years

After 48 years, Voyager probes are running out of plutonium. So NASA has taken extreme measures

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The emblematic Voyager 1 space probes and Voyager 2, launched almost 50 years ago, are running out of energy. In order not to lose them, NASA has made the decision to turn off two other instruments to extend its useful life. One less instrument in each Voyager. Last February 25, NASA reveals nowthe mission team turned off the cosmic rays subsystem of the Voyager 1 probe, which studied high -energy particles in the interstellar space. The instrument has been doing science all this time and in 2020 allowed first How electrons from the sun accelerate when bouncing in shock waves as they move outside the solar system. Voyager 1 is the object manufactured by humans that is farther from earth and that has been going into the interstellar space more time. On March 24, NASA will also turn off the instrument that measures low -energy loaded particles in the Voyager 2. These movements seek to reduce the energy consumption of the probes, which depend on a radioisotope generator whose plutonium is running out. Both lose about 4 watts of power every year. There are hardly any operational instruments. NASA has been turning off the functions of the Voyager to prolong your useful life. Of the 10 scientific instruments Originals, only three will continue to function in each of the twin probes, one of them for just a few months: The magnetometer: measures the strength and direction of the magnetic field in the confines of the solar system, helping to understand how the magnetic field of the sun and the magnetic field of interstellar space interact The plasma wave subsystem: detects electromagnetic and plasma waves, providing information on the density and plasma temperature in interstellar space In the Voyager 1, the instrument of low -energy loaded particles, which NASA plans to also deactivate at the end of 2025. In the Voyager 2, the cosmic rays subsystem, which will remain operational until 2026 A growing repair history. In May 2024, after six months without receiving legible scientific data due to the degradation of the internal memory of Voyager 1, NASA achieved restore information through a complex (And almost heroic) Software update. It had already passed in 2010 with Voyager 2, but on that occasion It was solved With a restart. Not only memory is failing. In September 2024, engineers had to light secondary propellants of the Voyager 1, inactive for decades, to correct the orientation of the probe due to an obstruction of its main engines, also the result of its longevity. The procedure implied careful temporal heating of inactive engines, but was successful and allowed to continue with the mission. NASA expects them to reach 2030. Suzanne Dodd, head of the Voyager project, said in a statement that turning off instruments is a crucial step to avoid the “premature” purpose of the mission. Thanks to these adjustments, both ships could continue to send scientific information at least until the 2030s, although with a progressive reduction of their abilities. As for the “premature”: the Voyager have widely overcome their original mission, whose initial plan was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Thanks to excellence in their engineering and these constant adjustments, the ships have continued to work beyond what is expected, revealing unique information about interstellar space and heliopause, the region where the solar wind loses its influence. Images | POT In Xataka | The rescue of Voyager 1 has begun. With 8 kb of memory, a programming language of 1957 and an unimportant LAG

Spacex has launched 8,000 Starlink satellites in five years, but they are not enough. And we are beginning to understand why

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Starlink satellite Internet service is the golden egg chicken that is helping Finance the Starship program and other ambitious Spacex projects. But for it to work, Spacex cannot stop launching satellites. Starlink is a commercial success. Spacex announced Friday That Starlink had exceeded 5 million customers, two more than he had a year ago. The satellite Internet service is now available in 125 countries, and has also been integrated into more and more aircraft, ships and cruises. With the deployment of the first Direct To Cell constellation, satellites that in addition to the usual connections include cell connectivity, Starlink has also started working as a service for telephone operators. T-Mobile already offers in the United States The option of never running out of coverage. A sum and follows for the Golden Eggs of Spacex. Spacex numbers. According to a Payload reportSpacex invoiced $ 13,1 billion in 2024, 8,200 million of which came from Starlink. It is almost double what Starlink had entered the previous year. More difficult to calculate is how much it costs Spacex to put the satellites into orbit. We know that Starlink is a profitable businessbut we do not know the internal cost of launching a Falcon 9 rocket full of satellites. We know that it is much less than other rockets cost, because their first stage is able to land and take off at least 26 times; But not how much. We have, yes, a starting point. Elon Musk said a few years ago in an interview they aspired to A cost of 15 million dollars by launch. Taking into account that Spacex launched 134 Falcon 9 rockets last year, and that 96 were Starlink missions, at least 1,440 million dollars of Starlink’s revenues were used to cover the launch expenses of the satellites, to which the manufacturing costs, jobs, etc. The elephant in the room. In total, Spacex has launched more than 8,000 Starlink satellites, of which 6,000 are still active. The others no longer work or have burned in the atmosphere. Except for failure (such as the geomagnetic storm that caught a Starlink lot), satellites have a five -year -old useful life. The elephant in the room is that this useful life depends mainly on a physical appearance: satellites unfold in the low terrestrial orbit and reduce their height due to the effect of orbital decay, until disintegrating by friction with the atmosphere. Spacex cannot stop launching satellites. And you have to do it at an even greater pace to continue adding customers, while replenishing the satellites that are resenting. 100 reentrades in a month. Five years have passed since Spacex began to regularly launch Starlink satellites, and the effects are being noticed. According to an analysis by astrophysician Jonathan McDowell, At least one Starlink satellite He resents in the atmosphere every day, but January beat the record with 120 resentments. Many occur during the day, so they are not visible. Those that occur during the night are often a show of fleeting stars produced by the metals that vaporize In the atmosphere. The economic and environmental implications of all this are about to see, because Spacex is the only company that usually reuses its rockets and, therefore, the first to build a satellite constellation as large as Starlink. Perhaps the entry into Starship service changes the equation, but the order of the factors is clear: Starlink and the constellations that arrive later are condemned to eternally replenish the satellites that come out for those who enter. Image | Spacex, that In Xataka | Now any US smartphone can be connected for free to Starlink satellites. From July it will have a price

The seven years of Android updates begin (finally) to be a standard

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The problem with Android updates is an endemic evil that has been affecting this operating system since its inception. Without being solved, there are brands that gradually remedy. And the last to join is honor: the manufacturer raises the bar to the seven guaranteed years of key Android updates. The first to receive them will be the Magic7 Pro Honor. It is not that Android evolves in excess year after year, most of the changes focus on security, privacy and communication improvements between hardware, software and user. Although yes, although it does not change in excess, there is no doubt that we all want our phones to be updated. The longer the better, especially when the manufacturer’s layer ends up overlapping Android’s own. Presentation of the Honor Alpha Plan with seven years of Android and Security Updates Seven years is the top. At least for the moment: From Google itselfthe company that develops the operating system, to honor, the most recent brand in Make the determination to keep your devices more life. Samsung was one of those who opened the ban: four years of Android updates in the Samsung Galaxy S21 And seven years from the Samsung Galaxy S24 From now on. In addition, the number of key updates is equated with that of security patches, an equally important software for devices, since it solves critical errors that allow attacks against devices. With the Honor Alpha Plan, a strategy presented by the company within the framework of the MWC and that foresees a remarkable investment in software, artificial intelligence and connected devices, Honor has taken the step expanding to the extreme the Android updates of its smartphones. At the moment the confirmation comes for a single model, although the most logical thing is that it extends to others equally important in its catalog, such as the folding Honor Magic V3. It is great news and a good first step that should extend. Security update at a Samsung Galaxy Updates yes, but with priority to the high range. While it is logical that it is the best mobile phones that receive more attention from the manufacturers, thereby offering greater value to their customers, that the guarantee of system updates remains in the most expensive mobiles leaves out most of the volume of users. After all, the mobiles that are most sold are usually the cheapest and those who have the most risk of attacks. The Android update guarantee is never global: brands offer more years only to the most modern and powerful of their catalog Samsung is extending its update policy also to its Galaxy A range, even to the Mobiles like the new Samsung Galaxy A56 They offer six years of Android versions, security patches and One UIthe same happens with the most economical Samsung Galaxy M16 5g. Android updates Security updates honor Up to 7 years Up to 7 years Samsung Up to 7 years Up to 7 years Google Up to 7 years Up to 7 years Apple 5-6 years (on all iPhone) 5-6 years (on all iPhone) Motorola Up to 5 years Up to 5 years Xiaomi Up to 4 years Up to 5 years OnePlus Up to 4 years Up to 5 years Oppo Up to 4 years Up to 5 years Realme Up to 3 years Up to 4 years Democratizing Android updates implies improving user experience, their safety, offers greater privacy and, also, transfers the improvements of the new models to which they have been in the market for a while. Having a long -term guarantee is good for those who buy a phone, but also for those who sell it. The satisfaction and commitment to the brand are gold. That a mobile is not updated does not imply that stop workingbut it makes it much more vulnerable. And it transmits lack of interest to the product and to whoever buys it: how honor adds to commitment to seven years is excellent news. Now it only remains that the guarantee extends to the rest of the catalog apart from the honor Magic7 Pro. Cover image | Ricardo Aguilar In Xataka | Hyperos 2 updates calendar by 2025: what mobiles of Xiaomi and Redmi update and when

8,000 years ago a group of farmers crossed the Aegean Sea. Its trail can still be seen in the DNA in Media Europe

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A little before 7,000 before Christ, the western hunters-gatherers and the center of the Anatolia They started cultivating. It seems likely and unimportant. But that little change ended up causing a deep social, economic and demographic reorganization of the entire European continent. And it is not an exaggeration. It was so strong that even today we can see her on the maps. PH2TER What are we talking about? Between 6,000 and 4,000 before Christ, those Neolithic Farmers of Anatolia They began to move beyond the Aegean And, progressively, they took agriculture to Europe and North Africa. They thus became the ancestral genetic component of this whole area of ​​the world. Subsequently, the arrival of the shepherds of the western steppe (the known as Yamnaya culture) He finished configuring the basic genetics of the historical peoples of Europe, but the strength of the legacy of the anatolian farmers remained very strong. Above all, in the south of the continent. How can this know? Taking into account that the databases are even more incomplete than we would like and, therefore, there is always enough speculative content, a map can be built by comparing historical and contemporary samples. On the map, you can see a spectrum in which blue represents populations with greater “genetic distance“With the neolithic anatolic farmers and the red the slightest distance. And, to tell the truth, it has enough surprises. Detlef Gronenborn, Barbara Horejs, Börner, Obe Who is who (genetically speaking)? As usually explained, in the European countries of the Mediterranean there is a greater genetic closeness with the first European farmers. Specifically, Greece and Italy are the sites with the greatest closeness. Sardinia, of which we already knew that They were a very unique genetic populationit seems that the palm is taken. As a curiosity, it seems that current anatolia is not so great. Paleogenetics for beginners. All this is still a curiosity of an amateur forum (one that presumably has serious reliability problems as we approach detail). However, it is a good example of the enormous depth that genetic studies give us to understand the intrahistory of humanity. As we said Half decade ago“Paleogenetic techniques are like Galileo’s telescope: they let us see where we could not until now, but we need to accumulate evidence, works and studies to know what is true and what is a mirage.” As happened with carbon-14 techniques (it took almost 40 years to be reliable to one hundred percent), we are about to see how the past changes. Image | PH2TER | In Xataka | The past of the future: how science changes (constantly) our way of seeing dinosaurs and the past in general

China has discovered a source of energy so massive that potentially lasts 60,000 years. The bad news: is Torio

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China sits on a virtually unlimited energy reserve. Only the Bayan Obo mine, in the Interior Mongolia region, could contain about 1 million tons of Torio, sufficient to meet the country’s energy needs for 60,000 years. In interior Mongolia. While the world, with China at the head, looks for alternatives to fossil fuels to complement the intermittent supply of renewables, the answer could be resting under our feet. More specifically, under the ground of Interior Mongolia, the Autonomous Region of China that limits the north with Mongolia. According to South China Morning Posta newly declassified 2020 study has revealed that Bayan Obo’s site could contain enough Torio to supply all the energy needs of China for millennia. Virtually unlimited. Only five years of mining waste in the largest field of rare earths in Interior Mongolia contain both Torio and the demand for US homes for the next thousand years, according to the study of China Geological Review magazine that CMP quotes. If it is exploited to the fullest, Bayan Obo’s mining complex could produce 1 million tons of thorium. We would be talking about enough production to supply China for 60,000 years, the article suggests. Context. The thorium is a radioactive element that is estimated between three and four times more abundant than uranium in the earth’s crust. Until recently, the official figures placed the Chinese reserves around 100,000-300,000 tons, in themselves of the largest in the world. With a potential of 1 million tons, Bayan Obo would go from being the largest rare land mine on a virtually unlimited Torio source. Some geologists described the finding as a change of play that would give China the worldwide control of the production of the material. Not so fast. In most cases, the thorium is obtained as a byproduct in rare earth processing (specifically, monacite) or uranium mining and phosphates. China is already the main producer of rare earths, and therefore manages large amounts of minerals containing Torio. Why don’t you exploit it commercially on a large scale? Because the thorium is a radioactive residue of delicate management. Its extraction, either by acid or alkaline digestion of Monacita, or as a recovery of mining tails, complicates waste management with the use of alkaline acids or metals that generate toxic and radioactive wastewater. Perspectives These challenges are not insurmountable, but require a regulatory framework and an important investment for the thorium to be competitive in front of Uranium in the Obtaining safe nuclear energy. And especially in front of renewable sources, which have been cheaper thanks to the exponential growth of the Chinese supply chain. However, the thorium can end up being key to reducing fossil fuel dependence (after all, renewables need batteries to offer continuous supply), and China already has Torio reactor testslike the TMSR-LF1 of 2 MW and its future scaled 10 MW version that could be ready in 2030. If the results are positive, China could end up making the jump to the first 100 MW Torio nuclear power plants. Image | Google In Xataka | The reactors of molten salts and Torio are the nuclear response to solve our energy future (and silence criticism) In Xataka | The moment of the thorium: what if we do not have to wait for the merger to have much more safer nuclear energy?

After 80 years of peace, the European Union has a future plan for the continent: a new era of the "rearmament"

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Europe lives a convulsive geopolitical situation. For various factors, but aggravated after Ukraine invasion by Russia. There are too many open challenges: economic pressures, commercial and technological confrontation due to the Commercial War with China (who has caught electric car already ASML in between), disunity between member states and the growing tensions with the United States. All this has been intensified in recent weeks and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is clear about the way: rearm Europe. To a scrambled river … For his second term as president of the United States, Donald Trump has arrived with everything. In issues related to Europe, the billionaire has ruled on Tariffs to European productsbut has also shown interest in get with Greenland already Ukraine War. That idea of ​​getting with Greenland caused a Danish response movement so that The country will buy California On the other hand, the intention to achieve peace in Ukraine is not an altruistic movement. An objective is to stop investing in security in foreign countries. Another, power Control rare earth deposits. The reports of your presence in Ukrainian soil They seem to be outdatedbut that does not stop the ambitions of a Trump that starred last weekend A curious act with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski. In Xataka The size of the armies of the main powers, summarized in this interesting graphic The gresca. On February 28 we witnessed an unusual event: a encounter between Zelenski, Trump and JD Vance, vice president of the United States. If something was clear after the heated debate Television in Prime Time is that both leaders have a total lack of tune (before it already declared that it was difficult to reach an agreement with Zelenski and Lo Lo called “dictator”). But perhaps it is more than a lack of understanding among the leaders of two countries. You cannot count on the US. The reason is that, after the event, Europe has closed rows Around Ukraine. Different European leaders have shown support to the Ukrainian leader, with quick responses such as Pedro Sánchez and Feijóo supporting the European country. The American response has not taken long to arrive. A few hours ago, Donald Trump ordered paralyze military aid to Ukraine as a punishment for Friday’s encounter. “Rearm Europe“. The anger among the leaders, who looked like an enclosure in the White House, promoted a feeling in networks among European users: you cannot count on the United States, and Europe has to act to deal with external threats. And it is not a popular runrún, but something that, from the European Commission itself, has just supported. President Ursula von der Leyen has signed a release urging member states to join the European Rearme Plan: Rearm Europe. In it, it begins by expressing two important issues: that Europe is threatened in a “real and tangible” and that it must “assume a greater responsibility for its own security.” The Ukraine War is that of drones … and robots Beyond Ukraine. After different meetings in recent weeks, the community has concluded that “massively increase defense spending”. The president refers to the situation in Ukraine and states that this measure must be taken with “immediate urgency” to support the European country, but must also be addressed to fulfill a “long -term need to assume much greater responsibility for our own security.” The plan. Thus, he has sent a letter to European leaders to raise this issue before the European Council to be held this Thursday. In it, and at the meeting, the option of using “all financial mechanisms will be discussed at reach to help member states quickly and significantly increase their expenses in defense capacities.” The intention of Von der Leyen is that it is immediate and urgent, but that it is formalized throughout this decade. In Xataka Ukraine has registered the first combined offensive of history without humans: drones and robots against Russian troops Show me the money. Of course, this type of movements require considerable investment. United States, without going any further, will invest 850,000 million dollars in defense -40% of global military spending. The way Europe would have to catch up, according to the president, is: Release the use of public funds in defense nationwide, allowing member states to have fiscal margin to be able to invest without activating the excessive deficit procedure. According to the statement, if the states increased their defense expenditure by 1.5% of the average GDP, a fiscal margin of almost 650,000 million euros would be generated in four years. Activate an instrument that provides loans of up to 150,000 million euros to invest in defense. Under the mantra “spend better and spend together”, von der Leyen clarifies that investment in air defense, antimiles, artillery systems, missiles, ammunition, cybersecurity, military mobility and something that the war of Ukraine has brought to the table should be reinforced: the war with drones and the defense against those drones. Redirect funds to investments related to incentive defense for Member States to decide, if they wish, use cohesion policy programs to increase defense spending. Finally, the option of obtaining funds through the European Investment Bank, but also with measures to mobilize private capital. {“Videid”: “X8WLH9Q”, “Autoplay”: False, “Title”: “United States vs. China: The chips war”, “Tag”: “Webedia-prod”, “Duration”: “1611”} NATO message. Among all the noise generated these days, it has survived the idea that United States abandons the United Nations Organization. The North American country is one of those who best fulfill their obligations In this sense and, recently, voices that cry out that the country should leave NATO have been raised. Elon Musk, part of Trump’s government, been One of them. The agreements stipulate that, if someone attacks an NATO country, the rest must immediately mobilize, but the latest movements of the United States and comments such as that of which They will not be foreverThey don’t help. In the statement, von der Leyen comments that the plan Rearm Europe “It could mobilize about 800,000 million … Read more

Spacex aborted the rocket takeoff for the first time from flight 1, two years ago

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Spacex has aborted the eighth launch of Starship when there was half a minute for takeoff. Although it is a rocket in tests, this type of last minute cancellation had only happened once. A two -year run. The last time Spacex aborted the launch of a starship loaded with propelants was in April 2023. A frozen valve in Booster 7 frustrated the first attempt to launch the rocket. Almost two years have passed and now both Booster 15 and Starship 34 have given problems. The company stopped the countdown to take off of flight 8 while checking both stages of the rocket. For a moment, the clock worked again and it seemed that Spacex had solved all the setbacks, but seconds later it ended up aborting the takeoff. “Too many unknowns.” As usual, Elon Musk has been the first to offer details of what was happening between scenes. “Too many question signs around this flight”, wrote. “We were 20 bars below the required pressure level.” Musk mentioned the “Ground Spin Start Pressure”, which is the necessary pressure in the gas that is injected into engines so that the turbine turbine turns quickly enough to generate complete combustion and turn on. The next attempt. “The Starship team is determining the next best opportunity available to fly,” Spacex published After the interruptus launch. It will need to disapprove both stages of the rocket and examine them, Musk said, so the company will take one to two days to try again. In 2023, the company took 48 hours to have its facilities for a second attempt. 4,900 tons of propellants. That is the monstrous amount of methane and liquid oxygen that fits in a starship. Spacex will have to replenish the propellants in their tanks farm for a new launch attempt, which normally implies a truck parade towards the platform. First Starship from Florida in 2025. Although there has been no launch, Spacex has had time to announce a new Starships factory at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Gigabay will have 24 work areas and cranes of 400 tons larger than Starbase. It is expected to be operational in 2026. While building these new facilities, Spacex will transport Texas Starships to Florida and wait for the first launch of the rocket from Florida in 2025, provided that the Government approves its environmental review.

The government has been at war against sugar for years. Now he wants to ban the sale of sugary drinks in schools

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In recent years we have seen different administrations in many different geographical areas take measures to limit the consumption of sugary drinks and other similar products, such as industrial pastries and energy drinks. The last one has come from the hand of the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030. New regulations on the horizon. The Ministry of Consumer Ultimate vending and coffee shops in schools and institutes, As he has advanced The country. These products include industrial pastries, refreshing drinks, and energy drinks, products with more than five grams of sugar per packaged portion. The measure would also affect the advertising that can be shown in these machines; as well as the location of these, which would be out of access to students in early and primary education. More than sugar. The draft decree raises restrictions based on other criteria beyond the sugar content of the products. The measure contemplates, for example, limiting the kiloacalories by packaged portion up to a maximum of 200. This would be accompanied by an additional limit: no more than 35% They could proceed with fat. In addition, saturated fats may not provide more than 10% of the calories of the product. The salt content of the products would also be limited so that a 200 kcal portion could have a maximum of 0.5 grams of salt or the equivalent of 0.2 grams of sodium. Touring ahead. The future regulations still have to go through the State Council and the Council of Ministers before approval, which implies that the details may vary before entry into force. One more on the list. The last Biannual Aladino study, focused precisely on the Spanish child population was made in 2023. Although it observed a decrease in excess weight, overweight and obesity with respect to the 2019 report, the authors indicated that values ​​were maintained. Administrations have been serious in the fight against obesity, especially childhood obesity. Sugary drinks have been a usual target in this regard. A few years ago, for example, the United Kingdom introduced a “sugar tax” that affected this type of drinks. The resluent was a success according to a study published last year. In our closest environment the latest legislative changes in this direction have occurred at the regional level. In 2023, Galicia put on the table a proposal to limit the consumption of energy drinks among minors. These drinks, sometimes sugary represent an additional problem related to their high content in caffeine. In Xataka | We already know what energy drinks cost your rest. They are bad news for your dream Image | Kanishka Burnwal

We have been trying to reinvent the wheel for years. It turns out that it was as simple as replacing it with pilates balls

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I have always seemed curious the saying “We are not going to reinvent the wheel.” It is used when trying to develop a solution from scratch instead of taking advantage of an already proven and works well. And I say it seems curious because We have reinvented the wheel On many occasions, and we continue to do so. Two examples are wheels without air And, above all, the solutions for vehicles operating on land like Mars. Although circulars, its technology and design have nothing to do with the wheels we use daily. And, okay, I accept that, being circular, we are really changing the materials, not reinventing the object. But what if instead of making circular wheels … we made them spherical? Because that is precisely what the engineer and youtuber James Bruton has built: some omnidirectional wheels that solve current problems They have motorcycles and that would also be very interesting if they apply to vehicles such as cars and trucks. Let’s welcome the wheel II To reinvent the wheel, the system should not be just an improved version of the original. As I commented, the Antipinhazos wheels They are not a completely reinvention, but a technological improvement. What Bruton has achieved could be described as a reinvention (although he has side more than one attempt). The reason? In its motorcycle prototype of the future, we not only have the two balls that make contact with the ground, but a system of three rotary mechanisms for each wheel that are really applying the necessary force to move the balls and, therefore, the vehicle. More than the spheres, the key to the peculiar movement of this vehicle are systems that rotate in opposite directions and all the time balance each other to achieve movement. Each of these mechanisms is driven by an electric motor that transfers the power, but also introduced a self -evaluated system similar to that of a Segway. In this way, it is not necessary to rely on the floor with the legs when the vehicle stops, and it is not necessary to maintain the balance in a “manual” way. Its advantages? You can go back without boosting with your legs. It has lateral displacement. You can make diagonals and turn on your axis. For a parking lot, this is great. In the video it is very interesting to see that the noise it makes is minimal, that it reaches some speed and that the mechanisms that rotate the balls are working all the time to give speed to the vehicle and to maintain balance. Imperfect, but with potential Now, it is not perfect. In the video we can see that the youtuber has trouble going straight and There seems to be a quite pronounced difficulty curve both to go forward and to take a curve. In a road situation, it would be something really dangerous because, in addition, we do not have a conventional handlebar, but a bar that remains fixed and controls rotating the handle. There is also a time when it accelerates more of the account and the balls are shot. Wow, something like that would need your own driver’s license if applied to the real world, but if the problems were solved, it is a very interesting system for motorcycles due to automatic balance. For cars and trucks it would not be a bad idea either, since they could park much more simplely. Seeing this invention, the Audi of the movie ‘I, robot’ that has similar wheels and It was a real prototype. Also the Byd video parking in parallel Thanks to nailing the front wheels and making the rear turn slowly to “skid” until the car is aligned in the parking lot. Will we adopt wheel one day like these? Whatever happens, the truth is that it is interesting how we continue to find new ways to improve something that has implanted so many years. Images | James Bruton In Xataka | Bridgestone has set out to literally reinvent the wheel (and is already testing it in electric cars)

For thousands of years, Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens tried to mate insistently. Genetics had another idea

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In 1856, while they worked in A limestone quarry Near Düsseldorf, two Italian workers found a basin full of bones. They thought they were the remains of a bear and approached a teacher of a nearby city, known for being a bone collector. They had no idea what they were about to provoke. The antecedent. When he saw the bones, Johann C. Fuhlrott He realized that they were not from a bear, he took the bones to the University of Bonn and, next to Hermann Schaaffhausethey communicated the finding to the world. No one took them very seriously. It was said that it was a Russian cosaco with rickets that persecuted Napoleon for Europe. Until almost a decade later, the Irish geologist William King He reached a revolutionary conclusion: we had not always been alone. But why are we now? With the discovery of Homo Neanderthalensis They opened many unknownsbut there is one that has been chasing us for almost 200 years: why did they disappear? How is it possible that such an old, so robust species, that had survived so many things disappeared without more? Why were we left alone? To all these years, scientists have given numerous hypotheses and theories. From Prehistoric genocides to A slow and agonized eclipse. However, Ludovic Slimak, researcher at the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomic of Touluse and one of the greatest international experts in Neanderthals, You have another idea. The forms of love (and what is not love). For Slimak, if we apply the knowledge of cultural anthropology to what Paleogenetics is telling us, the image is quite different. And, as in all traditional societies in which strong identities coexist, it looks like the different human communities exchanged women. From our perspective, mere expression is already a savage. But from the perspective of anthropology, those “family crossing” processes were basic to ensure stable alliances between different communities. And that, if we take into account that we are loads of DNA Neanderthal, it seems to be what happened. However, As Slimak points outthat “fusion” of lineages never came to occur. The question is why. A story (genetically) impossible. We know that Neanderthals and Sapiens crossed and They had offspring. But we also know that a significant part of it were sterile people unable to reproduce. That is, although the communities tried to lock these relationships and alliances based on miscegenation, the thing did not work. Searching. It’s curious, Slimak said in An interview for Livesciencethat “when you are looking for old DNA (40,000 to 45,000 years ago) all these sapiens early have recent DNA, and That is why we have (DNA Neanderthal) today. But when you arrive and try to extract DNA from the last Neanderthals, contemporaries of these first sapienslet’s say between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago there is not a single Neanderthal with DNA sapiens“ Curious and very possibly one of the keys that explain because the most numerically and genetically diverse population of Sapiens won the departure to the Neanderthals. That is, why we were alone. Image | SUCHOSCH In Xataka | If the question is “when the Neanderthals and the Sapiens were crossed,” we now have the answer: about 47,000 years ago In Xataka | The “ghost species” with which our ancestors were settled and disappeared without (almost) leave a trace *An earlier version of this article was published in February 2024

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