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We’ve been using sunscreen for thousands of years, even though we didn’t know we needed it at first.

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Nowadays We are quite aware of the importance of sunscreen. In the past they were not so clear about it, but they used it anyway. Normally, substances were used to lighten the skin or prevent it from darkening, since dark skin was associated with the lower classes of society. The upper classes did not want to appear from the lower classes and some people from the lower classes did not want to be noticed, so all kinds of concoctions were devised aimed at maintaining their whitish complexion. Over time, and with all the knowledge we have today, some scientists have dedicated themselves to analyzing those formulas and the truth is that, although some were anything but healthy, others were safe and even effective. Does that mean we should use them today? Logically not. We have much better studied options. But for the times in which they were developed, some were not bad at all. When it was worth it with the melanin itself. The first humans they lived in Africaso their skin was prepared to be intensely exposed to solar radiation, thanks to very high levels of melanin. Over time, as he Homo sapiens It was distributed to other parts of the world, so much melanin was no longer necessary, so the skin became lighter. The problem is that less solar radiation does not mean any, so little by little people found themselves having to look for a replacement for the melanin they had lost. They didn’t know why they needed it, but they were looking for it. The Egyptians and their cosmetics manufacturing skills. In ancient Egypt, cosmetics played a very important role. Makeup and creams and oils were used to moisturize the skin, improve physical appearance or as a status symbol. Even some cosmetic products had religious and ritual purposes. For all this, it is not strange that among the Egyptians there were great formulators. Many of their mixtures were useless, but some did have interesting and understandable applications with the science we know today. In this last drawer is found sunscreen based on jasmine, rice and lupine (the plant from which lupins are obtained). The goal of this mixture was to keep the skin as white as possible. They did not know that solar radiation can be harmful. However, they were protecting themselves from them, since today we know that rice bran absorbs ultraviolet light, jasmine helps repair DNA, and lupine lightens the skin. They weren’t just protecting themselves. They also repaired any damage that may have already occurred and kept the skin clearer. From the Greeks to the Romans. The Greeks used olive oil to protect yourself from the sun and, above all, to care for your skin after exposure. Although they were not aware of the magnitude of the problem, they did see that the skin was suffering from sun exposure, so they made their own aftersun. Today we know that olive oil has an SPF of 8. Too low, but better than later options and certainly better than not wearing anything at all. As for the Romans, They were among the first to use zinc oxide to prevent their skin from darkening. This substance is still used today as a physical filter in many sunscreens, so they aimed their shot very well. They were also used in India and China. Beware of lead. In Japan, white skin was a clear symbol of status and female beauty. For this reason, women smeared themselves with lead powder. It was also used by European women in the 16th and 17th centuries, usually mixed with water and vinegar, in a mixture known as venetian ceruse. In both cases, it was used because, being a thick, white powder, it gave them a mask effect that imitated the appearance of a very white complexion. Therefore, there was no protection at all. On the contrary, since lead It is highly toxic. The first sunscreens. In 1801, the chemist Johan Wilhem Ritter discovered UV radiation, although its harmful effects on the skin were not known until 1820, when a doctor named Sir Everard Home determined that these radiations, coming from the Sun, are harmful and that the skin itself defends itself through pigmentation. As a result of this last discovery, an attempt was made to make sunscreen with tannins, such as those of red grapes. However, the dark effect it left on the skin was not very well received. Over time, different options were tested, including zinc oxide from the Romans. Nowadays we know much better about the effects of the sun and sunscreen. In the end, many of these formulas from ancient civilizations were not so wrong. Nowadays we know the effects of this and other physical filters, as well as chemical ones, which do not create a barrier on the skin, but rather absorb radiation. All of them, deep down, are the result of thousands of years of curiosity and research. Because it’s true that the first humans to make sunscreen weren’t even making it for the right reason. But the fact is that, for whatever reason, they did it. We have instinctively protected ourselves forever. That a tanned footballer Don’t make us go back to the past. Images | Magnificent In Xataka | Science warns of the dangerous success of anti-suncream hoaxes on TikTok: “Despite being a minority, this content is influential”

“We’ve been building infrastructure for humans for 20 years, maybe we have 20 months to rebuild it for agents”

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Companies have embraced the agentic AI boom, to the point that some They are drowning in so many AI agents. Employees are creating uncontrolled agents, triggering token consumption and causing many of those agents to duplicate tasks. But the real underlying problem is something else: the infrastructure on which all this is running is not prepared to support it. Meta’s warning. They tell it in Venture Beat. During the VB Transform 2026 talk, Meta’s vice president of engineering Barak Yagour gave a very powerful figure: queries from agents reaching the Meta system have multiplied by 30 in the last six months. “What happens to the infrastructure we’ve built over years when agents, not humans, become its primary consumers?” Yagour asked the audience. The answer is even more worrying: “We have spent 20 years building infrastructure for humans. Maybe we have 20 months to rebuild everything for a world where humans and agents co-create at scale.” And he adds that “The opportunity is open, but it will not last long.” lthe three problems. The emergence of the agents threatens to break the infrastructure on three fronts: Ability: Until recently, to plan how much computing power, storage or bandwidth was needed to carry out a project, it was enough to count the number of employees working on it. Yagour explains it very graphically: “Now, an engineer generates 10 agents, and each one generates sub-agents. An organization of 1,000 people can generate the load of 100,000 users practically overnight.” Identity: Access control systems are not designed for an AI agent. It is not human, but it moves around the infrastructure and makes decisions on its own. Speed: The third problem is the speed at which the agents move. They can write code faster than any human, but “that code still needs to be compiled, tested, deployed and monitored.” Deep changes. Yagour mentions that reasoning models are changing the way the data layer is processed. Detecting matches from keywords is not the same as reasoning about someone’s intention; That requires a complete history of behavior, not a summary. This requires making changes to how that data is processed and stored. Meta is moving from batch processing, which can take up to 24 hours to update, to real-time processing as it is key when the model is reasoning about what a user wants at that very moment. On the other hand, they are moving from an opaque storage to one that understands its own content, so that it only reads what it needs in each query and thus lightens the load on the GPUs. Setting limits. According to Yagour “Autonomy without governance is nothing more than chaos”, which is why Meta’s solution is to create what they call “trusted data environments.” Here, agents can move freely “but every result is traced back to its source and carefully vetted. This way you can always be sure that the data shared is trusted and controlled.” It is a way of giving freedom to the agents, but in a controlled way and without exposing themselves to the risk of ending up messing up. Image | Xataka with Magnific In Xataka | AI agents can destroy jobs. Or they can also save a century-old cheese factory from bankruptcy

We’ve been hearing for years that adults don’t have to drink milk. The latest studies say the opposite.

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For decades, milk was the undisputed pillar of any healthy breakfast. However, in recent years we have witnessed a real demonization of dairy products and we have heard practically everything, from being “unnatural” for adults, to being the culprit of increased cholesterol or even the risk of cancer. But we are faced with several myths that are important to deny. We are designed for it. One of the most repeated arguments is that we are the only mammal that consumes milk in its adult stage. The experts they explain that, although a part of the world’s population loses the ability to digest lactose after childhood, many others maintain this enzyme active throughout life thanks to a genetic adaptation. Therefore, there is no basis to recommend that all adults stop drinking milk because of this enzyme. Here science is quite clear, since a population study made in Galicia with 850 people showed that, although the alteration of lactose metabolism affects 38% of individuals, when normal physiological quantities are consumed such as a simple glass of milk or yogurt, symptomatic intolerance plummets to 2% for milk and 8% for yogurt. Mortality. Another of the most widespread myths is precisely that dairy consumption in adults increases the risk of mortality and cardiovascular diseases, but science says the opposite. Here, one monumental umbrella review of 2021 pointed out that the evidence does not support that milk is harmful and in fact, in most scenarios its impact is neutral, and in several it is clearly favorable. But if we want to sharpen our aim, a 2026 dose-response meta-analysis, based on 29 cohorts and more than 1.6 million participants, has drawn the exact curve of how dairy interacts with our life expectancy. The researchers found a “U”-shaped association, seeing that the optimal point of consumption is located between 250 and 300 grams a day. Cancer. The alleged relationship between dairy products and cancer is another of the great battlehorses on the internet. However, the most recent reviews they point in another direction, since it has been seen that dairy consumption reduces the risk of suffering from colorectal, bladder, liver, oral cavity and even ovarian and breast cancer. The calcium dilemma. With the rise of plant-based diets, it is common to hear that “spinach or oat drinks have as much or more calcium than milk.” This is where a crucial scientific concept that the nutrition label doesn’t cover comes in, which is bioavailability and the food matrix. We see this in a study published in 2024 that measured exactly how much calcium our body actually assimilates, and was seen that with the consumption of dairy products there was a bioaccessibility of between 19 and 34%, while the vegetable alternatives were 5 and 20%. And this is explained because the joint presence of lactose and casein peptides in milk acts as a “vehicle” that favors the absorption of calcium in our intestine. But in addition, many vegetables rich in calcium are loaded with phytates and oxalates, compounds that “sequester” calcium and prevent us from absorbing it. Your proteins. From a protein point of view, dairy products play in a higher league. If we use the DIAAS index, dairy proteins get scores higher than 1and this means that they provide an excellent amount of highly digestible essential amino acids, far surpassing most plant proteins. Images | Pixabay In Xataka | One in every ten liters of “milk” sold in Spain does not come from any animal: the unstoppable (and silent) growth of vegetable drinks

We’ve been looking for aliens the wrong way for decades. The solution could be in the dust of the Moon

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It is possible that we are looking for the wrong traces of extraterrestrial civilizations. According to a study published recently by Oxford astrophysicist Brian C. Lacki, the mistake has been in looking for active technological signatures. That is, signals derived from extraterrestrial technologies that have been emitted directly. These signals are lost over time. On the other hand, technological signatures that passively act on the light of a star are easier to detect. And the best thing is that, if you can’t find them, you could always search in the middle of the lunar regolith. This all sounds very crazy, but it actually makes sense. Active or passive signatures? That’s the question. Traditionally, search projects for extraterrestrial civilizations, like SETIhave focused on the detection of possible radio signals coming from their technologies. These are not signals emitted on purpose so that we can find them, but rather the result of their own technological activity. The problem, according to Lacki in his study, is that, if they have followed an evolution similar to ours, they may not be broadcasting on the radio for more than 100 years. We ourselves have been replacing emissions in this range with fiber optics or satellites with directed emissions and very little “noise” that can reach “intergalactic gossip.” What leads us to think that they continue century after century using the same technologies? They may continue to emit, but no longer in radio waves that disperse into space. The Oxford astrophysicist proposes changing this position by searching for passive technosignatures. That is, signatures derived from the interaction of smart technologies with starlight. three types. There are three types of passive technosignatures: obscuring, flashing and diffusing. The former act in a similar way to an exoplanet passing in front of its star. When a large object, such as an artificial satellite, passes in front of a star, it temporarily obscures it. This could be confused with an exoplanetbut the idea is to look for concealments with unconventional shapes, that do not resemble anything known. In the case of flashing signatures, they would be those produced by devices with mirrors aimed at concentrating the star’s light. As if they had their own solar plants. At some point, these types of mirrors could generate flares observable from Earth. Finally, the diffusion signatures would spread the light in all directions, so that a fainter change would be observed, in the form of a color modification in the light spectrum. What if they are no longer there? If it is already difficult to find other intelligent civilizations, it would be even more difficult to find one that is contemporary with ours. We may simply find technosignatures of a civilization that has already died. In that case, or even if the technologies have simply been abandoned for another reason, there would no longer be intelligent beings in charge of maintaining the devices, so their orbit would end up shifting and they could collide with each other. If this happens, it is possible that very small fragments will be generated, which this scientist calls technograins. They are so small that the star’s gravity is not able to attract them any more than the stellar winds push them away. Therefore, they would end up swept away from their neighborhood and become a cloud of dust that our solar system could eventually encounter on its journey through the galaxy. The Moon comes into play. If all of the above occurs, Lacki considers that it could be that some of that dust settles on the Moon, where there is no wind nor are there geological processes that alter the surface, so it could remain for a long time. Therefore, for him, one way to look for technosignatures would be to inspect the lunar regolithlooking for dust that appears to have a technological origin. That, perhaps, could lead us to some intelligent civilization that has gone unnoticed by us. In short, according to the curious perception of this scientist, when trips to the Moon become more common than anecdotal, we could have an easier time finding technosignatures. Of course, for this, fewer telescopes and more sieves. Images | Leo Visions (Unsplash) In Xataka | TRAPPIST-1 was the most promising solar system to search for life. Now our joy is in a well

We’ve spent years unraveling a signal from space that shouldn’t exist. And finally we have a “Rosetta stone” to decipher it

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It was the year 2018 when a team of Australian scientists detected a strange radio signal in the plane of the Milky Way. The radio pulse was too slow for any known astronomical object. It seemed more like some kind of anomaly or error in the telescopes than a new discovery. However, in 2025 another similar signal was located. And then another and another. Currently, there are at least 12 of these signals recorded, which have been named long-period radio transients (LPTs). Each of them includes a new feature that makes it impossible to find a common thread. Or at least it had been that way until now, since a new group of Australian researchers has located a sign that brings together several of the pieces of the puzzle. It has been so useful that it has been colloquially dubbed a space Rosetta stone. All the pieces together. The signal located in 2018 (although it was published in 2022) occurred every 18.18 minutes. With this periodicity, a star in the Milky Way increased its brightness for 30-60 seconds, and then decreased it again. Later a similar phenomenon was located, in which it was possible to see further. A binary system consisting of a white dwarf and a red dwarf was identified. The interaction between the two produced the emission of radio waves. However, when another LPT was detected, the emissions were not radio waves, but X-rays. How was a single phenomenon going to be defined if each one was different from the previous one? The key, finally, has been another LPT, initially located by the ASKAP telescope, of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). With it, and with the collaboration of other telescopes, a binary system composed of a white dwarf and a red dwarf has been identified, whose interaction gives rise to a periodic change in brightness, accompanied by the emission of radio waves and X-rays. All in one. With all the pieces, it has now been possible to reconstruct the event. Four telescopes to reconstruct history. The new LPT has been named ASKAP J1745-5051. It is not possible to know exactly how far away it is, although estimates place it between 1,300 and 30,000 light years away. Observations made with the ASKAP radio telescope made it possible to locate a periodic emission of radio waves every 81 minutes, which corresponded to a possible LPT. In order to check if the rest of the conditions that had been observed individually were met, it was observed with three other telescopes. On the one hand, space telescopes Swift and Einstein Probewith which X-ray emissions were detected. On the other hand, with the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR). With this, a binary system composed of a white dwarf and a red dwarf that orbit each other with a period of 81 minutes was identified. Everything fits. The full story. The conclusion when putting all the pieces together is the following. On each orbit, the white dwarf, which has a large mass concentrated in very little space, gravitationally attracts the red dwarf and extracts material from it. This is channeled by the magnetic field of the white dwarf itself until it reaches its surface, where it collides, producing a temperature increase of millions of degrees Celsius. Furthermore, this very violent interaction causes the release of energy in the form of X-rays. On the other hand, the gas accelerated by the colliding magnetic fields of both stars is what appears to produce the radio signals. A Rosetta Stone. The principal investigator of this new study It’s called Kovi Rose. We might think that this has had to do with the fact that the discovery is referred to as a space Rosetta stone. And maybe it has had a little influence, but the reality is that there are more reasons. The original Rosetta stone It was a fragment of Egyptian rock in which there was a text written in three different languages: ancient Greek, hieroglyphics and demotic writing. Because archaeologists of the time knew how to speak Greek, they were able to use it as a basis for understanding hieroglyphs. One language allowed them to reconstruct another. In this case, the new discovery is also in three languages: radio waves, detected by ASKAP, X-rays, with which Swift and Einstein Probe work, and visible light from SOAR. Three languages, three pieces that, when read together, can help to understand the whole much better. With this Rosetta stone, the authors of the study hope to be able to unravel many of these mysterious signals from the Universe. Image | Hans Hillewaert (Wikimedia Commons)/Magnific In Xataka | We believed that the pyramids of Giza did not hide any more secrets. we believed wrong

We’ve been sold melatonin as the ultimate harmless sleep supplement. Science does not think the same

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By taking a walk through any pharmacy, supermarket or online store, it is easy to find melatonin as the definitive solution to sleep problems and with the great claim of being something totally natural that our body secretes. Pills, drops, infusions or even gummies are some of the presentations in which we find a product that for many should not be available to everyone and that, in their opinion, It should be regulated like any other medicine. The alarm voice. The scientific community and regulatory bodies They are starting to sound the alarm and the central idea is clear: melatonin is not as harmless as it is often promoted and, according to experts, it should be treated with the same rigor as a medication, and not as a simple vitamin supplement. The labels. One of the biggest problems with melatonin, especially in countries like the United States where it is regulated as a dietary supplement, is the lack of strict control over its production. Here a study published in 2017 put a worrying fact on the table when seeing that there are a great variability between what the labels say and what the bottle actually contains. And when analyzing multiple brands, researchers found products that contained from 83% less melatonin than declared, to an alarming 478% more. And if that were not enough, the study detected the presence of serotonin in several of these supplements, which is a neurotransmitter that is regulated. It’s not something magical. Marketing has positioned melatonin as a universal solution for sleep that can be consumed without almost any type of control or limit. But here the different reviews conclude that its benefits are modest, without having a powerful hypnotic effect, but rather that its real usefulness lies in adjusting specific circadian rhythm disorders such as jet lag, so use should be selective and not routine. Furthermore, it is not without risks. One of the most striking is the incompatibility that taking melatonin may have. with anticoagulant medicationswhich requires medical supervision. This is something that a priori is not known to patients as they do not go to the doctor for a prescription and have melatonin available on a supermarket shelf. The silent danger. The rise of melatonin in gummy form has brought with it very serious collateral damage, since children may see it as a candy, which has led to an increase in visits to the emergency room in the United States due to excessive consumption of melatonin. In Spain, The approach taken is more strict, since drug regulatory agencies evaluate the safety of this substance in the key of medicinealthough you can buy it almost without any type of control when going to any supermarket. The positive part here is that the highest concentrations of melatonin can only be prescribed by a doctor in consultation so that the pharmacy can make a master preparation, considering it as just another medication, which is what is requested internationally. Images | James Yarema Slaapwijsheid.nl In Xataka | Someone has said that melatonin damages the heart. The reality, according to science, is that we can be calm

We’ve found molecules linked to life on Mars, but let’s not break out the champagne just yet

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The Curiosity rover has carried out a chemical experiment on Mars that has never been done on another planet. Thanks to it, it has detected organic molecules that until now had gone unnoticed by us. Does that mean that there is or was life on the red planet? It could be, but it could also be due to many other things. Although we always read this type of news with joy and it gives a lot of sensational headlines, we must analyze the results with the optimism of what they mean for science, but the caution of what they imply in the search for extraterrestrial life. Chemical advances millions of kilometers away. Curiosity’s SAM instrument has carried out an experiment known as thermochymolysis. In it, a reagent called tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH) is used. to break large molecules into small fragments. Thanks to this, organic molecules can be detected that are invisible with other methods. Among other organic molecules, some rich in nitrogen have been found, which could be related to DNA synthesis. The discovery of benzothiophene, present in some biological processes, also stands out. Let’s not go up. The authors of the study that has just been published thanks to the Curiosity rover they call for caution with its results. They insist that all the molecules found could come from abiotic processes or have reached Mars from other points in space. For example, benzothiophene could be formed by geological or hydrothermal processes. In addition, its presence has been found in meteorites and asteroids on Earth. It could also have reached Mars like this. Only two tries. Regardless of whether the findings have to do with life or not, this study is very relevant for two reasons. On the one hand, because it was the first time that this experiment could be carried out outside of Earth. And, secondly, because Curiosity I only had two tries to do it, but he made good use of them. This is because TMAH was in the exact dose needed, inside two sealed capsules. If the first failed, the second could be tried. If this one did it too, goodbye experiment. That it was done without problems has been a great achievement. This is an annotated close-up of three holes that NASA’s Curiosity drilled into Martian rock at a location nicknamed “Mary Anning” in October 2020. The sample where the rover found a large number of organic molecules came from “Mary Anning 3.” (A nearby site nicknamed “Mary Anning 2” was left unused.) NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS A very old search. Science has been obsessed with the search for life on Mars since in the 17th century some scientists detected with their telescopes what appeared to be the presence of water ice. Already in the 21st century, advances in space exploration allowed orbiters and rovers to be sent to Mars in order to analyze possible signs of life. Some were found. For example, in 2018 methane was detected in its atmosphere. This could be the result of microbial activity, but also geological processes. In 2020 Curiosity found carbon isotopes and later, in 2025, the longest carbon chain found to date. It is true that carbon is necessary for life, but it can also be related to many abiotic processes. In none of these cases has it been possible to demonstrate that there is life behind it, so we still cannot prove that there is life on Mars. Maybe we lack tools. In 2023 a study was carried out in the Atacama Desert to analyze the tools normally used to search for life on Mars. This desert is one of the largest Martian analogues we have on Earth. It has many similar characteristics to those of the red planet; but, of course, it also has more than proven life. However, when analyzed with Mars exploration tools, many of the traces of life that should have appeared were not detected. This shows that perhaps we haven’t found life on Mars yet because we don’t have the right tools. Although there may also simply not be any. The future. Curiosity has carried out this experiment directly on Mars. However, the ideal would be to send rock samples to Earth, to use other more complex analysis technologies there. Another rover, Perseverance, is prepared to collect samples and send them to Earth. In fact, it was scheduled to do so. However, the mission was canceled by the United States Congress last January. Meanwhile, other space agencies aim to replicate the TMAH experiments. This is the case of the ExoMars mission of the European Space Agencywhose Rosalind Franklin rover will also travel with this reagent to carry out thermochemolysis. We’ll have to wait to see what he discovers. Whatever it is, as always, we will read it with caution. Image | POT In Xataka | ExoMars, this is Europe’s most ambitious mission to Mars

We’ve found the secret ingredient for using desert sand in construction: sawdust and a giant sandwich maker

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At a time when humans do not stop building and erecting large buildings, there is a problem that should concern us more and more: there is a lack of sand to make concrete. But here anyone can laugh, since we have great deserts on the planet where there is a huge amount of sand that we could use without any problem. But it’s not that easy. The problem. Today, traditional concrete is quite exquisite, since river sand is necessary to achieve a good result. And it has to be that way, because the desert sand is too round and fine to be able to “stick” well. But the truth is that we were running out of this sand so necessary to continue building. In Xataka The rain has transformed the driest desert on the planet into a sea of ​​flowers. It’s a sight to behold and a problem for experts We have a solution. The University of Tokyo and the University of Norway they have hit the key to turn the tables, and the solution is not only to use the desert sand that a priori we have left over, but rather it is to mix it with plant waste to create a material that has received the name Botanical Sandcrete. The recipe. The recently published study details a process that deviates from traditional cement setting, using a hot-pressing technique instead. And for this you only need two ingredients: Fine desert sand which, as we have said before, is useless for conventional concrete due to its morphology. Wood particles and plant additives that act as organic “glue.” All this, together with a temperature of 180 ºC and high pressure, means that the wood components help create a solid matrix that traps the grains of sand and transforms them into a handful of powder in a block that has great mechanical properties. {“videoId”:”x7znesx”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Self-consumption building THIS IS HOW THEY WORK – Solar panels in apartment blocks”, “tag”:”solar”, “duration”:”564″} What is it for? Here we should not be happy to find an alternative to a problem that we already had on our heads, since we are not going to be able to build skyscrapers with these tomorrow. Here the researchers point out that the material, as it is right now, is a non-structural alternative.  In this way, its use is mainly focused on pavements, urban tiles and enclosure blocks or outdoor furniture. Things that are ultimately not pillars for large buildings, but do allow us to save river sand. Your advantage. Having an alternative, although it cannot be used in everything, allows us to drastically reduce dependence on quarries and the transportation of river sand. An action that results in the destruction of river ecosystems around the world by removing a fundamental element. In addition to all this, using wood waste and plant additives means that it has a much smaller potential carbon footprint than concrete based on classic cement. In Xataka 30 years ago the US was the country that dominated rare earths. This graph shows how China devastated at dizzying speed Its importance. To date, most attempts to use desert sand involved expensive chemical treatments or mixing them in very low percentages with conventional sand. But the focus of these researchers involves the use of biomass, making us a perfect example of a circular economy. And if we see the full context of the situation, we are taking advantage of a resource that is very abundant but a priori useless like desert sand, along with a byproduct of the logging industry. But logically it still remains to be seen how it behaves over time and how well it endures adverse conditions. Although a priori we are facing great news. Images | Keith Hardy rawpixel.com In Xataka | A 29-year-old young man has invented a cement that makes magnetic walls: a solution to hang things without a drill or screws (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news We’ve found the secret ingredient for using desert sand in construction: sawdust and a giant sandwich maker was originally published in Xataka by José A. Lizana .

Do you think we’ve had a cold winter? Arctic sea ice has things to tell you

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It’s easy to look out the window on a January morning, see the frost on the car, feel the icy wind on your face and think: “What a winter we’re having.” Our perception of the weather is often terribly local; However, while we shelter ourselves to combat the seasonal coldthe global thermometer tells a very different story. And if we want to know how “cold” this winter has really been, the best place to ask is not our street, but the top of the world, that is, the Arctic. A technical tie. Every year, during the dark and frigid months of the northern winter, the Arctic Ocean freezes, expanding its ice sheet until it reaches its maximum annual extent. Something that normally occurs between February and March. but this year control data of this ice expansion have pointed out that the winter limit of Arctic sea ice was reached on March 15, 2026 with an extension that reached 14.29 million square kilometers. This is a number that in isolation may seem like a large amount of ice has formed, but the reality is that 2026 has tied statistically with the historical minimum recorded in 2025. It’s a problem. Although this year’s extent is nominally lower by just 0.02 million km² compared to last year, the NSIDC considers any fluctuation within a margin of 40,000 km² a “technical tie”. In other words: we have never had two winters with so little ice in the Arctic since satellite records have existed since 1979. It’s a problem. To understand why we should worry, we have to look back. Here climatologists usually use the average of the period 1981-2010 as a base reference, and if we compare the maximum of 2026 with that historical average, the reality is that we are missing a piece of ice the size of 1.3 million square kilometers. We are talking about a reduction of between 8% and 10% of the frozen surface, and to put it in perspective, it is as if a block of ice equivalent to the surface of Spain, France and Germany combined had disappeared. Something that confirms a trend that already points to a loss of this maximum limit of 12% per decade since the end of the 70s, since the ice is not recovering, but is systematically retreating. It’s not just quantity. The drama of the Arctic is not only read in two dimensions, but also in three, since thickness is essential in this situation. And to measure it the mission comes into play ICESat-2 from NASA, which has already ‘seen’ how much of the current ice, especially in the Barents Sea and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, It’s much finer than in past decades. Thinner ice is bad news, since it means it is much more fragile and fractures sooner in spring storms and, more critically, melts much faster in summer. Its consequences. This last point is fundamental, since seeing how the winter maximum falls is bad news, since the structural weakness of that ice guarantees that, when summer arrives, the thaw will be more aggressive. And if we continue advancing in this chain of events, we find in the end that the dark ocean will be able to absorb a greater amount of solar heat, which will heat the waters even more and make it difficult for ice to form in the following winter. In the end we are seeing a textbook vicious cycle. Images | Cassie Matias In Xataka | China has turned the Arctic into its own “Panama Canal.” And that explains the US obsession with Greenland

Magnetic maps had been marking something strange under Antarctica for centuries. So we’ve started drilling to find it

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For years, magnetic maps of East Antarctica have shown something strange about the region from Princess Elizabeth Land: a large amplitude linear magnetic anomaly under kilometers of ice that runs along the coast parallel to the margin of the continent. It was something that satellites and planes could detect, but no one knew exactly what rock was producing it until now. Discovering it. If the problem is that this anomaly was under a large amount of ice, a team of researchers within the framework of a Russian-Chinese cooperation He has done the most logical thing to find what was happening: start drilling. What they have found after putting a large drill to work is not only a magnetic rock that gave that peculiar pattern, but it is the geological “scar” of an ancient island arc that collided with the continent almost 1,000 years ago, when the supercontinent was forming. Rodinia. A challenge. The study that includes this discovery focuses mainly on the Rayner tectonic province, an area that is geologically critical because it is considered a “mobile belt.” That is, it is a collision zone where ancient blocks of crust were crushed against each other. The problem with Antarctic geology is that almost everything they are interested in is buried, and in this case the team had to cross 541 meters of ice to be able to reach the rock that interested them. What did they find? What they took from the bottom of Antarctica was not common granite as can occur in other areas, but rather the core recovered is a mafic granulite. Something that is very important, since granulites are metamorphic rocks that have suffered infernal temperatures and pressures. After power analyze this rock So interesting, it was seen that this was what was causing the linear anomalies seen from space. And as we say, it is not a very normal stone, since it is rich in ferromagnetic minerals, capable of altering the magnetic field locally. Investigating Rodinia. Once with the sample in hand, the team applied geochemistry techniques and dating to be able to counterbalance these data with everything that was known in previous research. What was seen is that there was a great violent history behind it, since it was known that the rock was originally born as magma about 970 million years ago. From its birth, that rock was pushed into the depths and “cooked.” The data indicate that it was subjected to temperatures between 650 and 790 ºC and pressures equivalent to depths of 15 to 18 kilometers. In this way, the researchers’ conclusion is that this rock was part of a volcanic arc of islands like those of Japan. But the most interesting thing is that this arc was not originally in Antarctica, but was forcibly “stuck” against the ancient continent during a massive collision that gave rise to the formation of Rodinia. The Indian connection. To understand the magnitude of the find, you have to look beyond Antarctica, as geologists have long suspected that the Rayner Province in Antarctica and the Eastern Ghats Province in India They are twins separated at birth. And the new data reinforces this theory, since the conditions of “high temperature” metamorphism found in this drilling are almost identical to those documented in India. This leads us to conclude that 900 million years ago, the east coast of India and this part of Antarctica were joined, forming a huge mountain range created by the collision of tectonic plates. Images | 66 north In Xataka | In the United States there is an incredible river that does what seems impossible: defy the laws of gravity

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