unexpected

Microsoft wants to preserve Xbox games and has chosen an unexpected path: officially emulate them on Windows

by

The video game industry advances with a speed that does not always leave room to look back. New consoles arrive, stores are renewed and the physical format loses ground, while a part of the old catalog remains linked to systems, accounts and services that do not last forever. Who have tried return to a game from decades ago We know that keeping it does not necessarily mean being able to execute it. That is the point at which preservation stops being just a concern of archives and museums. In that context, Microsoft has chosen an unusual formula to recover part of its history: bring games from the first Xbox to Windows 11 without converting them into remakes or native versions for PC. The American firm assures that this launch marks the beginning of a broader preservation effort, although, as we will see, this is a limited test. There is also another detail that changes the magnitude of the announcement: the technical means by which these games can work on current hardware. Let’s see. For now, the program does not open the entire Xbox historical catalog nor does it allow you to run any old games on Windows. The starting point is not a broad collection, but four specific games with which Microsoft begins to convey a part of history from Xbox to Windows. The company has not yet detailed which titles will arrive next or at what rate the catalog will grow. For now, these are the ones chosen: ‘BLiNX: The Time Sweeper’ ‘Conker: Live and Reloaded’ ‘Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge’ ‘Fuzion Frenzy’ As we say, what comes to Windows are not conventional remasters or adaptations remade game by game. As confirmed by Microsoft to PC GamerXbox uses emulation to reproduce on a modern computer the environment necessary to run software designed for its first console. This solution maintains the original gameplay, but allows improvements to be added such as VSyncup to four times resolution rescaling, anisotropic filtering and enhanced antialiasing. Users can also choose between full screen and windowed modes, as well as configure language and audio. The initiative is not limited to the desktop computer either. Titles can be installed on Windows 11 compatible portable devices, including ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally Xwithout necessarily depending on cloud gaming. Minimum requirements are modest for current hardware: 8 GB of RAM, a Core i3-8100, Ryzen 3 1200 or Ryzen Z2 A, and graphics equivalent to a GTX 950, Radeon RX 550, Intel UHD 770 or Arc A310. From a favorable perspective, the progress is difficult to ignore. Microsoft is prolonging the useful life of works that until now remained linked to Xbox hardware and its backward compatibility system on later consoles, and bringing them closer to players who may never have had those machines. The problem appears when we go from retaining access to retaining a copy. Microsoft has not announced standalone installers or versions without DRM, the system used to control and verify digital licenses. Nor has it detailed what checks these four games will require, how long they will be able to work offline or whether they will still be available for download in, say, ten years. We do know that your access depends on Windows 11, the Xbox app and a license linked to our account. It is an important difference compared to GOG, which allows you to download DRM-free backup installers and save the files to install without using your application. All of this occurs while the industry reduces independent avenues of access to its catalogs. Nintendo closed in March 2023 digital purchases of Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, although for now it maintains the possibility of redownloading the purchased content. Sony, for its part, has announced that he will leave to produce discs for all new PlayStation games from January 2028. These are two different decisions, but both remember that the availability of a digital work ultimately depends on the continuity of a platform and the conditions established by its owner. Images | Xbox In Xataka | Video game preservation has already been mortally wounded with Sony. The next blow comes from an entire country: Germany

The lynx in Spain is growing at such a speed that it has appeared in an unexpected place: Euskadi

by

An Alava rancher checked his photo-trapping camera last December. He was looking for genets, badgers or wild cats on the plot he has in Campezo. And he found biological gold. The unmistakable brushed ears and sideburns make it clear: the video in question It shows for a few seconds the presence of a lynx in the middle of the night. A tourist from the south. The Hontza Natura Elkartea association spread the image and the environmentalist offices raised their eyebrows: something like this had not happened in more than a hundred years. The boreal lynx inhabited the Aitzkorri-Aratz mountain ranges, the Gorbea massif or Valdegovía at the beginning of the twentieth century. But this is different, it is a Lynx pardinuspure and simple Iberian lynx. The same one that is being tried to reintroduce in the Valencian Community. And he wears a radio transmitter collar. Apparently, it comes directly from the south of the Iberian Peninsula, crossing half of Spain without a train ticket – it is not in vain that they can travel up to twenty-five kilometers a day. Hence, this presence in Álava marks a brutal biological milestone… and opens a crack in the debate on the recovery of wild fauna. Avoiding extinction. It was close and literally. There were less than one hundred copies left at the beginning of the 2000s and today they exceed 2,700. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition (MITECO) he stuck out his chest before Europe with their official censuses, consisting of specimens in Zaragoza, Palencia or Cuenca. The WWF Spain celebrated also the success of the Iberlince program. The specimens released in Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura have managed to settle. And the natural expansion towards Aragon or the northern plateau demonstrates feline adaptability. However, this Disney story with a happy ending should also be read from rural sociology. Because this feline depends almost exclusively on the wild rabbit. 90% of your diet. Diseases, such as myxomatosis or viral hemorrhagic fever decimated its population. 212 died from accidents. And, when hunger strikes, the animal will seek new territories. That’s where the real problem begins. At some point, people will target the lynx. Beautiful and problematic. PACMA warned of the risk. Animal activists denounce deaths due to vehicles being run over and demand urgent and effective wildlife crossings. Ecologists in Action pointed out another enemy: illegal and poaching. Snares, poison and shooting kill dozens of cats a year. Artemisan Foundation, voice of the hunting sector, defended another position: that hunters have absolute control over predation in their reserves. When rabbits are scarce, lynx compete directly with shotguns. The school story has clothed the lynx with sympathy. He enjoys good press, with that amber look that is touching. Let’s take as an example the hatred suffered by the wolf or the brown bear. The demonstrations by ranchers against the wolf have paralyzed roads in Cantabria—although the story changes little by little–. The bear, in the Pyrenees and the Cantabrian mountain range, falls even worse. After all, the lynx weighs less than fifteen kilos, is elusive and rarely attacks larger livestock or calves, settling for partridges, rabbits and, if lucky, some absent-minded chicken. A close precedent. The wild boar is the best example in Spain. A couple of decades ago, seeing a wild boar brightened the day of a Sunday hiker. Today they affect crops on the plateau and cause fatal accidents on secondary roads, becoming an urban drama. The Generalitat of Catalonia declared constant hunting emergencies due to overpopulation. So the animal went from being a majestic pig to an official and destructive pest. Raids have been carried out for five years. Germany underwent an identical metamorphosis with the gray wolf. Politicians celebrated its return as an unprecedented ecological triumph and Berlin urbanites designed welcoming campaigns, until the shepherds of Lower Saxony suffered the direct consequences. German Green and Conservative Parties Now Openly Debating Lethal Hunting Quotas. Canada saw how the populations of pumas and black bears They multiplied near high-income residential areas, where cities like Vancouver or Banff celebrate their mystical connection with nature, until they began attacking pets, scaring children in public parks and sneaking into gardens. The shadow of the Iberian lynx. Seeing how it is expanding, with Álava as the tip of the spear, the question is whether beyond the Gorbea massif they will begin to sneak into private farms with greater frequency, whether they will hunt poultry and attack small rabbit farms. Hontza Natura Elkartea documented the discovery but Euskadi lacks an official reintroduction plan for this species. And we want wild and vibrant nature, yes, but away from our garage, without personal risks. Image | Flickr (Gerardo González Fernández) In Xataka | Wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it In Xataka | We have managed to make the dire wolves return after 10,000 years of being extinct. The problem is that “come back” may not be the right word.

Mass tourism has found a new vein in the most unexpected place, the favelas

by

When you think of Rio de Janeiro, one of the first images that comes to mind is Christ the Redeemer, the 30-meter-high statue that stands at the top of Corcovado Hill. For some time now, however, there has been another Rio icon. much more visited by foreign tourists: Vidigal and Rocinhatwo areas of the city known for their favelas. Between them there are tens of thousands of visitors. Nothing surprising if we take into account that the favelas are increasingly present in the itinerary with which tourists arrive in Brazil. There they look for authenticity… and good selfies. Touring the favelas? Exact. The history of the Rio favelas is ancient. It usually dates back to late 19th centurywith the closing of the settlement of Providenceand since then the word has been linked to a series of ideas: substandard housing, poverty, crime. Nothing that a priori one wants to experience during an idyllic vacation in a beach destination and postcard landscapes. Over time however that has changed. As international tourism grows in Brazil More people look to Rio’s favelas in search of something difficult to find in the most ‘touristized’ places: authenticity. This has made it no longer strange to meet tours, guides and groups of foreigners in some settlements. Even new ones emerge viral trendslike climbing to the top of a rooftop in Rocinha to record a video with help from a drone. Are there figures to prove it? Yes. He Carioca Tourism Yearbook 2024a report that collects trends in the sector in the Brazilian metropolis, shows that that year there were areas known for their favelas that made it into the TOP 20 of the most visited icons in Rio de Janeiro. Not only that. They even surpassed other symbols, such as Christ the Redeemer wave Selarón Staircasetwo of the places that have spent decades starring in Rio’s tourist postcards. To be more precise, in 2024 the Municipal Tourism Secretariat registered 81,600 visitors foreigners in Vidigal and 45,600 in Rocinha. It is far from the 925,400 of Copacabana beach or 554,400 of Ipanema, but it still stands out among the busiest in the region. If we add the flow of tourists arriving from other parts of Brazil itself. That balance shoots up considerably. And in recent years? Interest in favelas does not seem to have waned. For reference, last January (high season in Rio de Janeiro) Rocinha received 41,852 visitors37% more than last year. Around those same dates Or Globeone of the most influential newspapers in Brazil, published a chronicle in which he confirmed the rise of favela tourism and the challenges that this entails. The growing ‘pull’ of the favelas can also be followed through the international press. In recent months the average reach of Associated Press (AP), D.W., Guardian either the BBC network have dedicated articles to the phenomenon, delving into the challenges, opportunities and moral dilemmas it generates. As a background, a fact that they stick out their chest the Rio authorities: in 2025 Rio received some 12.5 million of visitors, significantly above the 11.4 in 2024. Of them, 2.1 million came from other countries. They may represent a small proportion, but in just one year their influx shot up almost 45%. How do you explain your success? That there are more and more tourists who include favelas in their Rio tours is no coincidence. There are several factors that explain it. The first is that the authorities have done an effort to ‘pacify’ themsomething that dates back to the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games. Over the years, a network of services, local businesses and guides has also been created that make the experience much more accessible for foreigners. The clearest example is the Na Favelaan app created precisely to facilitate the organization and management of activities with guides. Those responsible offer “authentic experiences” that, they say, boost the local economy. Does it generate wealth? There are testimonies that suggest this. A few months ago AP interviewed to Vitor, a local guide who works with visitors who are curious about the settlements. He previously worked as a taxi driver in Rocinha, but upon noticing that foreign visitors were increasing, he began offering tours and now basically lives off of tourists. In another interview He recognized that, after a life marked by drugs and violence, tourism offered him an opportunity. “I never imagined it. I didn’t finish school or manage to learn another language.” “If you come to Rio and only visit Copacabana Beach, the statue of Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf Mountain, you are not really visiting Rio. You are visiting a luxurious and expensive part of Rio,” claims. “The essence comes from the favelas.” He is not the only one who slips that message. In May the BBC chatted with an expert in tourism that assures that the violence in the favelas of the South Zone has subsided, something that it attributes in part to the sector. He also assures that, although the area may pose a risk to residents, the cartels do not target tourists. @thefavelaunitedtour When global icons choose authenticity 🇧🇷✨ An unforgettable day showing the real Rio to Rosalía. Culture, stories, people and soul — this is not just a tour, it’s a life experience. Book your tour and discover the real Brazil with us. #RealRio #FavelaExperience #CulturalTour ♬ Cycle Syncing Frequency – Still Haven Is it all good news? No. Although it is no longer strange to meet foreign tourists in certain areas of some favelas, the reality is that they are still not the safest destinations in Brazil. It became clear only a few weeks ago, when dozens of visitors They were trapped in a viewpoint during a police operation against drug traffickers. Months before, in April, more than 200 tourists They had also been stranded for several hours in Morro Dois Irmãos in a similar episode. An operation against drug trafficking caught them in the middle of their tour. The touristification of favelas not … Read more

Switzerland thought that putting 5,000 solar panels at 2,500 meters above sea level was crazy. He had an unexpected ally: the snow

by

The logic of the solar sector tells us that the panels should go down, where it is hot and the roads reach without problem. It shouldn’t be a good idea to put them on top of a mountain, but a project in the Swiss Alps it has surprised us with extraordinary performance. The curious thing is that what drives his performance is exactly what many assumed would make him fail. A solar farm in an unexpected place. The installation is called AlpinSolar and is located on the dam of Lake Muttsee, in the Swiss canton of Glarus, one hour from Zurich. This construction is located at 2,500 meters above sea level and is the highest dam in Europe, as well as the longest in Switzerland. Panels everywhere. Some 5,000 bifacial solar panels, manufactured by the Swiss company Megasol, cover more than a kilometer of the dam wall, facing south to capture sun from morning to night. Being an inclined surface, the snow slides alone without the need for manual cleaning. A complex installation. The dam is inaccessible by land, so every panel, every piece and every tool had to be transport by helicopter. For example, the crane that helped install the panels, and whose components were moved there to then be assembled and ready to operate. Megavarious out of nowhere. The plant, operational from 2022, has an installed power of 2.2 MW and generates about 3.3 million kWh per year, enough to supply between 700 and 750 homes according to various sources. damn fog. The Alpine country generates plenty of electricity in summer, but the same does not happen in winter, which is exactly when it needs it most. That deficit could worsen significantly if Switzerland starts to close its nuclear power plants, and alternatives such as wind energy, have had difficulties developing there. Traditional solar doesn’t help much either: a panel in the valley only generates a quarter of its normal output in winter, in part because fog can sit in low-lying areas for weeks. Better up than down. The curious thing is that the idea of ​​installing the solar farm at high altitude turned the situation around. The plant is above the fog line, and the thin, clean air lets in more sunlight. The cold, far from reducing performance, helps: solar panels work more efficiently when they are not overheated. And the snow acts like a giant mirror, reflecting additional light onto the panels from below (albedo effect), which can boost production. Surprise. AlpinSolar generates about half of its entire annual production during the winter, exactly the season in which the country needed it most. In fact, it produces up to three times more than a similar plant in low altitude areas during the months of February and March. That was enough argument for the Denner supermarket chain to sign an agreement 20-year energy purchase agreement with the project in an alliance with Axpo and IWB, builders and developers of the project. To copy the project. The result has also ended up convincing the Swiss government, which approved a fast-track law dubbed “Solar Express” to facilitate the development of new projects that effectively leave AlpinSolar behind. Among them stands out an alpine park near Sedrun in which up to 4,200 solar projects are planned to be built in lowland and mountain areas of the country. Austria, Italy and other countries are following the experiment closely. That and othersby the way. Image | Axpo In Xataka | The wind industry has been dreaming for years of a turbine that can be assembled without concrete or machinery. France has said ‘hold my tank’“

Scientists threw a cow into the depths of the China Sea. They discovered eight unexpected guests at the feast

by

The ocean is full of surprises. Sometimes, as happened several years ago in Canada, enigmas appear floating in a of human feet adrift. However, in others, the majority, you have to go down to the depths to try to solve the mysteries. That was precisely what a group of researchers proposed. It all started by throwing the carcass of a cow. A cow at 1,600 meters. In one of the most unusual marine experiments in recent years, a group of scientists threw a dead cow 1,629 meters deep on a continental slope of the South China Sea, off the Chinese island of Hainan, with the aim of simulating the sinking of a whale and studying the scavenger behavior of deep waters. What they found surprised even the most experienced researchers: eight sleeper sharks of the Pacific (Somniosus pacificus) appeared at the site, marking the first documented observation of this species in the region. The discovery not only unexpectedly expands the distribution map of this elusive shark, but also provides valuable information about its behavioral patterns, feeding hierarchies, physiological adaptations and its possible geographical expansion. An unexpected visitor. Although the Pacific sleeper shark is a species with a wide distribution in the northern Pacific Ocean (from Japan to Alaska and south to Baja California), its detection in waters off southern China was not only unexpected, but raises questions about the actual extent of its habitatits possible displacement due to the effect of climate change or even the existence of a stable and not yet registered population in that region. Food label. The recorded images The underwater cameras not only confirmed its presence, but also revealed unusual behavior for large predators: a kind of shift systemin which the sharks lined up to feed on the corpse, giving way to other individuals that approached from behind. This type of “food label”rarely observed in predatory species, suggests that feeding order could be determined by the competitive intensity of each individual, rather than a chaotic struggle for resources, which would indicate a more complex level of social organization than previously suspected in these animals. New clues. He study also documented variations in behavior depending on body size. The specimens that exceeded 2.7 meters in length were very more aggressive and direct in attacking the carrion, while the smaller sharks opted for cautious movements, circling the carcass before approaching. The pattern suggests that even in an environment where food is scarce and opportunities are random, sleeper sharks could have developed a coexistence strategy with hierarchical ranks that minimize direct conflict. One more thing. Another notable finding was a behavior of eye retraction observed during feeding. Since this species lacks nictitating membrane (the protective “third eyelash” that other vertebrates such as cats or certain reptiles have), researchers believe that this retraction reflects a evolutionary adaptation to protect the eyes during bites or struggles, which provides new information about the defensive physiology of these sharks in their natural environment. The unknown. And more, since the recordings also showed other revealing aspects. To wit: several sharks carried visible parasites in his eyes, identified like copepodsalthough it was not possible to accurately classify the species. This detail reinforces the biological parallel between Pacific sleeper sharks and their better-known relatives, the Greenland sharkswhich also tend to harbor parasites in their visual organs. Aside from sharks, the experiment attracted a surprising variety of deep-sea fauna, such as snail fish and numerous amphipodsall attracted to the source of decaying organic matter. These records confirm that the deep areas of the South China Sea not only host a biodiversity that is still poorly documented, but could be more productive than previously believed, contrary to the idea that the tropical depths are biologically poorer than their polar counterparts. The great unknown. Ultimately, the presence of these sharks raises a crucial question: is this a recent expansion of their range due to global warming, or has it always been part of their habitat and simply never been observed? The species is known to have occasionally appeared in such remote regions like Palau or the Solomon Islandssuggesting that there could be more southern populations than the scientific literature indicates. However, the “frequent occurrence” in the southwest China Sea, according to the team itself researcher led by Han Tian, ​​suggests rather a structural lack of data in an underexplored region rather than a recent change in the distribution pattern. In that sense, the experiment with the cow corpse has not only provided a specific observation, but has also opened a way to review key concepts about the marine biogeography of abyssal species. The new discovery. In February 2026, it was documented, for first time in historya shark (of the sleeper family, possibly a southern sleeper shark, a very close relative of the Pacific sleeper shark) off the South Shetland Islands, in Antarctic waters, 490 meters deep. This is the first time that an elasmobranch has been filmed in the Southern Ocean, and several experts suggest that warming waters could be facilitating the movement of this family of sharks to areas where they were not previously expected, although they also warn that they could have been there for a long time without having been detected. Know the depths. All these findings They highlight the usefulness of simple but carefully designed experiments to obtain data about remote, inaccessible and often poorly understood environments. The idea of ​​simulating a whale sinking with a cow not only proved effective, it proved to be a powerful ecological magnet capable of revealing complex biological interactions. In a context where the climate change and human activity are altering ecosystems even at great depth, this type of research is crucial to understanding the invisible functioning of the deep ocean. The appearance of eight sleeper sharks where no one expected them, behaving with order, measured aggression and sophisticated adaptive mechanisms, is further proof that the deep sea they keep secrets that we are only beginning to understand. A version of this article was published in July … Read more

archaeologists have discovered an unexpected link between petroglyphs from Galicia and Scandinavia

by

If you travel to Galicia or the north of Portugal and observe carefully some of its petroglyphs From the Bronze Age you will find representations of ships. Back in the day, thousands of years ago, someone carved them into the rock to show the silhouette of ships, sometimes with decorations, crew members, oars and even something resembling sails. The really surprising thing about these pieces is that, deep down, they have little of ‘surprising’ about them. In the southern region of Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden) archaeologists have documented thousands of engravings similar, which leaves one question: How the hell do you explain this coincidence? Now at last we have answers. Connecting dots. Recently a group of researchers led by Marta Díaz-Guardaminofrom the University of Durham, embarked on a peculiar project: analyzing the rock art samples located in a dozen deposits distributed throughout the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, more specifically in Galicia and the north of Portugal. They then compared them with other engravings located in Denmark and Sweden. It was not a capricious or random job. All the pieces shared a common link: they showed representations of ships. What did they find out? That beyond representing boats, the two samples (both the Scandinavian and the Iberian) have certain details in common, “design characteristics” that are repeated despite the hundreds of kilometers that separate Sweden from the Galician coast. Which is it? The archaeologists mainly identified decorations located at the ends of the boats with birds or ‘S’-shaped layouts, as well as representations of rigging, oars and sails. “The study identifies important typological and iconographic parallels between images from the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and the Nordic ones,” they detail in the article that have been published in Plos One with their conclusions and in which they highlight the existence of “numerous and surprising” coincidences between the samples. “While several of the carved images of ships identified at coastal and river sites on the Atlantic coast of the peninsula are very rudimentary and difficult to interpret, there is no doubt that there are parallels with ships that can be dated within Scandinavian chronologies. In addition to the decorations on the ends of the ships (such as birds and ‘S’ drawings), they include shapes similar to ‘mushrooms’, ‘cult axes’ or ‘sails’ located in the center of the ship or that decorate the ends or knobs of bronze knives”. Old-fashioned globalization. With his analysis, Díaz-Guardamino pursued two objectives: to understand whether the engravings were related to each other and, if so, what that tells us about the Bronze Age. Now researchers believe they have valuable proof that “ideas and technologies were shared across Europe” millennia ago through maritime connections and cultural ties. Not only that. They believe that the engravings reveal something to us much more important: that ships were not a simple means of transportation with which to cross seas. They also had a “symbolic importance linked to rituals and beliefs.” “The shared iconography supports hypotheses about long-distance connectivity and maritime trade networks in Atlantic Europe, particularly regarding the movement of metals such as copper and tin,” abound the authors of the article before remembering that almost all the deposits in Iberia share another peculiarity: they are close to navigable waterways, whether rivers or the sea. Specifically, they have studied carvings from Viana, Caminha, Monterrei and Oia. Experienced sailors. In the opinion of experts, the “high level of technical detail” they have documented provides a new perspective on navigation capacity in the Bronze Age. Especially since in the engravings you can see boats that include oars, crew, masts, rigging and curved hulls, a detail that supports the hypothesis that the use of ships with sail was widespread on the Atlantic coast. The presence of cosmological symbols also tells us about a “shared concern” for solar mythology and travel. Fine-tuning the chronological shot. The research is not interesting only for what it reveals about the parallels between both regions. It is also because it helps us better understand the Iberian petroglyphs. More than 20,000 representations of Bronze Age ships have been discovered in Scandinavia, but in the northwest of the peninsula experts have struggled to date them. Thanks to their comparison and examination with high-resolution laser scanning, three-dimensional photogrammetry, RTI and GIS, the researchers believe that the Galicia and northern Portugal samples can be dated to the Late Bronze Age, around 1300-800 BC, a framework consistent with known Scandinavian maritime technologies. “Sea travel covered great distances and helped share cultural ideas across thousands of miles.” For researchers, it does not matter whether the Iberian petroglyphs were recorded by local sailors who assimilated foreign naval technology or were created by navigators who came from abroad and were passing through what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. The key, in his view, is that coastal communities “were actively involved in extensive long-distance maritime networks.” Images | Plos One-Marta Díaz-Guardamino et al. In Xataka | “For 2,000 years they have been inaccessible. Finally we can read them”: archaeologists now know how to decipher the Herculaneum papyri

We continue to find explanations for the fertility crisis in the most unexpected places, such as dog allergies.

by

A 29-year-old Lithuanian woman was desperate before her problems conceiving. After trying it naturally without any results, she and her partner went to an assisted reproduction clinic, where she underwent two in vitro fertilization (IVF). Both failed. Anatomical and biochemical tests showed that, apparently, she should have no problems getting pregnant. But I couldn’t do it. After going through many specialists, an allergist found the key. The woman was allergic to her partner’s semen. And perhaps also that of any human being. Many allergies. According to a case report published in 2024 According to some of the doctors who treated her, the woman had a long history of asthma and allergies. He had long been allergic to mold, dust and cats. However, a series of more recent tests had also pointed to sensitivity to mites, pollen from various plants and some proteins from insects and dogs. What stood out above all was his allergy to the protein allergen 5 of Canis familiaris (Chan f 5). It is a protein that is in dog dander and urine and is responsible for a good part of the allergies to these pets. But there is something else. It turns out that in human semen there are proteins that look very similar to Can f 5. The woman acknowledged that after having unprotected sex, she often experienced symptoms like sneezing and a stuffy nose, so it all added up. Possibly, her body was reacting to some proteins in the semen, preventing her from getting pregnant. The definitive test. After reaching this suspicion, her allergist decided to subject her to a new test. In it, he was exposed in a controlled manner to his partner’s semen, with a clearly positive result. She was allergic to human seminal plasma. That is, the liquid part of the semen. This is rare, but not exceptional. There are 80 known cases worldwide and it is true that they can be related to infertility. The causes of infertility. Allergies are, broadly speaking, wrong reactions of the immune system. It confuses completely harmless proteins, such as some in dog dander, with pathogens, and reacts to them as if they were potentially harmful bacteria, for example. This reaction generates great inflammation; which, in this case, could also affect the reproductive organs, preventing pregnancy. Although there is something that doesn’t add up. IVF treatments consist of putting eggs and sperm in contact in the laboratory to obtain the embryo, which is then transferred to the mother. Therefore, she is not in contact with the semen, but with the already formed embryo. Despite this loose bangs, the doctors decided to try some of the usual treatments. Woman used to sneeze after having sex The treatment. Generally, these allergies are treated like any other: with gradual exposure to increasing concentrations of the allergen, which in this case would be your partner’s semen. The problem is that this treatment is not available in Lithuania. For this reason, women were prescribed antihistamines so that he could take them just before having sex. This way, you would avoid an exaggerated reaction of your body to the proteins in semen. There was no happy ending. Unfortunately, when the woman went for a check-up three years later, she still did not get pregnant. In addition, she had begun to experience new symptoms with sexual intercourse, such as burning in the vagina, inflammation of the eyelids, and watery eyes. The case report ends here. So far, the patient had not managed to put an end to her infertility. Maybe there are other reasons. The study does not mention whether your partner underwent fertility tests, although it is part of the routine in assisted reproduction clinics. They should have been done. Maybe there was something else and that’s why she didn’t get pregnant with IVF either. No further studies have been published, so we don’t know if he later succeeded. What is clear is that these allergies should be considered as a possibility in cases of infertility of unknown cause. It’s strange, but we see that it’s not impossible. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | It’s that time of year in Japan where everyone wears a mask. Blame it on World War II

China has found an unexpected shortcut to bring AI to millions of homes: the robot vacuum cleaner

by

You may already be using Chinese AI at home without giving it much thought. Not necessarily in the form of a chatbot, nor as a hidden function on the mobile, nor as another promise within the television. Maybe it’s in something much less solemn: a robot vacuum cleaner that runs across the floor of your living room while you do something else. The history of the robot vacuum cleaner did not begin with devices running around pointlessly. He Electrolux Trilobitemarketed in Europe in the early 2000s, and the Roomba Intelligent FloorVacpresented by iRobot in 2002, already incorporated sensors and navigation routines to move around a home with a certain autonomy, although their capabilities were far from current ones. What has changed since then is the perception layer: advanced models no longer just detect walls or stairs, but build richer maps, recognize objects and make decisions with more context. Electrolux Trilobite The scale data helps to understand why this story is not just about technological curiosity. According to IDCthe global home cleaning devices market reached 32.72 million units in 2025, up 20.1% from the previous year. Within that universe, smart robot vacuum cleaners remained the main category, with 24.12 million units and a growth of 17.1%. IDC measures shipments, not installed homes, but the scale helps to understand the dimension of the phenomenon: we are talking about tens of millions of home cleaning robots moving through the global market in a single year. AI also enters the house through the floor The most striking thing is who occupies the center of that category today. In the first three quarters of 2025, the global Top 5 of smart robot vacuum cleaners consisted of five Chinese brands: Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, Xiaomi and Narwal. The consulting firm speaks of a reorganization of the market, with 17.42 million units shipped in that period and a year-on-year growth of 18.7%. The reading is quite clear: China is not entering this sector as an aspirant, but as the block that sets the commercial pace of an increasingly technological category. And here the interesting thing begins: we are not just talking about a cleaning product. An advanced robot vacuum cleaner is probably one of the most complex home devices we can have moving around the house, because it must clean, orient itself, avoid problems and make decisions in an environment that changes every day. When he avoids a wire to avoid getting trapped, surround a sockdistinguishes a carpet or adapts its route room by room, there is more than just aspiration: there are sensors and artificial intelligence. Xiaomi H50 Pro At Xataka, for example, we have tested the Roborock Saros Z70, a robot vacuum cleaner with a robotic arm capable of lifting objects weighing up to 300 grams. In our experience, it reached for a sneaker, and Roborock claims it can also pick up socks, small towels, or tissues, although it doesn’t always recognize everything it finds. When we talk about the artificial intelligence race, we usually look towards the great models: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek or Alibaba Qwen, systems designed to summarize, schedule or respond from one screen. That terrain is still the most visible, but it is not the only one. China is also pushing a much more physical and everyday path: products capable of bringing perception, navigation and decision capabilities to household tasks. The iRobot case summarizes the change of era very well. Roomba made the idea of ​​the robot vacuum cleaner famous, but the company no longer occupies the central place it had for years: it was left out of the Top 5 global smart robotic vacuum cleaners indicated by IDC and declared bankruptcy before pass into the hands of the Chinese firm Picea Robotics. This, added to the most recent market data, suggests that the old Western benchmark lost ground while a new generation of Chinese brands conquered the market. Images | Roborock | Electrolux | Xiaomi In Xataka | A man tried to control his robot vacuum cleaner with a remote control: he ended up having access to 6,700 devices around the world In Xataka | The problem is not that there is AI on TikTok. It’s already more than half of what you see as soon as you enter.

An unexpected salvation for the end user emerges from the memory market debacle: Chinese chips

by

The DRAM memory industry is facing a profound structural transformation. Until October 2025 the price of memory chips evolved in a relatively stable way, but from that moment on began a dizzying climb which still continues. In fact, the consultant TrendForce expects the price of conventional DRAM to rise between 58% and 63% quarter-on-quarter before the expiration of the second quarter of 2026. And the artificial intelligence (AI) is behind all this. The three largest chip manufacturers of memory on the planet, the South Korean companies SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, and the American Micron Technology, They have reallocated about 70% of its production lines to high-bandwidth memories (HBM) to satisfy the currently insatiable demand of data centers specialized in AI. The consequences of this movement did not take long to appear: standard DDR4 and DDR5 memories and their derivatives, which are the most used in the consumer segment, immediately began to become scarce. And its price skyrocketed. In fact, according to the consulting firm GartnerRAM has gone from representing 16% of the total cost of a laptop to 23%. And it is possible that this escalation will continue to develop in the coming months. However, users can cling to the greatest stabilizing agent in the memory market today: Chinese manufacturers. This is the great opportunity for YMTC and CXMT Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) is one of the largest NAND chip manufacturers in China. Its global market share is approximately 13%making it one of the main competitors of Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Kioxia or SanDisk. Its weight in the Chinese market is very great, especially because US sanctions They prevent American and South Korean memory manufacturers from selling their most sophisticated integrated circuits to their Chinese customers. On the other hand, Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is one of the Chinese companies specialized in the production of memory chips, and, like other companies in the country led by Xi Jinping, it has chosen to compete in this very attractive market by deploying a very aggressive pricing policy. CXMT in particular has increased its DRAM chip production capacity almost five times during the last four years, which has allowed it to increase its global market share until reaching a very worthy 7.6%. CXMT has chosen to compete in this very attractive market by deploying a very aggressive pricing policy. While large foreign manufacturers maximize their margins thanks to data centers and the rise of AI, Chinese manufacturers prioritize sourcing from local companies. This scenario allows the supply and prices of memory and NAND chips in China to remain relatively stable, remaining outside the strong premiums charged by the big three (Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix). This is the context in which the Chinese memory module brands Gloway and KingBank have recently announced new DDR5 modules that stand out for using SDRAM memory chips made in China. With a standard configuration of eight chips per module, these companies can produce 24 GB modules and group them into kits of two or four modules to achieve capacities of 48 GB or 96 GB, respectively. Chinese memory chips, particularly those from CXMT, have already begun to spread beyond China’s borders. Corsair has already integrated them into some kits of its Vengeance line, while HP and Dell have begun the process of homologating modules with CXMT chips for their products. This is good news for users, there is no doubt. Even so, we still don’t know if the use of CXMT DRAM will become widespread in response to AI-induced shortages. The market demands new players, wherever they come from, and if YMTC and CXMT are able to fill the gaps left by Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix, they are welcome. Image | Intel More information | Tom’s Hardware In Xataka | China needs to develop a new type of chips immune to US sanctions. And your scientists have just achieved it

The European fighter may have died, but there is a plan B to avoid the F-35. One with Spain, Germany and an unexpected guest

by

While Europe was still trying to convince itself that another great war was impossible, Germany blew up for the first time the Messerschmitt Bf 109 in 1935: the fighter that would become the backbone of the Luftwaffe. Ninety years later, the continent is once again debating the same underlying question: who will build its next air superiority. The death of the great European fighter. The great European dream of building a common sixth generation fighter has crashed. The manned core of the FCAS program, the so-called NGF, had been blocked for years by the industrial war between Airbus and Dassault Aviation, but now it’s official now: the Franco-German formula has collapsed. What was supposed to be the joint heir to the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Rafale has been broken by something very European: distribution of power, money and technological sovereignty. France wanted to lead it, and Germany did not agree to be a secondary partner. The danger of emptiness. When a program like this dies, the risk is not only industrial. It is also strategic. Europe need a substitute for its current fighters between 2040 and 2045, and the clock is ticking. The quickest way out would be to buy more Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs, something that is already on the table in Berlin. But that would mean assuming that European air sovereignty has failed and that dependence on Washington is irreversible. At a time when America looks increasingly towards Asia and less towards Europe, that has much deeper implications than simply buying airplanes. Plan B exists. Here comes the real twist, because the great European fighter has died, but not the idea of ​​building one. Germany and Spain they have made a move with the so-called “Team Gen 6”a new industrial alliance led by Airbus that tries to rescue what is useful from FCAS and turn it into something else: a more agile, less political and more realistic project. It is not a restart from scratch, since the engines, combat networks, guided weapons and accompanying drones are still alive, and what has died is the original political architecture. Spain is no longer secondary. On this new board, there is no doubt, Spain I would gain weight. Until now it was the junior partner in a project dominated by Paris and Berlin, but the collapse has changed circumstances. Companies such as Indra Sistemas, GMV, ITP Aero or Sener become part of the hard core of the new design. For Spain, this is not just a matter of defense, It is also industrytechnology and presence in the value chain of future European air combat. In other words, if the plan succeeds, the Spanish nation will cease to be a companion and become a central actor. Sweden as an unexpected piece. The big problem by Team Gen 6 is the size. Germany and Spain together hardly economically justify a program worth hundreds of billions. That’s why the name that begins to sound strongly It’s Saab AB. Sweden fits better than the United Kingdom or Japan because its needs they are more similar: a more contained, cheaper and less gigantic plane than the Anglo-Japanese GCAP. If Berlin, Madrid and Stockholm converge, there could be a third way European very different from the French and the British. One bullet remains before the F-35. If you want too, that’s what’s really important. He collapse of the NGF It does not mean that Europe has lost its last chance. It means that the old formula has died and another is trying to be born from the rubble. In that sense, Germany, Spain and Airbus know it. That is why the real plan B is not to buy the American F-35, that is el emergency plan. The real plan B is to try to save a European industrial autonomy with another coalition, another logic and another calendar. And although it may seem like a desperate maneuver, it is actually the last attempt to prevent the future of European air combat from being designed (again) in Washington. Image | Robert Sullivan In Xataka | Spain refuses to buy the F-35 from the US, so it has gotten something in exchange: Harrier pieces as LEGO In Xataka | The US opted for the quality of the F-35 rather than quantity. China opted for the opposite and it is already a problem

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.