the Civil Guard opened 16 cases due to smuggling, incorrect labeling of products, unmarked surveillance cameras, sales receipts without the businessman’s data and manipulation of scales, with a weighing favorable to the merchant. The absence of a food handling card was also detected in some workers. The same fraud, another showcase. What was previously detected in boarded-up floors and linked industrial warehouses to illegal marijuana cultivation It now appears in all-night supermarkets. The investigation confirm that electrical fraud has ceased to be a strictly clandestine phenomenon and has become established, in some cases, in apparently normal activities facing the public. The scenario changes, but not the crime. And neither are the risks. Image | Release and freepik Xataka | Spain lights up for Christmas, but an uncomfortable doubt arises on some rooftops

the most disruptive technology for treating patients in the ICU turns out to be an MP3 file

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When we think about the advances in hospitals to improve survival or recovery of patientswe can come to think of better respirators, monitors that offer thousands of data or new drugs that are almost miraculous. However, science has given us a blow of reality by demonstrating that accompanying families during hospital stays offers great results. This is something that has been seen directly in a hospital’s ICU itself, where patients are between life and death. That is why a study decided to use something as ‘low-tech’ as It is a voice recording of a family member to see the real impact it could have on his recovery. And the truth is that we have been underestimating the usefulness of this clinical tool. The problem. One of the big problems faced by patients entering the ICU is the ‘delirium’. A state of great confusion resulting from an acute failure of the nervous system that affects up to 80% of patients that have mechanical ventilation. And this is something terrible within these units. Not because it is annoying for the patient to be in a great state of confusion, but because it has been seen that mortality, hospital stay and all this increase. leads to higher costs for the healthcare system. Something that has been calculated and that points to an expense of between 6,000 and 20,000 million dollars annually. And the worst thing: current drugs (sedatives, antipsychotics) are often part of the problem or are not entirely effective in preventing it. The solution. Once we had the problem, Cindy Munro proposed a simple but powerful hypothesis to solve it: if the brain “disconnects” from reality due to isolation and sedation, can we use a familiar voice to bring it back? The test. In order to see if this was possible or not, a study was carried out that included 178 patients from two large hospitals in Florida and which had the collaboration of five large universities. The goal was clear: treat sound almost as if it were medicine. To do this, a protocol was created to play the audio so that it was not simply connecting the radio or mobile phone and allowing the patient to listen. The standard was to use common audio players, with two-minute clips recording the families and a playback that would be done twice a day: at 9 in the morning and at 4 in the afternoon. The time was not chosen at random, but was designed to ‘hack’ the circadian rhythm. Listening to familiar voices during the day helps the brain orient itself temporally, reinforcing the difference between day and night, something that is completely lost under the artificial lights of an ICU. The result. In addition to offering a positive result to the patients’ condition, it was also seen to have a dose-dependent effect like medications. That is, the more messages patients received, the greater the reduction in delirium in the ICU. Why this matters. Today the industry does not cease its attempts to search for complex molecules to protect the brain, regenerate cells and countless other techniques. But the reality is that the solution seems to lie in our evolutionary biology (or at least a little help): reacting to the voices of our ‘tribe’. Images | Stephen Andrews In Xataka | Science wants to put ‘microrobots’ into our bodies to medicate us. They have already given good results

appears out of nowhere and turns Russia invisible

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At the beginning of November a scene It went viral on networks. The arrival of Russian troops in Pokrovs was more typical of a dystopia, another example that the war in Ukraine seemed to have definitively become a mirror of what the war conflicts of the future will be like. Now we know that that scene was also the prelude to an advantage. The weather in front. Yes, on the eastern lines of Ukraine, the arrival of a winter full of dense fogs has transformed the battlefield in an unpredictable scenario where visibility, which previously determined the pace of drones, has become a strategic resource in itself. The veil of humidity that covers Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and the approaches to Pokrovsk It makes the job of Ukrainian operators who rely on aerial surveillance to track Russian movements, but also offers an opportunity to sneak up, infiltrate and strike at close range. The chaos. In areas like Pokrovskwhere the lines overlap and the front is porous, the fog has caused a kind of calculated chaos that makes war unpredictable, a board where both armies move almost groping between bursts of fire that appear without warning, while the commanders admit that the weather is completely altering the reading of the terrain and the control of the approaches. Exploiting meteorological disorder. The fog has allowed Russian forces to promote specific advances and risky maneuvers. Taking advantage of the lack of aerial surveillance, mechanized units have managed to cross natural obstacles, build improvised bridges and make their way into areas where they were previously stopped by constant reconnaissance from the air. In southern regions, such as Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsklow visibility has coincided with an increase in assaults and intensive bombing that has forced Ukraine to retreat from certain positions in search of more sustainable defensive lines. The accumulation of troops under the cover of fog, the concentration of armored vehicles and the constant infiltrations by small teams seeking to advance without being detected reflect a strategy that combines quantity, continuous pressure and meteorological opportunism. At the same time, the movement of columns towards towns such as Huliaipole and Yablukove confirms that Russia tries to convert each weather window into a territorial advance, aware that controlling logistics nodes at this time of year can set the trend for the entire campaign. Solution: ground robots. Faced with the temporary loss of eyes in the sky, Ukraine has begun to integrate ground robotic systems to replace the surveillance that drones previously guaranteed. The appearance of UGVs In the defense of Pokrovsk it has made it possible to detect enemy movements that would have gone unnoticed in the dense fog and has served to guide subsequent attacks with FPV drones when visibility permitted. These small, discreet and fast platforms have provided an additional layer reconnaissance in areas where even the best aerial optics fail. Its deployment shows that the Ukrainian army is maturing hybrid doctrines where ground robots complete the work of drones that they previously dominated alone. If you will, it’s a preview of how technological warfare could evolve in the coming years: closer integration between autonomous ground sensors and aerial vectors, especially in adverse climates that are becoming more frequent and extreme. Units operating in Pokrovsk describe combat scenes where attacks emerge from the fogguided by machines that detect heat, sound or movement in conditions in which the human eye is practically blind. The pressure on Pokrovsk. The worsening of the weather coincides with a deterioration of the tactical situation in Pokrovska critical point due to its value as a transport hub and link for the defense of the east. Russia has intensified assaults relying both on climate coverage and on a notable numerical imbalance that favors its troops. Ukrainian forces acknowledge that they face waves of infantry in very small groups, teams of two or three soldiers seeking to saturate the defenses through multiple approaches, and that the fog has facilitated the temporary return of mechanized assaultseven using civilian vehicles to advance quickly in the direction of the city. A plan B. This dynamic has forced Ukraine to combine tactical withdrawals, civilian evacuations and robotic ground reconnaissance to avoid surprises. The adverse weather has accelerated the feeling of uncertainty on a front where every meter of ground is contested blindly and where the lack of aerial vision multiplies the risk that an enemy leak becomes an operational rupture. Time changes everything. The combination of persistent fog, limited mobility and low visibility has created a combat ecosystem that rewards both creativity and audacity. In this environment, the infiltration tactics Russians find more room to thrive, but so do quick Ukrainian incursions that seek to disorient the adversary in the chaos of the fog. Climate has become a multiplier of uncertainty: it degrades the precision of drones, distorts sensors, creates gaps in surveillance and pushes both sides to improvise technological and tactical solutions. Ukrainian ground robots represent a popup response to those conditions, while Russian advances under adverse weather show the importance Moscow attaches at any opportunity to break the Ukrainian defense. Image | IDF Spokesperson’s Unit In Xataka | The main problem of Europe’s rearmament is a number. If Russia attacks its borders, it has 45 days to roam freely In Xataka | Ukraine’s “Terminator” against Russian drones: an AI that decides when to shoot has hidden where it is least expected

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