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Pedrerol leaves Atresmedia for Mediaset after 13 years, and his departure is the perfect reflection of the current war between private companies

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We have seen this before: Josep Pedrerol shows up at the door of a chain at just the worst moment for the one hosting him to lose him. Well it’s happened again. Only this time the chain where it lands is already waging an open judicial war with which it is saying goodbye. The hostilities embodied in lawsuits and (future) trials between Atresmedia and Mediaset find in Pedrerol’s escape almost a symbol of the tensions that plague Spanish television. What has happened? Atresmedia and Josep Pedrerol They announced last Tuesday that end their professional relationship. There is talk of mutual agreement and a very specific expiration date: the Catalan presenter’s contract expires on July 19, and ‘El Chiringuito’ says goodbye a day later with a special dedicated to the final of the 2026 World Cup. Pedrerol summarized the balance by saying that “they have been thirteen fantastic years in which we have worked with absolute freedom.” On behalf of the chain, the general director of Atresmedia Audiovisual, José Antonio Antón, thanked in a statement the professionalism of the team and the achievements achieved. The outing is not limited to the evening program. Also closing is ‘Jugones’, the desktop news program that Pedrerol has presented on laSexta since 2013 and which, according to the statement itself, has remained a “reference for sports news at that time.” This is how Pedrerol says goodbye. The story has an almost identical precedent. Pedrerol directed ‘Punto Pelota’ on Intereconomía when the chain, in the midst of a default crisis, He terminated his contract on December 4, 2013.. By then he had already presented “Jugones” on laSexta, since September of that same year, which allowed him to land on Atresmedia shortly after: the heir to “Punto Pelota” debuted as “El Chiringuito de Jugones” on January 6, 2014 on the now defunct channel Nitro, before going through laSexta and Neox and settling on Mega since 2015. This time there are no defaults or termination, but a contract that has not been renewed after months of stalled talks. The piggyback format. For a presenter to change channels is normal on Spanish television, but it is not so normal for him to carry an entire format on his back, with equipment and production company included. The precedent most cited is that of Pablo Motos, who moved ‘El Hormiguero’ from Cuatro to Antena 3 in 2011 maintaining program and collaborators. Pedrerol starts from a similar position: ‘El Chiringuito’ is produced by Radio Sport Plus, its own production company, and according to Digital Journalist Citing sources in the sector, Mediaset is also negotiating to incorporate a good part of its usual team to transfer the format almost entirely, although under a different name. Mediaset is in a hurry. Telecinco closed the 2025-2026 season with an 8.9% average share, its worst historical record and the fifth consecutive season with a decline, while Atresmedia led the group with a 25.6% share. sharethe greatest advantage it has ever taken from Mediaset. Coinciding with the World Cup semi-finals on La 1, Telecinco signed the worst day in 36 years of history. A format with a low production cost and an already formed community of followers fits with what Mediaset needs before La Liga starts on August 15. It is still ironic, of course, that the same sport that is giving Telecinco so many headaches could serve as a rescue raft in the near future. War on. Mediaset and Atresmedia have been in litigation for years over ‘Pasapalabra’ and its final test, the Rosco: the Supreme Court forced Antena 3 to withdraw the Rosco in May, Atresmedia replaced it with a new test called AlaZ on June 19 (which has continued to triumph in hearings), and the Dutch production company MC&F and Mediaset They have announced that they will sue her considering that the new test is too similar to the original. Taking away one of its most profitable sports brands from Atresmedia would have something symbolic. No confirmation at the moment. Neither of the two networks has confirmed the signing, and there are still many pending details: whether the new program will land on Telecinco or Cuatro, with how many historical collaborators it will do so and what it will be called (a possible clue: on April 13, Radio Sport Plus record before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office the name “Chiringuito Gol TV”). Again, August 15 and the start of La Liga can be a key date so that, around it, we know more things. In Xataka | Netflix users love to watch the first season of a series. Then they love to stop seeing it completely

My phone is almost five years old and the battery maintains its useful life at 85%. This is how I got it

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My smartphone, a iPhone 13 Pro Maxis almost five years old and its battery retains 85% of its original capacity. It is not coincidence or good luck. It is the result of understanding what happens to a battery of lithium ions every time we charge it and consciously apply a handful of habits that slow down its degradation. Most users assume that a mobile phone’s battery is condemned to degrade without remedy in two or three years. And to a certain extent it is true: every lithium-ion battery loses capacity over time. But the speed at which it does so depends largely on how we treat hernot just its internal chemistry. In this context, we are interested in understanding two specific physical phenomena, voltage stress and thermal degradation, because they are the ones that wear out battery cells the most. And we also need to know the guidelines I have followed for almost five years to minimize them. They are not magic tricks. They are direct consequences of the electrochemistry that occurs inside the battery. What happens to a battery every time we charge it A lithium-ion battery works by moving ions between the cathode and anode through an electrolyte. When we charge the phone up to 100% we force the cathode to reach its maximum voltage potential. This high voltage state oxidizes the electrolyte in contact with the cathode and favors the dissolution of transition metals from its crystalline structure. This phenomenon is known as voltage stress, and it is cumulative: the longer the battery spends in that state of maximum voltage, the faster it degrades. An increase of 10 degrees Celsius doubles the speed of certain degradation reactions in the electrolyte A quick note before moving forward: that layer that forms on the cathode is called CEI (cathode solid electrolyte interface or cathode electrolyte interphase), and is the first cousin of the SEI (solid electrolyte interface or solid electrolyte interface) that grows on the graphite anode. At sustained high voltages, the IEC thickens uncontrollably, irreversibly consumes active lithium and reduces the usable capacity of the cell with each cycle. For this reason, it is worth using the 80% loading automation offered by both iOS and Android. In fact, I don’t charge my phone at 100% unless I know I’m going to need full battery life that day. Keeping the battery in an intermediate voltage range (between 20% and 80%) dramatically reduces the time the cells spend at the extremes of voltage where molecular wear is most aggressive. The second big enemy is heat, and this is where thermal degradation comes into play. Parasitic chemical reactions do not depend on voltage alone; They also accelerate with temperature, and do so in a non-linear manner. As a guideline, an increase of about 10 degrees Celsius can reach double the speed of certain degradation reactions in the electrolyte, a behavior consistent with the Arrhenius equation that governs the kinetics of any chemical reaction. This is why I avoid ultra-fast chargers in summer, especially if my phone is exposed to the sun or inside a thick case. Charging at 45, 65 or more watts generates considerable internal heat, and if that heat is not dissipated well (and in environments at 35 or 40 degrees Celsius it is not dissipated well), the cell temperature can approach 40-45 degrees Celsius, a range beyond which electrolyte degradation and cathode dissolution accelerate noticeably. I definitely prefer slower charges at 15 or 20 watts, even if they take longer: the battery appreciates it in the long run. Images | Xataka In Xataka | How to know the health status of your Android battery and how it can lose capacity In Xataka | Europe changes the standards for mobile batteries in 2027. The striking thing is that no manufacturer has complained

The AP-7 has not had tolls for four years. Now the Government is studying whether to recover them or spend 500 million to expand it

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The AP-7 is once again at the center of the debate on mobility in Catalonia. And just as share El Periódico, the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has four projects underway to widen the highway with new lanes, a joint investment that exceeds 500 million euros. The works will affect almost a hundred kilometers spread between Vallès, Penedès and Terres de l’Ebre. Why it is important. Since tolls were eliminated in 2021the AP-7 has ceased to be a highway designed primarily for long journeys and has become a road that also supports a good part of the daily traffic of the Barcelona metropolitan area, in addition to an intense passage of trucks of all kinds. This has led to almost daily traffic jams in the most densely populated sections and recurring collapses every summer. In detail. The four projects are: Third lane between L’Hospitalet de l’Infant and Ampostajust over 38 kilometers. It is the most advanced, with the drafting of the project underway since 2023. Fourth lane between the B-23 and Martorellabout nine kilometers, in one of the main accesses to Barcelona, ​​with an estimated cost of 94 million euros. Fourth lane between Sant Celoni and Montornès del Vallèsapproximately 30 kilometers. Fourth lane between Martorell and Vilafranca Centerabout 25 kilometers. These last two are, as far as possible confirm ACN and El Periódico, which until now were not publicly known. Each project is in a different phase of processing, from preliminary studies to final drafting, so none of them yet have a closed execution date. Between the lines. The problem is not just with private cars. Of the 41,000 vehicles that cross the border through La Jonquera on average every day, 15,000 are trucks, according to data of 2025 collected by El Periódico. The Ministry and the Generalitat agree that the railway should absorb a greater part of this freight traffic, but the lack of capacity of the railway network and intermodal terminals, together with a Mediterranean corridor still uncompleted, leaves the road as practically the only competitive option. Meanwhile. Expanding lanes requires years of environmental and administrative procedures, so both administrations have chosen to also act where the highway loses fluidity without the need to build anything new. An agreement of 250 million euros Annually between the Ministry and the Generalitat will allow the remodeling of fifteen links (including Girona Nord and Sud, Maçanet de la Selva, La Roca del Vallès, Montmeló-Parets, the connection with the B-30 or Vilafranca del Penedès) to eliminate the so-called “braided”, the conflictive crossings between vehicles that enter and leave in a few meters and that generate a good part of the delays. And now what. It is also still on the table limit truck overtaking in some sections, an option that the Servei Català de Trànsit is studying to reduce accidents while the works have not yet begun. In parallel, the debate has also resurfaced about whether it is appropriate to introduce a toll or a vignette on high-capacity roads, although both the central government and the Generalitat have ruled out recovering any means of payment for now. The Minister of Territory, Housing, Ecological Transition, Sílvia Paneque, already claimed a few days ago in an interview with El Periódico to advance in these expansions to prevent the same image of collapse on the AP-7 from being repeated every summer. Cover image | Costa Brava In Xataka | “The recharging excuse has its days numbered”: the Government confirms that 90% of the main roads already have fast charging nearby

the trial that shocked Spain and that, 30 years later, we do not know what it turned out to be

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Florentino Fernández testified from Madrid, Chiquito de la Calzada from Málaga, and a judge had to ask if he had literally pronounced “black lake, white lake.” Thirty years after that sight, almost as surreal as the character himself, not even its protagonists agree on how the subject ended. The clone. On September 18, 1995, Telecinco premiered ‘Tonight we crossed the Mississippi’, a late night presented by Pepe Navarro that combined interviews, social chronicle and sketches. It was in this hodgepodge of excesses that Lucas Grijander, played by Florentino Fernández, appeared: an imitator who reproduced the invented language, gestures and cadence of Chiquito de la Calzada, then at the height of his popularity after becoming famous as a comedian after turning 60. The man from Malaga did not take long to take the matter to court. That sinful fistro. Grijander It was not a disguised imitation: He lived in the fictitious republic of Chiquitistan and repeated jokes and phrases modeled after those of Chiquito. He said “See you later Lucas” and “For the glory of my mother”, he wore Chiquito’s characteristic printed shirts and filled his speech with little screams and small heel-toe-heel jumps. The success of Florentino Fernández’s character accelerated Chiquito’s transformation into a pop icon to the same extent or more than the activity of the original Chiquito himself. In fact, his fame was so enormous that he generated his own exploitation, Crispín Klander. The documentary. All of this is told by Javier Morales and Juan Zavala in the upcoming Movistar+ documentary ‘The Other Chiquito’, which also contextualizes how the original phenomenon cannot be understood without the context of a Spain that was emerging from the hangover of 1992 and that found in the humorist’s absurd language a kind of collective refuge. In parallel, the private networks, newborn and still without established rules, competed for formulas capable of hooking the midnight audience. Diego San José, creator of the original idea of ​​the documentary, wonders if Grijander was plagiarized or Fernández literally created “another Chiquito.” What Florentino Fernández says. In 2017, on the occasion of Chiquito’s 85th birthday, Florentino Fernández recalled the litigation in the program ‘Dani & Flo‘. The comedian from Madrid avoided the word “plagiarism” and spoke of a complaint for impersonation, which affected not only Lucas Grijander but also Crispín Klander. The process had moments that bordered on involuntary comedy, such as the judge’s famous question about whether he had pronounced “black lake, white lake.” Fernández expressed his admiration for the comedian at all times and assured that the conflict was resolved amicably. There is some personal blogs about television who contradict him, and say that Chiquito lost the lawsuit without taking any compensation, but officially, it is not known. In fact, this documentary void is what the production itself promises to explain. Morales and Zavala have described the litigation as something that transcends the anecdote and define the case as “a wound that Chiquito carried until his death,” from which it is understood that the lawsuit did not have a satisfactory conclusion for the comedian. In the end, one of the great judicial mysteries of modern Spain comes from one of the most excessive and brilliant comedians that our television has ever produced, the original Chiquito. Pure Celtiberia Show. In Xataka | 13 geniuses of Chiquito that made him the most wonderful comedian of his time

FIFA had been trying for years to get soccer into the US. In this World Cup it has been American culture that has entered football

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Each match in the 2026 World Cup has been stopped twice for players to drink water. What FIFA sold as a medical standard has become one of the largest sources of advertising revenue in the history of football. The hydration break It is reminiscent of the one you already see in a LaLiga match in August, when the heat at four in the afternoon justifies it. Here, repeated in air-conditioned stadiums where more than one fan is seen wearing a cardigan, it sounds more like an excuse. It’s just the most visible symptom of something bigger. The panoramic. FIFA has been pursuing the American market for years without soccer finally gaining ground against basketball, American football or hockey. This summer he has changed his strategy: instead of selling football as it is, he has redesigned it with the cultural and television codes of the United States. Pauses that cut off the game, advertising in the middle of the game, celebrities paid to occupy the box, hospitality overflowing, very expensive tickets, a break from the final that doubles its usual duration to accommodate a concert… The tournament has also been played in Mexico and Canada, but it has not stopped sounding like the NFL and the NBA. The party has stopped being the product. He show prior, rest and show Later they are also products, they also compete for the same attention. In detail. The centerpiece is the hydration breaks: three minutes in the 22nd and 67th minutes of each of the 104 games, without discriminating by temperature. FIFA announced them in December as a health prevention and authorized television stations to fill the gap with up to two minutes and ten seconds of advertisements. It is not the only piece of the decoration: Halftime in the finals has been extended to about 30 minutes to accommodate a Super Bowl-style musical performance. One has appeared backroom VIP, very similar to the NFL boxes, where authorities, family and celebrities follow the game. Television production has adopted shots, access to locker rooms and tunnels that until now were the domain of American football. Between the lines. It is tempting to blame the United States for “Americanizing” soccer. But the one who has made every decision (breaks, calendar, 48 teams…) is FIFA, which has seen in the American entertainment model the fastest way to continue increasing income just when Europe, its traditional place, begins to show signs of stagnation. The French Ligue 1, without going any further, lost his television deals and has had to set up its own direct sales platform. behind the scenes. The change is not only a matter of changes in the regulations, it is also noticeable in how it is broadcast. The networks constantly cut to celebrities, boxes and reactions in the stands in search of the viral shot. Every break, every corner, every substitution is an opportunity for sponsorship, not just hydration. The fan in the stadium is no longer just a spectator, he is part of the set. The stands are lit, focused and edited, NFL style. In figures. The numbers explain why FIFA has been compensated for the change in model. The organization’s audiovisual income has grown by 36% compared to Qatar 2022, up to about 3,925 million dollars. Fox calculates entering between 250 and 500 million dollars only with the advertising of hydration breaks. A 20-second ad during a break has been sold in France for 425,000 euros. For the rights bid for 2030 and 2034, offers in the United States could start at $1 billion and reach $2 billion if both tournaments are packaged. Yes, but. Not all football has jumped on the bandwagon. The Premier League, the richest and least in need of new income, does not contemplate breaks: British regulations limit live advertisements and in England it is rarely as hot as would justify them. UEFA has said that He will not take them to the Champions League or the Euro Cup in 2028. And now what. CONMEBOL has already announced 90-second breaks for the Libertadores and the Sudamericana 2026. The MLS and the NWSL will negotiate their next rights with the World Cup precedent on the table. And FIFA is preparing the 2030 bid, with Spain as one of the venues, knowing that the networks will no longer pay only for the 90 minutes of the match: they will also pay for the minutes in which it stops. Featured image | FIFAXataka In Xataka | It is possible that today you will hear your neighbor sing Spain’s goal before you: the delay of streaming compared to DTT

Testosterone levels have plummeted by half in the last 50 years. The mystery is why it is happening

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If we analyze the blood of an average man today and compare it to that of his grandfather at the same age, the results reveal that testosterone levels have been reduced by half. This is something that for years has been a rumor or an isolated finding in local studies, but now an important study has given it much more rigor. It’s proven. The study, presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, sheds light on what scientists They consider it a “silent epidemic.” And it is that the investigation has focused on analyzing data from 118,593 men from six longitudinal studies in Israel, the United States, Brazil, Finland and Denmark between 1972 and 2019. After analyzing the progression of testosterone levels, a drop of 54% on average in total testosterone levels has clearly been seen. We are talking about a decline of more than 1% per year on average, which has been accelerating since 2000. Aging. The first logical reaction when reading this data is to think about life expectancy. If we live longer, it is normal for the population average testosterone to drop, but the researchers anticipated this hypothesis. Its results have made it clear that the decline detected is independent of aging, since the data have been adjusted for age. This means that a 30-year-old man in 2019 has significantly lower levels of testosterone than a 30-year-old man had in 1980. And if it’s not age, the science points directly to our environment and how we live. Obesity. If we look for the culprits, this is one of them, and without a doubt one of the more decisive. We must know that adipose tissue is not inert, but rather functions almost like an endocrine organ that converts testosterone into estrogen through an enzyme called aromatase that is present in fat. In this way, the more fat there will be a greater conversion and, therefore, a lower amount of testosterone. However, the most recent studies go one step further and warn that type 2 diabetes has surpassed obesity as the leading risk factor for low serum testosterone. The reason is that insulin resistance creates a vicious cycle that blocks the normal production of this hormone. Endocrine disruptors. We live surrounded by chemicals and substances present in plastics (such as bisphenols), food packaging, pesticides and personal care products that act as “hackers” of our endocrine system. And although the evidence on specific substances continues to be built due to the difficulty of isolating their effects, the scientific community assumes that chronic exposure to these chemicals is interfering with fertility and testosterone synthesis at a global level. The lifestyle. Currently we are living in a society where a sedentary lifestyle is the order of the day, and this lack of exercise and excessive hours in a chair slow down hormonal production. But in addition, sleep deprivation is also a big problem, since little or bad sleep destroys the circadian rhythms necessary to secrete testosterone, which occurs mainly at night. Beyond reproduction. We usually associate testosterone with fertility or muscle development, but its role is systemic. Here it is important to know that chronically low levels are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, depression and cognitive decline. That is why a change in life is essential to maintain high levels of testosterone that act with that protective profile to achieve much stronger health over time. Images | Julia Larson In Xataka | For years we blamed testosterone for men living shorter lives. Now we know that the culprit is a chromosome

11 years after its end, this masterpiece of British suspense comes streaming and completely free

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The day it aired its last episode and thus definitively closed its exciting story, half of the British television audience that night was hooked by the end. Three years have passed since that (and eleven since the broadcast of the first episode), and now the extraordinary ‘Happy Valley‘has landed, without subscription or registration, in the catalog of TV Artcompletely free access. In this BBC series We will meet police sergeant Catherine Cawood in Halifax, West Yorkshire, who combines daily work in an area plagued by drugs and low-level crime with a personal life marked by the suicide of her teenage daughter. Catherine raises her grandson, lives with her sister, a former recovering addict, and carries a deep resentment towards the man she considers indirectly responsible for that tragedy. When he leaves prison and returns to the area, he is involved in a kidnapping that crosses his path again with that of Catherine. Each of the three seasons of the series develops a different criminal case, but maintains the pulse between both characters and the portrait of Catherine’s degraded family environment. And all this without leaving the Calderdale region, which It works almost like another character, with its closed climate and its battered economy. due to deindustrialization. The third and final season closed the story with 7.5 million viewers and an incredible share 41.6%, very rare figures to see today. ‘Happy Valley’ is one of the best pieces of that fascinating subgenre that is the British rural police drama, which series like ‘Broadchurch’ or ‘Line of Duty’ had previously cultivated. This plot is also close to ‘The Hunt’ or ‘Mare of Easttown’: an exhausted researcher who brings her personal life to the center of the plot. In any case, this multi-award-winning and highly praised three-part story has its own personality and is worth recovering. Especially now that you have it just a click away. In Xataka | It’s been 20 years since we saw its last episode but audiences have not fallen, and 5.9 million viewers continue to watch it every month

The first “social network” in history is 57,000 years old, it was made up of hunters and gatherers and served to avoid extinction

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The survival of prehistoric hunter-gatherers has historically been explained by two things: climate and available natural resources. And although in general terms it is true, a new study proposes that the social relations between human groups at that time were as decisive as the physical environment. The discovery. The research team focuses on small groups of hunter-gatherers who lived in the South Caucasus between 57,000 and 27,000 years ago. Apparently, these small groups traveled long distances and shared tools and techniques with other groups. Initially they thought that due to their size and distance they would live almost isolated from each other, but no. The key evidence is in obsidian objects, a volcanic rock used to make cutting tools, present in deposits located between 40 and 200 km from the quarry of origin. Why it is important. Because it forces us to rethink the classical models of human evolution that attributed the success or failure of a population almost exclusively to its capacity for climatic adaptation. Now we see that cooperation and the circulation of information was an essential survival factorwhich has implications for understand human resilience in the face of environmental change. Context. The study area is the south of the Caucasus, the natural bridge between Europe and Asia where mountains, valleys and very different climates come together in a small space, so it is a key place to understand How ancient humans moved. At the time in which the study is framed, Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in other parts of the world and also when stone tools changed style. That is why the Caucasus is a magnificent place to verify if these changes were a sudden replacement of one population by another or there was coexistence between both cultures. In detail. Each obsidian quarry has a unique chemical composition, which allows us to determine exactly the origin of each tool located. According to the research team, the distance over which these tools are dispersed is too great for a single group to travel in search of food: the most plausible explanation is that different groups were in contact and exchanged materials. But there is another clue: the way of carving the stone is repeated in sites very far from each other, which suggests that some groups learned from others, not that they reached the same conclusion by chance. Furthermore, when dating the layers of earth from different sites, it is seen that the cultures of the Middle Paleolithic and the Upper Paleolithic coexisted for thousands of years in the same area, that is, one did not replace the other. Three powerful reasons to maintain that social networks helped these groups survive. Yes, but. The inference of “social networks” or alliances from carved stone is still an interpretation, not a direct observation: there are no written, oral or testimonial records from the Paleolithic, so any conclusion about social relations is constructed indirectly, from material patterns. In fact, the fact that obsidian travels between 40 and 200 km does not in itself prove social exchange between groups: it could also be explained by a single group with a very large territory or by reuse of tools for generations. In Xataka | A remote cave in Africa has revealed something about humans from 200,000 years ago: they already changed the clothes on their beds In Xataka | 77 skeletons, a single head: the mystery of the Slovak mass grave that torments archaeologists Cover | Gemini with AI

In 1971, an aquarium in the United States took in an orphaned seal. Five years later he started doing something: speaking in English

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When you go to an aquarium you expect to find ponds full of picturesque fish, seahorses, jellyfish, dolphins, sharks… Maybe, with luck and depending on where the enclosure is and how big it is, the occasional penguin. Those who went in the 80s to the New England Aquarium from Boston, in the United States, are looking for something different: a English speaking seal. And not. There are no quotes or italics here. Hoover (that was the name of the pinniped) spoke with all the law and in a way so clear that still fascinates today to the experts. Yes indeed, his voice It was not the most harmonious in the world. A talking seal? Exact. Seal and chatterbox are not two words that usually go together. But that is precisely why Hoover aroused so much interest in his day. And that is why even today, 41 years after his death, continues starring reports. Before getting into the subject, it is worth introducing the protagonist. Hoover was a male harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) that a fisherman rescued as a hatchling in the waters of Cumberland County, Maine, and spent most of its life at the New England Aquarium. His story would not be of much interest if it were not for the fact that around 1976, when he was around five years old, the animal began to do something unusual: speak broken English. How is that possible? To understand this, you have to take another leap back in time and go back to May 1971, when George Swallow, a Maine fisherman, did something unconventional: he brought home a baby seal. In theory it was not a whim or an eccentric raving. The poor animal had lost its mother, so Swallow decided to welcome her: He hand-fed her, played with her and (in short) took care of her as if she were a dog. He even gave him a name: Hoover. The problem is that as the seal grew it needed more and more fish, which made it unfeasible for it to continue with the Swallow family. His destination was the New England Aquarium, where he arrived when he was three months old. What did that seal say? Hoover’s life was relatively normal until the mid-1970s. When he was around five years old, the aquarium keepers realized something: the seal was making sounds similar to human speech. “The vocalizations were common especially during the mating season and often seemed intended for females, suggesting that they could have acted as ‘mating songs’, similar to those produced by male harbor seals,” a group of psycholinguists and behavioral biology experts recalled in 2023. a paper published in Current Biology. That observation is interesting. The aquarium staff did not teach Hoover to speak. They also didn’t train her to imitate sounds. It is assumed that what the animal learned about human vocalization was assimilated when it was a baby and lived with the Swallows. Some versions They claim that when the family gave her to the aquarium they had already heard her ‘talk’, but experts usually place her first ‘words’ at the age of five, when she reached sexual maturity. And what exactly did it say? That’s the most surprising thing. As remember From the aquarium itself, Hoover was able to pronounce words like “hello”, “let’s go” or “hey”, all in English. The Guenther Speech Neuroscience Lab even notes that he uttered entire phrases that he probably heard at the Swallow home, such as “Hoover get over here! Come on, come on“. As if that were not surprising, there is one more fact: they say he spoke with a Maine accent. The best thing is that you don’t have to imagine it. Although they are not particularly sharp, we preserve some recordings with Hoover’s chatter. Was he really talking? Often the best way to hear something is to (simply) want to hear it. This has led us, for example, to identify words like “mom” in dog growls either cat meows. In the case of Hoover, Diandra Duengen and the rest of the researchers who sign the article of Current Biology They believe that we are facing something different. It’s not that the seal made a confused sound reminiscent of expressions like “Hello there”, “hurry”, “hey, hey” either “come over here”. No. Everything indicates that it is a deliberate imitation. “Human perception is so fine-tuned to finding speech patterns that some animals can trick our brains into making us hear speech sounds where no such similarity exists,” they explain. “In Hoover’s case there is strong evidence of speech imitation. Spectrograms of his sounds show that his vocalizations were, in fact, very ‘human’, containing the typical formant modulations we use to produce vowels and consonants.” Was it expressed then? No. And yes. Duengen and his companions remember that there is analysis to suggest that Hoover produced sounds similar to English vowels, making it a fascinating case of “learning human speech vocal production in a mammal.” They also believe that the seal could have used this ability as “mating songs”, something that other male seals do. What we cannot say is that Hoover ‘understood’ what he was saying, something that is not necessary for speech imitation in any case. “Comprehension or intention of meaning is not relevant to the learning of vocal production. Neither Hoover nor most other animals that exhibit this learning seem to ‘understand’ spoken language or the meaning of words. However, vocal imitation is impressive in itself and represents a fundamental component of speech,” they point out the experts. That Hoover did not begin to produce sounds until his sexual maturity, even when it came to words that he theoretically learned when he was a child, is also not exceptional. Something similar happens with some birds with the same capacity. Is it just a curiosity? No. In his day Hoover appeared on ‘Good Morning America’ and monopolized reports in Reader’s Digest either The New Yorkeramong many other media. Beyond the picturesque nature of his case, … Read more

In 2021, Catalonia managed to get rid of the AP-7 tolls. Five years later he has an idea: recover them

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On October 6, 1998, 16 city councils, four regional councils, the two municipal associations of Catalonia, three chambers of commerce and other entities from different fields formed a common front to reduce and rationalize tolls, with the ultimate objective of bringing the situation in Catalonia – with many payment methods – into line with that of the rest of Spain (…). In a 10-point manifesto called the Gelida Declaration, the signatories constituted an anti-toll front and opposed the latest agreement then approved by the Spanish Ministry of Development, the Generalitat and the concessionaire Acesa, which saw exploitation concessions extended until 2021. In exchange, the concessionaire lowered the amount of the tolls. This is how he headed The Newspaper your article AP-7: history of a business and a claim in 2019. It reviewed the, at that time, 20 years that various city councils and associations had been demanding that the AP-7 lift its barriers. And drivers had been paying for the use of that highway since its opening in sections between the 70s and the first half of the 80s. The situation became even more tense when, as we read above, the concession was extended to 2021. It was then that the images of drivers who They refused to pay when passing through the AP-7. In 2021 things changed. The concession ended, it was not extended and the barriers were raised. From that moment on, cars no longer stopped at toll booths. But that had its consequences. Consequences that, once again, bring the shadow of the toll. Too much traffic And the fact that the highway was free brought with it an immediate increase in the volume of cars that traveled on it. Only in its first year free of tolls, the volume of cars grew by 40% and that of trucks by 80%, they pointed out in The Country. With Barcelona as one of the key steps in the entry and exit of vehicles and the passage through the French border, the road has been taken over by trucks. Traffic is now slower and more dangerous. In fact, that first year the highway concentrated 20% of accidents registered throughout the autonomous community. Since then, organizations have been looking for solutions. The last to leave his proposal was Manel Nadal, Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, in Chain Being where he has assured that if public entities agree, they could have tolls on this road again “in two or three years.” In his statement, Nadal even points out that not only the AP-7 would once again put barriers in the way of drivers. The proposal is to apply it to the rest of the high-capacity roads to diversify traffic and prevent a funnel effect from occurring as has happened with the free use of this road, which has now become the favorite route for transport companies that have a free passage to France. In the middle they rescue the words of Salvador Illa, president of Catalonia, who has already pointed out that “perhaps we were wrong when we all asked for them to disappear.” They rule out, according to Nadal, a possible Swiss-style Eurovignette (the driver pays a flat rate per year to drive on toll roads) because they assure that Europe would not accept it after 2032. And Europe has been putting pressure on Spain for a long time to turn your free roads into toll roads. For now, Governments have turned a deaf ear because the cost of implementing the measure is very high but we have been there for more than a decade with this possibility floating over our roads. Meanwhile, the authorities in charge of traffic control seem to be doing the best they can. In some sections speed limits have been drastically reduced and in the Servei Català de Trànsit (SCT) They have been working for some time to implement dynamic speed limits that reduce or increase speed depending on the volume of cars and trucks passing by at any given time. Photo | Pere Lopez Brosa and Wikimedia In Xataka | The Basque Country will add the second toll without windows in Spain: you register or pay the fine on the AP-68

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