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squeeze out wells in the North Sea that had been abandoned for 30 years

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Norway is, on paper, the green Eden of the planet. Nine out of every ten new cars sold on its streets are electric and 98% of its electrical system is powered by renewable sources. However, its main economic engine is exporting what it internally rejects: fossil fuels. The official figures are conclusive: in 2025, the value of Norwegian exports of crude oil, condensate and natural gas will be around one trillion crowns, which represents 57% of its total exports of goods. An unprecedented geopolitical trigger has been added to this Norwegian paradox. The war in the Middle East and the resulting blockade in the Strait of Hormuz have turned the country into “a European gas station.” Resurrecting ghosts of the North Sea. To address this demand, the Norwegian government has made a historic decision. As confirmed by the Ministry of Energy in an official press releasethe country is going to reopen three gas fields in the Ekofisk area (Albuskjell, Vest Ekofisk and Tommeliten Gamma). These wells were discovered in the 1970s, produced between 1977 and 1988, and had been closed since 1998. A consortium operated by ConocoPhillips (along with Vår Energi, ORLEN and Petoro) will invest around 19 billion Norwegian crowns (about 1.5 billion pounds) to reactivate these facilities through four new subsea systems. They are expected to pump again at the end of 2028, operate until 2048 and extract between 90 and 120 million barrels equivalent. This operation will not only generate some 7,600 direct jobs during its useful life, but the extracted gas will go directly to Emden (Germany), while the condensate will travel to Teesside (United Kingdom). It’s not just about reliving the past. Oslo has also offered 70 new exploration licenses, most in extremely sensitive areas such as the icy Barents Sea, getting closer to the coast than ever. According to Norwegian government dataonly about half of the country’s estimated gas resources have been produced, so the remaining 52% is yet to be extracted. In 2025 alone, the country exported approximately 122 billion standard cubic meters of gas. International responsibility. Terje Aasland, Minister of Energy, argues that Norwegian production It is “an important contribution to energy security in Europe.” The data support this extreme dependence: In 2024, Norway exported a volume of gas equivalent to more than 30% of the total consumption of the European Union and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the government wields an environmental argument: Globally, replacing coal with natural gas in electricity generation reduces CO2 emissions by half. They also argue that gas is the perfect backup for intermittent renewables, providing flexible power when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. However, not everything is purely altruistic. While the state oil company Equinor registers historic profits, the country’s famous sovereign fund accumulates assets worth 1.9 trillion dollars. The voice of discord. According to Guardianleft-wing parties and environmental associations accuse the government of greenwashing (ecopostureo) and warn of the catastrophic risk that an oil spill near the coastline would pose. The contrast is also evident in the region itself. As Norway turns on the tap, the UK Labor government bans new drilling licenses on climate grounds. The result, just as it is revealed The Telegraphis that British production falls by 15% annually, forcing London to spend 20 billion pounds buying from Norway the energy that it refuses to extract from its own waters. The European dilemma of Oslo. Norway is fully aware of its hypocrisy and is trying to compensate for it with cutting-edge technology. The country inaugurated Northern Lightsthe first large commercial underwater warehouse in Europe. This project injects liquefied CO2 from European industries into the Aurora reservoir, 2,600 meters below the seabed. It is their way of showing that they can extract fossil fuels and, at the same time, lead the way in decarbonization technology. However, Norway has the resources and technology, but lacks direct political decision-making power. as he prays the maximum in Brussels: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” The umbilical cord that unites Norway with Europe It is physical and politicalsince it has a vast network of underwater gas pipelines. This mutual dependence has reopened a debate that seemed settled: Should Norway enter the European Union? Although the population rejected accession in 1972 and 1994, the current geopolitical isolation in the face of giants such as China, the United States and Russia is forcing both Norway and its neighbors (Iceland and Switzerland) to reconsider whether they should sacrifice sovereignty in exchange for sitting at the table where their main market is governed. The fossil sunset. Norway has perfected the art of looking to the future with pockets full of the past. The country has become the giant that heats the homes of a scared and war-torn Europe, squeezing an outdated energy model to finance an ultra-developed and clean welfare state. As the financial analyst Thina Saltvedt stated: for the BBC: “More and more people realize that there is a sunset on the horizon. But it’s going to be painful.” For now, while that climatic sunset arrives, Europe has decided to postpone the cold by turning on, once again, the old Norwegian boilers in the North Sea. Image | Norskpetroleum Xataka | No more greeting the driver: Norway launches the first bus where there is not a single human in control

In two years, pork became 29% cheaper on farms and 7% more expensive in supermarkets. The question is obvious

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When we go to the supermarket for fruit, meat, fish or any other food we find labels that inform us of their prices, but that figure is only the last in a long (and complex) chain of costs in which not all the links move at the same pace. That is the idea that they wanted to emphasize the farmers on account of pork: according to their calculations, they charge 29% less today than in 2024 while the supermarkets sell it to us 7% more expensive. The question is obvious: where is this differential, which according to industry estimates has given a jump of 179%? What has happened? That the Coordinator of Farmers and Ranchers Organizations (COAG) just report “the growing gap” between what farms charge for pork and the prices that end customers end up paying in supermarkets. After analyzing the market for two years (from April 2024 to the same month of 2026) and calculate what is called the Price Index at Origin and Destination (IPOD), the agricultural organization has detected two trends that move in opposite directions in the production chain: while ranchers charge less for their product today than two years ago, supermarkets sell it at a higher price. How much more expensive? COAG assures that in April 2024, farmers received 1.83 euros for each kilo of pork. In April 2026 (latest data available) this indicator had dropped to €1.3/kg. The striking thing is that (always according to COAG data) the “destination price”which the consumer pays in the supermarket, evolved in the opposite direction. From €6.45/kg in 2024, it went to €6.9/kg. What does that mean? Basically, while producers saw the price of their goods decline by 28.9%, the rates at which meat is sold in supermarkets grew by 6.9%. Are there more indicators? Yes. The organization not only records the rates that are charged at one time or another. It also calculates the “farm-supermarket differential,” an indicator that basically shows how wide the margin is that separates both ends of the production chain. Their conclusion is even more revealing: while in 2024 the differential was 252%, last month it rose to 431%. The COAG speaks already of “a growing and unjustified gap between what the rancher charges and what the final consumer pays” in the supermarket. “The data show that the drop in the price at origin has not been passed on to the consumer at any time. Quite the opposite: while the rancher was suffering a continued drop in income throughout 2025 and early 2026, the price in the supermarket not only remained stable, but continued to grow,” argues the coordinator, who denounces the effect of this double trend: “A net transfer of income from the producer to the distribution chain and the meat industry.” What do the supermarkets say? Coincidence or not, the COAG report It comes just a few days after Asedas, the Spanish Association of Distributors, Self-service and Supermarkets, publicly complained of the “systematic distortions” and “simplistic approaches” that are often used when analyzing the prices that govern the different phases of the production chain. A speech that “generates confusion” and leads to thinking about “hidden intermediaries.” “There are no abusive margins, the price of the final product is fully justified by real costs, risks assumed and investments made,” they argue from the association, which has presented a study precisely on how to “precisely” compare origin-destination prices. In the analysis, prepared by Manuel Hidalgo, professor of Economics at the Pablo de Olavide University, it is appointment among others the IPOD made by COAG. “It constitutes the most paradigmatic example of how a methodologically deficient approach can generate distorted perceptions about the real functioning of the agri-food chain.” What do they argue? The study signed by Hidalgo warns that the IPOD, “far from providing clarity to the debate, introduces significant distortions” and is based on “a conceptually erroneous premise: the idea that the agri-food chain can be analyzed through a simple binary comparison between two points.” The economist warns of “value creation processes” and remember that more actors than farms and supermarkets participate in the chain that brings food from the fields to the tables. Throughout the report, Hidalgo denounces other errors, such as comparing the lowest prices at origin with “the highest observed” on the shelves, that there are comparisons based on unrepresentative samples or that gross margin and net profit are wrongly equated. And what do they propose then? Alternatively, the economist poses a calculation formula that exemplifies with several products. One of them is olive oil, which is tracked from its price at origin (€2.35/l) to that applied in stores (€7.5/l). In between, it indicates the transformation and distribution phases, during which the oil incorporates an “added value” of €5.15 and a commercial margin. “This increase is not speculation, but the sum of necessary services,” concludes the analysis, presented by Asedas and Caea. What’s happening with the market? Beyond the interpretations of some and others about where the margin of money that separates what is paid on farms and in supermarkets ends, one thing is clear: the Spanish pork market is going through a complex moment. Farmers have been greatly affected by the cases of African swine fever detected at the end of last year in Catalonia, which made China ban the entry gender from Barcelona. In general, the data from the Interporc employer association show that in 2025 exports generally fell by 3.4% annually, dragging down turnover, which contracted by 300 million euros. The impact of swine fever it didn’t take long in letting yourself feel with price drops and the search for new markets. A complex scenario that, months later, was followed by the hangover from the Iran war, which, as in many other sectors (including agricultural ones) was felt with an increase in price of fuels. With this backdrop, and for the sake of a more precise ‘photo’ of what is happening with prices, COAG demands something else from the Government: that it publish updated … Read more

burial mounds from 5,000 years ago

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In 1991, an exceptional drought in the United Kingdom caused them to suddenly appear from the air strange patterns in crop fields that until then seemed completely normal. The archaeologists discovered which were the traces of settlements and structures buried for centuries, revealed only because the plants grew differently on what was underground. An ordinary field that was not so field. From the road, the bohemian farm fieldsCzech Republic, seem completely normal. For decades it was assumed that intensive agriculture had erased any trace of the past. However, beneath that seemingly uniform surface hid a much more complex reality. What seemed like a land without history has turned out to be a intact archaeological map on a massive scale. The discovery: 5,000-year-old burial mounds under the plow. Now, the use of advanced technologies has allowed us to discover dozens of burial mounds Neolithic, some with 5,000 years old. These structures, known as long barrowswere some of the first large-scale funerary monuments in central Europe. Not only that. The most striking thing is that they are not visible to the naked eye and have remained hidden for centuries under cultivated fields. His recent identification changes the perception of these landscapes, which go from being agricultural spaces to authentic historical sites. See without digging: the technology that has made it possible. The researchers counted from the Institute of Archeology of the University of Wrocław that the discovery has not occurred through traditional excavations, but thanks to the combination of various detection techniques remote. Aerial photographs, crop growth analysis, magnetometry and laser scanning have allowed detect invisible patterns from the ground. Each method provides a different layer of information, revealing everything from minimal changes in topography to buried structures. Together, these tools have rebuilt a prehistoric landscape complete without the need to remove the soil. A landscape organized between the living and the dead. Beyond the mounds, researchers have identified thousands of associated structuresincluding settlement areas. The data shows a clear separation between inhabited spaces and funerary spaces. Apparently, Neolithic communities deliberately located their cemeteries on the margins, hundreds of meters away from their homes. This organization reveals a conception of the territory where daily life and death occupied differentiated spaces. Rituals that have been repeated for centuries. Plus: the mounds were not isolated places or for occasional use. Evidence suggests these areas were reused for generations as ritual points. Communities returned to them again and again, thus maintaining their meaning over time. In other words, this turns these monuments into symbolic nuclei within the landscape, more than simple burials. Thousands of footprints under the same field. The study has identified about 3,000 archaeological elements in a relatively limited area, indicating a much higher density of prehistoric activity than previously thought. These are not, therefore, isolated finds, but rather a complete system that includes homes, structures and ritual spaces. In this way, the current agricultural landscape hides a complex network of human occupation. Of punctual discovery of a new way of looking. Beyond the discovery itself, possibly the most relevant thing is what it implies for archeology and science, because even in lands exploited for centuries, the past is still readable if the right tools are used. In fact, the approach allows us to reconstruct not only objects or tombs, but the entire organization of ancient societiessuggesting along the way that many other seemingly “empty” landscapes could also be hiding similar stories. Image | MOs810 In Xataka | About to close, this remote mine in the Polar Circle has found a 2 billion-year-old yellow diamond that weighs 158 carats In Xataka | While building a tunnel, workers came across something unusual in Sweden: not one, not two, but six centuries-old shipwrecks.

Samsung just surpassed TSMC for the first time in eight years. The problem is that it is a mirage

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We are in the middle of the results presentation season. Listed companies share how the last fiscal period went and, although it sounds boring, it allows us to learn interesting details about the business. For example, Apple thinks that the components crisis is going to get much worsebut also where the companies are. Samsung is one of those that can show the most chest due to its good results this beginning of 2026so good that it has achieved for the first time in eight years look face to face at your great rival in chip manufacturing: TSMC. The asterisk is that it is a mirage. a fortune. As we read in the South Korean media The Chosun Dailythe semiconductor division of Samsung Electronics is in luck. During the first quarter of this year, they achieved sales worth 81.7 trillion won with an operating profit of 53.7 trillion won. It is the first time that the division has achieved an operating profit of more than 50 billion won, but the most curious thing is the enormous leap they have made since last year. In the same period in 2025, Samsung reported sales of 44 trillion won with an operating profit of 16.4 trillion won. In fact, the company has earned more in these three months than during all of 2025. to the podium. This best performance has placed the South Korean company as the second best performing semiconductor company in the world. Who is above? Your best friend: Nvidia. The company that is the glue of AI reported an operating profit of 66 trillion won in this period and the two have gone hand in hand in this period. Memory (of course). Samsung got a little lost in the memory race for AI due to the good work of its great rival in this segment, also South Korean SK Hynix. However, he did not waste time and took the opportunity to research how to create the best HBM4 memory modules. This is the high-bandwidth memory that is used by artificial intelligence platforms such as those from Nvidia. In fact, a few weeks ago we told how Samsung had managed to convince Nvidia so much as to AMD to choose their HBM4 chips. Thanks to that impulse, dump all your production to memories for artificial intelligence equipment (regardless of what happens with the consumer market), the company has managed to see sales grow by 69.16% year-on-year and operating profits soar by 756.1%. In fact, the South Korean media points out that, even taking into account the number of devices that Samsung manufactures, the semiconductor division is the one that represented 93.8% of the company’s total operating profit. Very far away. Now, there is an even more interesting fact. All that amount of money has made Samsung the only semiconductor company that comes close to Nvidia, even surpassing, by far, the largest global semiconductor foundry: the Taiwanese TSMC. However, although the South Koreans’ goal is to dethrone the Taiwanese, things are going to have to change a lot because they are very far away in terms of market share. Because Samsung is making a lot of money, but there is a huge gap when it comes to contract chip manufacturing for external customers. This means that Nvidia, Apple and many others continue to come to TSMC first than to Samsung to manufacture its chips. Putting it down with numbers, it is estimated that TMSC took 70% of the market share last year compared to Samsung’s 7%. The plan. And there is a problem in all this: the AI ​​superboom. Because Samsung is doing great selling its memory to hyperscalersbut it is not attracting clients at the same rate and, if at some point the memory market deflates, accounts will begin to decrease. Samsung is moving to prevent this from happening by opening new chip manufacturing plants, partnering with American companies on American soil to develop the market outside Asia and flirting with being the foundry that manufactures chips for Nvidia or Apple in the United States. Other sectors. It is evident that the semiconductor arm is going like a rocket, but… what happens with the rest? On mobile and networks, Samsung reported sales of 38.1 trillion won with an operating profit of 2.8 trillion won. This is where investment comes into play. 6G networksbut also recent releases such as those of the family Galaxy S26 that they have not left as much money in the coffers due to increases in memory costs (Samsung already pointed out that They were not going to favor their own division and that if memory is more expensive, it is for everyone). In Display (TVs and monitors), sales fell 14% year-on-year with operating profits of 400 billion won due to the price of RAM, among other factors, and home appliances had an operating profit of 200 billion won. It is obvious where the goose that lays the golden eggs is and it is not surprising that Samsung wants to exploit it thoroughly. Image | Applied Materials In Xataka | The ratio of CPU to GPU in data centers is approaching 1:1. Intel knows exactly what that means

In 2014 it was inaugurated as the largest solar thermal power plant in the world. 12 years later they want to close it after incinerating birds

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The huge Ivanpah solar thermal power plant, opened in 2014 in the Mojave Desert, was almost closed after just 11 years of operation. An end accelerated by its history of technical, economic and environmental problems that, however, was paralyzed in January of this year after the agreement of all those involved. Context. Concentrated solar thermal energy, once considered one of the most cutting-edge technologies for clean electricity generation, is not going through its best moment. Especially in Nevada, where the Crescent Dunes fiasco was already very public. The concentrating solar thermal system uses thousands of mirrors, or “heliostats”, that follow the path of the sun to concentrate its light on central towers. In these towers, the extreme heat is used to heat water and produce steam, which drives turbines connected to electrical generators. The Ivanpah case. The Ivanpah plant was built with an investment of $1.6 billion in loans from the U.S. Department of Energy and long-term contracts from major electric companies. It was the largest solar thermal power plant in the world until the inauguration of Port Augusta in Australia. 11 years after its inauguration, the enormous solar thermal plant began to close after failing to meet its initial expectations. The lack of profitability condemned it, at least a priori. A succession of rulings and complaints from environmental groups about its impact on wildlife accelerated its end, approved by the US Department of Energy. Continuity. However, the decision was reversed in January 2026 by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Ivanpah will remain open. Their argument is that uncertainty in federal renewable energy policies forces us to prioritize the reliability of the current electricity supply. In addition, the commission seeks to prevent the enormous investment in infrastructure already made from being lost, despite the high operating costs and the serious environmental impact on local fauna. The measure ignores the previous agreement between the companies to close the plant and save money for users. A priori, it will remain open until its contract expires in 2039. A complex technology. One of the main problems has been the difficulty of keeping the mirrors precisely aligned. The technology, which requires exact tracking of the sun, has proven to be unstable and unreliable in practice, says a CNN report. The maintenance of the complex mechanisms and the management of the turbines in turn generate high operating costs, which has caused concentrated solar thermal to lose competitiveness compared to other renewable technologies, especially photovoltaic solar, whose prices have plummeted. A bird cremation machine. The criticism is not limited to the technical aspects. The Ivanpah plant has been questioned for years for its environmental impact, especially on desert wildlife. Environmental groups denounce the irreparable damage to the habitat of species such as the desert tortoise. But also the death of birds that are incinerated by the intense rays concentrated by the mirrors. A second Crescent Dunes. The case of Crescent Dunes, also occurring in Nevada, reinforces this image of failure of solar thermal energy. This project, which was intended to be one of the milestones in innovation and energy storage using molten salts, ended up becoming a multimillion-dollar waste. Developed by the Spanish group ACSpromised continuous production of electricity, even during hours without light, thanks to thermal storage in salts. In practice, Crescent Dunes never managed to deliver the promised amount of energy and ended up going bankrupt due to engineering and management problems. In the shadow of photovoltaics. In short, the rapid fall in prices of photovoltaic technology and its lower impact on wildlife have made concentrated solar thermal obsolete. While solar panels have been gaining efficiency and reducing their installation and maintenance costs, solar thermal plants have lagged behind in terms of competitiveness, which has led investors and electricity companies to reconsider their bets on this type of projects. In Xataka | The first central tower solar plant to be commercially exploited is in Seville: a pioneer that has survived other more ambitious ones In Xataka | Chile has one of the most valuable skies on Earth. Renewables are putting it on the ropes In Xataka | China’s largest solar park is doing much more than generating energy: it’s greening a desert Image | Pexels

“We overestimate what will happen in the next two years and we underestimate what will happen in the next ten”

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Bill Gates, on AI: “We overestimate what will happen in the next 2 years and underestimate what will happen in the next 10” There is a phrase that Bill Gates often repeats with the conviction of someone who has already seen how the world made mistakes when judging a technology: “We overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can achieve in ten.” Although it may fit in a time of uncertainty and technological leaps like the one we are currently experiencing with AI, it is not actually new. It appeared in his book ‘Path to the future‘and recovered it in ‘Source Code: My beginnings’. However, the co-founder of Microsoft does not use it to show off that he has succeeded in his technological commitment to desktop computers, but rather to ask for a little calm and perspective in the face of the most disruptive technological moment since the arrival of the personal computer that he lived in first person. a déjàvu technological. Gates has spent months dedicating a good part of his interventions to cooling the collective panic around the arrival of AI. In one of his interventions to promote his latest book, the millionaire intervened in the Jay Shetty podcast and took the opportunity to send a reassuring message: we already experienced something similar when Windows arrived, and then there were also those who thought that the world was ending. Since he left the helm of Microsoft in the hands of Steve Ballmerhas continued to advise its management team, including those responsible for the alliance with OpenAI. According to collected Business Insiderboth CEO Satya Nadella and the Microsoft management team turn to the founder as an advisor in the face of relevant strategic changes for the company. That low-key but influential role gives him a different perspective on the current AI revolution. For this reason, he insists that society’s fear of this new technology follows the same patterns that it already experienced in the early years of Microsoft. AI is an opportunity, but also a risk. In his annual letter The Year AheadGates described AI as a technology with “no upper limit” to its capabilities, leaving it in a full of opportunitiesbut also of great risks that must be managed. In that same publication he assured that “of all the things that humans have created, artificial intelligence is the one that will change society the most.” The millionaire identifies two major threats for the next decade: the use of AI by malicious actors and the emergence of AI in the labor market. Among the dangers that he cites with most concern is the use of this technology to design weapons with a comparable scope to that of the COVID-19 pandemic. Work, the great battlefield. One of the effects of AI that Gates analyzes in more detail is what it will have on employment. Assumption It is not catastrophicbut direct: technology will allow the economy to produce more goods and services using less labor. He points out that AI is already doubling the software developer efficiencywhich makes programming cheaper and alters labor demand in that sector. Gates also points out that AI will affect less expected industries, with medicine and education in the spotlight. He does not present it as an inevitable threat, but as a wake-up call to adapt before change arrives without warning. Optimism with nuances and a commitment to act now. In his analysis of 2026, the technology magnate insists that the decisions made in the coming years will determine whether AI becomes a factor of shared progress or an additional source of inequality and social suffering. Staying true to his phrase, Gates assures that the time to act is now, not when technology is already uncontrollable and its effects irreparable. What makes his vision different is the balance that proposes an intermediate place between catastrophism and blind euphoria. Gates learned this concept forcefully in his first years at the helm of Microsoft: consider the worst and best scenarios, because you cannot be so optimistic as to think that everything will always turn out as planned, nor be so pessimistic as to believe that everything will be an absolute failure. In Xataka | Bill Gates had a tendency to procrastinate until he found an infallible remedy: Japanese companies Image | Flickr (Governor Tom Wolf)

This is the robot that the creator of the Roomba has been wanting to develop for 30 years

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Colin Angle, co-founder of iRobot, left the company in a somewhat abrupt manner after the breakdown of the Amazon agreement. However, the topic of home robotics has never disappeared from his mind, and in fact it has returned with a somewhat peculiar proposal. Does not clean floors. It has four legs, moving ears and is designed to make you get attached to it. The story behind the return. Angle left iRobot in 2024, after the failure of its sale to Amazon and after almost three decades at the head of the company. Shortly after, he founded Familiar Machines & Magic with Ira Renfrew and Chris Jones, two iRobot veterans. Last week at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference, he unveiled his first creation: a furry-looking quadruped robot they call “Familiar.” According to they counted told the WSJ, the choice of name comes from modern European folklore, where the term was used to describe supernatural animals that accompanied witches. What exactly is it. The truth is that it is difficult to classify. He does not speak, he is not a smart speaker with legs, and it is not a typical robotic pet either (despite having a similar size). It has 23 degrees of freedom that allow you to move your head, neck, ears, eyes and eyebrows. It walks on all fours at a calm pace, cannot climb stairs or grab objects, and its communication with the user is completely non-verbal: it meows, purrs and expresses emotions through its body and face. “By design, you will avoid giving factual advice on things that perhaps you shouldn’t give factual advice on,” explained Angle to The Verge, in a direct reference to the problems that chatbots based on large language models have. Its face has been designed unrelated to any specific animal, and this decision is deliberate, because if the robot looked like a dog or a cat, the user would bring preconceived expectations that the robot might not be able to meet. So, yes, it is a somewhat complicated pet to describe. What technology does it have inside? According to those responsible, the Familiar works with the chip Jetson Orin from Nvidia and a small, custom multimodal AI model that processes vision, audio, language and memory directly on the device, without sending data to the cloud. It has a camera, microphone and a touch-sensitive touch casing. It can work without an internet connection. Morgan Pope, creative director of the company and former researcher at Disney Research, points out in an interview with IEEE Spectrum that were two recent advances that made the project viable: the use of reinforcement learning to achieve fluid movement without very expensive hardware, and the Generative AIwhich, in his words, “is perfect here because it creates the plausible assumption of intelligence, which helps the character feel coherent and alive.” What is it for and who is it for? Curiously, the Familiar is not intended as a toy or as a home assistant. Its purpose, according to the companyis to reinforce healthy routines and actively accompany its user. Angle focuses above all on families with small children, older people who live alone or people who want to better manage their well-being. The robot observes, learns and acts. The example that has been given is that, if it detects that you have been looking at your mobile screen for too long, it will try to get you to pay attention to it. Or if someone comes into the house carrying bags and in a hurry, they will know how to stay still and not get too angry. AI is not designed to always obey you. “Training him to obey you perfectly would break the illusion that he has his own personality,” Angle explained. to IEEE Spectrum. The goal is for the robot to have its own goals, not to execute orders. A history of failures. The trajectory of companion robots for the home has not been very encouraging to date. Jibo, Kuri, Anki Vectorhe Aibo original from Sony… they all promised something similar and they have all ended up being discontinued. The common denominator of their failures always ends up being the same: entertaining the first few days until they are forgotten in a closet. Angle thinks AI can change the equation here. “If this ends up being a toy, we will have failed. If it is a creature you want in your world, we will have succeeded,” counted to The Verge. We have questions. The robotic mascot presented at the WSJ event was a prototype that they controlled partially remotely, but Angle promise which will hit the market completely autonomously in 2027. The price, for now, is vaguely described as “similar to the cost of having a pet”, a range so wide that in practice it says nothing. On the other hand, carrying a camera and microphone always on around your home raises some questions about privacy. Although the team states that data is not shared in the cloud, these are issues worth keeping in mind. And now what. Familiar Machines & Magic has brought together talent from Disney Research, Boston Dynamics, MIT, Bose and Sonos. Angle has been wanting to build artificial life for thirty years since the time when iRobot’s original name was, precisely, Artificial Creatures Inc. The technology that did not exist then now exists. So now we need to know if they can materialize that promise into something that people want to have in their living room. Images | Familiar Machines & Magic In Xataka | The end of Nvidia in China seems to be very near: its current market share is 0%

It has taken us 30 years to find 6,000 exoplanets. TESS just found 10,000 candidates in one fell swoop

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Since the first exoplanet was detected in 1992, have been discovered 6,273 planets outside the solar system. However, detection methods have become so refined that that number is expected to skyrocket in the coming years. Just look at the list just presented by a team of scientists from Princeton University, which includes more than 10,000 new candidates. Many may not be exoplanets when they are reviewed, but the fact that so many candidates have been found is already a good sign. A very well spent first year. This new list It comes from the analysis of the first year of data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Exploration Satellite (TESS). In total 11,554 possible exoplanets have been found. However, 411 of them were only captured in one transit, so their orbital parameters could not be calculated. Another 1,052 had already been confirmed as exoplanets in the past. The remaining 10,091 do make up a list of possible exoplanets that had not been noted before. Transi what? Transit is one of the most useful methods of exoplanet detection. Typically, it is much easier to detect the star around which a planet orbits than the planet itself. After all, stars are bigger and brighter. However, observing the star itself can give us data on the existence of planets orbiting it. And when these pass between the star and the telescopes that observe it, their light is interrupted. Like when a cloud passes in front of the Sun or a very large moth flies in front of a light bulb. We know that planets revolve around their stars with a fixed period. For example, it takes the Earth 364 days to orbit the Sun. When these light interruptions are seen cyclically, it can be assumed that there is a planet orbiting the star. That’s what TESS detects. The advances of TESS. Until now, exoplanets have been searched around very bright stars. However, TESS has the ability to also study stars with weaker illumination. This allows us to do a much more complete analysis of the sky and find many more candidates for exoplanets. In fact, a lot of data is generated at once, so it has also been necessary to use a machine learning algorithm to analyze it all and find the real candidates. It must be confirmed. There are other reasons why a star’s light could be interrupted. For example, eclipsing binary stars either solar activity itself. That is why the next step, once a list of possible exoplanets is found, is to analyze them carefully to rule out those other possibilities and check which ones really are. It can still improve. These scientists are now ready to also begin analyzing data from the second year of TESS observation. In this case, some changes have been made in the study methodology, such as studying stars that are observed at different times of the year. This way, exoplanets with a long period can also be detected, which sometimes go unnoticed if they are not observed at the right time. When the period is very small, they pass many times between the star and the telescopes, so it is easier detect traffic. If the period is long, it is difficult to detect them if you do not look at the right time. With this in mind, the study’s authors hope to double the list of candidates. If this time there have been more than 10,000, the next time we have news about TESS there could be many more. Image | POT In Xataka | How the solar system was formed: for the Earth to be born, a star had to die first

50 years later, the Soviet fire of the “Gates to Hell” is going out. And it’s not good news

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In 1971, in the heart of the Karakum Desert, a group of Soviet engineers observed how the ground was sinking under his feet after a failed drilling. What came next was not an immediate evacuation or closure of the area, but rather an improvised decision that, according to who witnessed itseemed like a quick solution to a specific problem. That choice, taken almost as another technical procedure, would end up having consequences that no one at that time was able to anticipate. The eternal fire goes out. During more than half a centurythe Darvaza crater has burned relentlessly in the middle of the desert, becoming an almost permanent image of inexhaustible fire that seemed to defy any natural logic. However, the most recent data show a clear change: the intensity of the flames has fallen drastically in recent years, losing more than 7% of its strength. What for decades was a constant spectacle begins to weaken, altering the perception of a phenomenon that many considered eternal. The origin between legend and Soviet heritage. The birth of the crater is still shrouded in all kinds of stories and uncertainty, although the most widespread and feasible version points to the accident. during Soviet drilling in search of gas in the sixties or seventies. According to this theory, the ground collapsed when it reached a pocket of natural gas and the engineers they decided to set fire to the site to prevent the release of toxic gases, convinced that it would be extinguished in a short time. Thus, what was going to last weeks lasted for decadesfed by an underground network of gas that never stopped flowing, giving rise to one of the best-known anomalies of the energy legacy of the former Soviet Union. From remote curiosity to global icon. Over time, the crater went from being a geological oddity to becoming a almost mythical destiny for travelers and explorers, despite the difficulties in accessing Turkmenistan. Its image, a gigantic burning cavity in the middle of nowhere, has fueled so much adventure tourism like internal propagandato the point of being used by country leaders as a symbol of power or control. The experience of approaching the edge and feeling the direct heat of the fire has reinforced its reputation as a unique place in the world. The attempt at control and doubts about its decline. For its part, the Turkmen government has years trying to control emissions from the crater, and attributes part of the recent weakening to new drilling nearby plants intended to extract gas. However, the independent analyzes They suggest that the loss of intensity could have begun before these interventions, which opens the door to natural causes that are not yet fully understood. This nuance introduces a key and dangerous uncertainty: it is not clear whether the end of the phenomenon responds to human action or to a change in the geological system itself. The unexpected twist: less fire does not mean less problem. Yes, because although At first glance, the reduction of the flames could seem like good news from an environmental point of view, the reality it is more complex. Fire acts as a mechanism that transforms methane (much more powerful as a greenhouse gas) into carbon dioxide, reducing its impact in the short term. If the flames subside, more methane could be released directly into the atmospherewhich would make progressive shutdown a potentially bigger problem. A fragile balance that is still active. Despite its weakening, the crater remains activewith visible flames and constant emissions that remind us that the phenomenon has not disappeared. The huge amount of gas accumulated underground suggests that the fire will not be completely extinguished in the short term, maintaining that strange balance between natural spectacle, industrial legacy and environmental problem. Thus, half a century later, the symbol of eternal fire begins to change, although its disappearance does not necessarily imply a more favorable end for the rest of the planet. Image | Stefan Krasowski, Tormod Sandtorv In Xataka | China’s first pipeline network is 4,000 years old and something revolutionary: it was built without the need for kings or nobles In Xataka | About to close, this remote mine in the Polar Circle has found a 2 billion-year-old yellow diamond that weighs 158 carats

For 120 years, scientists considered the Omiltemi rabbit extinct. Meanwhile, in Sierra Madre del Sur they were hunted for food.

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When in 1904 Edward William Nelson identified the first Omiltemi rabbits, he did not know that this was going to be one of the last confirmed sightings of what, for decades, has been considered one of the most endangered mammals in the world. The bug. It was a large, nocturnal rabbit, with dark reddish hair, long ears and a short tail. But not much else was known because zoologists had frepeatedly scratched in finding and studying it. And yet, if they had asked the inhabitants of the Sierra Madre del Sur (in the Mexican state of Guerrero), they would have been able to add one more thing: that they are very rich. Because while scientists were looking for these bugs, neighbors hunted them and integrated them into their usual diet. Where are those rabbits? We must not fall into simplifications, since 1998 we already suspected that the rabbit was still alive and there. That year, some local hunters gave researchers the skin of a killed specimen: that is, we had physical proof that the species still existed. Therefore, the species was not officially extinct; What appeared in the species lists is that we did not have enough data to know what was happening with it. Now, after a long investigation with traps and sampling, we do have them. He wasn’t dead… Between 2019 and 2024, a team led by José Alberto Almazán-Catalán (the Institute for the Management and Conservation of Biodiversity) carried out a specific search for the rabbit under the program Search for Lost Species by Re:wild. They visited 10 areas and obtained records in 7 of them. The conclusion of this work (and I quote verbatim) is that the Omiltemi rabbit “is a rare species, but not only is it not extinct, but it is much more common than previously believed.” The data matches with the graphic material that Fernando Ruiz-Gutiérrez published in the Mexican Journal of Mastozoology. And then? Well, although the situation has not changed, it has revealed everything that we do not know. It is now evident that the distribution reaches an area up to three times larger than previously suspected. It is also true that, without suspecting it, the communities in the area have been hunting (and even breeding) these rabbits for decades without knowing that they were Omiltemi rabbits. And it is curious how this type of news helps make clear how little we know about the world around us. The initiative Search for Lost Species from Re:wild has already ‘recovered’ 13 species around the world. Some of them, like Winton’s golden molethey had gone 86 years without confirmed records. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than your philosophy dreams of,” Hamlet tells Horatio and, if we apply it to contemporary science, we see that this is still the case. Image | Re:Wild In Xataka | Spain is witnessing a shocking phenomenon: three invasive species are feeding each other to conquer the country

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