United

60 years ago a student wanted to study the mountains of the United States. Unknowingly felled the oldest known tree

by

At a glance ‘Prometheus’ It was a twisted, rugged, whimsically shaped pine tree that stood on a Nevada mountain. Nothing to do with gigantic sequoias of Redwood National Park, also in the USA, where specimens of more than 100 meters high with bases that are around 30 m in diameter. That, of course, at first glance. Although its size was not striking and it barely stood out in the grove in which it sprouted, ‘Prometheus’ was a tree of almost 5,000 yearswhich made it one of the oldest in the world. Why do we talk about him in the past tense? Very simple: because in the 60s a student who was especially diligent with his research felled it with permission from the authorities. With you, the Pinus longaeva. Its name may not be as well known as that of the redwoods, the baobabs or the Douglas firstrees that have been fascinating humanity for centuries due to their colossal dimensions, but the bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva) are just as amazing. Not because of its size, but because of its age. Located primarily in the higher altitude mountains of California, this species has managed to survive for several millennia. As? Its growth is very slow and they usually sprout separately from each other, which allows them to adapt to harsh habitats and withstand fires better. The key to its longevity however lies in its “architecture” and adaptations. As remember from the US National Park Service (NPS), the roots of the Pinus longaeva They only nourish the part of the tree that is directly above them. If that root dies, it only affects its section of the tree. Hence, it is not unusual to see specimens with dry bark on one side and that, however, continue to grow healthily. an old acquaintance. In Wheeler PeakNevada, stood years ago a magnificent specimen of Pinus longaeva. Its height was nothing out of this world, but it was so twisted and had such an ancient appearance that mountaineers in the area They baptized him ‘Prometheus’. Seen in perspective, the nickname is still ironic. In the classical mythology Zeus imposed a horrible punishment on the titan of that name for giving humanity the gift of fire and metallurgy. At Wheeler Peak the ‘Prometheus’ that grew rooted to the mountain ended up perishing precisely because of the efforts of a university student to understand the geology of the region. To understand it you have to go back to summer of 1964when Donald R. Currey, a graduate student studying the ice age of eastern Nevada, had an idea: To better understand the formation of glaciers, he decided to extract samples from the oldest trees that grew in the region. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking. The dendrochronologythe discipline that is responsible for studying climate patterns by analyzing tree rings, dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. In fact, the idea of ​​obtaining samples from the logs sounded so reasonable that authorities raised no objections when Currey asked for permission to study them. The great unknown. In theory, what Currey proposed was to use a drill bit to remove small samples of the trunk, a kind of cylinders from the trunk. pencil size that could later be analyzed in the laboratory. It came with the different rings and their characteristics being appreciated. When it was ‘Prometheus’ turn, something went wrong. Or so it is believed, since more than six decades later it’s still not entirely clear what exactly happened at Wheeler Peak. Some accounts claim that Currey’s drill bit broke while the geologist was trying to make his way through the dense pine wood, so he requested help from the Forest Service. To solve it, the workers opted for the most radical solution: they took out the chainsaw and cut down the tree. Other versions claim that Currey did not know how to work with such a complicated specimen or that there was simply no error and from the beginning he needed a complete cross section to study the trunk. Regardless, there are two clear details. First, that was the end of ‘Prometheus’. Second, Currey did not work as foreigners. He had permission from the Forest Service. And the surprise came. It was not necessary to cut ‘Prometheus’ in two to intuit that it was a very ancient tree. If Currey looked at this pine and others in the area it was precisely because he assumed that they were old enough to give him a broad ‘snapshot’ of the climatic events that had occurred in the region. The surprise came when he took the piece of wood to his laboratory. As ancient as I suspected ‘Prometheus’ to be, one thing is clear: Currey fell short. When he started counting growth rings, he added neither more nor less than 4,862. Given the harsh conditions in which the pine grew, which could have influenced the formation of the layers, the experts ended up concluding that its age was most likely closer to 4,900 years. That is to say, the ancient tree already appeared on the Nevada mountain when the pharaohs reigned in ancient Egypt or Hammurabi ruled in Babylon. The oldest in the world? Although environmental awareness in the 1960s was not the same as it is today, the mistake was considerable. Especially since it was the Forest Service itself that made it possible. The age of ‘Prometheus’ is in fact so astonishing that the NPS itself recognize which at the time was considered “the oldest tree ever dated.” It even surpassed the famous tree ‘Methuselah’other Pinus longaeva of California that is around 4,850 years old. Today that title is in question. Especially after a theoretically even older tree was discovered in 2012, another bristlecone from more than 5,000 years. The US authorities recognize in any case that it is “very likely” that there are other, even older, undated specimens of the same species. “The bristlecone pines of the Great Basin are notable for being the oldest non-clonal species on the … Read more

It is already looking for other bases in the United States (and even abroad)

by

The pace of SpaceX launches It’s already dizzyingbut Elon Musk’s company assures that this is nothing. In the future, they hope to make many more releases. In fact, its most ambitious goal is to make more than a thousand launches a year with its famous Starship. Today, they only have two launch platforms adapted to this ship. in your Starbase base. That, logically, would be very short for them at that rate. This is why they are already looking for new launch locations. Many in the United States, but possibly some abroad as well. An ad in X. The news has been revealed through SpaceX’s X (formerly Twitter) account. After a publication by a user speculating about the possible purchase of land to expand its launches, the company not only has not denied it, but has gone further. This user was talking about some land in Louisiana, but SpaceX has announced that they are also considering buying outside the United States. What is known so far. Beyond that speculation from a tweeter, what we do know is that SpaceX is modifying three platforms in the area of ​​Cape Canaveral, Florida, to be able to launch Starship from there. This is the place from which a good part of NASA’s ships are launched. However, there was no space available for the Starship launch. With this decision by SpaceX, its search for new spaces is clear. Although it seems that that is just the beginning. Be careful with the bureaucracy. Buying land abroad to launch ships into space is not so simple. As explained in spacethe United States government welcomes space launches under the framework of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Based on this, American companies that want to fly from foreign soil have to overcome a series of bureaucratic procedures, which are expedited if the country in question has already signed something known as Technological Safeguards Agreement. This agreement derived of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which emerged in 1987 to ensure that missile technology did not end up in the wrong hands. Now, it is used to ensure that countries where space launches are carried out comply with a series of guidelines that do not endanger either the missions or the United States. Candidate countries. There are some countries that have already signed the Technological Safeguards Agreement with the United States. Some examples are Brazil, Norway, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. Therefore, if SpaceX wants to launch in foreign countries, these would be the easiest options. In fact, the American company Rocket Lab It already launches from New Zealand without any problem. Step by step. Before talking about thousands of launches a year, we will have to see how the Starship evolves. Its 12th flight, in which version 3 will finally be tested, is scheduled for May 19, local Texas time. If this goes well, SpaceX will be closer to the Moon with its Starship and, logically, will also take another step towards the normalization of commercial flights of this ship. Only many years later will that massive shipment to space arrive. They are right to be proactive, but there is still a long way to go before they really need those launch bases abroad. Images | SpaceX In Xataka | In 2018, Elon Musk put his own car into orbit. Eight years later it is still circling the Earth

The United Kingdom has just activated an unprecedented air mission over a lost island in the Atlantic. There is a hantavirus suspect

by

In 1961, a nurse had to be urgently evacuated from Tristan da Cunha after a volcanic eruption forced completely vacate to the entire population of the remote island. For weeks, that small territory lost in the middle of the Atlantic remembered something that remains true today: when an emergency occurs there, arriving on time can become an extremely complicated operation even for a country like the United Kingdom. The forgotten island of the Atlantic. While dozens of passengers from the MV Hondius cruise They began to disembark in Tenerife between health checks and repatriation flights for a hantavirus outbreakmuch further south and far from the cameras, the United Kingdom has started an operation completely different on an island that almost no one would know how to locate on a map. Tristan da Cunha, considered the most remote inhabited island on the planet, has suddenly become the scene of a unprecedented air mission for British forces after a british citizen showed symptoms compatible with hantavirus after leaving MV Hondius. With just 221 inhabitants, no airport and almost a week by boat from the nearest major port in South Africa, the island was caught in an extremely delicate situation when oxygen reserves began to run out and the small local medical system found itself unable to face the risk of contagion and isolation alone. An unprecedented military mission. The British response was as extraordinary as the place where he was to be executed. The Royal Air Force mobilized an Airbus A400M Atlas from RAF Brize Norton accompanied by a Voyager tanker plane to carry paratroopers, doctors and tons of medical supplies to the middle of the Atlantic. There was no possible landing strip, so the United Kingdom took a unprecedented decision: drop military doctors by parachute over the island. Six members of the 16 Air Assault Brigade They jumped alongside a doctor and an intensive care nurse in an extremely complex operation marked by strong winds and a minimal margin for error. The jump was made practically over the ocean before to correct the trajectory towards the island, with the real risk of ending up falling directly into the Atlantic if something went wrong. Never before have British forces deployed medical personnel by parachute drop on a humanitarian mission of this type. Medical supplies were dropped on the remote island, which has no landing strip and has a population of just 221. The cruise ship that took the problem to the middle of the ocean. It all began weeks before aboard the MV Hondius, the expedition cruise ship that was sailing through the South Atlantic when it appeared a hantavirus outbreak which would end up leaving several dead and multiple confirmed cases. The case has been of particular concern because the identified variant belonged to the Andean strain, one of the few capable of be transmitted between people. Apparently, the British citizen who ended up isolated in Tristan da Cunha had abandoned ship mid April and began to develop symptoms days later on an island that, as we said, does not have advanced hospital capacity and is normally cared for by just two medical professionals. While some passengers were treated in the Netherlands or South Africa and others were isolated in the United Kingdom After returning from Tenerife, the British health authorities quickly understood that the real problem was no longer on the cruise ship, but in that small isolated community in the middle of the ocean where any worsening could turn into a emergency impossible to manage with conventional means. Geography as a threat. Plus: the operation revealed the extent to which geography continues to condition even to countries with enormous military capabilities. Tristan da Cunha has no airport, no regular air routes and its sea connections are extremely slow and limited. Simply evacuating paratroopers and medics after the mission will require a complex maritime operation carefully planned due to health risk. I was counting a few hours ago BBC that the jump was not made over a large open space either, but rather over a small island buffeted by winds that usually exceed 40 kilometers per hour. The soldiers, in fact, ended up landing at the local golf course while the island’s inhabitants improvised receiving medical equipment and unloading more than three tons of supplies for the hospital. All this to contain a possible contagion in a territory where any logistical failure can take days to correct. The unknown Atlantic. If you will, history also reveals an uncomfortable reality about major modern health and geopolitical crises: almost all the attention tends to be focused on in visible places and connected while huge peripheral spaces remain out of focus until an emergency breaks out. Thus, while the media focus has followed the arrival of the cruise ship to the Canary Islands minute by minute, the hantavirus has ended up activating parachute dropsmilitary doctors and extreme logistical operations on Tristan da Cunha, a place so remote that even a relatively small health emergency forced resources to be mobilized normally associated with war scenarios or major catastrophes. Image | Ministry of Defense In Xataka | It is not so contagious, but it is very lethal: in Argentina the hantavirus went from 17% to 33% in the blink of an eye In Xataka | We believed that hantavirus did not jump between humans. Until someone went to a birthday party in Argentina

In the war of humanoid robots, those from the United States dance and those from China work by the piece. It is not a technological issue

by

The United States and China are fighting a technological battle with two very clear strategies: one visible and the other invisible. The invisible is that of the artificial intelligence, the fight between models and the basic technological development. The visible one is the creation of data centersthe development of next generation networks and robotics. Because it is the robots that are at the center of that technological race between the two powersbut while one country shows them jumping, the other is making them work. The difference is not technology or money: it is state support. However, as with so many things, there is a trick to it. Priority. China has put robotics at the center of its technological development program for the coming years. The new Five-Year Plan, the roadmap in which the country points out the objectives that it will try to achieve over the next five years, robotics is in a privileged place next to the development of the chip ecosystem or the 6G networks. This is a state issue, a national priority that marks a deliberate shift from assembly line robotics, the ‘simple robots’ of traditional automation, to one with built-in artificial intelligence and a greater range of functions they can perform. Humanoid robotics is not new and, in fact, Boston Dynamics is the company that has been demonstrating its products for years. But while the demonstrations by American companies consisted of making their vehicles dance or do somersaults, humanoid robotsChina has been showing them at sporting events and in impressive showsbut it is also putting them in front of stores. to work. There are already stores in Beijing that are operated by humanoid robots. They are independent, serve users and do not need human supervision (unless they are like this japanese robot). They are also turning them into guides in museums and stores, but beyond that public-facing work, there are important groups that are incorporating humanoid robotics into their workforce. An example is CATL. The electric vehicle battery giant began deploy humanoid robots at its Zhengzhou plant. Their task is one considered high risk for human workers: connecting high-voltage battery plugs on an assembly line. The robots are made by a startup called Spirit AI and feature a vision-language-action AI model. According to the company, they are having 99% success in connections, they triple the work that a human can do and, obviously, they do not need breaks. But it is not only private companies that are deploying this technology. The State Electricity Grid Corporation has intended 6.8 billion yuan, about 1 billion euros, to acquire 8,500 robots with AI. The intention is to deploy them in 26 regions to inspect and maintain power lines. It has a trick. Returning to the comparison with the United States, there is something that stands out: the valuation of the companies. While Chinese powers like Linkerbot are valued at 6,000 million dollars, the American Figure is valued in 39,000 million. The key is that Figure has shipped far fewer units to the market, something largely dominated by Chinese companies. Analysts expect both countries to develop markets of similar size, but China currently leads by far in the early commercialization of humanoid robots. Now, not all the mountain is oregano and, in the last report of the International Federation of Robotics highlights that, although China is dominating the deployment of robots globally (humanoids and non-humanoids), the mass market will still take several years to arrive. According to that document, there are more than 150 humanoid robot developers currently operating in the Chinese market, a market that will represent in 2025 more than 85% of the 15,000 humanoid robot installations worldwide. USA represents 13%. However, what the IFR also says is that much of that deployment remains limited to demonstrations or pilot projects, not a replacement as such for the human workforce. That is to say, there are companies that are already using robots on a large scale (the examples of CATL and the State itself), but within the figures that are used to talk about this Chinese dominance also include those pilot programs or robots that are dedicated to playing sports and dancing, as in the United States. Need. In any case, there is something undeniable: China is betting very hard and very quickly on robotics, be it humanoid or that of the ‘robodogs’ that are already using in military forces or in divisions of firefighters. And the reason is that the country is facing a precipice: that of the demographic pyramid. The accelerated aging of its workforce, together with new generations that are not willing to work for a decent wage, are accelerating the implementation of robots to improve productivity and efficiency in various sectors. China is not the only one. Japan is also experiencing with robotics in day-to-day jobs because it faces the same problem of population aging. And Samsung, part of a South Korea that is also experiencing a demographic crisis, has already indicated that it has a great plan underway to automate its factories with humanoid robots controlled by a central AI. In Xataka | In China they are not satisfied with creating advanced robots: a company has developed a head that gestures like a human

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

by

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

Tim Cook has been a wonderful CEO for Apple investors. For the United States, not so much

by

Filling the void left by a myth like Steve Jobs seemed like an impossible mission, and although Tim Cook has been a radically different CEO than his predecessor, his career has been equally prodigious. At least in financial terms, because with it Apple has become a four trillion dollar titan. That’s one way to look at it. There is another. Financially impeccable. Over the past fifteen years, this logistics genius has refined operational efficiency and managed to turn every iPhone into a ticket printing machine. An amazing fact: With Tim Cook, Apple’s value has grown by 682 million dollars on average per day for every day of the last three decades. The business runs like clockwork, but behind that economically impeccable facade there is an uncomfortable paradox. The factories do not matter, but the processes. Cook’s management has shown that to achieve maximum profit margins it is not enough to create iconic products: you must master the supply chain. And to achieve this, Apple preferred to own processes rather than factories. She delegated all production risk to external suppliers while she developed new hardware products and especially services that expanded the ecosystem and maximized profit. China as a great ally. The pillar of this entire strategy was unusual. Since arriving at Apple as vice president of operations in 1998, Cook opted for the massive scale and cheap labor of mainland China. This allowed Apple to manufacture in massive volumes and at a very low cost, but in doing so signed a blood pact with Beijing. Educating your rival. By fully focusing the manufacturing process on China, Apple invested billions of dollars in training millions of workers. The transfer and transfer of technical knowledge has been of such magnitude that it has elevated China’s economic and technological status compared to the West. Flexible principles. This relationship with China has also been controversial due to how the company has been folded to the demands of the Chinese government in the geopolitical sphere. The App Store removed thousands of applications following direct orders from Beijing, but even more revealing has been the iCloud data transfer of Chinese users to servers operated by a Chinese state-owned company. There is a moral duality that inevitably raises suspicions. Remembering Jack Welch. In The New York Times they remembered to Jack Welch, a manager who was described as “manager of the century” after his management at the General Electric (GE) company. Like Cook, Welch was a manager with a spectacular financial record. He achieved staggering annual returns, but over time he was shown to have turned GE into an overleveraged company that was about to collapse in the 2008 crisis. Hero or villain. Cook has systematically ignored a great existential risk: if the tension of the trade war between the US and China ends up exploding, the impact could be terrible for the North American economy. The threat that China ends up attacking Taiwan could come true and in that case Cook would be remembered as the CEO who handed over the technological sovereignty of his company to his country’s biggest geopolitical rival. It is true that Cook takes time reducing Chinese dependence in the manufacturing processes at Apple, but it is also true that “the damage has been done” and the transfer of knowledge has been enormous. Ternus and a very heavy legacy. Cook’s successor will be John Ternusbut your room for maneuver will be very limited at the moment. Tim Cook in fact is not retiring completely and will become CEO and supervise the management of his successor. That makes it difficult to chart a new course for Apple if that is what Ternus is proposing, which also seems unlikely. The iPhone has changed all of China. The truth is that every step that Cook took to reinforce his commitment to China It made undeniable financial sense. and generated huge sums of money for all of the company’s investors. That does not reflect the other reality, because the iPhone has contributed definitively for China to become the giant it is today. In Xataka | Apple has been giving in to China for years, but this time the price to pay is much higher. Your AI is at stake

There are so few bees that there is a law in the United Kingdom that requires new houses to have “rooms” for them.

by

On a global scale, humanity is facing a natural disaster that we have not yet come to terms with: the “insect apocalypse.” Science takes years showing its decline and although without careful thought the first impression may be “how nice to get rid of mosquitoes”, that loss threatens ecosystems essential for human life. In this collapse there is a most critical and weakest link if possible: pollinators. Its disappearance not only affects the flora, but also the food. Faced with progressive urbanization and the loss of its natural habitats, current architecture in the United Kingdom has begun to integrate microconservation solutions into the buildings themselves: the Bee Bricka brick that, in addition to supporting walls, houses bees. What began as a sustainable design project has become an urban policy phenomenon that is spreading around the world. bee bricks. As you can see below these lines, a bee brick looks quite similar to a normal brick, but with one particularity: on its front face it has 18 cavities of different diameters. The back is solid, which prevents insects from entering the interior of the building. It is made from precast and largely recycled concrete (75% granite waste from the Cornish kaolin industry and 25% granite aggregate and cementitious material as a binder). Behind the choice of design and materials used are years of testing and research not only by engineering professionals, but also by biology, such as collect research log from Falmouth University. This Bee brick can be integrated directly into the masonry of a new building, replace an existing brick in a renovation or placed independently in a garden or orchard. As a presentation, the British company Green&Blue came up with the idea and the first brick hit the market in 2014. This is what a brick for abjeas looks like. green and blue Why it is important. Because bees are one of the main engines of pollination of terrestrial ecosystems. According to the IPBES Thematic Assessment on Pollinators, Pollination and Food Productionmore than three quarters of the world’s major crops benefit from animal pollination and approximately one third of the global volume of food produced depends on it directly. That same report indicates that 87.5% of the planet’s flowering plants are pollinated by insects or other animals. And although in the collective imagination we associate this function with honey bees (Apis mellifera), this is actually an exception: they are a social species, domesticated and exploited by humans. In short: they are an overwhelming minority. Most bees do not produce honey, do not have a queen, and do not form colonies. Of course, they are first-class pollinators and some are specialized in specific species. Their decline has no substitute: if they disappear, there will be plants that will be left without a pollinator. Context. In the UK there are approximately 270 species of bees and 90% of them are solitary, such as collects the British National Bee Unit. And it is not an isolated case: on the European red list of bees of the IUCN are also the majority and on a global scale the Journal of Applied Ecology establishes that more than 75% of the more than 20,000 described species of bees are solitary. In other words, it is not an isolated case of the islands. And the problem of British bees is not exclusive either: they are losing their nesting habitat at stratospheric speed. Historically, they made their nests in cavities provided by construction, such as dead wood, cracks in the mortar in old buildings, gaps between stones and also in slopes of unpaved earth, in gaps between stones… spaces that with modern construction, so homogeneous and sealed (compared to the previous ones), have disappeared. The large-scale use of pesticides, the disappearance of grasslands or the effects of climate change, which are pushing species adapted to lower temperatures to the margins, do not help either. And that this study from Anglia Ruskin University evidence that solitary ground bees nest in a wider range of habitats than previously believed. Rooms for bees by law. The southern English coastal city Brighton & Hove was the first to turn the Bee Bricks into a legal requirement for new buildings. From January 2022 all new buildings over five meters high must include both Bee Bricks as nest boxes for swifts. Out there, Cornwall adopted in 2018 an official planning guide that includes bee bricks as a prescriptive biodiversity measure and several construction companies in the south of England they integrate them voluntarily in their projects for more than a decade. And do they work? Trials in Cornwall between 2019 and 2021 demonstrate modest results: occupancy rates were low, although nesting activity was recorded in bricks of all colors and in both urban and rural environments. The species that used them the most were the red mason bee (Osmia bicornis) and leaf cutters of the genus Megachile. He Conservation evidence from the University of Cambridge systematizes the available studies on artificial habitats for bees and concludes that nest boxes and cavity systems are used by solitary bees, as long as they are well designed and located. To work, the bricks need to face south, more than a meter off the ground and near flowering plants. Without those conditions, the probability of a bee colonizing them drops dramatically. Yes, but. In addition to the modest results precisely due to unsuitable designs and arrangements, there are experts such as Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex and one of the most renowned bee researchers in the United Kingdom, warns for The Guardian that the holes in the Bee Bricks are too small and shallow for most solitary bee species and that the initiative risks being greenwashing for the real estate sector: “We are kidding ourselves if we think that having one of these in every house is going to make a real difference to biodiversity. Much more substantial action is needed.” On the other hand, other ecology professionals they point out … Read more

For decades, the “Galicia” octopus has been the greatest guarantee of quality. The United Kingdom wants to take it away

by

The Galician octopus may be the most famous, but for some time now, talking about the most precious cephalopod in the country’s gastronomy requires looking beyond the Rías Baixas. In fact, it forces us to take a leap of hundreds of kilometers and look at the other side of the English Channel, on the southern coast of the United Kingdom. There the English fishermen have encountered a curious octopus invasion which at first they viewed with suspicion (they have been dedicated to capturing other species for generations), but each time it awakens greater interest in London. The question is how can it affect that to Galicia, a land that has turned octopus into a ‘religion’ (in addition to a big business) and that in recent years has encountered the opposite panorama: a fall in the capture of cephalopods. What has happened? That the octopus map is changing. And although we still don’t know for sure how deep (and stable) that transformation will be, it has been clear enough to generate expectation in Galicia, a land closely linked to the cephalopod from a cultural and economic point of view. To understand it, we have to go back to 2025, when fishermen who fish on the southern coasts of the United Kingdom encountered an unexpected picture: in the pots that have been installed for generations to hunt crabs and lobsters, they began to appear empty shells…a clue to the presence of octopuses. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Why is it so strange? Because the ports in the north of the peninsula are used to large unloadings of octopus, but things change when we talk about Newlyn or Brixham, in England. There the boats that go out to fish hope to collect sole, turbot, crabs or lobsters. A few months ago, however, the fishermen encountered an unexpected (and apparently inexplicable) invasion of Octopus vulgariscephalopods that usually live in the Mediterranean or other areas of the Atlantic, such as the Galician coast. It was not a one-off boom. Nor something anecdotal. The phenomenon was so surprising that it even caught the attention of Stephen Castle, a reporter for The New York Timeswho in September traveled to Brixham to talk to sailors and operators. In a chronicle about what he saw there, he talks about fishermen ecstatic to see how their turnover skyrocketed thanks to new catches, auctions of tons of merchandise and veterans of the sector recognizing that it was the first time they had captured the species in their waters in more than 40 years. This is good news, right? Depends. Castle chatted with fishermen who rub their hands when they see the tentacles wriggling in their nets, but also with others who frustratedly tell how octopuses boycott the pots with which they capture shellfish. They are not the only ones who are not enthusiastic about the new plague. “I recently visited the fishing industry in Plummouth and was informed that there was an unusual abundance of octopuses in the south west. The Ministry of Environment and Food understands that the proliferation is affecting shellfish pot fishing and causing concern in the fishing sector in the area,” warned in May last year the Labor MP Daniel Zeichner. And why not take advantage of it? That is the question that the British authorities seem to have asked themselves, who have decided that the cephalopod invasion may be something more: an opportunity. At the beginning of the year Vigo Lighthouse revealed who in London want to promote a formal, regulated and industrial fishery of the octopus vulgaris. In short: make a virtue of necessity and equip yourself with a strategy to gain a foothold in a market that moves billions of euros. Proof that the United Kingdom they are very serious with the octopus is that the Marine Biological Association (MBA) and the Marine Management Organization (MMO), two departments linked to the Government, “are considering how best to collaborate with the EU to learn from existing octopus fisheries.” a few days ago The Voice of Galicia even reported that the country is already looking at the markets of the rest of Europe and Morocco. It makes sense if we take into account that the change on the English coast, with an octopus boom that in turn reduces the population of other traditional species, already affected to the Christmas campaign. Do they have that many octopuses? Yes. In September, after speaking with the manager of a market, Castle talked about the sale of up to 48 tons of octopus in a single day. Official MMO data shows that last year a total of about 1,900 tons of octopus, especially in Brixham and Dartmouth. It is an exceptional fact. First, because it exponentially multiplies the discrete cephalopod capture data recorded so far. Second, because it surpasses the 1,200 t handled in the markets of Galicia. There is sources which indicate that total sales in the UK markets would be much higher. Data from the Xunta on the sale (blue) and price (yellow) of octopus in the markets of Galicia. Is it something new? Yes. And no. It is not the first time that English fishermen have found octopuses wrapped in their nets and pots. Vigo Lighthouse remember that in Devon and Cornwall sailors already encountered similar situations in the late 19th and mid-20th centuries, when the regional press came to speak of “a perfect plague” of “disgusting beasts” that “almost ruined” the sector. On this occasion there are signs that suggest that it will not be something temporary. Experts such as Seteve Simpson, from the University of Bristol, slide that climate change is “a likely factor” in explaining the increase in octopuses in southern England. “Our waters are warming, so our little island of Britain is becoming increasingly favorable for octopus populations,” he theorizes. There are clues that suggest he is not wrong. In Plymouth there are fishermen who recognize that they not only encounter adult specimens when fishing. They also see … Read more

China has almost closed the AI ​​gap with the United States. And he has done it with all the sticks in the wheels

by

It is difficult to go into detail about the number of dances in which the United States and China are immersed at the moment. The technological war is the umbrella under which the trade warthe attempt of military conflict in the South China Seathe robot racethat of the energy and that of artificial intelligence. Everything is related to each other and, although the United States has exercised an aggressive technological blockadeStanford University is clear that it has not been of much use. And they are clear that the AI ​​gap between the powers is “practically closed.” The report. When a new model or version of AI is presented, those responsible show graphs and tables in which they comment on how good their product is. It is something that always has to be taken with a grain of salt because the idea is to make your product look good – it would be necessary to do more – and, for this reason, an external analysis is needed to show us the complete photo. In this sense, the annual report from Stanford University (in its ninth edition) is one of the best thermometers for taking temperature in the state of AI. One of the conclusions of study is that the Chinese models are very close to the American ones. If at the beginning of the AI ​​boom those from the US set the tone with an abysmal difference, at the beginning of 2025 the distance was greatly reduced to the point that DeepSeek-R1 equaled the best American models on several occasions. Since then, the absolute top model is that of Anthropic, but currently only with a 2.7% advantage over the best Chinese model. Different approaches. In fact, in the graph with this specific analysis you can see how the distance between the two is closed as the performance of the Chinese models increases exponentially in a very short time. And something that the study highlights is that, although the United States continues to lead the battle because it is the one that produces the most top-level AI models and with the most important patents, China leads in volume of both models and production of those patents. Also in other sectors, such as AI in robotics, for example. sticks in the wheels. And the most notable thing is that China has achieved this evolution without having the best tools. As a result of the technological and trade war, it is known that the United States has done everything in its power to prevent cutting-edge technology will reach the hands of the Chinese industry. For years they prohibited American companies (which are the ones that control the AI leader like NVIDIA or AMD) sold their higher-end platforms to Chinese companies, but also They shorted the European ASML and the South Korean Samsung and SK Hynix. Because the US has the aforementioned NVIDIA and Intel, but ASML is the one that manufactures the most advanced machines for making chips, Samsung is one of the world’s leading foundries and leader in high bandwidth memory along with SK Hynix and then there is the Taiwanese TSMC as the largest foundry on the market. Although the US has more recently shaken hands with China in this regard, there are still restrictions on Chinese companies accessing the latest technology. Counterproductive. However, through innovation, government support and a little bit of smuggling, gray market and reverse engineering, companies like SMIC -the Chinese foundry- or Huawei They have managed to develop their advanced equipment and chips. The US has tried to put all the pieces in the wheels of the Chinese industry, but as some reputable voices in the chip sector have pointed out, this has only served for China to directly and advances its technological sovereignty program. That is to say, the vetoes that had such a hard impact at the beginning have served to light the flame of technological development. Huawei is the best example of this, since was ostracized five years ago and recently showed that not only has he recovered, but he has returned in better shape than ever, even becoming one of the main drivers of AI for Chinese industry. Approach. Something that the Stanford AI study also highlights is how the two countries are approaching this segment of AI. And we talk about money, of course. While private investment in AI in the United States reached almost $286 billion, in Europe The investment was almost 21,000 million and in China it was only 12,400 million. This is tricky, since it involves private financing (and this year among just a handful of American companies 650,000 million dollars will be melted) and the state support from the Chinese government should not be underestimated, but beyond investment, American companies have focused on creating the most powerful models regardless of the price while the Chinese approach is to make a Cheap AI to be almost transparent to the user. The goal in both cases is mass adoption, but here the cheaper the product and better integrated into everyday platformsbetter. Taiwan. There are other adjacent topics. For example, China has the energy for the AI ​​erabut The US has the data centers. According to the report, there are more than 5,400 data centers in the American country, which is more than ten times the amount that any other country has, but all this with a curious counterpoint: it is a Taiwanese company that manufactures almost all of its artificial intelligence chips: TSMC. The company is expanding with foundries in the US, but although a conflict that will break those relationships is not in sight, it is evident that depending on a foreign country is not the best strategy for technological independence. That is why they are injecting a lot of money so that Intel be the great foundry, but the reality is that it is still very far from TSMC and, although the US is making attempts with native companies such as Applied Materials, the main partners continue to … Read more

The United Kingdom has a laser capable of shooting down drones flying at 650 km/h. And each shot is the same as two beers.

by

For some time now, armies have pursued an idea: weapons that fire energy instead of projectiles. Already in the Cold War was experienced with systems capable of concentrating heat at a distance, although technical limitations relegated them to tests and prototypes for years. Today, with advances in electrical generation and beam control, that ambition has begun to emerge from the laboratory, although it still entailed challenges that for a long time seemed impossible to solve. The UK seems to have solved the most important one. From the laboratory to real combat. He DragonFire program marks a turning point in the evolution of directed energy weapons, and it does so by going from technological demonstrator to embedded operating system. The United Kingdom has decided to accelerate its deployment until 2027integrating it into Type 45 destroyers and becoming the first European country from NATO in deploying a functional naval laser. There is no doubt, the movement is not only technological, but also doctrinal, because it implies changing the way in which air defense at sea is conceived, integrating new layers that do not depend on traditional ammunition. Two beers for the price of a shot. The key element of DragonFire is not only its accuracy, but rather its economy. Each shot costs just about 10 pounds (just over 11 euros) in electricity, just a couple of “pints” in a pub compared to the hundreds of thousands that a conventional interceptor missile can cost, which completely alters the balance between attack and defense. we had seen it in Ukraine and now in Iran. In a scenario where cheap drones are launched by the dozens or hundreds, responding with expensive missiles had become unsustainable, while a laser allows the pace to be maintained. without depleting critical resources. This difference makes the laser an especially attractive tool in modern conflicts where saturation is more important than sophistication. Extreme precision and new capabilities. The system has proven capable of hitting targets the size of a coin a kilometer away, maintaining the beam on moving targets until causing structural failure. More: its architecture combines multiple fiber lasers in a single high-quality beam, guided by electro-optical sensors and continuous tracking systems. Furthermore, its sustained firing capability eliminates one of the main limitations of conventional weapons: need to rechargeallowing you to take on multiple threats consecutively in a matter of seconds. The response to swarms. The rise of cheap drones and swarm attacks has put in check to traditional defense systems, designed to intercept more limited and higher value threats. DragonFire positions itself as the direct response to that change, offering an effective solution against small, fast and numerous targets without compromising missile arsenals intended for strategic threats. In this context, the laser does not replace existing systems, but rather complements themreinforcing short-range defense and freeing up resources for more complex scenarios. From sea to air and land. Beyond its naval deployment, the program aims for broader integration in ground and aerial platformswhich infers a structural change in modern weaponry. Let us think that the possibility of standardizing this type of technology in vehicles, ships or even combat fighters opens the door to a new generation of systems where energy progressively replaces to physical ammunition. Analysts recalled by Army Recognition that although there are still limitations (such as the need for line of sight, electrical power and thermal management), the advancement of DragonFire indicates that that concept before fantastic of “infinite ammunition” has ceased to be a theoretical idea and has become an operational reality in development. Image | UK Ministry of Defense In Xataka | Spain has built a laser that shields the backbone of its Navy: the A400M is now ready for combat In Xataka | China has achieved something hard to believe: reducing the production of laser weapons and parts for electric cars to one second

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.