weapon

Spain’s secret weapon in the Olympic Games is a skater dressed as a Minion. Universal almost prevented it

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Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté had been preparing for months for the most important moment of his sporting career. The 26-year-old Catalan skater, six-time Spanish champion, was clear about how he wanted to make his debut in the Olympic Games: dressed as a Minion, on the ice of Milan-Cortina 2026performing a medley of songs from the Universal Pictures animated saga. He had used that program throughout the season in international competitions, with the characteristic costume of blue jumpsuit and yellow t-shirt. I thought I had all the permits in order. Drama at Universal. On February 3, just four days before the opening ceremony of the Games, Guarino received devastating news: Universal Pictures was denying him permission to use the Minions’ music and costume in the Olympic event. “I was informed that I no longer have permission, due to copyright issues,” the skater explained in a statement published by the Royal Spanish Ice Sports Federation. Their competition was scheduled for Tuesday, February 11. Changing programs at that point seemed impossible. Permits? What permissions? In August 2024, before starting the season, he had processed the necessary permits through ClicknClearthe official system that the International Skating Union (ISU) makes available to athletes to manage music rights. His intervention included four pieces: Universal Pictures’ characteristic fanfare in the Minions version, ‘Freedom’ by Pharrell Williams (which appears in ‘Despicable Me’), and two other compositions related to the franchise. Negotiations begin. The week before the Games, Universal Studios requested additional information about the music and costumes that Guarino had been using for months. A race against time then began: the skater and his team had to negotiate simultaneously with Universal Pictures, Pharrell Williams, Sony Music and Juan Alcaraz, each owner of different rights of the songs. But as the news spread on social media, the massive support for Guarino convinced Universal to reconsider its position. All good. The skater quickly got approval for two of the songs, and got permission for a third by contacting the composer, also Spanish, directly. The fourth and final piece, Pharrell’s, was resolved at the last moment. On Friday, February 7, just two hours before the figure skating competition at the Games began with the team event, final confirmation came. The Royal Spanish Ice Sports Federation (RFEDH) announced that Guarino had obtained all the necessary licensesand managed to participate as planned last night. The laws. Guarino’s case is not an isolated incident. For decades, the International Skating Union (ISU) strictly prohibited the use of music with lyrics in competitions. Skaters could only choose instrumental pieces, usually classical music, that were in the public domain and did not raise copyright conflicts. In 2014the ISU decided to allow vocal music to attract a younger audience and modernize the image of the sport. The first time was in PyeongChang 2018. More cases. This artistic opening brought unforeseen consequences: skaters began to use copyrighted music, and artists began to claim compensation for its use. Alexa Knierim and Brandon Frazier used a version of ‘House of the Rising Sun’ performed by the duo Heavy Young Heathens in Beijing 2022, who sued them. This year, Russian Petr Gumennik They denied permission to use the music from the soundtrack of ‘The Perfume’. Belgian Loena Hendrickx changed one Celine Dion song for another at the last minute due to legal complications. Canadian artist CLANN expressed his displeasure upon discovering that the American Amber Glenn had used one of her songs, even though she had won the team gold medal with it. Mea Culpa. ISU President Jae Youl Kim has openly acknowledged the extent of the problem during these Games. The organization continues to seek solutions, but the complexity of the music rights ecosystem (involving songwriters, performers, production companies, record labels and distribution platforms) makes any licensing system vulnerable to errors or misunderstandings. The 2014 decision to modernize the sport by allowing vocal music was intended to revitalize it and bring it closer to new audiences, but has generated an unforeseen side effect. In Xataka | Surya Bonaly, the unattainable skater who ended up being banned from “dancing with death”

China has been writing an endless novel about how to overtake Europe for 16 years, and it has become a political weapon

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Somewhere on the Chinese internet there is a science fiction novel which has been written since 2009 and will probably never end. It is titled ‘Illumine Lingao’ (临高启明, translatable as “The Morning Star of Lingao”) and accumulates millions of words distributed over thousands of chapters. It does not have a single author: it has been written collectively by hundreds of people, mostly engineers, technicians and military history fans who have been contributing chapters, technical corrections and secondary plots over almost two decades. It has generated more than 1,400 derivative works. And it has never been translated into any Western language. What is it about? The premise is simple: more than 500 21st century Chinese citizens, armed with modern technical knowledge, travel back in time through a wormhole to the year 1628, to the death throes of the Ming Dynasty. They settle in Lingao County, on the island of Hainan, and from there they unleash an industrial revolution that alters the course of history. The goal: make China reach modernity before Europe. How it arises. The text began to take shape in 2006 as a discussion on SC BBS, the oldest military-themed forum in China, from a question that struck a chord: “What would you do if you could travel to the Ming dynasty with modern knowledge?” The debate crystallized three years later in a collective writing project led by a user known as Boaster, whose real name is Xiao Feng. The first installment was published in 2009 on Qidian Chinese Network, the country’s largest web literature platform. In 2017, China Radio, Film & TV Press published the first volume in print format. What makes it special. What sets ‘Illumine Lingao’ apart from other time travel fantasies is its obsession with technical detail. The chapters include long discussions on how to make nitric acid from scratch, what materials are needed to build chemical synthesis towers, or how many tons of industrial equipment would be needed to begin mechanization without prior machines or tools. Chinese readers have dubbed it “the encyclopedia of time travel.” Some critics They consider it “a unique phenomenon of contemporary Chinese literature.” But… what sensitive chord does this work touch? Needham’s puzzle. In 1942, the British biochemist Joseph Needham He traveled to China as a diplomatic envoy. During those three years he discovered that the Chinese had developed techniques and mechanisms that preceded their European equivalents by centuries. The printing press, the compass, gunpowder, paper money, suspension bridges, toilet paper… all had emerged in China long before Europe even conceived of it. Needham returned to Cambridge and documented this in ‘Science and Civilization in China’, 25 volumes that asked why modern science and the industrial revolution developed in Europe and not China, if China was so far ahead. This question, known as “Needham’s puzzle”, touches the most sensitive nerve of Chinese historical consciousness. Historians have proposed dozens of answers. Some point to geographical factors: while Europe competed fragmented into rival states that stimulated military and commercial innovation, China remained unified under a bureaucratic system that did not need change to survive. Others point to philosophical reasons: Confucianism valued social harmony over disruption. And some say that the key difference was European access to the resources of the American continent. For Chinese intellectuals, the “Great Divergence”, the moment when Europe overtook China, is not an abstract problem for historians. It is the question that explains the “century of national humiliation” (1839-1949), the opium wars, the burning of the Summer Palace and the Japanese occupation. That is why in ‘Illumine Lingao’ we travel to the Ming dynasty: 1628, sixteen years before the dynasty collapsed due to the Manchu invasion. For these Chinese intellectuals, the Ming dynasty represents the fateful fork: it is the moment when China chose the wrong path and Europe took the lead. Rewrite history. ‘Illumine Lingao’ belongs to a literary genre that enjoys enormous popularity in the chinese web literature: chuanyue (穿越), time travel stories in which contemporary protagonists use their modern knowledge to alter the course of history. In China, this genre has an implicit nationalist charge. It is not about looking at the past or resolving temporal paradoxes, but about correcting it, giving China a second chance. ‘Illumine Lingao’ takes this premise to the extreme: the documentation of each step with obsessive technical rigor turns the novel into something more than entertainment. It is a manual and a manifesto. A manifesto of a specific party. More than entertainment. As has been analyzed in academic circles, ‘Lingao’ reorganizes the historical narrative of Chinese socialist construction around the framework of industrialization and technological progress, with a clear nationalist sense. Its roots are in the so-called Industrial Party, which is not a real party, but rather a label to designate a current of thinkers, online commentators and influencers who share a vision of the world based on industrialization as a supreme value. For them, the material transformation produced by industrialization is an objective measure of national success. At the beginning of this century, its area of ​​theoretical development was the Internet, going against the grain at a time when the Chinese economy was betting on low-cost manufacturing and foreign direct investment. At that time, the idea that China could manufacture advanced semiconductors It sounded like science fiction. The Industrial Party made the leap to public influence in 2012, when the news website Guancha It began to include party members among its editors, defending the Chinese government from ultranationalist positions. Cultural battle. ‘Lingao’ has also largely become a political tool. When in 2011 a high-speed train rammed another convoy from behindcausing 40 deaths and 192 injuries, the Government wanted to manage the information so that the idea of ​​prosperity at any cost was not clouded. But on social media, negative opinions about the accident even surpassed state censors and They questioned the idea of ​​”progress” that the government maintained. Was the speed of development exacting an unacceptable price in human terms? ‘Illumine Lingao’ became a reference text in … Read more

an invisible weapon that blinded his soldiers without firing a single bullet

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The number of Venezuelan casualties after the United States incursion in Caracas and the subsequent capture of Nicolás Maduro varies with the passing of the days and the sources, but it seems clear that it amounts to at least double digits (we speak of up to 100). In any case, another piece of information has now been revealed that amplifies the mission. In reality, Washington’s key weapon did not fire a single bullet. The attack that was not heard. Yes, the American operation in Caracas was not defined by explosions or columns of smoke, but by the sudden silence of radars, radios and command centers, a demonstration of force in which more than 150 aircraft acted in a coordinated manner to enter, hit and leave with hardly any visible resistance. In fact and how explains the Wall Street Journalthe key was not to destroy the enemy, but to leave him blind and disoriented from the first minute, unable to understand what was happening or to react coherently while special forces captured Maduro in the heart of Venezuelan power. The invisible weapon. At the center of that blackout was the EA-18G Growler, an aircraft that does not attack people or physical positions, but rather the opponent’s nervous systemspecialized in locating, jamming and neutralizing radars and communications until turning an apparently solid defensive framework into a collection of mute sensors and useless screens. While stealth fighters and bombers performed deterrence and targeted attack functions, the Growler ensured that the Venezuelan defenses they will never get to see them clearly, demonstrating to what extent electronic warfare has ceased to be a complement and has become the precondition of any modern high-intensity operation. Blind before hitting. The logic applied in Caracas reflects a lesson learned and refined in Ukraine– It is not necessary to physically destroy all enemy systems if you can overwhelm, confuse or fool them until void your operating profit. The Growler can simulate multiple targets on the radar, flood the electromagnetic spectrum with noise, interfere with command links and, if necessary, guide anti-radiation missiles against active emitters, creating temporary windows of absolute superiority that allow helicopters and ground forces to operate with minimal risk even in theoretically defended environments. The Russian defenses that did not fire. They recalled in Insider that the most striking result was that none of the Russian-made air defenses in Venezuela’s possession managed to shoot down a single plane American during the operation, despite the fact that the country had on paper respectable systems such as S-300VM, Buk-M2, Pantsir-S1 and radars of Russian and Chinese origin. The image of airspace simply collapsing under a well-planned operation It has been devastating from a symbolic point of view, because it shows that having advanced systems does not guarantee their effectiveness if they are overcome by a combination of surprise, electronic warfare, stealth and multi-domain coordination. 9A83ME launcher of the S-300VM Antey-2500 missile system Not everything is the system. The Venezuelan failure cannot be explained solely by the technical limitations of the Russian systems, but also due to structural factors such as the state of maintenance, the real integration of the defense network, the quality of command and control and, above all, the training and experience of the operators. An anti-aircraft system is only as effective as the doctrine that supports it and the people who operate it, and in Caracas it became clear that, in the face of a well-trained Western force, even feared equipment can be defeated. reduced to passive spectators if they do not function as part of a coherent whole. Repeating pattern. What happened in Venezuela is not an isolated case, but rather fits with a pattern observed in other scenarios like syria or attacks Israelis against Iranwhere air defenses of Russian origin have shown irregular performance against forces that master electronic warfare and stealth. Although in Ukraine, operated directly by Russia, these defenses have worked betterhave also not achieved the invulnerability that their reputation promised, which reinforces the idea that their effectiveness decreases considerably when faced with adversaries capable of combining interference, cyberattacks, deception and precision attacks. Without triumphalism. There is no doubt, for the United States, about the Caracas operation strengthens confidence in its ability to penetrate airspace defended by Russian systems, but it also emphasizes that this success depends on exhaustive planning and intensive use of invisible capabilities that are not improvised. The lesson is not so much that Russian defenses are useless, but that in the face of an adversary that dominates the electromagnetic spectrumEven feared systems can be neutralized long enough for a decisive operation to take place. The war that is not seen. If you also want, the assault on Caracas leaves an uncomfortable and increasingly obvious conclusion: modern war is decided before the first shotin an intangible space made of signals, links and frequencies, where whoever controls the information controls the result. He Growler He did not fire a single bullet, but its effect It was more devastating than that of many bombs, remembering that in current conflicts lose seeing and hearing is almost always equivalent to losing the war before it begins. Image | COMSEVENTHFLTSenior Airman John Linzmeier, Vitaly V. Kuzmin In Xataka | The war in Ukraine has just met that of Venezuela: that means that its two invaders are facing each other In Xataka | While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

Google’s secret weapon against CUDA dominance is called TorchTPU. And it’s an NVIDIA waterline missile

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Google has launched an internal initiative called “TorchTPU” with a singular goal: to make their TPUs fully compatible with PyTorch. For the not so initiated, we translate it: what Google intends is to destroy once and for all the monopoly and absolute control that NVIDIA has with CUDA. Why is it important. NVIDIA has become the first company in the world by market capitalization for two big reasons. The first, for its AI GPUs. And the second, much more important, for CUDAthe software platform that is used by all AI developers and that has an important peculiarity: it only works on chips from NVIDIA itself. So if you want to work in AI with the latest of the latest, you have to jump through hoops… until now. What happens with Google and its TPUs. Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) were until now optimized for Jax, Google’s own platform that was similar to CUDA in its objective. However, the majority of the industry uses PyTorch, which has been optimized for years thanks to the aforementioned CUDA. That creates a barrier to entry for other chipmakers, which face a huge bottleneck in attracting customers. Goal is in the garlic. Anonymous sources close to the project indicate in Reuters that to achieve its goal and accelerate the process Google has partnered with Meta. This is especially striking because it was Meta who originally created PyTorch. Mark Zuckerberg’s company has ended up being just as much a slave to NVIDIA as its rivals, and is very interested in Google’s TPUs offering a viable alternative to reduce its own infrastructure costs. Google as a potential AI chip giant. The company led by Sundar Pichai has made an important change of direction with its TPUs, which were previously reserved exclusively for it. Since 2022, the Google Cloud division has taken control of their sale, and has turned them into a fundamental revenue driver because they are no longer only used by Google: Tell Anthropic. A spokesperson for this division has not commented specifically on the project, but confirmed to Reuters that this type of initiative would provide customers with the ability to choose. All against NVIDIA. This alliance is the last attempt to put an end to that great ace in NVIDIA’s sleeve. In these months we have seen how companies like Huawei prepare your own alternative ecosystem to CUDAbut they also participate in a joint effort of several Chinese AI companies for the same purpose. Hardware matters, software matters more. CUDA has become such a critical component for NVIDIA that if other semiconductor manufacturers have not been able to compete with it, it is not because of their chips, but because they cannot support CUDA natively. We have a great example in AMDwhich has exceptional AI GPUs. In fact, they are superior to NVIDIA in certain sections, but their software is not as powerful. In Xataka | Google’s TPUs are the first big sign that NVIDIA’s empire is faltering

We have been believing that bacteria are a weapon against tumors for 150 years. And finally we have discovered how

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In the fight against cancer, there are many treatments that are emerging, being the immunotherapy one of the most innovative, although there are also other alternatives such as based on LED light. Now therapies continue to advance and science is already pointing to a group of bacteria to be able to destroy tumors without depending on the immune response, opening a new era in oncological medicine. It’s not something new. The idea of ​​using bacteria to treat cancer is not new: already in 1868 the German doctor Busch observed that some cancer patients experienced remissions after bacterial infections. Later, William Colby developed bacteria-based treatments that they laid the foundation of modern immunotherapy. However, these traditional therapies require a functional immune system, which is a serious problem for patients who are immunocompromised due to cancer. The present. a study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering presented an innovative “drug-free” strategy that uses a group of bacteria to fight cancer, rescuing this old idea of ​​bacteria against cancer. This treatment has not only demonstrated powerful antitumor efficacy, but it has done so by achieving complete remission of the tumor and, most importantly, it has been maintained for years in mouse models, even in those who are immunosuppressed. The most relevant thing is that the fact that a bacteria helps us with this disease has been achieved without the need to use genetic engineering that alters your RNA. And also, without generating toxicity on the body. A priori they are all advantages. A bacterial duo. The protagonists of this therapy are a bacterial group called AUN, composed of two specific bacteria: Proteus mirabilis (nicknamed A-gyo) and Rhodopseudomonas palustris (UN-gyo). And although we may all have in mind that bacteria are bad for humans, the reality is that They help us (a lot) starting with all those that are in our intestine. When this bacterial duo was administered directly into the blood of tumor-bearing mice, the results were dramatic: complete tumor remission and prolonged survival. And it wasn’t magic. How does it work? It is the obligatory question after seeing the results of this study. The researchers explain that what these bacteria do in short is block the arrival of oxygen and nutrients to the tumors, which literally causes them to suffocate. And a tumor is nothing more than a set of cells that have an advanced metabolism. When taking away their food they end up dead. In essence, these bacteria can reach the tumor and enter its interior, as if it were a Trojan horse. Upon arrival, it causes very small blood clots to form and only in the blood vessels that go to the tumor. In this way, blood clots block the passage of blood and, therefore, its food source. Bacterial transformation. Bacteria are STILL not passive agents, but are dynamic actors that change their behavior when detecting cancer. In this way, the study observed that the A-gyo bacteria undergoes a “wonderful fibrous transformation.” This change is not random. It is specifically activated when the bacteria encounters “oncometabolites“, chemical signals emitted by cancer cells. This highly mobile form of “swarm”, together with the toxins and hemolysins secreted by the consortium, seems to be responsible for the tumor vascular destruction without affecting the rest of the healthy cells. A safe treatment. Using live bacteria as therapy may sound risky, but the study spends much of its time demonstrating the safety and control of AUN. The first thing that has been seen is that the bacterial strains have a unique non-pathogenic profile. Furthermore, to achieve a 100% complete response and avoid the lethality of a single high dose, the researchers developed a “double dose” regimen: a first injection at a low dose, followed days later by a high dose. The low dose “primes” the body, consuming aggressive neutrophils and mitigating the risk of severe cytokine release syndrome. Looking to the future. Although the experiments were performed in mice, the therapy was tested against human cancer cell lines in xenograft models. In this case, cells from human colon adenocarcinoma, ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer were used. The results in this case were very clear: all the tumors tested successfully disappeared in the mouse models, without very serious side effects. In this way, we are faced with a therapy that does not require any type of drug a priori and that can be self-managed. The authors of the study point out that this approach can revolutionize cancer therapy, but there is still a long way to go. Images | CDC In Xataka | Colon cancers are increasing alarmingly among young people. We have a suspect: sedentary lifestyle

Ukraine has a weapon against Russia that we had only seen in James Bond. Her name is Sea Baby and when she finishes her work she blows herself up.

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At the end of September Ukraine sent a message: It was already the largest drone laboratory on the planet, but with its latest 12-meter “monster” it wanted to do the same under the sea. This is how the family of Toloka underwater dronesa technological leap that redefined naval warfare in the Black Sea. That effort now has its continuation in a drone that until recently we had only seen in James Bond movies and the like. Technological evolution. Ukraine has taken its “Sea Baby” naval drones from being disposable explosive boats to becoming attack and multiple mission platforms capable of operating at more than 1,500 kilometers, transporting up to 2,000 kilos and mount heavy telecontrolled weaponry (multiple rocket launchers, stabilized turrets, secondary drone launch) while incorporating self-destruct systems to avoid capture and AI-assisted functions to reduce identification errors. This step not only adds firepower and range, but turns a low-cost means into a sustained system that can penetrate, hit, return and remain available (or self-destruct), something that repositions the naval drone from immediate consumption to renewable operating capital. The Black Sea. Successive waves of drones have forced Russia to withdraw most of its fleet from Sevastopol to Novorossiyska change in posture that does not respond to a specific defeat but to that persistent risk that makes it unfeasible to sustain an advanced presence without assuming continuous losses. The “Sea Baby” have been attributed by the SBU to eleven attacks against shipsas well as repeated blows against the Crimean bridge and other logistics facilities, producing a chain effect: Moscow has had to redirect its military transport to land and more distant ports, making each kilometer of support more expensive and reducing its ability to condition Ukrainian trade routes to Europe. Doctrinal change. What once required steel fleets, shipyards and squadrons can now be inflicted with platforms cheap, reproducible and guided at a distance, which modifies the unspoken rule that the maritime domain belongs to the one who owns tonnage: here control emanates from who can inflict repeated damage at a lower cost than that imposed on the defender. The Ukrainian case surpasses precedents such as the coastal missiles of the Lebanon in 2006 because it not only denies a coastline, but forces a structural reconfiguration of an entire squadron and its main base, demonstrating that an entire naval theater can be altered without having a conventional navy. Industry and allies. kyiv claims to produce around 4,000 naval drones and needing only half for his own defense, opening the door to sell the surplus to partner countries while NATO observes and adjusts doctrine after verifying that these systems have changed the cost/effect relationship at sea. Public financing via United24 and coordination with political and military command make the program an example of how a country at war can generate dual technology with external projection, replicating what happened with aerial UAVs: first combat effectiveness, then international adoption and doctrinal adjustment by third parties. Consequences and cycles. There is no doubt, offensive success is strong now defensive investment: floating barriers, sensors, redundant electronic warfare and point defense layers in ports and terminals to prevent innovation that has worked externally from reversing its own infrastructure. Russia tries to copy these platforms and use them againwhat chains a cycle of innovation in the face of interference that pushes both sides to adapt communications, navigation and mission architecture to overcome the electronic blockade. The result: a loop of accelerated evolution in which the advantage is no longer in possessing an isolated weapon, but in the ability to continually improve it before the opponent degrades its effect. Strategic conclusion. The Ukrainian naval drones have shown that sea power can be eroded without a conventional fleet through cheap mass, strategic reach and sustained pressure on valuable nodes, altering the adversary’s posture and reallocating its resources on the defensive. The displacement of the Russian fleet, the logistical impact and the international adoption as a reference point to a change of era: the sea ceases to be a domain secured by the capital spent on steel and becomes a space where the advantage belongs to whoever controls the marginal cost of the next impactnot the size of the hulls it anchors. Image | Security Service of Ukraine In Xataka | Ukraine cannot believe what it found inside Russia’s ballistic missiles: déjà vu In Xataka | After Cubans and North Koreans fighting alongside Russian troops, new guests have appeared in Ukraine: Chinese

Lockheed Martin has had an idea to make the Black Hawk a more lethal weapon. He removed the cabin and made it autonomous

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During the annual fair of the Association of the United States Army, The Black Hawk reappeared unrecognizable. The helicopter that has accumulated decades of service lost its cabin and controls to gain a bow that opens into two doors and makes way for an expanded hold. The new name is U-Hawk and the conversion is carried out by Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company. Within ten months, a UH-60L became an unmanned prototype with autonomy architecture, presented for the first time in public at AUSA. The U-Hawk was officially shown on October 13, converted from a former UH-60L of the US Army. According to Lockheed Martinthe project went from concept to demonstrator in that period and is in the validation phase before its first flight, scheduled for 2026. For now, the development has been financed internally by Sikorsky and is supported by the company’s previous experience in flight automation. From Black Hawk to U-Hawk: the old helicopter that is reborn without a cabin The most visible change is in the bow. Where controls and instrumentation were once concentrated, there are now two type gates clamshell that open to the sides and a motorized ramp that allows loading and unloading even with the rotors running. Integrate a system fly-by-wire third generation together with MATRIX, Sikorsky’s autonomy technology that coordinates sensors, cameras and algorithms to manage flight without human intervention. The redesign provides 25% more useful space compared to a conventional UH-60L. The extension of the front fuselage not only frees up space, it also multiplies cargo options. The U-Hawk can carry up to 3,175 kilos inside and lift another 4,080 kilos using the external hook, just like a conventional Black Hawk, but with more room for bulky objects. The warehouse supports four standard JMIC containers, twice as many as before, or a full pod of six HIMARS rockets. It can also accommodate two Naval Strike Missiles anti-ship missiles and an unmanned ground vehicle that enters and exits via its own ramp. One of the most striking new features is the internal launch system that Sikorsky calls quiver. This module, installed in the warehouse, can house between 24 and 50 drones or loitering munitionsready to be deployed in mid-flight. Each payload can be configured for surveillance, reconnaissance or electronic warfare tasks, and the system supports mixed combinations depending on the mission. The company maintains that this design will allow the U-Hawk to act autonomously before the arrival of troops, clearing or analyzing the terrain with its own means. Autonomy is one of the strong points of the U-Hawk. According to Lockheed Martin, it can cover up to 1,600 nautical miles without assistance, about 2,960 kilometers, and stay in flight for up to 14 hours without refueling. The company indicates that it can carry internal tanks to extend the range or time on station, but has not specified whether they are necessary to achieve these maximum figures. In any case, the operating margin presented by these data is unusual for a helicopter of this class. Sikorsky describes the U-Hawk as a forward reinforcement of the air assault. In a typical mission, the helicopter would take off before the troops and release several launched effects for reconnaissance or attack. It would then land, deploy an unmanned ground vehicle and rise again without human intervention. This sequence seeks to reduce the exposure of soldiers and open a path in hostile areas, with an approach that also contemplates non-military uses such as support in fires or natural disasters. Sikorsky wants to make operating a U-Hawk as simple as using an app. Operators enter mission objectives from a tablet, and MATRIX software calculates the route, controls takeoff, and manages the flight autonomously. The level of intervention can be modified depending on the circumstances, from closer remote monitoring to minimal supervision. Additionally, the system recognizes whether it is in civil or military space and adjusts its behavior. The U-Hawk was also born as a commitment to efficiency. Sikorsky is taking advantage UH-60L fuselages retired of the US Army, which it replaces flight systems and electronics with its own simpler and lower cost versions. The company claims that this vertical integration, by manufacturing its own management computers and actuators, reduces the total cost of the system and facilitates its maintenance. Being based on the H-60 ​​family, it also inherits a fairly consolidated supply chain. If the schedule is met, the first flight of the U-Hawk will take place in 2026. It will be the decisive step to check whether full autonomy can be integrated into the H-60 ​​fleet, a model that the US Army plans to keep operational until at least 2070. The idea of ​​converting a classic helicopter into an unmanned platform points to a future in which machines with and without pilots coexist. Whether this vision is translated into a new generation of aircraft will depend on how this first prototype works. Images | Lockheed Martin In Xataka | A new army has arrived to put order in the Arctic: an F-35 squadron that does not belong to China, Russia or the United States

Russia has found a key advantage to multiply the range of its most lethal weapon in Ukraine: Chinese factories

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Last July Reuters was made with some documents that proved the scope of the help from Beijing to Moscow with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop. The proliferation of Russian drones was possible thanks to a system labeling called “industrial refrigeration units” during transportation, one that allowed sanctions imposed by the West to be bypassed through fictitious companies. Now we know something else: that there are entire factories dedicated to collaboration. The invisible industrial alliance. The war in Ukraine has entered a new phase in which Russia’s technological advantage on the battlefield increasingly depends on a network of factories and chinese suppliers. Although Beijing proclaims neutrality, the official customs data show a spectacular increase in exports of critical components (especially fiber optic cables and batteries lithium-ion) that have allowed Moscow to mass-build the wired drones that are transforming the balance of power on the front. These aircraft, operated through ultra-fine glass threads that unwind in flight up to more than twenty kilometers, They are almost immune to electronic warfare and have managed to breach Ukrainian defenses with an efficiency reminiscent of a silent industrial evolution. The Chinese quantitative leap. How much? counted the Washington Post that between May and August, Chinese exports of fiber optic cables to Russia multiplied tenfold, reaching 528,000 kilometers per month, while shipments of lithium-ion batteries climbed to $54 million. In contrast, Ukraine barely received a few tens of km of cable and a testimonial volume of batteries. For analysts, this asymmetry it is not coincidental: China has restricted the transfer of technologies to kyiv and its allies, but has opened the floodgates of the flow towards Moscowtransforming what were simple commercial components into decisive pieces of the Russian war machine. The combination of low cost, high production capacity and speed in developing prototypes makes Chinese factories a material extension of the Kremlin’s war effort, a “precision rearguard” capable of sustaining the offensive even under Western sanctions. The weapon against electronic chaos. we have been counting. Faced with Ukrainian dominance in FPV drones, Russia has found fiber optic models a devastating tool. As they do not depend on radio frequencies, these devices are impossible to block through interference, and their wiring guarantees total control even in environments saturated with electronic warfare. Moscow uses them to destroy logistics lines, command centers and jamming equipment before launching offensives terrestrial. Its scope (coinciding with the advances measured “by sections of cable”) illustrates how this technology defines the very geometry of the front. Since the Ukrainian withdrawal in the Kursk region, wired drones have been the protagonists of precision attacks, such as the registered in Kramatorsk on October 5, cementing a pattern of warfare in which electronic resistance has become useless. The new factories of conflict. After the withdrawal of the giant DJI of the Russian market in 2022, a constellation of minor Chinese manufacturers has taken up its space. Companies like Shenzhen Huaxin Energy either Nasmin Technologyofficially dedicated to civil products, have become major suppliers of batteries and motors for Russian assemblers. The signature Rustakt LLCone of the largest in the Russian military sector, imported from China more than 577 million dollars in pieces between July 2023 and December of the same year, a volume that reveals the scale of covert industrial support. In turn, Russian manufacturers as ASFPV or Stribog exhibit on their websites production lines located in Chinese territorywith personnel, machinery and labels in Mandarin, manufacturing ultralight coils 0.28 mm and 20 km range designed by Chinese engineers. It is a transnational industrial network that no contracts needed formal military to nourish the Russian war effort: the flow of trade is its camouflage. The dilemma of the West. We have also been counting. Despite the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, the majority of these shipments are protected by the ambiguity of the products “dual use”whose civil application allows controls to be avoided. For NATO, China has become a “decisive facilitator” of Putin’s war, Brussels accuses it of selectively applying its own export rules and to tolerate traffic of components that supports the Russian military industry. Beijing, meanwhile, continues to proclaim its neutrality, while its industrial system benefits economically from the prolongation of the conflict. Its strategy is subtle but effective: it does not supply weapons, but the infrastructure that makes them possible. A strategic advantage. Taken together, the convergence between Russian ingenuity and Chinese manufacturing capacity has created a war ecosystem that combines improvisation with industrial efficiency. The fiber drones optics symbolize that symbiosis: cheap, adaptable and difficult to counter. By providing Russia with technological independence from sanctions and tactical superiority on the battlefield, China not only strengthens its strategic partner, but also redefines global balance of power around a new form of hybrid warfare, where factories and cables count as much as missiles. The result is a cumulative advantage that, in the long term, threatens to turn the Ukrainian front into a manufactured warfare laboratorysupported not so much by soldiers, but by production lines on the other side of the world. Image | Ukraine Mod, Ministry of Defense Ukraine In Xataka | Europe has found the antidote to Russian drones. So demand for a 100-year-old gun has skyrocketed In Xataka | Europe has been working for three years to isolate itself from Russian gas. Two countries have decided to build a direct gas pipeline to Russia

Your grandmother was right with Kiwi, and now science has given her marketing a powerful weapon

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It is a milestone for European regulation: for the first time, a fresh fruit, the green kiwi, has made the European Commission authorize you A “specific health declaration”. What your grandmother told you now comes with an official stamp and scientific support. But this also gives rise to a Great marketing network. A victory for brands. This news, which at first glance seems a victory for science and consumers, is actually a fascinating case study on how food industry, marketing and European regulation that has more recesses than it seems. The application, driven by the neozygous giant Zespri, has taken seven years to see the light and, although it celebrates a real benefit, reopens the debate on what we consider “healthy” how we sell us. A cooked health statement for years. So that A food can carry a slogan related to healththe inventiveness of a marketing team is not enough. As the Food Technologist explainsMiguel Lurueña in the country, for almost two decades the European Union demands a rigorous process to avoid misleading advertising. The first request for the Kiwi to have its recognition started in 2018 when Zespri, the world’s largest kiwis marketer, submitted a request to the European Commission claiming that the Kiwi contributes to the maintenance of normal defecation. To support him, he contributed 19 scientific studies. It is not something two days. The scientific verdict did not reach 2021, when the European Food Security Authority (EFSA) comes into play. His work is to review scientific evidence and determine if it is solid enough to give your approval. Something that arrived three years after the initial application. The next step was the politician, where the Member States of the European Union had to agree on a statement on this food and its properties. Because obviously it is something that will directly affect their citizens. A text with a small print. The official text approved is: “The consumption of green Kiwi contributes to the normal functioning of the intestine by increasing the frequency of the strokes. “The law allows simplifying it, so get ready to see ads with a clear and direct:” Help to go to the bathroom. “ But the statement will only be able to use for fresh green kiwis of the variety Hayward And the consumer should be informed that the effect is achieved with a daily intake of 200 grams of pulp, which is equivalent to about two kiwis of good size. The kiwi’s “superpower” is not so exclusive. This is where history becomes very interesting. Zespri argued that the kiwi effect was due to a unique combination of factors: its fiber, an enzyme called Actinidinephenolic compounds and other substances that They altered intestinal motility and the Microbiota. It seemed that the Kiwi had a secret formula. However, EFSA itself in its scientific opinion reaches a much less exclusive conclusion: evidence does not demonstrate that the effect of green Kiwi on defecation is higher than the one that could be expected because of its dietary fiber content. Figures can be put. Keep in mind that 200 grams of Kiwi provide approximately six grams of fiber. This is the amount that, according to studies, produces the beneficial effect. But that amount is not, much less, exclusive to Kiwi. We can get a similar fiber contribution in other foods that are often much cheaper. For example: A cup of cooked lentils (about 180 g) contains more than 15 grams of fiber. A ration of raspberries (125 g) provides about 8 grams of fiber. A comprehensive pasta dish (80 g dry) is around 7 grams of fiber. Two medium pears also add up to 6 grams of fiber. In this way we see that the Kiwi can work and is very healthy. But the approved benefit is not a ‘magical’ property, but the result of its fiber content, which is a nutrient present in many other foods. In your skin is where its benefits lies. Although a priori it may seem necessary to peel the entire fruit, including kiwis, Science tells us something different. In past studies it was made clear that Kiwi on your skin contains a fiber rich fountain and vitamin E, although it is recommended to wash it well before consumption. The same occurs in other types of fruits, where much of the fiber is also found in the shell that is in essence is viscous fiber. A guy that helps reduce appetite when gastric emptying and stimulating hormones that They promote satiety. The door open to advertising picaresque. The Kiwi case feels a precedent, but also reminds us of the strategies that the industry has been using for years. Regularization allows a product to contain a significant amount of a nutrient with an already approved health statement such as vitamin D, can use a slogan to promote it. He Most famous example is Actimel’s. Danone did not get the EFSA to approve specific statements for bacteria L. Casei. The solution? Enrich the product with vitamins D and B6, for which the declaration “contributes to the normal functioning of the immune system” is authorized. From there, to the famous slogan “help your defenses” there is a very short step and, above all, legal. Valuing food by a nutrient. This strategy that we have seen in the food industry leads us directly to the tendency to value food by a single function. In the case of Actimel only for its function for the immune system and now the Kiwi to go to the bathroom. In this way, a food is not valued in conjunction with all its nutrients. Eating two kiwis a day can help with constipation, but it will not serve as “antidote” if the rest of our diet is based on poor ultraprocesses in fiber. The great forgotten: the nutritional profiles. To prevent an industrial bun and saturated fats from being advertised as an iron source that helps diminish, simply because it is enriched, European legislation foresaw in 2006 The creation of … Read more

Russia is building a nuclear weapon capable of destroying all satellites in orbit

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In 1962, the world looked on the edge of the nuclear abyss when the United States discovered the installation of Soviet missiles in Cubaa few kilometers from its coasts. The tension derived from that geopolitical pulse symbolized the fragility of the strategic balance and the ease with which a technological advance or risky play could precipitate the planet towards a total confrontation. Today, more than sixty years later, United States evokes That historical episode when warning about a similar threat, although transferred to space. A new crisis. The announcement that Russia would be developing a Orbital nuclear weapon Able to disable the totality of the satellites in land low orbit has turned on alarms in Washington, with direct comparisons to That crisis of the missiles of Cuba that we commented. According to the declassified data For the US Congress, this system would combine an initial physical attack that would generate a reaction in orbital destruction chain with a nuclear pulse destined to fry the electronics of all affected satellites. The result. It would be, in his opinion, devastating: With the collapse of GPS, communications, intelligence and early missile alert systems, all critical elements for global safety and economy. The United States argues that the weapon, not yet operational, could be unusable for orbit for a whole yeargenerating an unprecedented strategic vacuum in which both Washington and its allies would be exposed to conventional or even nuclear threats without the coverage of their space constellations. The role of satellites. Today orbit More than 12,000 satellites that fulfill vital functions for modern life: from television and navigation services to international military and economic architecture. In fact, the war in Ukraine has already demonstrated its vulnerability when the Russian attack against Viasat In 2022 he left tens of thousands of users without service in much of Europe. More recently, the kidnapping of a satellite signal to issue the Victory Day Parade In Ukraine he showed how cyberspace and outer space are intertwined as new battlefields. The experts They warn that it is enough to exploit outdated software or insecure communication links to disable key satellites, which makes space a Achilles heel of Western democracies. The new space race. We have gone counting. The announcement of the possible Russian weapon coincides with the resurgence of the Spatial competition for the domain of the extraterrestrial resources. The moon has become The centerpiece Of this rivalry: its wealth In Helio-3fuel potential for future nuclear fusion reactors, has triggered plans to establish permanent bases. NASA advertisement the installation of a small nuclear reactor as an initial step to consolidate presence before they do so Russia or Chinathat they already project their own lunar plants. The control of strategic areas of the lunar surface is perceived as a determinant to define the next global hegemony in energy and technology, in a context where the growing demand for energy for artificial intelligence accelerates competition. China between half. While Russia is silent about the alleged antisatellite weapon, China has reacted denouncing Washington for “militarizing space” and accusing it to expand military alliances that convert spatial domain into a war zone. Beijing insists that he opposes an arms race outside the earth, although in parallel promotes projects of space mining and Bases on the Moon that place it on the same competitive board as the United States and Russia. Chinese rhetoric is presented as a guarantor of the international order against a United States accused of exacerbating tension, although the simultaneous development of Technological capabilities of Great reach It reveals a broader power game. Washington’s response. Created In 2019the US space force has assumed the task of protecting national interests in orbit, from communications constellations to military intelligence and navigation satellites. Its fleet includes The X-37ban unmanned ferry that executes prolonged secret missions In orbit and symbolizes Washington’s will to dominate this area. Although small compared to branches such as the army or the navy, the space force It expands and the pentagon Plan to consolidate Soon its headquarters. For US military controls, safe access to space is already a vital interest in national security. The perspective of Russia deploying a space nuclear weapon raises the challenge to a Unpublished scale: The possible paralysis of world satellite infrastructure, with military, economic and psychological consequences comparable to a strategic nuclear attack. A turning point. Be that as it may, the ghost of a “missile crisis in space” reflects that the competition is no longer limited to land, sea and air, not even to cyberspace, but reaches the orbital and lunar domain as new power scenarios. If the United States is right and Russia is allowed to advance with An antisatellite weaponthe global strategic balance could be altered radically, inaugurating an era in which the great powers dispute not only territories, but also access to the infrastructure that sustains modern life. The urgency, both for some and for others, seems clear: or firm limits are established in the military use of space, or the risk that the next great international crisis explodes hundreds of kilometers above our heads will be increasingly real. Image | Steve Jurvetson In Xataka | Bombard the poles with nuclear weapons or build a giant magnet: the most reposted ideas to terraft Mars In Xataka | China has just taken another step in the technological and spatial conquest: an orbital computing network designed for AI

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