water

Neither Robotaxi nor Cybercab. Elon Musk is having a hard time naming his autonomous taxi, and now it’s French sparkling water to blame

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It will soon be a year since Tesla’s first autonomous taxis began to roll And to this day the creature still does not have an official name. AND not because Elon Musk hasn’t tried. First it ran into the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and now it has been a French sparkling water company. rookie mistake. Tesla may have the technology of the future rolling on the streets, but when it held the ‘We, Robot’ event in 2024 in which it presented the Cybercab, it forgot a small detail: it announced the name without having officially registered the brand. This is where Unibev comes into play, a French beverage company, which saw the perfect opportunity to troll the richest man in the world. The patent troll. What Unibev did is a clear case of patent thief (or troll, as they would say in ‘Silicon Valley’). Taking advantage of Tesla’s oversight, six days after the announcement, the company registered the name Cybercab and it doesn’t seem like it’s because they want to call their sparkling water that way, but rather to simply be annoying. The company already had a history of trolling Musk and in addition to Cybercab they also registered Cybertaxi, Robocab Systems, XCab, Cyber ​​Diner, Teslaquila, Teslaquila Hard Seltzer and With a Touch of Musk. Some horny ones. The answer. The USPTO suspended Tesla’s application because Unibev had beaten them to it, but Tesla did not sit idly by and filed a lawsuit of more than 150 pages in which they accuse Unibev of bad faith and having acted as a patent thief. Having registered before is not synonymous with victory, since simply proving that Unibev does not manufacture vehicles the authority should rule in favor of Tesla. In their application, Unibev said they could use the name for “a car, a ship or a plane.” It seems easy enough to dismantle, the problem is that the litigation could extend until 2027. If Unibev wins the dispute, Tesla could be forced to negotiate the use of the name outside the US and even have to use another name in certain markets. And ‘robotaxi’?. Tesla too tried to register the trademark ‘Robotaxi’but the USPTO told them that nanai. The reason had nothing to do with any patent thief, but because it is “used to describe similar products and services of other companies. (…) This expression appears to be generic in the context of the applicant’s products and/or services.” The USTPO comes to say that it is too standard a name, it would be like registering the ‘taxi’ trademark. There is still more. The organizational chaos does not end with taxis, the same thing also happened with its autonomous minibus, presented with great fanfare as “Robovan.” The problem is that Tesla announced it without first having verified that the brand was already registered by an Estonian delivery company. Tesla has had to look for less attractive alternatives such as “Robobus”, “Robus” or “Cyberbus”. About launching autonomous vehicles with super-advanced technology, well, that’s all the paperwork. Image | tesla In Xataka | Tesla robotaxis are autonomous, except when driven by a man from Texas

NASA has looked at Torrevieja from space and has seen a huge mass of pink water essential to finding life on Mars

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From space everything looks different. In fact, distance allows us to distinguish strange shapes, such as the Great Dam of Zimbabwe or the eye of the saharabut also colors that go more unnoticed at ground level. Thus, on June 7, 2021, an Expedition 65 astronaut aboard the International Space Station pointed his camera toward the southeast of Spain and took a photograph that looks like a watercolor: Mediterranean blue, a muted green and an intense pink reminiscent of quartz. The color palette is finished off by the white reflection of the sun. The three colors correspond to bodies of water a few kilometers from each other, in Alicante: the Mediterranean, and the saline lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja. What seems like an aesthetic coincidence is actually chemistry visible from orbit. Each tone reveals something: the degree of salinity, which microorganisms dominate the water, and in what fragile balance they coexist. The lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja. The Torrevieja lagoon has been used as a salt mine since the 13th century and today are the largest salt producer in Europe, with an average of 650,000 tons per year, a figure that varies depending on solar radiation, wind and precipitation. It does not function as a natural lagoon, but as an industrial system where water moves according to production needs. The La Mata lagoon acts as a prior concentration chamber: receive sea ​​water through artificial channels and runoff from intermittent streams of the Sierra de San Miguel de Salinas. From there, the water is pumped to the Torrevieja salt mine, where brine from the Pinoso salt diapir through a 55 kilometer pipeline. The result is that the concentration of salt in the Torrevieja lagoon can overcome 260 grams of salt per liter, much more than the 38.5 g/liter Mediterranean that bathes its coast. Two adjacent lagoons but with completely different chemical worlds. Why do they have such different colors?. Each time water of different composition is pumped to produce salt, the chemistry of the system is altered, which determines What organisms can live and in what quantity. Two lagoons a kilometer apart, two different microbial communities and two opposite colors. The pink color of the Torrevieja lagoon is produced by microorganisms. More specifically, in conditions of high salinity and intense solar radiation, the microalgae Dunaliella salina accumulates β-carotene as protection against light. The halophilic archaea that share the lake reinforce that tone: they have red pigments distributed throughout their cell membrane, which makes them visually more decisive in the final color of the water. In La Mata, the lower concentration of salt favors a different microbiota where chlorophyll predominates over carotenoids: that explains the green color. Context. The salinity gradient between both lagoons goes beyond chemistry: it is what allows a different and exceptional biodiversity. The wetland houses up to 400 taxaten species of threatened birds and one of the most important Audouin’s gull breeding colonies in the Mediterranean. Without that difference in salinity, many of those ecological niches would disappear. The NASA image is also more than a photograph: it portrays the fragile balance between industry, microbiology and conservation that climate change is already testing as temperatures rise and salinity fluctuations alter the living conditions of Dunaliella salinaor what is the same, that that striking pink color seen from space could disappear. Why is it important. Dunaliella salina is the organism that supports the base of the food chain in hypersaline lakes around the world. Since 1966 it has been grown commercially to produce β-carotene, which has applications in pharmacology and cosmetics. But it is also an organism that NASA has on the radar because it constitutes a form of life in extreme conditions. It should be remembered that the data from the Perseverance rover indicates that there were hypersaline waters in the Jezero crater of Mars. Studying life in these types of lakes helps understand the potential in these old Martian lakes. What makes Torrevieja pink is the best laboratory we have to know what to look for on another planet. In Xataka | 60 years ago, NASA took a look at the Sahara from space and found a very strange “perfect eye” In Xataka | Europe has been watching Colombia for a decade from space and what it has seen is a tragedy: the death of a glacier Cover | POT

As towns dry out and the desert advances, women in Morocco climb the mountains to capture the fog and turn it into drinking water

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A chance experiment took place in the 1980s. Some researchers working in the Atacama Desert accidentally left a simple metal mesh exposed to wind at night. The next morning they discovered that it was covered in water droplets in one of the driest places on the planet. That seemingly trivial scene ended up inspiring an idea that decades later would change the lives of entire towns. Capture the fog before it disappears. As the desert slowly advances over southwestern Morocco and traditional wells begin to dry up, several villages in the Aït Baâmrane region have found a solution which seems closer to a science fiction image than to conventional hydraulic infrastructure: capture the fog from the mountains and convert it into drinking water. For generations, the women of these communities spent up to four hours a day walking to remote wells and returning carrying barrels weighing almost 25 kilos on their heads. That routine organized the entire life of the villages, kept many girls out of school and reflected the extent to which the lack of water conditioned any daily activity on the edge of the Sahara. Giant nets convert air into water. The change began when huge polymer networks They appeared on the slopes of Mount Boutmezguida, at more than 1,200 meters above sea level. The idea is surprisingly simple: take advantage of the moisture from the Atlantic fog that regularly passes through the Anti-Atlas mountain range. The tiny droplets become trapped in the mesh, condense and end up descending towards deposits connected to kilometers of pipelines by gravity. Without complex pumps or large industrial infrastructure, the system manages to carry water directly to homes using only wind, altitude and ambient humidity. Thanks to the advances in materials engineeringthese modern networks are much more efficient than the experiments carried out decades ago in countries like Chile, Yemen or Eritrea. And the fog reached the tap. When the system went live, neighbors gathered to see something they had never seen before: water coming directly from a faucet inside a home. That “fog water”as they began to call it, quickly transformed the daily life of the villages. Women stopped spending part-time carrying water and many girls were able to attend school regularly again. The project, promoted by the NGO Dar Si Hmadnot only modified water management, but also the social balance of communities where transporting water had been an exclusively female responsibility for centuries. The cultural challenge of drinking water that did not touch the ground. The technology worked from the beginning, but convincing everyone was much more difficult. Some inhabitants they distrusted of a water that had never passed through the earth and that, as they believed, lacked minerals and “life”. The fog represented something ambiguous, almost unreal, too far from traditional sources. Over time, the rejection disappeared as the families verified that the water was safe and constant. The transition also forced us to work unexpected social issues: Some women felt that they were losing part of their central role in the home by no longer being in charge of fetching water. That is why the project ended up incorporating literacy, technical training and community management along with hydraulic infrastructure. Finding water is impossible. The UN has recognized this May 2026 that the Moroccan system is one of the more interesting examples of climate adaptation against desertification. The project shows that some extremely dry regions can still take advantage of invisible resources which until now were hardly used. However, it also makes clear that does not exist a universal solution: capturing fog only works where mountains, ocean humidity and very specific atmospheric conditions coincide. Still, the image is powerful for a planet increasingly affected by water scarcity: as wells empty and temperatures rise, there are entire communities in Morocco that have literally begun to harvest clouds to survive. Image | Aqualonis In Xataka | Satellite images leave no room for doubt: it has rained so much that Morocco has not looked so green for a decade In Xataka | France and Morocco have teamed up to flood Europe with green ammonia. And they compete directly with Spain

Benidorm triples its population in summer and does not run out of water. The secret is a miracle of invisible engineering

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We assume that when we turn on the faucet water comes out. It is an almost automatic, everyday gesture that we rarely stop to think about. However, ensuring that this resource springs up clean and safe in Benidorm, a city that its population triples In the middle of the summer high season, it requires a true miracle of engineering and management. In the Marina Baixa, one of the regions of the Valencian Community with greater water stresscatering to millions of annual visitors is a colossal puzzle. As reported by local mediathe philosophy of those who operate this gear is perfectly summarized by Ciriaco Clemente, manager of Veolia in Benidorm: “In a territory where the pressure on water resources is structural and permanent, guaranteeing that the water reaches the tap in perfect sanitary conditions and that, once used, it returns to the environment without damaging it is not an option, it is an obligation.” The challenge of quantity and quality. The water challenge is not exclusive to the Alicante coast, it is a national problem. According to official data from the Ministry of Health (SINAC)the quality of water in Spain is increasingly threatened. The filtration of nitrates from industrial agricultural activity is saturating the self-cleaning capacity of many aquifers, putting local water treatment plants in hundreds of municipalities in check, especially in inland Spain. While much of inland Spain deals with nitrate pollution, Benidorm faces its own perfect storm: extreme seasonal demand and the threat of shortages. The city not only needs to ensure that there is enough water for everyone, but that its quality is impeccable under all circumstances, regardless of whether it comes from the Guadalest reservoir, the Amadorio reservoir or the Bajo del Algar Canal. To overcome this crisis, the tourist capital has shielded itself around two essential infrastructures managed by Veolia: the Drinking Water Treatment Station (ETAP) and the Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). Beyond thirst. Water quality is synonymous with public health and economic survival. In fact, consuming water with nitrate levels close to or higher The European legal limit of 50 mg/L carries serious risks, and recent medical studies suggest that even much lower thresholds could be linked to oncological problems. Treating water to the millimeter is, therefore, a matter of life or death. On the economic level, as the newspaper highlights Informationfor the enormous hotel plant in Benidorm, opening the tap and letting water flow with total health guarantees “is not a secondary detail: it is a basic requirement to operate and to maintain the trust of visitors.” In addition, the system must be able to withstand the onslaught of the weather. According to Alicante Plazathe ETAP faces extreme scenarios after episodes of torrential rains, when the water collected arrives with enormous turbidity due to the dragging of sediments. Given this, the plant adjusts its treatments in real time. “Our responsibility does not end with there being water; it ends when that water reaches the tap in perfect condition,” says Noelia Llinares, ETAP plant manager, in these media. Leaving behind traditional management. As detailed by Veoliathe answer is in technology. A digital ecosystem has been deployed in Benidorm that includes network-wide sensors, leak detection algorithms and remote control systems. This has allowed the milestone of reducing water losses in the network to minimum levels of 5%. To support this burden, ETAP itself already received a powerful injection of more than 9 million euros in its last major expansion in 2010. But the cycle does not end at the sink. The WWTP works under a strict circular economy philosophy: used water is not waste, it is a resource. Today, 35% of the water that reaches the treatment plant is already reused, mainly for agricultural irrigation. And there is an extra factor that adds complexity: wastewater treatment plants are electricity devourers. To counteract this, María José Martínez, head of the WWTP, details that the facility uses byproducts such as biogas or sludge to generate its own energy. “The objective is clear: for the plant to become increasingly self-sufficient and for its environmental footprint to be as small as possible,” says Martínez. The next challenge: squeeze regeneration. Behind all this there is an ambitious project underway: the Regenerated Water Master Plan. The short-term objective is to take advantage of up to 2 additional cubic hectometers of regenerated water for purely urban uses, alleviating the suffocation of conventional sources and reinforcing the network against drought. Benidorm has empirically demonstrated that the high numbers of mass tourism and water sustainability are not antagonistic concepts, but rather necessary allies. In a context marked by climate change, the experience of the city of Alicante provides an inescapable journalistic and vital lesson: intelligent water management is no longer a simple competitive advantage or a green slogan. It is, purely and simply, a question of survival. Every drop counts, from the moment it is dammed until, thanks to engineering, it is regenerated to start again. Image | Diego Delso Xataka | The future of 150,000 hectares of crops is decided today. We have been fighting for decades, but the wars over water have only just begun

20,000 million more will be spent on a factory with little water and labor

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TSMC’s journey in Arizona (USA) continues. Yesterday the board of directors of this chip manufacturer, the largest on the planetapproved an injection of 20 billion dollars in what is already its most advanced semiconductor production plant of any it has in the US. The start-up of this factory It was full of setbacks.. In fact, it started production of integrated circuits almost a year late due to how much it cost TSMC. find qualified personnel that I needed. At the beginning of 2025 the first good news arrived. The plant had been producing semiconductors for several months at the N4 lithography node, which belongs to the 5nm FinFET family, and was ready to deliver to Apple the first batch of SoC A16 and SiP S9. This factory, known as Fab 21, made $514 million in profit last year according to Yeh Chun-Hsienthe minister of the National Development Council of Taiwan. This is not bad at all if we keep in mind that during the first year of operation, semiconductor plants do not usually deliver profits. In this scenario, the investment of an additional 20 billion dollars in the expansion of Fab 21, which is the purpose of this money, makes sense. In fact, this project is part of the $165 billion expansion plan that TSMC presented last year. However, not everything is going well for this company in Arizona. According to the newspaper Taipei Timesthe shortage of labor, and, above all, of water, is giving many headaches to the management leadership of this factory. And solving this last problem is not easy. Arizona’s water shortage is a huge challenge for TSMC Arizona is the second driest state in the US only behind Nevada. Semiconductor factories need a large amount of this resource, but it is not ordinary water like what comes out of our taps; They need a type of water almost impossible to find in nature. And its scarcity is getting worse. In fact, it is slowly becoming a systemic threat to the industry that sustains the artificial intelligencecell phones, electric cars and virtually any device that has an advanced chip inside. The water we are familiar with, such as that which comes from the tap, spring water, and even bottled mineral water, is full of impurities. It contains bacteria, dissolved gases, mineral salts and microscopic particles in suspension. This is not a problem for most of the everyday applications we usually use it for, but This water is not suitable for making chips. Even the slightest impurity invisible to the human eye is pure poison when involved in the production of cutting-edge semiconductors, such as the 2nm integrated circuits currently being manufactured by TSMC. The industry standard calls for water with an electrical resistivity of 18.2 megohms per centimeter The integrated circuit manufacturing process requires cleaning silicon wafers dozens of times. Every time a geometric pattern is transferred to wafers using lithography, they need to be cleaned. Also after pouring chemical reagents and photoresist fluids on them. However, the water used to remove any residue that may have deposited on the wafer cannot have the slightest impurity. It must be absolutely pure. In fact, the industry standard calls for water with an electrical resistivity of 18.2 megaohms per centimeter, which is the theoretical limit of water purity at room temperature. The problem is that producing ultrapure water is not easy. And it is not because it is necessary to subject it to reverse osmosis in multiple stages and ion exchange treatments. It is also necessary to degas it under vacuum, eliminate any microorganisms it may contain with ultraviolet light and filter it using membranes expressly designed to capture the slightest impurity. In this article we do not need to investigate these processes in detail, but there is something that we cannot ignore: this treatment consumes energy and requires the use of a large amount of chemicals. Furthermore, a significant part of the water that is processed is not transformed into ultrapure water, so it cannot be used. Once the water has been subjected to this demanding treatment, it acquires such a high purity that it becomes corrosive if it comes into contact with a very wide range of materials. Because it lacks its own ions, ultrapure water absorbs ions from virtually any material it comes into contact with. This is the reason why the pipes used to transport it must be made of materials immune to corrosion, such as PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride), a fluorinated thermoplastic polymer similar to Teflon, non-polluting and extremely stable because it does not give up ions to ultrapure water. A single cutting-edge semiconductor plant consumes between 10 and 30 million liters of ultrapure water every day. This range is equivalent to the daily drinking water consumption of a city of between 50,000 and 150,000 inhabitants. Plus, there’s another challenge we haven’t looked into yet: ultrapure water degrades very quicklyso chip factories must have a very sophisticated production and distribution system capable of working in real time to deliver the ultrapure water required by the manufacturing process of advanced integrated circuits. Image | TSMC More information | Taipei Times In Xataka | Intel’s plan against an unattainable TSMC: beat Samsung and consolidate itself as the second largest chip manufacturer

Researchers analyzed 280 samples of bottled water. Only one of the brands was free of microplastics

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Better taste and smell and health reasons. Those are the two main reasons why people drink bottled water, according to a study from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Spain is, in fact, the third European country that consumes the most bottled water (up to 107 liters per inhabitant). That clashes with one thing: that bottled water is not only much more expensive than tap waterbut now we know that it also has micro and nanoplastics in quantities much greater than estimated. The original study. Some researchers from Columbia University analyzed three popular bottled water brands in the United States (whose names have not been revealed) in search of micro and nanoplastics. To do this, they used a new technique called Raman stimulated scattering microscopy based on probing samples with two simultaneous lasers tuned to resonate specific molecules. Analyzing seven common plastics, the researchers developed an algorithm to interpret the results. According to Wei Min, co-inventor of the technique and co-author of the study in question, “it is one thing to detect and another to know what you are detecting.” The findings. On average, this study found that one liter of bottled water contains 240,000 detectable plastic fragments, between ten and 100 times more than previous estimates. Specifically, the researchers state that they found between 110,000 and 370,000 plastic fragments in each liter, of which 90% were nanoplastics. In that sense, it is important to remember the difference between micro and nanoplastics: Microplastics: those whose size varies between 100 nanometers and five millimeters. Nanoplastics: those whose size is equal to or less than 100 nanometers. The most common plastics. To no one’s surprise, one of the most common plastics was polypropylene terephthalate, better known as PET. It is the material that many bottles are made of. “It probably enters the water by breaking off pieces when the bottle is squeezed or exposed to heat,” say the researchers, who cite another study that suggests they can also break off when repeatedly opening and closing the cap. Usual. And although the presence of PET is common, this plastic is surpassed by polyamide, a type of nylon that “probably comes from the plastic filters used to supposedly purify water before bottling it,” says Beizhan Yan, researcher of the study. Other common plastics the researchers found were polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and polymethyl methacrylate. And the rest? The technique used includes the seven most common plastics, but there are many other plastics. According to exposes Columbia University, “the seven types of plastic the researchers looked for only represented about 10% of all the nanoparticles they found in the samples; they have no idea what the rest are. If they are all nanoplastics, it could be tens of millions per liter.” And what about those sold in Spain? That’s what he wanted to find out a study by the CSIC and the Barcelona Institute of Global Health. They have developed a technique to quantify particles between 0.7 and 20 micrometers, as well as the chemical additives released into the water and, for this study, they analyzed 280 samples of 20 commercial water brands. Only one of the brands did not contain microplastics, but all 280 samples contained plastic additives. More specifically. The result is that, on average, one liter of water contains 359 nanograms of micro- and nanoplastics, an amount comparable to that obtained in the tap water found in a previous study made by the same group. “The main difference we found is the type of polymer: in tap water we found more polyethylene and polypropylene while in bottled water we detected mostly polypropylene terephthalate (PET), although also polyethylene,” said Cristina Villanueva, ISGlobal researcher and author of the study. Lots of microplastic. Considering that we drink two liters of water a day, the authors estimate “an intake of 262 micrograms of plastic particles per year.” Regarding additives, 28 plastic additives have been detected, mostly stabilizers and plasticizers. According to the researchers, “our toxicity study showed that three types of plasticizers presented a greater risk to human health and, therefore, should be considered in risk analyzes for consumers.” In that sense, other studies have discovered the presence of microplastics in atheromatous plaques in the arteries, which increases the risk of heart attack. From the American Diabetes Association they also ensure that some components found in bottles, such as BPA and the aforementioned microplastics, increase insulin resistance, thus reducing its effectiveness. Images | Jonathan Chng in Unsplash In Xataka | The US has decided to abandon paper straws because everyone hates them. The problem is the alternative: plastic In Xataka | After the failure of the yellow container, the Government has reached a conclusion: it is time for returnable bottles *An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024

It also had a sophisticated water system in the middle of the Jordanian desert.

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There are few monuments better known on the entire face of the Earth than Petra, the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom in the south of modern-day Jordan. That majestic facade sculpted in rock It is a world heritage site. However, there is a dimension of the city that is equally impressive and that often goes unnoticed: its hydraulic engineering. In a semi-arid environment, control of water was not a mere matter of survival (as if that were not enough!) but also a symbol of power and prestige and strategic resource. The capital of the kingdom required a stable and carefully managed water supply for drinking, bathing, agriculture, temple basins or gardens. To date, archeology believed it had a reasonably clear map of how its water network worked, but a research team from the Humboldt University of Berlin has just shown that the map was incomplete and partially wrong. His research has been published in a paper in Levant. The discovery. On the slopes of Jabal al-Madhbah the team has identified a 116 meter stretch of pressurized lead pipe preserved in situ in the ‘Ain Braq aqueduct, in a prospecting area of ​​2,500 square meters. This feature is poorly documented in open-air aqueduct corridors in the eastern Mediterranean. Most importantly, it demonstrates that it was not a system built in a single phase. Because the investigation has documented nine conduits in total (including the aforementioned lead one), in addition to a large deposit sealed by a high dam, two cisterns and seven basins of different sizes and purposes. That is, two different technologies superimposed: first the pressurized lead pipe, which at some point was sealed, and on top of it a later terracotta network. Why is it important. There are two levels where the discovery is relevant: From a technical point of view, the use of lead is rare beyond building interiors. Its presence in an outdoor channel shows that the Nabataeans had access to sufficient resources and technical knowledge to use it outdoors, rivaling the achievements of Rome. It should be remembered that lead requires mining, transportation and artisans. From a political point of view, it was a symbol of power and prosperity. The system fed the Az-Zantur reservoir, located on a high ridge. From there, water could be distributed under pressure to monuments such as the Great Temple and the Garden and Pool Complex. These structures require a continuous and reliable water supply, so as lead researcher Niklas Jungmann proposes, they demonstrate the luxury of running water in the desert. If you control the water, you control the city. Context. The Siq, ‘Ain Braq and Wadi Mataha systems were the three main water supply systems of Petra and were fed by springs and reservoirs. Each of them were designed with different objectives to deal with the challenges of physics and the particular geology of the landscape, which made it possible to supply the different sectors of the city. In a desert environment, it was an essential requirement to master water and boy did it do so: they had baths, ornamental gardens, sacred water installations and monuments that continually needed water. Petra flourished as the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom before its incorporation into the Roman Empire and its subsequent decline following the earthquake of 363 AD. The chronological context places the lead phase probably at the height of the kingdom (1st century AD), under the reign of Aretas IV, when the city experienced an urban explosion. The transition to terracotta coincides with periods of economic restructuring or changes in administration after the Roman annexation in 106 AD, showing an adaptation towards materials that are easier to maintain. How have they done it. Classic research approaches on Petra approached the entire city from a macro perspective and resorted to extrapolations, but Jungmann’s study focuses on a 2,500 square meter area of ​​the Jabal al-Madhbah massif. This has allowed him to document every visible trace of hydraulic infrastructure with precision using photogrammetry and digital elevation models to understand how the terrain dictated water flow and where the use of pressure was necessary. Likewise, it did not focus on searching for objects through excavation, but rather on detailed reading of the stratigraphy and morphology of the infrastructure. Yes, but. Although the discovery is revolutionary, unknowns remain and Jungmann himself is cautious with interpretations. To begin with, the lead pipe was abandoned and sealed to be replaced by a second network of open canals and terracotta pipes, a decision that was probably explained by costs. In addition, the study focuses on a small area and a first prospecting campaign (September 2023). That is, the connection with the reign of Aretas IV is plausible but not definitive when it comes to dating. On the other hand, the use of lead raises the eternal question about toxicity. As a general context, in calcareous waters such as those in the region, calcium carbonate tends to form an internal layer that isolates the metal from drinking water, which would reduce the risk of contamination, although the paper does not address this issue. What is clear is that Nabataean water management was more advanced, experimental and adaptable than previously thought. In Xataka | 2,600 years ago four Etruscans were buried in Rome. And today archaeologists have found a treasure thanks to them In Xataka | 12,000 years ago a tribe in North America carved small dice with a single objective: to create bets. Cover | Bernard Gagnon and Diego Delso

It is not enough to have liquid water, you must have enough

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We all know that so that a planet can be suitable for life It must hold water. However, this necessary condition may not be sufficient. To begin with, not just any amount of water will do. In fact, according to a recently published studythe minimum amount of this precious liquid for a planet to be a solid candidate for the search for life is much greater than we thought. It looks habitable, but it is not.. Through a series of highly refined computer simulations, scientists at the University of Washington have shown that a planet needs to have at least 20% to 50% of the water in Earth’s oceans so that the natural cycle that sustains life can occur normally. Geological carbon cycle. For a planet to host life it is important that it have an atmosphere, but be careful with the content of that atmosphere. Normally, volcanic activity Planetary releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into it. If this accumulates in excess, the planet becomes inhospitable to life. Luckily, there are some mechanisms that follow one another like a row of dominoes to keep carbon at appropriate levels. In the atmosphere, some of that carbon dioxide dissolves into small water droplets and returns to the surface as rain. There, it accumulates on the rocks. Once again the rain arrives, eroding the rocks, so that carbon dioxide accumulates in the runoff waters, reaching the oceans, where it is buried at the bottom. Then, plate tectonic movements can cause carbon dioxide to rise again to the surface with the formation of mountains. It is a process that takes millions of years to occur. Without water, everything goes to waste.. We have seen that water is an important piece of this succession. Therefore, if there is not enough on the planet, the relocation of carbon dioxide may not be enough compared to the gas that accumulates due to volcanic activity. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means higher temperaturesbecause of the greenhouse effect. As a result, what little water there is evaporates and the situation gets worse and worse. Redefining the goldilocks zone. In astronomy, it is known as the habitable zone, or goldilocksthe region around a star that is neither too close nor too far from it. It is the ideal distance for water to remain in a liquid state. The problem is that we now see that habitability does not depend only on liquid water. There also needs to be enough water. More refined models. In reality, models had already been created to analyze the geological cycle of carbon on planets capable of harboring life. However, the driest planets had never been taken into account, nor had as many parameters been introduced as in these more recent models, which include more forgotten parameters, such as wind. With all this in mind, we see that it is not enough for a planet to be rocky, similar to Earth and located at the exact point of its star to have liquid water. It must have enough water. If not, everything else doesn’t matter. Image | M. Mizera / PTA / IAU100 In Xataka | The Zoo Hypothesis: Why Aliens Likely Know About Us and Don’t Want to Contact Us

Drink water right before going to sleep? Science has finally clarified whether it is a good idea or a terrible enemy of sleep

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Before going to sleep, some people may have an almost standardized ritual in which they should drink one or two glasses of water, and also have a backup on the bedside table in case they get thirsty in the middle of the night. But there are also many questions about whether it is positive to drink water before sleeping for eight hours or if it is counterproductive by forcing us to get up in the middle of the night. And here science has something to say. It has benefits. What is clearly known is that during the night our body does not go into a total pause, but rather continues with an active metabolism even though it is attenuated. That is why we lose approximately half a liter of water simply due to evaporation when breathing and sweating, and to compensate for this, hydration can be the best ally. It is investigated. A Japanese studio published this same year analyzed a group of middle-aged men to conclude that drinking 280 ml of water just before going to bed significantly reduces morning depressive mood and improves well-being upon waking up. But it is not the only one, because a 2025 crossover trial with 15 healthy adults found a relationship between drinking fluids before sleeping and the duration and quality of sleep. REM phasewhich is what makes us truly rest. And it makes sense, because adequate hydration favors the release of vasopressin, a key hormone for regulating the biological clock and preventing tissue dehydration during deep sleep. And it is essential, because it can translate into less fatigue and headaches in the morning. He has problems. It will not always be beneficial to have this habit, since the main enemy of drinking water at night is nocturiawhich is the need to wake up to urinate during the night. And although the total time we spend awake is not drastically altered, because it is only a few minutes, there is an interruption in sleep. It depends on the quantity. Logically, drinking a glass of water is not the same as drinking a whole bottle before going to sleep. That is why when you go over half a liter of water there is a possibility that some pre-existing problems such as chronic insomnia will worsen or even increase the risk of falls when getting up in the dark. How to do it. There are a series of tips that we can follow to stay hydrated during sleep and they are summarized in the following points: You should limit yourself to drinking around a quarter of a liter of water in the final part of the day to avoid overfilling your bladder. The last glass of water should be drunk two hours before going to sleep. Maintain good hydration throughout the day to avoid reaching the end of the day with a major hydration problem. Images | krakenimages.com on Freepik In Xataka | There are people obsessed with magnesium as a supplement when the best way is to put it directly into your diet

The map of Spain where you can see how healthy the tap water in your town is

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Water management in the Spanish state has several fronts: from the purely hydrological to the increasingly frequent shortage scenarios to the quality of this. Yes, the water that reaches the tap has passed through a water treatment plant and is therefore suitable for consumption, but there is a pollutant to keep an eye on: nitrates. The filtration of nutrients from the industrial agricultural activity so widespread in Spain brings about the degradation of ecosystems and also jeopardizes the security of public supply by saturating the self-cleaning capacity of aquifers and exceeding, in many cases, the treatment capacity of local water treatment plants. Although checking the quality of the water that reaches your tap is a resource accessible to citizens through platforms such as the National Consumer Water Information System (SINAC), the reality is that sometimes databases are too technical and dense, so someone has thought of converting the information from the Ministry of Health into an interactive map that is understandable to everyone. Is “the water of your town“and is a public consultation tool so that anyone who wants to know the quality of tap water of your municipality regarding nitrates, you can do so without needing technical knowledge through an interactive map that is easy to interpret. The map in question has been developed by DATADISTA based on official data from SINAC, which depends on the Ministry of Health and collects the analytical results of all drinking water supply networks in Spain. It is important to highlight that the last reading dates from April 2026 and does not contain real-time measurements, but rather the frequency varies depending on the supply area. Thus, while those networks that distribute more than 10 cubic meters per day have to report, those that are smaller the report is voluntary. Hence, some small rural towns appear without data. To make it easier, it comes with a direct search engine. Datadista The map shows the Spanish state with an OpenStreetMap map and points distributed throughout the territory on a color scale that goes from red for those who do not comply with the regulations to green for those who comply, passing through intermediate tones for risk or surveillance situations. In addition to being able to zoom and move the map or the Canary Islands having its own button to center the image on its archipelago, in the upper area are the layers that we can activate to view information such as the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones declared by the autonomous communities or the chemical state of the underground aquifers. In the lower left corner, the legend that explains the limits. If you prefer not to search on the map, at the top of the website there is a search box that speeds up everything and a brief summary of those critical areas. How good (or not) is the water in your town? Municipalities that fail to comply, critical points and control points. Datadista At first glance, a clear correlation is obtained: the most affected areas are concentrated in areas of intensive irrigated agriculture, especially in the interior of the peninsula. If you also activate the aquifer layer, transparent white and in the bottle: there is one direct relationship between agricultural intensity and water pollution underground with which the population is supplied. The categories in which the municipalities are classified are four: It fails to comply when any network registers 50 mg/L or more of nitrates, which is the parametric value set by European regulations and the Royal Decree 3/2023. Critical point: nitrates consistently exceed 30 mg/L. It is 60% of the legal limit and obliges the operator to develop a Water Health Plan with corrective measures. Control point, for those municipalities where high episodes have been detected but on a punctual and non-sustained basis. Complies, for municipalities that do not present a relevant risk due to nitrates. Be careful because there are 201 municipalities and almost 91,000 people supplied within that “non-compliant” range and 885 municipalities and more than a million people who drink tap water in critical areas. It is important to consider that the final state of a municipality is always determined by the worst state of all its supply networks. The nitrate problem. Nitrates reach the water due to the excess of nitrogen fertilizers and livestock manure, which, applied to the field (whether directly or not), are oxidized by bacterial action, transforming into nitrate, a very soluble anion that the soil does not retain and that easily infiltrates into the aquifers and rivers from which the population is supplied. The 50 mg/L limit was set by the WHO between the decades of the 50s and 60s to prevent acquired methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome) in infants due to high levels of nitrates in well water, the use of uncontrolled groundwater for infant formulas is not recommended. But science has shown that the problem is more serious than that legal limit. Without going any further, a Danish study from 2018 showed that there is a greater risk of colorectal cancer from just 3.87 mg/L, the MCC-Spain project found links to aggressive prostate tumors even below that current limit. In fact, in 2025 an international group of science professionals recommended lower this safety threshold to 6 mg/L, a figure that is very far from what comes out of the taps of numerous municipalities in the state. In Xataka | Much more than tourism, cars and oil: the entire industry that Spain exports to the world, gathered in one graph In Xataka | Someone has created a simulator where you can see if sea level rise is going to reach your house or not. Cover | Infowater

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