years

2,300 years ago Plato already knew what to do with social networks

by

“This invention will produce forgetfulness in those who learn it, because they will not exercise their memory: they will trust in the external, not in themselves.” These words are not from a neuroscientist talking about artificial intelligence, nor from a politician regulating social networks. They are from Thamus, king of Egypt, who 2,300 years ago, in Plato’s ‘Phaedrus’, argued that any technology that helps remember ends up weakening. He was talking, of course, about writing. But, curiously, the arguments are so current and relevant that they could have been stated today: banning social mediaFor example. And this is the interesting thing. What was Plato’s argument? The quote, as I say, is from the end of the Phaedrus. There appears the call ‘myth of Theuth and Thamus‘: the god Theuth presents writing as a fantastic technology that would improve memory and Thamus, in contrast, responds that what will improve is forgetting. Although it is usually brought up in the context of classical disputes about whether writing is good or bad, the truth is that the good Plato’s argument is a little more subtle: what he is interested in confronting is rather the difference between internalized and practical knowledge, on the one hand; and the knowledge that, even though it is easily available (thanks to writing), has not left a mark on the subject. That is, Plato does not contest writing. He was, rather, describing a pattern: each cognitive technology reconfigures the skills we practice and those we don’t (and therefore let atrophy). ‘Cognitive offloading’. That is the ‘word’ that, from certain areas of cognitive science, is used to download mental work. They can be using notes, to-do lists, calendars, GPSs or search engines… it doesn’t matter, the phenomenon is very similar to what Plato commented on. The available evidence tells us that, in effect, there is a trade-off: Using these systems improves immediate performance (as Theuth argued), but can reduce deep learning (as de Thamus argued). And it makes sense. When we know that something will be accessible, the tendency is memorize its content less and dedicate those resources to memorizing where to find it. In other words, it changes what we do with those resources we have to try to make their use as efficient as possible. In fact, in the same way we have to recognize that this has problems (especially with content that is fundamentally important), but it also has benefits. This ‘resource release’ allows us, for example, learn new things. PlatoGPT. The issue is always very similar: new technologies trigger moral panic in society and then, with hindsight, we see if they were right or wrong. That is to say, we have been in a very long war between early-adopters and late-adopters for 2,300 years. Now it’s up to artificial intelligence and Plato’s reflections are good. Above all, because they help us see AI as something that goes beyond “a tool”: it is a complete system of incentives that pushes us to improve certain skills and atrophy others. The key is whether those skills that we atrophy are necessary for something else. “Put doors on the field.” A few years ago, the philosopher Antonio Diéguez visited us and explained that the idea that technologists repeat so much that “you can’t put doors on the field” was somewhat problematic. Of course you can. It has a cost, it is true; But there is also a risk of being uncritical with all the technologies that knock on our door. We have learned it the hard way in recent years. We live in strange times when nobody knows anything about the social impact of new technologies. But what is clear is that this should not confuse us and make us believe that we cannot know anything about it. Yes we can, yes we can. It’s more. As Plato said, it is our obligation to know. Image | Raphael / Robin Worral In Xataka | Why being a teenager has always been shit and in the age of social media even more

that Russia has been knowing all its steps from space for years

by

After the Cold War, space was conceived by Europe more like an extension of scientific cooperation and the civil market than as a domain of strategic confrontation. Thus satellites designed for television, meteorology or navigation were deployed at a time when the main concern was technical reliability and cost, not the deliberate hostility of other States. While Washington and Moscow kept alive military logic inherited and China began to build its own, Europe was establishing a functional, open and trust-dependent spatial architecture. The latest finding reveals a “big” underlying error. Hybrid warfare reaches orbit. Yes, for years, Europe assumed that space was a technical and relatively stable domain, ultimately protected by its civil and cooperative character. It so happens that recent Russian satellite activity has broken that illusion. As? In parallel with sabotage of submarine cables and other covert operations, Moscow appears to have moved its hybrid war to space, taking advantage a critical blind spot: Many European satellites were launched decades ago without modern encryption systems or advanced protection. This vulnerability, ignored for years, has turned the geostationary orbit into a new silent front where missiles are not needed to inflict strategic damage. Luch-1 and Luch-2. There is much more, since the Financial Times discovered exclusively this morning that Western authorities have been monitoring the movements of two Russian space vehicles for some time, Luch-1 and Luch-2which have performed unusual maneuvers, getting dangerously close to key European satellites and staying next to them for weeks. Since its launch in 2023, Luch-2 has approached at least 17 satellites that provide essential services to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, a pattern that, according to analystsleaves no doubt about its purpose. These approaches are not accidental: they seek to position themselves within the narrow cone of data transmission between ground stations and satellites, an ideal position to intercept signals and study their internal workings. The critical failure. The most disturbing revelation is that some of the most sensitive information circulating through these systems, including the command links that allow orbit adjustment, it is not encrypted. Put another way, that means Russia could not only have spied on civil and government communications, but also recorded enough technical data to imitate legitimate operators from land. With that knowledge, for example, a hostile actor could send fake orders to alter the orientation of a satellite, take it out of service, misalign it or even force its fall or uncontrolled drift, without the need to physically destroy it and without leaving a clear attack signature. A strategic Achilles heel. Although the Luch satellites They do not seem to have the direct ability to interfere with or destroy other devices, their value lies in the accumulated knowledge: how European satellites are used, who operates them and from where. This intelligence allows us to prepare more discreet attacks, such as Selective interference or cyber attacks coordinated from the ground, and reinforces the idea that spatial networks are the true Achilles heel of modern societies. As Russia expands its reconnaissance program with new maneuverable satellites and Europe begins to come to terms with the magnitude of the problem, the message is clear: hybrid war It is no longer fought only at sea or on dry land, but also 35,000 kilometers above our heads, the point where Europe has just discovered that had been exposed for years. Image | woodleywonderworks In Xataka | A space war looms over our heads and Europe is the power that invests the least in defense technology In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons

The world had been in love with US technology for 25 years. We are finally unhooking

by

We have been living within a digital ecosystem designed in the United States for more than two decades. Big technology companies not only built the dominant social networks, but also built a network of services around them without real substitutes. From Europe we have been talking for years about technological sovereignty and a possible disengagement – even if it is partial. There are more and more proposals, but at the moment it is more of a wish than reality. Difficult, but not impossible. Become completely independent from American technology In software it is complicated, but feasible. Our colleague Jose told it just a few days ago, leaving aside giants like Google, WhatsAppAmazon, or Instagram. The changes made something very clear: the United States has taken over the great pillars of daily technological life: Internet searches Sending messages online shopping Social networks Email accounts Operating systems The dependence is total, and assuming it is uncomfortable. Countries like France have banned to its officials the use of American platforms such as Zoom and Teamsto promote a video conferencing platform developed in France and under the name Visio. The objective is clear: reduce dependence on foreign technology, minimize costs and achieve a communication standard under European legal control. The UpScrolled case. Behind him TikTok ownership changewhich went from being mainly in Chinese hands to being under the lap of large American companies, the use of social networks like Upscrolledan app founded by the Palestinian Issam Hijazi as a challenge to big technology companies. During the last week of January, Upscrolled was the most downloaded social network above Threads, WhatsApp and TikTok in the United States App Store. A paradigmatic case in which Americans themselves opt for alternatives outside their country. The Proton case. Although less recent, the proton case It is one of the most ambitious in the last five years. From being protagonists only for ProtonMail (end-to-end encryption by default, European jurisdiction and independence from the Big Tech model), to a whole suite with calendar, VPN and storage alternatives. According to the company, its apps already have more than 100 million users. Good number, but far from more than 100 thousand millions of users who have Google services. The distance remains enormous, and explains why technological disengagement continues to be, for the moment, more of a political and cultural gesture than an everyday reality. Prepared for the worst. At the end of January, the Wall Street Journal reported a scenario starring even more tension. The Greenland case has been the flame necessary to finish lighting the fuseand the main managers of European strategic sectors want to move both their systems and data to local centers. Thinking about a 100% European software ecosystem does not seem entirely realistic. But imagining a scenario in which the dependency is not complete sounds a little better. Image | Xataka In Xataka | We criticize the EU a lot with its obsession with regulating Big Tech. There are at least two examples that justify this obsession

is that in two years it has fired 30% of its workers

by

On Friday, January 30, the shares of the main video game companies They collapsed on Wall Street hours after Google will launch Project Genie. The story was simple: investors believed that artificial intelligence would replace traditional developers. However, that same day a data was published that went practically unnoticed among the stock market noise: a third of American workers in the sector (33%) have been laid off in the last two years. Genie appeared to be a threat, but the video game industry has been bleeding silently for two years, and artificial intelligence is not the cause of that hemorrhage, but rather the instrument that some executives see as the perfect scapegoat. The data. The magnitude of the layoffs exceeds any recent precedent. Between 2022 and July 2025, approximately 45,000 jobs were lost. The aforementioned GDC report estimates that the percentage of workers who lost their jobs in the last two years is 28% globally and 33% in the United States. Half of the professionals consulted declared that their company had made cuts in the last year. The impact was especially devastating at AAA studios: two-thirds of developers working on big-budget productions confirmed layoffs at their companies, compared to just one-third in the independent sector. Specific cases. Some examples illustrate the magnitude of the crisis. Microsoft eliminated more than 9,000 jobs despite boasting a “record year” in revenue and operating profits. Embracer Group reduced its workforce from 15,701 to 7,873 employees, a net loss of 8,000 workers that represented half of its workforce. Unity Technologies carried out six rounds of layoffs between June 2022 and February 2025. Sony closed Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi, eliminating 210 positions after the failure of ‘Concord’. And 2026 has not started better: Ubisoft announced in January the closure of its studios in Halifax and Stockholm, as well as restructurings in Abu Dhabi, RedLynx and Massive Entertainment. When the crisis started. The origin dates back to the confinements of 2020. The world’s population confined to their homes sought entertainment in video games, generating growth figures that the industry interpreted as the beginning of a new era. Steam reached 23 million concurrent users in March 2020, surpassing all previous records. Microsoft reported that Xbox Game Pass had surpassed 10 million subscribers. Console and software sales skyrocketed. The irresponsible expansion. Companies responded with aggressive workforce expansions. Electronic Arts increased its workforce by 12%, going from 9,800 to 11,000 employees between 2020 and 2021. Ubisoft added 2,000 new developers in the same period. But when health restrictions ended, revenue didn’t just stop growing: analyst Matthew Ball documents that video games became one of the few entertainment sectors whose consumption contracted (because, for example, streaming of movies and audio has not stopped growing). Ball notes that major consulting firms and investors had overestimated projected revenue for 2025 by 25% to 30%. The market is ossified. Warnings to the entire entertainment industry about the risk of over-reliance on recycled products were especially pertinent in the video game. Development costs skyrocketed as studios focused resources on sequels and remasters rather than taking risks with new intellectual properties. Furthermore, the omnipotent mobile market, traditionally considered resistant to recessions, was showing signs of ossification: according to Ball, the three main titles in each genre concentrate approximately 40% of the segment’s revenue, and 82% of the turnover corresponds to games that are more than two years old. Ubisoft and AI as an excuse. On January 21, 2026, Ubisoft announced what it called an “organizational, operational and portfolio reset.” The company’s shares They plummeted 33%. The restructuring involved the cancellation of six projects in development. But while carrying out mass layoffs and closing studios, Ubisoft announced “accelerated investments” in player-oriented generative artificial intelligence, not limited to internal tools but integrated directly into games. self-fulfilling prophecy. What Genie offers is an alibi. When a CEO contemplates “accelerated investments in player-oriented generative AI” while closing studios and canceling projects, the technology functions as a justification for financial decisions already made. The GDC survey reveals that 74% of video game development students are concerned about their future job prospects: the industry eliminates positions while its leaders invest in systems to automate work. Header | Vitaly Gariev / Shuichi Aizawa In Xataka | The Spanish video game industry has broken its turnover record. The problem is that they keep laying off workers.

Ryanair and the rest of the low-cost airlines have been charging for your carry-on suitcase for years. The European Union is tired of it

by

It is no surprise that the main business of “cheap airlines” is precisely charge you for cabin luggage. A cheap Ryanair or EasyJet ticket can easily be double the price if you include a small suitcase to carry in the cabin. And from Europe I want this to end nowboth by users and legislators. not so fast. In this regard, the European Parliament has voted in favor to allow all passengers to carry one cabin bag of up to 7 kg free of charge, in addition to their personal bag or backpack. The measure has sparked criticism from low-cost airlines, since they rate it ‘existential threat’ to its business model, and that could raise ticket prices by up to 25%, according to EasyJet. The trigger. The European legislative proposal establishes that any passenger may carry at no additional cost one personal item plus one piece of hand luggage of up to 7 kg and with combined dimensions of 100 cm. This would affect all flights to or from EU airports operated by EU airlines. Of course, it should be noted that this bill must still go through the European Council before becoming law. Baggage and margins. Bag fees have become a great source of income for low-cost airlines. Jay Sorensen, airfare expert at consulting firm IdeaWorks, counted to the Financial Times that European airlines raised $16 billion in 2025 just for baggage, of which 60% went to low-cost airlines. Although these fees are not usually broken down individually, Sorensen estimates that they represent almost a fifth of the total revenue of low-cost airlines. Reaction of the industry. Kenton Jarvis, CEO of EasyJet, has qualified the “lunatic idea” proposal and warns that the additional costs “would have to be passed on” to all passengers through higher prices, even for those traveling without luggage. On the other hand, József Váradi, CEO of Wizz Air, account to FT that consumers are “much smarter” and “are able to navigate the current system of optional tariffs.” For its part, Airlines 4 Europe, the industry lobby, has presented a survey according to which half of passengers would prefer to pay lower fares and keep suitcases as an optional extra. Margins. The low cost model is based on eliminating minutes on the ground and fuel costs. Augusto Ponte, European director of the consulting firm Alton Aviation, account FT that if each passenger carried between 2 and 4 additional kg, a plane with 150 people would have 500 kg extra weight, which translates into between 15 and 20 additional euros of fuel per hour of flight. According to Ponte, for an airline like EasyJet, which flies approximately one million hours annually, that would mean more than €28 million extra per year in operating costs, approximately a tenth of its total profit. In addition, the executive says that 150 additional suitcases in the cabin per flight would cause delays of about 10 minutes in each boarding, not counting the time necessary to relocate the excess in the hold. Ponte assures that, in short-haul aircraft that make six flights a day, this would be equivalent to one hour less operation per plane each day. Consumer protection. Beuc, the European consumer association, strongly supports the proposals of Parliament and even proposes raising the permitted weight to 10 kg. Agustín Reyna, its general director, argues that passengers “expect their hand luggage to be included in the price of the ticket” and that forcing them to pay turns luggage into “a luxury item.” For his part, Andrey Novakov, the Bulgarian MEP who is leading the parliamentary negotiation on these rules, has declared that the goal is “to strive for clearer and more predictable rules for airlines and a stronger aviation sector, but never at the expense of passengers.” Cover image | Gabor Koszegi In Xataka | When Ryanair CEO went to a restaurant he was charged for two extras: “priority seating” and “legroom”

Four years ago, China had a chipmaker in the global top 20. Today he has three

by

China has gone from having one chip equipment manufacturer in the world’s top 20 in 2022 to having three at the start of 2026. US sanctions, designed to limit Chinese access to this advanced technology, have ended up driving just the opposite: the local industry has become stronger and continues to increase its independence. Why is it important. This advance questions Western technological dominance in such a critical sector that has led to a trade war. The manufacturing of machinery to make semiconductors was a Chinese weakness and is now becoming a real alternative. And the speed at which it is happening tells us that trade restrictions may end up being counterproductive. The protagonists: The context. Three years ago, China manufactured just 10% of its semiconductor equipment locally. Today that figure is between 20% and 30%, according to Tetsuo Omori, an analyst at Techno Systems Research in statements to Nikkei Asia. The government has put in a lot of money through national and local funds, and that has caused an explosion of manufacturers that now cover all stages of production. Between the lines. Western and Japanese companies have two problems on the table: In the short term, more competition in the Chinese marketwhich grew 35% in 2024 to $49.5 billion. In the long term, see how its technological advantage is being curtailed while the Chinese supply chain gains muscle. Yes, but. China still has not mastered the most advanced technology. Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systemsessential for 2 and 3 nanometer chips, are only manufactured by ASML. ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet He said it will take China “many, many years” to develop that capability.. It sounds like a message of calm for the West, but China’s recent history does not encourage us to take anything for granted. In dispute. The race for leadership in semiconductors is now played on two boards. One is technological: who manages to manufacture the most advanced chips. The other is self-sufficiency: who manages to control more links in their supply chain. China is losing in the first but is advancing very quickly in the second. And that could change the rules we knew even more. In Xataka | The ASML-Mistral alliance reveals the European plan B: if we cannot manufacture chips, at least we will control how they are manufactured Featured image | ASML

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

by

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

The perovskite had been failing inside for years. The solution was in the octopuses

by

For more than a decade, perovskite cells have been the great promise—and great frustration—of clean energy. In the laboratory they already compete with silicon, but they always failed in the same way: they degraded too quickly. Now, a discovery breaks with what is established. The solution has not come from a complex industrial machine, but from a molecule that octopuses and squid have been using for millions of years to protect themselves from chemical damage. The sabotage that comes from within. According to the study published in Advanced Energy Materialsthe problem is not just air or humidity, but a chemical reaction that is activated within the device itself. When sunlight hits the perovskite, highly energetic electrons are generated. These electrons can react with residual oxygen trapped during manufacturing—a process typically performed in air—to form superoxide radicals (O₂·⁻), extremely reactive chemical species. These radicals attack the organic cations that keep the perovskite crystalline structure stable, initiating its decomposition. The entry point. The damage does not begin on the visible surface of the panel, but in a key region known as the buried interface, the point of contact between the perovskite and the tin dioxide (SnO₂) layer, responsible for extracting the electrons generated by light. As emphasized Nanowerknot even the best external encapsulation can stop this process: oxygen is already present inside the device from the first moment. To further complicate the problem, tin dioxide itself contains oxygen-rich defects that, under illumination and heat, migrate into the perovskite and accelerate its degradation from within. Taurine to the rescue. Faced with this scenario, the team of researchers from the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology opted for an unusual route in photovoltaic development: seeking inspiration in biology. The answer came in the form of an ultrathin layer of taurine, a sulfur amino acid present in octopuses, squid and other marine organisms. According to Interesting Engineeringin nature taurine protects cells from oxidative damage, just the same type of threat that was degrading perovskites. Located at the interface between tin dioxide and perovskite, the molecule functions as a smart chemical shield. A defense cycle that does not end. The study details, based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations and laboratory experiments, a two-step protection mechanism that is especially relevant. First, taurine intercepts superoxide radicals as they form. Its chemical structure, called zwitterionic—with positive and negative charges in different parts of the molecule—allows it to electrostatically attract these radicals and convert them into hydrogen peroxide, a much less aggressive species for perovskite. Secondly, the process addresses an additional problem: the molecular iodine generated during the degradation of the material. This iodine tends to form compounds that further accelerate the collapse of the structure. Taurine reduces that iodine back to iodide ions, chemically stable and much less harmful. Most notable, as Nanowerk points outis that after completing these reactions, taurine is regenerated. It is not consumed or degraded in the process, but rather returns to its original state, creating a closed radical neutralization cycle that can be repeated throughout the operational life of the device. From theory to real power. The benefits are not limited to durability. The presence of taurine also improves the electrical functioning of the cell. By chemically binding to both tin dioxide and perovskite, it acts as a molecular bridge that reduces defects at the interface, those small sinks where electrons are lost as heat. In practice, this translates into fewer electronic defects, nearly doubled electron mobility in the tin dioxide layer, and charges that survive longer. The best device achieved efficiency 24.8%, with 1.18 volts in open circuit and a high fill factor. Figures very close to current records, but with an important difference: it lasts much longer. In stability tests, taurine-treated cells retained 97% of their efficiency after 450 hours of continuous operation at 65°C. Under real ambient conditions, they maintained 80% of their performance for more than 130 hours, more than five times longer than conventional cells subjected to the same tests. The story has some scientific irony. While industry refined increasingly complex solutions, biology had already been solving the same problem for millions of years. If this strategy can be scaled and adapted to industrial manufacturing, the future of solar energy could depend as much on engineering as it does on biology. Sometimes, to move towards the Sun, it is enough to look at the bottom of the sea. Image | Unsplash and freepik Xataka | The dark side of solar energy: we are creating a 250 million ton mountain of garbage

He is 82 years old and has earned 746% betting on a mine that doesn’t even work

by

Canadian Eric Sprott has multiplied his investment in Hycroft Mining by eight thanks to the precious metals boom. And its stake is now worth more than $2.1 billion, despite the fact that the mine has not been operating for years. Numbers. Sprott is a veteran investor commonly recognized as the “gold magnate.” In 2022 it invested $28 million in Hycroft Mining. Today its participation exceeds 2.1 billion dollars, having achieved a profitability of 746%. The company’s shares have soared more than 425% in the last two months and have accumulated a rise of more than 1,500% since the tycoon began to expand his position last summer. A mine that does not mine. Hycroft owns an open pit deposit in northern Nevada that has been operational since the 1980s, but the company has not mined gold since 2021. Instead, it reprocesses previously mined ore that remains on the surface. Most of its reserves are underground and the company lacks a defined plan to resume mining operations. In fact, it has not generated income since 2022, when it had a turnover of just $33 million, according to data from Bloomberg. Gold and silver rally. Hycroft operates as if it were “a huge underground ETF,” according to defined Brian Quast, precious metals analyst at Bank of Montreal. Gold and silver prices have reached all-time highs over the last year, and investors are looking for any way to get exposure to this rally. Even if the mine is not operating, its reserves gain value with each rise in prices. Sprott has been defending investment in gold and silver for decades, and this bet has placed him among the few billionaires who have been able to capitalize on the current boom. From almost bankruptcy to stock market stardom. Just like account Bloomberg, Sprott’s initial investment came as Hycroft was close to insolvency. Together with AMC Entertainment, which had plenty of liquidity after the meme stock phenomenon, the Canadian ended up saving the company from its creditors with this investment. The announcement skyrocketed the shares almost 100% in the premarket, although the enthusiasm did not last long, as by the end of 2022 the value had fallen below half the entry price. Sprott sold a fifth of his position, barely recovering his investment. For three years, his bet remained stagnant while the price of gold rose without stocks following suit. Searching results. Last summer, Sprott changed strategy. Between June and January it has invested an additional $187 million to almost double its stake to exceed 40% of Hycroft’s capital. “I am doing everything possible to expand my position to the maximum,” declared in October to Tony Denaro, content creator dedicated to finance. Their move coincided with new drilling results that identified higher-quality silver deposits than expected and areas with expansion potential. AMC stared. The other major investor, who rode the wave with Sprott in 2022, was the AMC cinema chain, although it did not suffer the same fate. In December, when his Hycroft shares finally turned positive after years of losses, he sold 80% of his stake to Sprott for $24 million. Adam Aron, CEO of AMC, justified the operation ensuring that it was “the right time to monetize and reallocate capital” to its core business. Two months later, that block of shares is worth $172 million. The gold fortune. Although precious metals are on the rise, few big fortunes have been able to take advantage of the boom. According to the report UBS Global Family Offices 2025, these types of asset structures barely allocate 2% on average to precious metals. Only a few investors like Sprott or Hong Kong’s Cheah Cheng Hye have bet heavily, as share Bloomberg. For Sprott, Hycroft’s spotty track record is precisely its biggest draw, because as gold and silver prices rise, the likelihood increases that reprocessing will become increasingly profitable, opening up more possibilities for monetizing underground reserves. “You cannot find a more leveraged and significant reward,” said the investor. in the interview with Denaro. Cover image | Palisades Gold Radio and Leonie Clough In Xataka | Seven of the ten largest fortunes in the world in 2026 are due to AI: this illustrative graph makes it very clear

Testing the first light bulb in 1879, Edison came across a material that would be discovered 125 years later: the prodigious graphene.

by

Edison has been one of the most prolific inventors of history. In fact, while he was looking for a way to make the light bulb, he carried out an exhaustive materials science experiment: tried more than 6,000 organic materials before decant by the carbonized bamboo filament. eye to the old patent no. 223,898 because it has all the necessary ingredients for the recipe. Tremendous Edison spoiler. He had, without knowing it, set up a primitive nanotechnological reactor to obtain graphene. That same graphene on which Philip Russell Wallace would theorize 20 years after the inventor’s death and 125 years before Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for isolating it with the duct tape method. Or so he has discovered a recent study from Rice University. The prodigious graphene. Graphene is an allotrope of carbon that has a two-dimensional structure of atoms woven into a hexagonal network. Beyond this curiosity, graphene is an amazing material: it is 200 times stronger than steel but much lighter (airbrush, even lighter than air). It conducts electricity and heat better than any known metal. If we also take into account that it is almost transparent and very flexible, we have a prodigious material for technology. Without going any further, for semiconductors. It could also be used to improve roads or for responsive robotic tissues. And there’s a trick: when its layers are somewhat disordered and not stuck together like a block, they are much easier to separate. This is what Edison achieved unintentionally. Edison’s recipe. He turbostratic graphene can be produced by applying a voltage to a carbon-based material until it reaches a temperature of 2,000 to 3,000 °C, known as Joule heating instant. But what Edison had in his power was to light one of his newly patented light bulbs. Unlike the current ones, theirs had carbon-based filaments, more specifically bamboo. When you flipped the switch, the filament heated up and produced… light and maybe graphene. Account Lucas Eddy, the paper’s lead author, was looking for ways to mass-produce graphene with accessible, affordable materials and tried everything from arc welders to trees that had been struck by lightning. Then he remembered the light bulb. Edison’s patent It was a magnificent scheme to reproduce the experiment. Of course, it was difficult for him to find Edison-style light bulbs with carbon filaments and not tugsten. Then he only had to apply power to 110 volts and turn on the switch for 20 seconds. If you go too far, graphite can form instead of graphene. Why is it important. To begin with, because until now we thought that to obtain this prodigious material we had to resort to 21st century technology, but no: there were conditions to do so in the 19th century. On the other hand, it validates Joule heating as an efficient and scalable way to generate high-quality graphene from cheap carbon sources. And why not, because it opens the doors to reviewing other scientific experiments in history: who knows if other nanomaterials have not been synthesized by chance? under the microscope. Using the lens of an optical microscope, the research team was able to see that the carbon filament had gone from dark gray to a shiny silver. A visual change that predicted the suspicions that I ended up certifying with the Raman spectroscopywhich uses lasers to identify substances through their atoms with high precision: it was turbostratic graphene. While Edison experimented to create a light bulb for everyday use he was able to produce the wonderful material of the future (of today’s future). Obviously there is no way to know for sure what happened in their Menlo Park laboratories because even if the original light bulb were available for analysis, any graphene produced would probably have converted to graphite within a few hours. In Xataka | Electrocute elephants to win a war or how anything went in the fight between Tesla and Edison In Xataka | Don’t call it graphene, call it “goldeno”: this is the new material that is achieved using a peculiar Japanese forging technique Cover | Image of Thomas Edison, ca. 1918–1919. Source: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), United States and HY ART

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.