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April 21, 2026

Fondos Next Generation Europa: una oportunidad de oro para consolidar el sector industrial en España

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Gabriel Lozano Reina, Profesor del Departamento de Organización de Empresas y Finanzas, Universidad de Murcia

Un cartel anuncia los fondos Next Generation de la UE en la sede de la Comisión Europea en Bruselas. Artem Avetisyan/Shutterstock

Cuando la Unión Europea aprobó los fondos Next Generation EU (NGEU), en 2020, muchos los interpretaron como una respuesta excepcional a la crisis provocada por la pandemia. Sin embargo, su alcance ha ido mucho más allá de una política de emergencia. En realidad, los NGEU representan el mayor experimento de política industrial coordinada en Europa en décadas, orientada a transformar las economías nacionales a largo plazo.

Su objetivo no es solo recuperar lo perdido, sino redefinir el modelo productivo europeo, priorizando la transición ecológica, la digitalización y la autonomía estratégica. España se ha convertido en uno de los principales laboratorios de esta nueva estrategia, como pone de manifiesto nuestro reciente estudio, publicado en la revista Structural Change and Economic Dynamics.

De la recuperación a la transformación productiva

España canaliza los fondos NGEU a través del Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia. Su diseño deja claro que no se trata de gastar rápido sino de orientar la inversión hacia sectores considerados clave para la competitividad futura.

Una parte sustancial de los recursos se dirige a la industria, con especial énfasis en la energía, la movilidad sostenible, la digitalización de procesos productivos y la reducción de emisiones. A diferencia de crisis anteriores, en las que la política económica se centró sobre todo en estimular la demanda, el enfoque actual busca mejorar la estructura productiva.

Los sectores vinculados a la energía concentran una proporción muy elevada de los fondos. Actividades como el hidrógeno verde, las energías renovables, la electrificación del transporte o la descarbonización industrial absorben una parte sustancial de los recursos movilizados. Este patrón no es casual: la transición energética se ha convertido en uno de los ejes centrales de la nueva política industrial europea, tanto por razones climáticas como por su impacto sobre la competitividad y la seguridad económica.

En este contexto destacan los Proyectos Estratégicos para la Recuperación y Transformación Económica (PERTE), grandes iniciativas que reúnen a empresas, administraciones públicas y centros tecnológicos en torno a objetivos concretos. Proyectos ligados al vehículo eléctrico, al hidrógeno renovable o a los semiconductores buscan acelerar cambios estructurales en sectores estratégicos.

La lógica subyacente de estos proyectos es clara: el Estado deja de limitarse a corregir fallos de mercado y pasa a orientar la inversión hacia objetivos concretos, como la descarbonización o la autonomía tecnológica.

Un despliegue territorial desigual

Nuestro estudio pone de manifiesto que la ejecución de los fondos NGEU no es homogénea entre comunidades autónomas. Algunas regiones han logrado poner en marcha convocatorias y resolver proyectos con mayor rapidez mientras que otras muestran retrasos persistentes entre los fondos anunciados y los efectivamente ejecutados.

Comunidades como Aragón, Castilla-La Mancha o el País Vasco presentan tasas de resolución claramente superiores a la media. A modo de ejemplo, en Aragón destacan, por ejemplo, la gigafactoría de baterías de Stellantis, el proyecto de amoníaco verde Armonia Green para fertilizantes y la planta de Calvera Hydrogen para infraestructuras de hidrógeno. En Castilla-La Mancha sobresalen iniciativas como las líneas de cargadores eléctricos de Mahle, un gran hub de hidrógeno renovable para fertilizantes y los sistemas de hidrógeno para aeronaves solares desarrollados por Skydweller. En el País Vasco, la reorientación industrial se apoya en proyectos como la electrificación total de la planta de Mercedes-Benz, la planta de baterías de estado sólido de Basquevolt y grandes electrolizadores para hidrógeno verde y e-fuels.

En cambio, Cataluña, a pesar de concentrar uno de los mayores volúmenes absolutos de fondos concedidos, presenta tasas de ejecución sensiblemente más bajas. Este resultado no responde a la ausencia de proyectos estratégicos –como la electrificación de la plataforma industrial de SEAT, la planta de refinado de metales para baterías de BASF o los proyectos de hidrógeno industrial y eólica marina flotante asociados al clúster PLEMCAT–, sino que puede estar debido a la mayor complejidad administrativa derivada de un elevado número de iniciativas, a una estructura empresarial más fragmentada y a un mayor peso de proyectos intensivos en I+D, cuyos procesos de evaluación y ejecución son más prolongados.

Estas diferencias sugieren que la capacidad de ejecutar los fondos depende no solo del volumen asignado o del tejido productivo existente, sino también del tipo de proyectos promovidos, su grado de madurez y la capacidad administrativa para gestionarlos.

Distribución regional y tasas de resolución de los fondos Next Generation EU (en millones de euros)
Fuente: elaboración propia

Desigualdad entre empresas

Algo similar ocurre a nivel empresarial. Aunque las pymes tienen un alto grado de participación, los proyectos de mayor volumen económico se concentran en empresas grandes y capital-intensivas (que requieren de inversiones muy altas en maquinaria, fábricas e infraestructura), especialmente en sectores energéticos. Mientras la industria manufacturera agrupa a la mayoría de las empresas beneficiarias, actividades como la electricidad y el suministro energético, con un número reducido de compañías, concentran una parte muy significativa del volumen total de ayudas.

Distribución en España de los fondos Next Generation EU por tipo de beneficiario.
Fuente: elaboración propia

Territorialmente, Madrid destaca por concentrar una proporción muy elevada del importe total concedido a pesar de no ser la comunidad con mayor número de beneficiarios. En cambio, regiones como Cataluña o la Comunidad Valenciana presentan importes medios por empresa sensiblemente más bajos, lo que puede ser reflejo de una base productiva más fragmentada.

Una política contracíclica

Estos fondos europeos no se han dirigido exclusivamente a las empresas más rentables. En muchos casos, los recursos han llegado a compañías que sufrieron un mayor deterioro financiero durante la pandemia. Esto revela una lógica claramente contracíclica: sostener la inversión y evitar que la crisis frene procesos de modernización necesarios para el futuro.

Además, los primeros datos apuntan a mejoras posteriores en indicadores como productividad, rentabilidad y tamaño empresarial. Esto hace pensar que los fondos están reforzando la capacidad productiva de parte del tejido industrial. Sin embargo, la transformación estructural no es automática. Depende de que los proyectos generen aprendizaje, encadenamientos productivos y efectos de arrastre, y de que las administraciones sean capaces de evaluar resultados y corregir desviaciones.

Qué preocupa ahora

La experiencia acumulada apunta a una conclusión clara: el éxito de los fondos NGEU no depende solo del volumen de recursos movilizados, sino de cómo se gestionan y con qué criterios se asignan. Dicho de otro modo: si el volumen de recursos es importante, la forma de gestionarlos es decisiva.

Desde una perspectiva de política pública, el reto es doble:

Reforzar la capacidad administrativa (con recursos humanos suficientes, personal cualificado y sistemas de información eficaces), especialmente en aquellas comunidades con mayores dificultades para diseñar, gestionar y ejecutar proyectos complejos. Sin este refuerzo, se mantiene el riesgo de que haya cuellos de botella en el aprovechamiento pleno de los fondos y las desigualdades territoriales se hagan más profundas.
Mejorar el acceso de las pymes a las áreas más estratégicas no solo por el número de proyectos, sino también por su volumen y calidad. Esto exige simplificar los procedimientos, apoyar la cooperación empresarial y fortalecer los mecanismos de acompañamiento técnico.

Afianzar la política industrial española

Una política industrial orientada a objetivos solo será sostenible si incorpora evaluación, aprendizaje y corrección. Los fondos NGEU ofrecen una oportunidad histórica para modernizar la economía española, pero su legado dependerá de que se generen capacidades productivas duraderas y no se limiten a una expansión temporal de la inversión.

Habrá que ver si con estos recursos España es capaz de articular una política industrial de largo plazo, que permita construir una industria más competitiva, sostenible y territorialmente equilibrada, en un contexto geopolítico y geoeconómico cada vez más complejo e incierto.

Gabriel Lozano Reina recibe fondos de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (proyecto PID2024-159036NA-I00) y de la Fundación Cajamurcia.

Gregorio Sánchez Marín recibe fondos de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Proyecto PID2024-159036NA-I00).

J. Samuel Baixauli recibe fondos de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación (proyecto PID2024-159036NA-I00) y de la Fundación Cajamurcia.

– ref. Fondos Next Generation Europa: una oportunidad de oro para consolidar el sector industrial en España – https://theconversation.com/fondos-next-generation-europa-una-oportunidad-de-oro-para-consolidar-el-sector-industrial-en-espana-273284

April 21, 2026

¿Por qué solo escuchamos a quien nos da la razón? El sesgo de confirmación tiene la respuesta

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Francisco Vicente Conesa, Profesor en Psicología, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha

Seguro que usted conoce –en su familia o grupo de amigos– a alguien que tiene una ideología muy opuesta a la suya. Piénselo un momento… ¿Cree que la culpa de que piense así es de que siempre consume los mismos medios de comunicación? ¿Puede que solo haga caso a información que concuerde con sus propias creencias? ¿Se enfada cuando le llevan la contraria?

Si ha respondido que sí a estas preguntas, es probable que dicha persona esté siendo víctima del sesgo de confirmación. Sin embargo, y aunque le pueda sorprender, tengo una mala noticia: usted también lo es.

El sesgo de confirmación es una tendencia a buscar, interpretar y recordar prioritariamente información que concuerda con nuestras creencias previas.

Los primeros estudios sobre el tema los llevó a cabo en los años 60 del siglo pasado el psicólogo cognitivo Peter Wason. Dichos estudios mostraron que, al enfrentarse al reto de comprobar la veracidad de una hipótesis, las personas tienden a seleccionar información que confirme su creencia inicial en lugar de intentar refutarla, lo que puede llevar a errores eventuales de razonamiento.

Esto, más que tratarse de un error puntual, se muestra en el ser humano como una especie de defecto de fábrica. Así que no tiene por qué sentirse mal: hasta profesionales entrenados para ser objetivos (como científicos y médicos) caen sistemáticamente este sesgo. Como ve, no es un problema de inteligencia, sino un error profundamente humano.

Las personas razonables también caen

Sin embargo, es muy tentador pensar que usted o yo, como personas razonables, no caemos en estos errores. Craso error. Si piensa que usted está exento de ser víctima de este sesgo, quizás debería plantearse los siguientes puntos:

Busca siempre la información en fuentes similares. Aunque el sesgo de confirmación ha sido entendido como un proceso que incluye búsqueda de información, procesamiento de dicha información y recuerdo de la información procesada, reciente evidencia apunta a la búsqueda de información como el elemento clave para identificar el sesgo. Es decir, el sesgo no solo se encuentra en el cómo pensamos, sino dónde decidimos consultar en primer lugar y a qué fuente acudimos para hacerlo.

Normalmente, acudimos primero a fuentes que confirman nuestras evidencias y evitamos aquellas que las cuestionan. ¿Acaso no confía siempre en los mismos medios de comunicación y descarta otros de forma automática?
Evalúa de forma diferente la información según encaje con sus creencias. El sesgo de información no afecta solo a lo que buscamos, sino a cómo evaluamos la información que encontramos. La evidencia muestra que tendemos a aceptar con mucha más facilidad la información que encaja con nuestras creencias, mientras que sometemos a un escrutinio mucho más exhaustivo aquella información que nos contradice. En la práctica, lo que coincide con usted le parece razonable rápidamente, mientras que lo que no, le parece débil o poco fiable. Este fenómeno se ha descrito como razonamiento motivado: somos mucho más críticos con la información que no encaja con nuestras creencias previas, lo que nos motiva a buscar razones para descartar esa información.
Siente incomodidad emocional cuando se plantean pruebas en contra de sus creencias. Cambiar de opinión no es un proceso estrictamente racional. Un estudio de neuroimagen sobre ideas políticas mostró que las estructuras cerebrales relacionadas con las emociones, especialmente las negativas, se activan cuando se presenta evidencia en contra de nuestras creencias. Es decir, parece que no evaluamos la información solo por lo que nos parece razonable, sino en función de lo que nos hace sentir.

Seguramente merece la pena evaluar detenidamente si rechaza cierta información porque es incorrecta o porque, sencillamente, le incomoda.

¿Es consciente de que es víctima de este sesgo?

Evidencia reciente sugiere que las personas somos menos susceptibles a ser víctimas de este sesgo si somos conscientes de que podemos caer en él. Un estudio con más de 1 400 participantes mostró que aquellos que recibían una breve formación sobre el sesgo de confirmación fueron más capaces de distinguir entre noticias falsas y verdaderas que el grupo de control que no recibió la formación. Dicho de otro modo: algo tan sencillo como saber que podemos estar sesgados ayuda considerablemente a ser más críticos.

Por lo tanto, el objetivo no debería ser aprender a pensar sin sesgos –algo muy difícil de conseguir– sino aprender a identificar cuándo estamos cayendo en estos errores.

Quizás este texto pueda contribuir a ayudar al lector a reconocer las señales que indican que podría estar siendo víctima de este sesgo de razonamiento, es decir, confirmando lo que cree que sabe, en lugar de pensar: ¿y si me estoy equivocando?

Francisco Vicente Conesa no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. ¿Por qué solo escuchamos a quien nos da la razón? El sesgo de confirmación tiene la respuesta – https://theconversation.com/por-que-solo-escuchamos-a-quien-nos-da-la-razon-el-sesgo-de-confirmacion-tiene-la-respuesta-279683

April 21, 2026

Why the US military is stuck using $1 million missiles against Iran’s $20,000 drones

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Aaron Brynildson, Law Instructor, University of Mississippi

A drone is seen during a suspected drone strike targeting an oil warehouse near Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, on April 1, 2026. Gailan Haji/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

It may sound hard to believe, but the almost trillion-dollar U.S. military is struggling to fight cheap drones in its war with Iran.

Iran has built a simple drone, the Shahed, with a motorcycle-type engine, loaded it with explosives and successfully targeted its neighbors’ cities and power plants.

Iran has also hit U.S. military bases with these drones, including an early April 2026 attack on the U.S. Victory Base Complex in Baghdad.

The drones cost between US$20,000 and $50,000 to build. In response, the U.S. military sometimes fires missiles worth more than $1 million to shoot one down.

As a former U.S. Air Force officer and now national security scholar, I believe that math is a problem: The U.S. military for now has a $1 million answer to a $20,000 question. This math tells you almost everything you need to know about one of America’s biggest national security headaches.

And the frustrating part is that the U.S. military watched this happen in Ukraine for years. It knew the threat was coming.

The weapon that changed modern war

The Shahed isn’t impressive because it’s high-tech. It’s impressive because it isn’t.

Inspection of captured Shahed drones has found that many of their parts are made by ordinary commercial companies. That includes processors from a U.S. manufacturer, fuel pumps from a U.K. company and converters from China.

These military components aren’t hard to get. You could find similar parts in factories or farm machinery. That’s exactly what makes the Shahed so tough to deal with.

Russia, which also produces the drone, tolerates losing more than 75% of its Shahed stock because even at those loss rates, it’s winning the math battle against Ukraine. Russia or Iran don’t need every drone to hit its target. They just need to keep sending waves of them until their opponent runs out of expensive missiles to shoot back.

Ukraine, which had no choice but to learn fast, eventually figured out a better answer. Ukraine developed cheap interceptor drones that could slam into Shahed drones before they reached their targets. Each interceptor costs about $1,000 to $2,000, and Ukrainian manufacturers are producing thousands of them per month. That’s better math: a $2,000 interceptor against a $20,000 attacker.

A fragment of a drone rests on the ground. — This undated photograph released by the Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate shows the wreckage of what Kyiv has described as an Iranian Shahed drone downed near Kupiansk, Ukraine.
Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate via AP

Ukraine’s battlefield experience, as a result, has become one of the most valuable resources in the world, with American and allied forces asking Ukrainian drone experts to share their knowledge.

Why can’t the U.S. churn out a solution of its own? Because the U.S. military doesn’t have a technology problem but a bureaucracy problem.

The Pentagon’s three-legged slowdown

The U.S. Department of Defense typically can’t just buy things. It follows a long, complicated process that can take a decade or more to go from “we need something” to “here it is.” That process runs through three separate bureaucratic systems, each of which can cause years of delay.

First, someone must write a formal document, known as a requirement, that explains exactly what they need and why. A military service, such as the Air Force, for example, drafts up a requirement and routes it through an internal service review within only their branch.

Until recently, this service-vetted requirement went through a Pentagon review process, the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System, where all joint services took a look. This process, which the Department of Defense ended in 2025, required approval from military officials.

Even though the joint requirements process was ended, implementation of a new system is far from complete, and the existing culture potentially remains. Under the old requirements process, it took over 800 days to get a requirement approved.

Second, any new program then needs money. This is handled through the planning, programming, budgeting and execution process, a budget cycle designed in 1961. Getting a new program into the budget typically takes more than two years after the requirement is approved, because the military must submit its budget request years in advance. By then, the threat has potentially already moved on.

Third, once a requirement is approved and money allocated, the program then must be developed and built. The average major defense acquisition program now takes almost 12 years from program start just to deliver an initial capability to troops in the field, according to a 2025 Government Accountability Office report.

Add it up and you get a system where the military sees a threat, begs for a solution, argues for money and waits a decade.

Why the system is built this way

The Shahed drone exposed a gap that defense experts have been warning about for years: The U.S. military is very good at building the most advanced, most expensive weapons in the world, but it struggles to build cheap, simple things fast. That is the opposite of what this new kind of warfare demands.

It would be easy, but inaccurate, to blame the military for the decade-long contract process. The real answer is more complicated.

A man in a suit stands next to a drone and speaks to a group of seated people. — House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks next to an Iranian Shahed-136 drone on May 8, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images

The Pentagon’s lengthy process was designed by the Department of Defense and Congress for a reason. Policymakers created the current system during the Cold War to combat excessive and redundant spending by the separate service branches. The system is built with checkpoints, reviews and approvals to make sure taxpayer money isn’t wasted.

Legacy military contractors also benefit from this dysfunctional process and resist change. They have the capital and know-how to wait out the predictable and stable existing contracts, while vying for new ones. These military contractors rarely need to worry about upstart contractors because they know small companies cannot survive waiting for a decade to secure funding for their prototypes.

The problem is that those rules were built for a world where the biggest threat was another superpower’s expensive jets and missiles. It wasn’t built to fight a flying bomb made from tractor parts. This type of threat requires fast innovation from lean companies, the exact companies that struggle in the current budget process.

What’s changing

There are signs of movement. In August 2025, the Pentagon killed its old requirements process entirely and replaced it with a faster, more flexible system.

However, killing the requirements process dealt with only one leg of the three-legged monster. The 1960s-era budget process that determines how money flows remains largely intact.

The most important reforms still need Congress to act, and Congress moves slowly, too. Congress has launched studies into reforming this system numerous times, with the answers being too politically difficult to implement.

Officials are expanding the use of flexible contracting tools, such as Other Transaction Authority, that let the military skip some traditional rules to get anti-drone technology faster. Yet these flexible contracting tools still represent a small slice of the Defense budget, and their effectiveness is unclear.

Ultimately, instead of using flexible contracting tools to quickly buy new prototypes, the bureaucratically easier solution could be to buy more of the expensive, already approved missiles.

This quick fix would reload the military’s stock of interceptors with existing weapons systems, which is the source of the bad math. The math would get worse and at the same time the operational imperative to find cheaper and better solutions might disappear.

So, as the Shahed keeps flying, the most powerful military in the world is still figuring out the paperwork and looking to other countries for help.

Aaron Brynildson served in the U.S. Air Force from 2016-2025.

– ref. Why the US military is stuck using $1 million missiles against Iran’s $20,000 drones – https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-military-is-stuck-using-1-million-missiles-against-irans-20-000-drones-281089

April 21, 2026

When a spouse starts a business, the other partner pays a hidden price

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kanwal Bokhari, Assistant Professor (Teaching) Finance, University of Calgary

When an entrepreneur leaves a salaried job to pursue a venture, the conversation nearly always centres on them: the risk they’re taking, the opportunity they’re pursuing and the funding they need.

But for every entrepreneur who makes that leap, there’s often a spouse or partner who may not have chosen the startup life but is about to live it anyway.

These partners frequently lend savings, absorb extra housework and provide the emotional scaffolding that keeps the venture going. Despite this, they remain nearly invisible in both policy and research even though without them, many new businesses would never get off the ground.

Instead, governments typically pour resources like grants, accelerators and mentorship programs squarely at founders. These kinds of supports are usually designed for individual founders, and rarely acknowledge the wider household that is often sharing that risk in practice.

The costs borne by partners are real, and research like ours is only beginning to measure them.

The cost nobody is counting

More than 83,000 Canadian businesses were created in 2023 alone, according to Statistics Canada, and the vast majority of them were small, with four employees or fewer. For many of the entrepreneurs creating those businesses, there are families at home absorbing the consequences.

Scholars have paid close attention to how starting a business affects founders’ own mental health and happiness. What they have largely overlooked is the person standing next to the founder, even though work and family life are deeply intertwined, and stress in one domain often spills over into the other.

The scattered evidence that does exist is troubling. In Denmark, researchers found that spouses of new entrepreneurs were significantly more likely than spouses of non-entrepreneurs to be prescribed sleep aids and anti-anxiety medication in the two years after the business launched.

Similarly, in Australia, a recent study found measurable drops in psychological health among partners whose spouses entered self-employment.

These findings confirm that spousal strain is real, but they leave a crucial question unanswered: Why does it happen, and does the answer depend on what kind of business gets started and who starts it? Our recent study addressed exactly that question.

Three decades, 628 couples

We followed 628 British couples through three decades of life, drawing on two large national surveys that tracked the same households from 1991 to 2022. In every couple, one partner left a salaried job to start a business. Most went solo; around 20 per cent hired employees. About 58 per cent of the founders were men.

We also compared these households to similar couples where one partner changed jobs but stayed in paid employment. Partners of new entrepreneurs reported a meaningful drop in their own mental health compared to partners of people who simply switched employers.

We also found that this toll on well-being crossed over from the founder to their spouse along two specific routes: money and time.

New businesses typically earn less than the salaried job they replaced, especially in the early years. The mortgage, the school fees, the grocery bill — none of these shrink to match the new income. The financial squeeze manifests as constant low-grade worry.

Founders also work long hours, often nights and weekends, and those hours come directly out of a couple’s shared life. The partner left at home picks up the domestic tasks the founder used to handle, often without anyone explicitly agreeing to the new arrangement.

Both routes showed up clearly in our data. Which one mattered more depended on two things: the founder’s gender and the type of business.

How gender and business type change the picture

The money route hurt spouses across the board, regardless of whether the founder was a man or a woman. The time route was different. When men started businesses, their working hours shot up, and their partners paid the price through increased responsibilities at home.

When women started businesses, however, the same spike in hours did not appear, and their partners’ well-being was not affected through this route. Instead, women who launched ventures continued shouldering the bulk of the housework and child care alongside their businesses, rather than passing those responsibilities to their partners. They absorbed the time cost themselves.

This pattern reflects broader, persistent inequalities in how domestic labour is distributed within households.

The type of venture mattered, too. Founders who worked alone bore the brunt of the income hit, as they had no employees to generate revenue, so their own earnings dropped sharply — pulling household finances with them. For their partners, money was the main source of strain.

Founders who hired staff faced a different problem: managing employees meant longer hours spent on recruiting, training and oversight, even if the business was earning enough. For their partners, lost time together was the bigger issue.

Recognizing the family behind the founder

Our results suggest a one-size-fits-all support package for entrepreneurs will inevitably miss the mark. Different kinds of ventures create different pressures at home: Solo founders may need financial breathing room, employer-founders may need help reclaiming time.

Before launching a business, couples can benefit from conducting a “family-stress audit” — a conversation that involves mapping out the likely income hit and time demands for the specific type of business being planned.

For policymakers and support organizations, support should be matched to the type of strain. Entrepreneurship support organizations could expand to include partner-oriented resources, such as information sessions or planning tools, to support those who didn’t start the business but are living with its consequences every day.

Entrepreneurship is widely credited with creating jobs, driving innovation and economic growth. But it also imposes private costs on the partners who provide the hidden labour and emotional support that make new ventures possible.

Recognizing these patterns is the first step toward building startup ecosystems that sustain not just entrepreneurs and their ventures, but the families behind both.

Seok-Woo Kwon received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Jia Bao, Kanwal Bokhari, and Wei Yu do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When a spouse starts a business, the other partner pays a hidden price – https://theconversation.com/when-a-spouse-starts-a-business-the-other-partner-pays-a-hidden-price-280414

April 21, 2026

Les maladies rénales sont en hausse en Afrique : le rôle des facteurs de risque génétiques

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Segun Fatumo, Professor and Chair of Genomic Diversity, Queen Mary University of London

À chaque minute, vos reins travaillent intensément. Ils filtrent environ 200 litres de sang, éliminent les déchets, équilibrent les sels et les fluides, et régulent la pression artérielle. Tout cela se fait sans aucun effort conscient de votre part.

Mais lorsque vos reins commencent à défaillir, les conséquences sont dévastatrices. Cela entraîne notamment la fatigue, l’accumulation de liquide et des complications cardiaques. Certaines personnes finissent par avoir besoin d’une dialyse ou d’une greffe pour rester en vie.

Les maladies rénales constituent l’une des causes de décès dont la prévalence augmente le plus rapidement dans le monde. Environ 850 millions de personnes vivent avec une forme ou une autre de maladie rénale, soit plus que le nombre cumulé de personnes touchées par le diabète et le cancer. La maladie rénale chronique – lorsque vos reins perdent lentement leur capacité à remplir leur fonction – est responsable d’environ 1,5 million de décès chaque année dans le monde, et ce chiffre est en hausse.

Mais la maladie rénale se développe silencieusement, avec peu de symptômes. Lorsque ces symptômes apparaissent, la maladie est déjà grave.

Et ce fardeau n’est pas réparti de manière égale. Les personnes d’ascendance africaine sont quatre fois plus susceptibles de développer la forme la plus grave d’insuffisance rénale que les personnes d’ascendance européenne. En Afrique subsaharienne, les taux d’hypertension artérielle et de diabète de type 2 sont également en hausse. Ces deux maladies sont les principales causes de lésions rénales. Environ 30 % des adultes en Afrique subsaharienne souffrent d’hypertension artérielle, et 25 millions (un adulte sur 20) sont atteints de diabète) – la plupart sans diagnostic ni traitement.

L’Afrique subsaharienne compte moins de néphrologues, d’établissements de dialyse et de services de transplantation par habitant que le reste du monde. L’Afrique dans son ensemble compte moins d’un néphrologue par million d’habitants. Dans certains pays africains, il n’y a aucun néphrologue. La moyenne mondiale est d’environ 10 pour un million. Dans les pays à revenu élevé, ce chiffre atteint 23 pour un million. Pour la plupart des Africains atteints d’insuffisance rénale, il n’existe tout simplement aucun traitement disponible.

Il est donc essentiel d’identifier les personnes à risque avant que leurs reins ne cessent de fonctionner.

Notre étude récemment publiée comble une lacune importante dans ce domaine. Nous sommes membres du consortium KidneyGenAfrica, un partenariat panafricain qui vise à atteindre l’excellence en matière de recherche et de formation dans le domaine de la génomique des maladies rénales.

Nous avons découvert de nouvelles variantes génétiques indiquant un risque de maladie rénale chez les populations africaines. Nous avons également mis en évidence des différences entre les risques génétiques auxquels sont exposées les personnes vivant en Afrique, d’une part, et les personnes d’origine africaine vivant en Amérique du Nord et en Europe, d’autre part.

Cela montre à quel point il est important que la médecine s’appuie sur des recherches adaptées aux personnes concernées.

Comprendre la maladie rénale

La maladie rénale n’apparaît pas soudainement. Elle se développe souvent progressivement, sous l’effet d’une combinaison de facteurs. Certaines personnes sont porteuses de variants génétiques, de petites différences dans leur ADN, qui rendent leurs reins plus vulnérables aux lésions.

D’autres sont confrontées à des risques environnementaux tels qu’une alimentation riche en sel, une hypertension artérielle non contrôlée ou des infections liées au diabète. L’utilisation de plantes médicinales, l’eau contaminée et les toxines environnementales constituent également des risques.

Dans la plupart des cas, c’est la combinaison de ces facteurs qui détermine qui tombe malade et à quelle vitesse. Mais jusqu’à récemment, les populations africaines étaient à peine présentes dans le débat scientifique sur ce sujet. L’Afrique, qui abrite les populations humaines les plus diversifiées génétiquement de la planète, n’était représentée que dans une infime partie de la recherche génomique mondiale. Cela commence à changer.

Grande étude génétique sur les Africains

Nous avons analysé les données génomiques d’environ 26 000 personnes issues d’Afrique orientale, occidentale et australe, ainsi que d’environ 81 000 personnes d’ascendance africaine vivant ailleurs. Il s’agit de la plus grande étude génétique jamais menée sur la fonction rénale chez les Africains du continent.

Notre étude apporte un nouvel éclairage sur la génétique des maladies rénales chroniques au sein de diverses populations africaines. Elle soutiendra également les travaux futurs visant à améliorer la prévention, le diagnostic et le traitement des maladies rénales au sein de ces populations et dans le monde entier.

L’équipe a utilisé une méthode appelée « étude d’association pangénomique », qui analyse l’ensemble du code génétique humain afin d’identifier les variants liés à un trait ou à une maladie particulière. Ici, l’indicateur étudié était le débit de filtration glomérulaire estimé, un résultat de test sanguin standard qui mesure l’efficacité avec laquelle les reins filtrent les déchets. Un score plus faible indique une fonction rénale plus faible et un risque plus élevé de maladie.

En analysant uniquement les populations d’Afrique continentale, l’étude a identifié quatre emplacements génétiques pertinents, dont deux qui n’avaient jamais été signalés auparavant.

En incluant les populations d’ascendance africaine de la diaspora, ce nombre est passé à 19 sites, dont trois nouveaux. Quatre de ces sites génétiques ont été localisés avec une grande précision. Cela signifie que l’équipe a pu identifier la variante génétique spécifique la plus susceptible d’être à l’origine de l’effet, plutôt que de se contenter de signaler une région du génome où quelque chose de pertinent se produisait.

Chaque site nouvellement découvert constitue désormais une cible potentielle pour de futurs médicaments ou outils de diagnostic.

L’étude a également examiné les scores polygéniques, qui sont des outils permettant d’estimer le risque global d’une personne de développer une maladie. Une conclusion clé a été que les scores établis à partir de données provenant de populations africaines génétiquement similaires donnaient de meilleurs résultats que ceux dérivés d’ensembles de données plus vastes mais génétiquement éloignés.

Cela revêt une importance considérable pour la médecine en Afrique : la science ne fonctionne que si les données de référence correspondent à la population qu’elle est censée servir.

Un gène qui se comporte différemment de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique

Une découverte importante de l’étude concerne un gène appelé APOL1.
Deux variants du gène APOL1, connus sous les noms de G1 et G2, augmentent le risque de plusieurs formes graves de maladies rénales chez les Afro-Américains. On supposait généralement que ce même risque s’appliquait de la même manière aux personnes vivant sur le continent africain.

Cependant, les données suggèrent le contraire. En Afrique continentale, ces variants APOL1 à haut risque sont moins fréquents (et varient selon les régions d’Afrique). Leur association avec une fonction rénale réduite est nettement plus faible que dans la diaspora africaine.

Ce même gène semble se comporter différemment selon le lieu de résidence d’une personne et la population dont elle est issue.

Cette découverte est importante pour le développement de médicaments. Les essais cliniques sur les traitements des maladies rénales doivent inclure des personnes vivant en Afrique et pas seulement des personnes d’origine africaine vivant ailleurs.

Ce qui doit se passer maintenant

Plusieurs mesures doivent découler de cette recherche pour qu’elle profite à la santé des populations :

Les systèmes de santé africains doivent investir dans le dépistage précoce des maladies rénales. Des analyses de sang et d’urine simples et abordables permettent de détecter les lésions rénales à un stade où des changements de mode de vie et un traitement médicamenteux peuvent être efficaces. Les outils d’évaluation du risque génétique peuvent aider à identifier les personnes qui ont le plus besoin d’un dépistage.
Les laboratoires pharmaceutiques doivent inclure les populations du continent africain dans leurs essais cliniques.
La communauté scientifique mondiale doit continuer à investir dans les infrastructures génomiques africaines, notamment les cohortes de recherche et de grands groupes de participants consentants dont les données génétiques et de santé sont collectées et stockées à des fins d’analyse.

Cette étude démontre que les scientifiques africains, en collaboration avec les communautés africaines, peuvent générer des connaissances qui changent la donne à l’échelle mondiale. Elle a permis de mieux affiner La maîtrise de l’un des défis sanitaires les plus urgents.

Segun Fatumo bénéficie d’un financement du Medical Research Council (MRC), de Wellcome et des NIH.

– ref. Les maladies rénales sont en hausse en Afrique : le rôle des facteurs de risque génétiques – https://theconversation.com/les-maladies-renales-sont-en-hausse-en-afrique-le-role-des-facteurs-de-risque-genetiques-280600

April 21, 2026

Forty years after the Chernobyl disaster, its legacy still resonates

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David Roger Marples, Professor, Russian and East European History, University of Alberta

The explosion at the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine on April 26, 1986, changed the lives of thousands of Soviet citizens.

The plant was located 20 kilometres from of the Belarus border, near the confluence of the Uzh and Prypiat rivers and the Kyiv Reservoir. The area was remote, with scattered farms across a rural landscape.

Wind and rainfall dispersed the radiation to the north and northwest. The authorities evacuated the city of Prypiat, three kilometres to the north where 55,000 workers lived, 40 hours after the accident.

More than 70 officials in the Soviet Union’s ruling Communist Party fled the plant. Two operators were killed instantly, while 28 firemen and first aid workers sent to the site died of radiation sickness within three months.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the general secretary of the party’s central committee, had only been in office for six weeks at the time.

In March, he had appeared before the 27th party congress to announced “new thinking,” with watchwords “glasnost” (openness) and “perestroika” (restructuring). Nonetheless, the Soviet government’s reaction to news of the Chernobyl disaster was to stay silent for 40 hours.

On April 28, Soviet citizens heard that an accident had taken place, two people had died and a government commission had been set up to investigate.

What happened at Chernobyl?

The accident at Chernobyl occurred as a result of a safety experiment to determine power generation during a shutdown. It occurred over a holiday period with neither the plant director nor chief engineer present. To ensure the experiment’s success, operators dismantled seven mechanisms that would have safely shut down the reactor.

The graphite-moderated RBMK reactor, based on control rods, had an innate flaw unknown to the operators. It became unstable if operated at low power. When an operator lowered the power, it caused a surge that blew the roof off the reactor, spreading graphite from the core and creating a radiation cloud.

In early May, Gorbachev appeared on television but used the time to denounce “sensational” reports about mass casualties.

Members of the public in the main fallout areas of Ukraine and Belarus were desperate for information. Some 600,000 “liquidators” had the task of removing contaminated topsoil. Coal miners from the Russia and the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine constructed a shelf below the reactor to prevent it falling to the water table.

It took three years before Soviet authorities published maps detailing where radioactive cesium had fallen. The area covered most of Belarus, large areas of northern and western Ukraine, and part of southern Russia.

Thousands of liquidators died between 1986 and 1989, mostly from heart attacks. They were men in their 20s and 30s.

Thyroid cancer developed among children in Belarus by 1990, affecting more than 3,000. Ukraine placed a moratorium on building new reactors by 1990, and Chernobyl itself was shut down by 2000 with a roof (sarkofag or sarcophagus) over the damaged reactor.

Public reaction

As the scale of the disaster became clearer, anger and disillusionment grew among the population. In particular, many questioned why all the energy industries were under Moscow’s control, in ministries that had little knowledge of the local area.

In a way, Chernobyl created glasnost. Journalists wrote critiques of scientists supervising the accident’s aftermath and about the health consequences. The casualty rates far exceeded the totals publicized by the World Health Organization.

In November 1988, anti-nuclear power protests took place in Kyiv under the slogan “The Environment and Us.” Dr. Yuriy Shcherbak (later Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada) formed the Green World Association, which later became the Green Party of Ukraine. A popular movement called Rukh was founded in 1989 and focused on Ukrainian sovereignty, language and telling the truth about Chernobyl.

Both Ukraine and Belarus, however, were slow to accept political change. Party leaders did little to help overcome the aftermath of Chernobyl. A notable rift was evident in both societies between the scientific and party elite on the one hand, and activists, journalists and the general public on the other.

The aftermath of Chernobyl

In August 1986, a Soviet team arrived in Vienna to explain the causes of the accident to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Led by Soviet chemist Valery Legasov, it blamed the accident entirely on human error, ignoring more than 30 known flaws in the RBMK reactor.

On the eve of the accident’s second anniversary, Legasov committed suicide. He was demoralized by the authorities’ failure to heed his warnings about the safety of the reactor. He was likely also suffering from radiation sickness.

Anti-nuclear sentiment across the Soviet Union halted the vast program to expand atomic energy. Political movements in the Baltic States, Ukraine, Georgia and other republics coalesced, forcing the Soviet leadership to make concessions.

By 1991, Gorbachev limited glasnost and introduced the concept of a revised union of sovereign republics. Chernobyl was not the only factor in such a development, but it was a catalyst.

The plant has long been shut down and decommissioned, but its significance remains. Ukraine still depends on nuclear power for about half its energy needs. The Russian invasion saw a brief occupation of the defunct Chernobyl station and a takeover of Ukraine’s largest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia.

We should remember the bravery of those who fought the fire and cleaned the area. We should also remember the courage of ordinary people who defied the authorities in a quest for hard information and societal change. And we should keep the memory of the date, one of significant change in the former Soviet Union.

David Roger Marples does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Forty years after the Chernobyl disaster, its legacy still resonates – https://theconversation.com/forty-years-after-the-chernobyl-disaster-its-legacy-still-resonates-279715

April 21, 2026

Not getting enough physical activity may be harming your health: Here’s what being sedentary does to your body

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Scott Lear, Professor of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

Being regularly active can improve your mental well-being, reduce your chances of disease and increase your lifespan.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate activity (brisk walking, easy cycling) or at least 75 minutes of vigorous activity (running, tennis), along with at least two strengthening sessions, per week. But only 73 per cent of adults meet these guidelines worldwide, and 51 per cent of Canadian adults are considered physically inactive.

I’m a professor in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and I study how behaviours relate to health and disease. I also write a blog on the role health behaviours play in your health.

What is physical inactivity?

Physical inactivity is defined as not meeting the minimum guidelines for being active. Being physically inactive, however, doesn’t mean you’re not active at all. You could still be doing light activity, like general walking or household chores — just not moderate or vigorous activity. And in general, people who are inactive spend more of their time being sedentary.

Sedentary activities are those of very little or no movement and include sitting, lying down and standing. For most people, the majority of sedentary time is spent sitting.

Various studies report adults spend on average six hours per day sitting. But these studies are based on self-report. The few studies that have used direct measures of activity (such as accelerometers) indicate it may be closer to 10 hours of sitting per day.

This is a concern as the WHO labels physical inactivity as the fourth leading modifiable risk factor for death. It’s estimated that with a 10 per cent increase in activity, 500 million early deaths could be prevented.

Biological changes and health concerns

From a biological perspective, being inactive is more than the opposite of being active. This is because sedentary activities result in unique physiological changes. When you sit, your metabolism slows down. This makes sense, as your energy needs are much lower. It’s not much different from a car engine shutting down at a stoplight.

Prolonged sitting can lead to an accumulation of fats (triglycerides) in your blood. As your body needs less energy when sitting (or lying) down, production of certain enzymes goes down. One of those is lipoprotein lipase (LPL), which breaks down fats in the blood so muscles and organs can use fat for energy.

In rodent studies, LPL decreased when the rodents were inactive. With continuous sitting over months and years, the excess fats can impair insulin and glucose metabolism, and increase your risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Other health risks include weakened muscles. Muscles need movement to keep strong. If they’re not being used, they shrink and get weaker. Varicose veins and deep vein thrombosis can also result from the continually pooling of blood in the lower legs that comes with sitting. And over years, your risk for dementia, cancer, heart disease and early death rise.

It’s quite common to wonder if being active can compensate for sitting. The short answer is yes — being active, even in the presence of long periods of sitting, is better for you than not being active. But it depends on how active you are, and how much you sit.

In a study I co-authored, we found increased sitting was associated with early death regardless of how active you are. But the risk was worse for those who were less active. For those who met the WHO’s physical activity guidelines, sitting for more than six hours per day had the same risk as those who sat less than six hours per day but did not meet the guidelines.

Managing sitting and sedentary behaviour

We’re not going to do away with sitting, nor should we. Sitting is needed to provide time for rest and recovery. Also, many tasks are more comfortably performed while sitting. At present, there isn’t a specific target for sitting time, other than to reduce how much siting you do.

Standing is often mentioned as a solution. And the standing desk industry has exploded in recent years. While standing will result in less sitting, standing for long periods has a similar effect on metabolism as sitting. Other health concerns of prolonged standing include muscle fatigue, varicose veins and potential for greater risk for heart disease.

Replacing sitting (or standing) with movement is the best solution. Our study found replacing 30 minutes of sitting with movement reduced risk for early death by two per cent in people who sat more than four hours per day. But getting up and moving for 30 minutes may not be possible in all situation, so it’s important to reduce continuous, uninterrupted sitting time.

Breaking up sitting every 20-30 minutes with two minutes of activity (light walking, jumping jacks, squats or anything else) is enough to keep your metabolism running and manage insulin and glucose levels. To remind yourself, set your phone alarm every 20-30 minutes and get up and move.

Other ways to decrease sitting time include taking phone calls while pacing in the office and holding walking meetings.

While most people are aware that being active has health benefits, it’s also important to know that being sedentary has health risks. Physical inactivity can adversely affect your health.

Scott Lear has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Novo Nordisk, Hamilton Health Sciences and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

– ref. Not getting enough physical activity may be harming your health: Here’s what being sedentary does to your body – https://theconversation.com/not-getting-enough-physical-activity-may-be-harming-your-health-heres-what-being-sedentary-does-to-your-body-273675

April 21, 2026

Los materiales más avanzados se abren paso en Europa

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By José Manuel Torralba, Catedrático de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, IMDEA MATERIALES

¿Ionogeles para pieles electrónicas? ¿Sólidos que podrán utilizarse como sensores para interfaces cerebro-máquina? Estos son solo dos ejemplos de la versatilidad de una potente colección de supermateriales que se están desarrollando en laboratorios y que ya están en la línea de salida. Constituyen la base de innovaciones que abarcan desde la energía y la electrónica hasta la salud, la robótica o la sostenibilidad ambiental. Y no son ciencia ficción.

El informe SAPEA les abre paso

El grupo de Asesores Científicos Principales de la Comisión Europea publicó hace semanas un documento fundamental sobre materiales avanzados, un área que promete transformar sectores como la energía, la construcción, la movilidad, la electrónica e incluso la salud. El scoping paper analizaba las fortalezas y debilidades de la Unión Europea en este ámbito y planteaba preguntas cruciales sobre cómo mantener el liderazgo frente a Estados Unidos y China.

Para contestar esas preguntas, ahora ve la luz el documento titulado SAPEA Evidence Review Report on Advanced Materials, que está llamado a ser una referencia en los futuros planes de investigación, tanto europeos como nacionales, en el ámbito de los materiales avanzados.

Y no todo vale. Aquí no se trata de hacer una buena película. En el siglo XXI, y ante problemas vinculados con el cambio climático y la necesidad de usar materias primas no críticas y energías limpias que no generen gases de efecto invernadero, los nuevos materiales tienen que ser seguros y sostenibles desde el diseño. No solo deben ser buenos y permitir saltos disruptivos en todas las tecnologías: además, tienen que resultar eficientes en su diseño, sostenibles y reciclables.

A continuación exponemos sucintamente algunos ejemplos de qué materiales estamos hablando.

Terapia fototérmica contra el cáncer

Casi todos hemos oído hablar del grafeno, pero hay otras familias de materiales formados con nanocapas menos conocidos y con un potencial enorme: los Mxenos.

Mientras que el grafeno está constituido por carbono, los MXenos se llaman así porque están formados por un metal de transición (como el titanio o el molibdeno, la M del nombre) y carbono o nitrógeno para formar carburos o nitruros (la X del nombre).

Tal complejidad da a estos materiales una gran versatilidad de posibles aplicaciones: almacenamiento de energía (baterías de carga ultrarrápida y supercondensadores más eficientes), medio ambiente y energía limpia (catalizadores para producir hidrógeno verde y procesos de descarbonización).

También abundan las aplicaciones para la salud –por ejemplo, para combatir bacterias resistentes– y en la industria –para fabricar recubrimientos anticorrosivos, aditivos en grasas lubricantes avanzadas, etcétera–.

Una de las aplicaciones médicas más prometedoras de los MXenos son las terapias fototérmicas en el tratamiento del cáncer. Gracias a su excelente capacidad para absorber luz en el espectro infrarrojo cercano (NIR) y convertirla eficientemente en calor, permiten realizar tratamientos oncológicos de muy alta precisión.

Ionogeles para pieles electrónicas

Los ionogeles son una clase de materiales híbridos compuestos por una matriz sólida (generalmente un polímero o una red inorgánica) que permite almacenar en su interior un líquido iónico. Tienen una altísima conductividad iónica, son muy estables incluso a elevadas temperaturas, resultan difícilmente inflamables (lo que los hace adecuados para dispositivos electrónicos) y permiten una gran versatilidad de diseño.

Dependiendo del polímero utilizado, pueden ser biocompatibles. Hoy ya se emplean como electrolitos sólidos en baterías, en biomedicina (para la liberación controlada de fármacos y la inmovilización de enzimas) y en electrónica en dispositivos portátiles, que también se pueden imprimir en 3D.

Además, en un futuro próximo podremos ver aplicaciones muy disruptivas. Una de ellas es el desarrollo de pieles electrónicas para robots o para prótesis. Estas coberturas podrían sentir presión, temperatura o textura, como la piel humana. Las prótesis que las incorporen serán capaces de enviar señales sensoriales directamente al sistema nervioso del usuario, devolviendo el sentido del tacto.

Un último ejemplo de uso sería el desarrollo de biosensores lavables. Podríamos pensar en una camiseta que monitorice el ritmo cardíaco, la respiración o el sudor sin necesidad de parches o adhesivos. Los ionogeles permitirán crear sensores textiles resistentes al agua, antibacterianos y lavables en una lavadora sin perder sus funciones.

Sólidos con centros de color

Los centros de color son defectos puntuales en la estructura de un sólido cristalino que absorben y emiten luz, otorgando color a materiales que normalmente serían incoloros. Son la base de muchas tecnologías disruptivas: microchips sensibles a los campos magnéticos que permitirían la navegación sin depender de satélites (leyendo variaciones del magnetismo de la Tierra) o sensores para interfaces cerebro-máquina, capaces de detectar pequeñísimas señales magnéticas de las neuronas.

Estos materiales podrían sustituir a los cúbits superconductores, es decir, a los circuitos electrónicos minúsculos –enfriados a temperaturas cercanas al cero absoluto– que son la base de procesadores cuánticos comerciales. También pueden utilizarse en nanomedicina y diagnóstico celular, porque pueden introducirse en células vivas sin dañarlas. Así, los sólidos con centro de color serían capaces de medir variaciones de temperatura de milésimas de grado dentro de una célula, lo que ayudaría a detectar procesos metabólicos anómalos o etapas tempranas de enfermedades como el cáncer.

La alta entropía

En los últimos años se han desarrollado las aleaciones llamadas multielemento o de alta entropía, con propiedades excepcionales en diversos ámbitos, como el comportamiento a alta temperatura, la corrosión o la tenacidad. Eso las valida para industrias donde se requieren muy altas prestaciones para llegar más lejos y, además, con menos peso.

Estas aleaciones pueden diseñarse con todo el abanico de elementos de la tabla periódica. Su desarrollo coincide con un momento en el que la preocupación por el uso de metales críticos obliga a replantear su utilización.

Su aparición también ocurre en paralelo a la eclosión del diseño mediante herramientas de modelización y selección, acopladas con herramientas de inteligencia artificial. Esto abre la posibilidad de utilizar composiciones complejas provenientes del reciclado de residuos electrónicos o el uso integral de chatarras.

Las fortalezas de Europa

El documento que acaba de publicarse complementa otro informe publicado el 18 de diciembre de 2025 publicado por el Joint Research Centre de la Comisión Europea. Éste incluye 27 fichas por país con una visión general del rendimiento y el potencial de cada Estado miembro.

Aunque actualmente la UE va a la zaga de Estados Unidos y China en lo que respecta al número total de patentes de materiales avanzados, el informe concluye que la Unión Europea cuenta con capacidades tecnológicas suficientes en campos de tecnología media, como los textiles y la construcción, para cerrar la brecha de innovación en determinados ámbitos, como los biomateriales, los cementos y los materiales de vidrio y cerámica.

Sin embargo, a la Comisión Europea le preocupa la posibilidad de que la UE se quede atrás en tecnologías clave que pueden fortalecer el crecimiento económico, la competitividad, la autonomía estratégica y la transformación digital y ecológica. Los materiales avanzados tienen el potencial de transformar la industria y permitir innovaciones revolucionarias que eviten que Europa pierda el paso. El documento que se acaba de publicar nos da las claves.

José Manuel Torralba no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Los materiales más avanzados se abren paso en Europa – https://theconversation.com/los-materiales-mas-avanzados-se-abren-paso-en-europa-271644

April 21, 2026

Research at Chernobyl and Fukushima shows how radioactive materials move in the environment

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Eduardo B. Farfán, Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Director of the Center for Nuclear Studies, Kennesaw State University

Even decades after the Chernobyl disaster, damage to the containment structures risks radioactivity escaping into the environment. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

When nuclear accidents happen, many people imagine radiation spreading everywhere and lasting forever. The reality is more complex. Radioactive materials move, change and sometimes disappear faster than people expect.

The Chernobyl accident in 1986 and the Fukushima Daiichi accident in 2011 released radioactive materials into the air, soil and water around those two nuclear power plants. The general term for the materials that got released is “radionuclides.”

Some decayed quickly, effectively disappearing without having done much harm. But others, mostly isotopes of iodine, cesium, strontium and plutonium, remained in the environment for many years, damaging human health and the environment. The mechanisms by which they do that damage depends on the material itself, the weather and the local environment. For example, cesium chemically behaves like sodium and potassium, which are accumulated in human tissues. Strontium chemically behaves like calcium, which is accumulated in bones.

As a nuclear engineer and researcher who has worked on tracking radiation levels and exposure in projects related to Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi, and U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories and nuclear sites, I have seen how science and engineering help measure, map and manage radiation to keep people safe. I study how radionuclides migrate because this helps predict where radioactive contamination goes, how fast it moves, and who or what might be exposed over time.

The most important lesson is that radiation risk can be understood and controlled. Human senses can’t detect radiation, but scientific instruments can accurately measure the amounts and types of radiation in an area. Once it is measured, scientists and engineers can make informed decisions about how to use well-established methods and modern technology to reduce risk.

How radioactivity travels

Cows graze in a grassy field marked with a bright yellow sign with the international symbol for radiation danger. — After the Chernobyl disaster, farmers in Germany were warned to keep livestock out of contaminated fields. Not all did so.
AP Photo/Frank Rumpenhorst

The major nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi released radioactive materials into the atmosphere as tiny particles. Winds carried these particles across countries and even between continents. Rain and snow brought them out of the air and down to the ground.

Soil plays a very important role in what happens next. Some radionuclides stick strongly to soil and do not move very much. Others move more easily and travel slowly downward through the soil toward groundwater or get washed into rivers, lakes and oceans.

Radioactivity also moves through water. After the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, radionuclides entered the ocean through direct releases and runoff. Scientists monitored seawater, fish and seaweed to track how radioactive materials moved and changed over time. Monitoring showed that radionuclides such as cesium spread through coastal waters but became diluted and dispersed over time, with levels in most areas farther out in the ocean decreasing and remaining low and relatively stable after the initial release. Continuous sampling of water and marine life also showed that radioactivity in seafood generally declined over time and distance from Fukushima, remaining within safe limits.

From soil and water, radioactive materials also moved into plants and animals, which posed risks to human health. For instance, grass absorbed radionuclides from soil, cows ate the grass, and radionuclides then appeared in the cows’ milk. The International Atomic Energy Agency, World Health Organization, and Food and Agriculture Organization all have programs that look for radioactivity in foods to keep unsafe food off the market.

An aerial view of a large building damaged by an explosion. — An aerial photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear plant just days after the 1986 disaster.
AP Photo

Measuring and mapping radiation

Though radiation cannot be detected by human senses, there are many proven ways to measure and monitor it in the environment. Scientists use handheld detectors such as Geiger counters, laboratory instruments and fixed environmental monitoring stations. These tools measure radiation in soil, water, air and food, helping assess exposure and guide safety decisions.

Modern technologies go further by combining detector data with imaging and mapping systems. These systems can create three-dimensional maps that show where radiation is located and how it spreads. Such maps have been used, for example, after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster to visualize contamination patterns and guide cleanup.

Researchers don’t monitor radiation only after accidents. Many countries, such as the U.S. and European countries, also constantly monitor radiation as part of their environmental protection programs. These monitoring systems measure natural background radiation and look for unusual increases. This helps detect problems early and ensures that radiation levels remain safe for the public.

A 3D digital model from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency shows where radiation was highest and lowest at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor site.

Cleaning up radiation

When and where radiation is detected, managing it can take several forms, depending on the type of contamination and how much there is.

One common method is removing contaminated soil and transporting it in sealed, labeled containers to licensed storage or disposal facilities, where it is stored in special buildings that isolate the material from the environment and prevent leaks into soil or groundwater.

Another method involves covering contaminated areas with clean soil, clay or concrete. This approach does not remove the radioactivity but rather acts as a barrier that reduces radiation exposure and helps prevent contaminated particles from being spread by wind, water or human activity.

In some cases, chemicals are added to the soil to reduce the mobility of radionuclides and limit their uptake by plants. After the Chernobyl disaster, for example, national governments and international agencies applied potassium fertilizers to soils to reduce the uptake of radioactive cesium by crops. Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, large areas of farmland were treated similarly, and contaminated topsoil was removed and stored in temporary as well as long-term facilities.

Scientists also use computer models to predict how radiation moves in air, soil and water. These models help estimate radiation risks and help decision-makers choose the best cleanup strategy. The goal is to reduce radiation exposure as much as reasonably achievable.

Workers in protective suits and hard hats stand together. — People working on the cleanup of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster wear protective clothing to reduce their risk of exposure and contamination.
AP Photo/Issei Kato

Lessons learned over time

Long-term studies in the Chernobyl exclusion zone have helped scientists understand how radionuclides behave over decades. Researchers have examined how radionuclides such as cesium and strontium isotopes migrate through forests, lakes, soils and built-up areas, providing critical data for predicting long-term environmental and health effects.

These studies have shown that radionuclide movement is influenced by environmental factors, such as soil composition, moisture and biological activity, and that contamination can remain mobile and biologically relevant for decades.

Some of this work includes my own research and collaborations. For example, I have contributed to studies evaluating radionuclide migration in soils and ecosystems within and around the 18-mile (30-kilometer) exclusion zone, including how these materials move vertically through soil layers and accumulate in vegetation and wildlife. My work has also examined how radionuclides penetrate and persist in concrete structures in contaminated areas such as Pripyat, as well as how radiation doses affect small animals and ecological systems over time.

Overall, this body of research has improved understanding of how radiation moves and how best to monitor it, informing emergency response and long-term remediation strategies around the world.

Research has also found that straightforward communication is also very important after a nuclear accident. The public needs clear, honest and simple explanations about what is happening and what is being done to protect them.

In practice, however, this level of communication is often difficult to achieve during a crisis. In the aftermath of both disasters, investigations later showed that information provided to the public was sometimes delayed, incomplete or inconsistent. These communication gaps contributed to confusion, mistrust and increased anxiety among affected populations.

As a result, one of the key lessons learned from these events is the importance of timely, transparent and accurate communication. Emergency response plans today emphasize clear messaging, regular updates and the use of multiple communication channels to ensure that the public understands both the risks and the protective actions being taken.

Eduardo B. Farfán does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Research at Chernobyl and Fukushima shows how radioactive materials move in the environment – https://theconversation.com/research-at-chernobyl-and-fukushima-shows-how-radioactive-materials-move-in-the-environment-280007

April 21, 2026

Michael Rousseau et le français : les trois quarts des commentaires dans les médias canadiens sont négatifs envers le Québec, selon une étude

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Yulia Bosworth, Associate Professor of French and Linguistics, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Pourquoi un message livré dans une seule langue peut-il provoquer une telle onde de choc ? Au Canada, la langue ne relève pas seulement de la communication : elle touche à l’identité, au pouvoir et à la reconnaissance. Mais jusqu’où notre appartenance linguistique façonne-t-elle notre perception des langues, et de celles et ceux qui les parlent

Les enjeux linguistiques dans le contexte canadien suscitent régulièrement des controverses et alimentent des discours polarisants, relayés et amplifiés par les médias.

Le message de condoléances du PDG d’Air Canada Michael Rousseau à la suite de la tragédie survenue le 23 mars à l’aéroport LaGuardia à New York, livré en anglais, a provoqué un vif tollé à travers le pays, comme en témoigne l’importante couverture médiatique.

Malgré un large consensus parmi les journalistes et commentateurs anglo-canadiens et francophones du Québec quant au caractère inapproprié du message unilingue, les opinions exprimées par les membres du grand public apparaissent plus partagées — surtout à l’égard de l’importance accordée par les francophones du Québec à la langue du message.

Pour mieux comprendre les dynamiques de ces controverses, de leur origine à leur déploiement, la sociolinguistique s’intéresse non seulement aux usages de la langue, mais aussi aux discours sur la langue, ainsi qu’à l’interprétation et à la portée de ces discours.

Les représentations défavorables du Québec et du bilinguisme

Dans le cadre d’une étude en cours visant à analyser les discours médiatiques relatifs à la controverse, j’examine environ 3000 commentaires de lecteurs et lectrices publiés dans les sections de discussion d’une série d’articles du Globe and Mail jugés pertinents pour l’étude. Que peut nous apprendre une telle étude sur les attitudes et les postures du public anglophone ?

Le français, le Canada, le Québec, l’anglais, et le bilinguisme, par ordre décroissant de fréquence d’occurrences des termes, sont les cinq axes thématiques qui émergent d’un traitement automatique de l’ensemble des commentaires.

Une analyse manuelle que j’ai réalisée à partir d’un échantillon aléatoire de 500 commentaires révèle que 75 % des propos portant sur le Québec expriment une attitude négative envers la province. Ces attitudes se construisent principalement au moyen de références défavorables envers la distinction du Québec au sein du Canada ainsi que ses politiques et préoccupations linguistiques.

Tandis que la plupart des références au Canada sont également conçues négativement, le qualifiant à plusieurs reprises de « pays non sérieux », cette posture est largement élaborée à travers des références défavorables au Québec. Plus précisément, l’échec perçu du Canada est souvent attribué au fait de céder aux pressions du Québec, à la langue française et au bilinguisme officiel.

Dans certains commentaires, ce sentiment s’exprime à travers un lexique à connotation péjorative, tel que du « catering » (céder aux exigences), du « kowtowing » (se soumettre servilement) ou « pandering au Quebec » (flatter ou courtiser de manière opportuniste). Ces prises de position s’inscrivent dans un registre de ressentiment envers le Québec et ses politiques linguistiques.

Bien que 62,5 % des commentaires relatifs au message unilingue du PDG témoignent d’une posture critique, 55,7 % expriment une attitude négative envers le bilinguisme, lequel s’articule notamment autour d’un registre de la contrainte : « forcé à devenir bilingue », « bilinguisme imposé aux cadres ».

L’unilinguisme français, lui aussi qualifié de « forcé » (« l’unilinguisme forcé à l’intérieur du Québec ») est associé à de nombreuses allusions à la « police linguistique ».

La tension entre le choix linguistique individuel et la langue protégée par l’état, qui reflète deux visions divergentes de la langue, oppose les deux communautés linguistiques.

Les représentations divergentes des deux langues

Les sociolinguistes, telles que la sociolinguiste acadienne Annette Boudreau, professeure émérite de l’Université de Moncton, constatent un lien étroit entre les attitudes défavorables envers des personnes et la langue qui leur est associée, dans le contexte canadien. De plus, selon plusieurs études, la langue peut servir de vecteur socialement acceptable de stigmatisation des locuteurs.

Les attitudes négatives à l’endroit du Québec se manifestent ainsi à travers les désignations péjoratives du français québécois, telles que « la langue internationale des plaintes » et « la deuxième (non officielle moribonde) langue du Canada ».

Les représentations stéréotypées ayant pour but de remettre en question le statut du français québécois comme variété légitime de français le décrivent comme « une langue moribonde » ou « morte », voire comme « un dialecte vieux de 400 ans », qui « n’est compris qu’au Québec ».

En revanche, plusieurs commentaires présentent l’anglais comme la langue « internationale » et « dominante », et, notamment, « la langue dominante au Canada », soulignant son statut de langue de la réussite sociale (« un levier de la réussite »).

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La langue comme miroir et moteur des attitudes

Quelles représentations et idées reçues sur la langue, naturalisées et largement incontestées au sein de chaque communauté respective, sous-tendent ces discours dévalorisants ?

Pour les francophones, le français constitue un vecteur d’appartenance et un pilier de la culture et de la cohésion sociale, auquel est associé un fort attachement affectif. Dans une telle logique, la langue est étroitement liée à l’identité, tant individuelle que collective, ainsi qu’à la culture commune. Dès lors, la dévalorisation d’une langue est susceptible d’être perçue comme une dévalorisation des personnes qui la parlent.

À l’inverse, dans le Canada anglophone, l’anglais, largement reconnu comme la langue la plus valorisée sur le marché linguistique, est davantage envisagé comme un outil de communication — émotionnellement neutre — plutôt que comme un marqueur identitaire. Dans cette logique dite instrumentale, dévaloriser une langue ne revient pas systématiquement à dévaloriser la communauté linguistique associée.

Ces logiques, ou idéologies linguistiques concurrentes, y compris dans le contexte canadien, comme le montre des travaux de la sociolinguiste à l’Université Carleton Rachelle Vessey, sont rarement explicitées. Ainsi, les locuteurs n’en sont généralement pas conscients ni sensibilisés à leur portée.

Lorsque ces idéologies divergentes se rencontrent dans un même espace social, elles peuvent entrer en conflit et générer des tensions. La prise en compte de ces logiques, et des attitudes et représentations qu’elles engendrent, peut contribuer à un meilleur éclairage — et éventuellement à une forme de conciliation — de ces incompréhensions structurelles.

Yulia Bosworth ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Michael Rousseau et le français : les trois quarts des commentaires dans les médias canadiens sont négatifs envers le Québec, selon une étude – https://theconversation.com/michael-rousseau-et-le-francais-les-trois-quarts-des-commentaires-dans-les-medias-canadiens-sont-negatifs-envers-le-quebec-selon-une-etude-280109