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Por Julián Zamora, CNN en Español

El Clásico Mundial de Béisbol (o WBC, siglas en inglés de World Baseball Classic) ya está aquí. Este miércoles por la noche, o mejor dicho mediodía de jueves en Japón, comenzará el torneo que enfrentará a las mejores 20 selecciones del planeta.

Del 5 al 17 de marzo veremos un torneo de béisbol en el que las estrellas más destacadas de la pelota caliente internacional y de las Grandes Ligas de Estados Unidos se reúnen para representar a sus países.

Así como Lionel Messi o Cristiano Ronaldo defienden a sus selecciones en el Mundial de fútbol, en el Clásico veremos a figuras como Shohei Ohtani, considerado hoy el mejor jugador de béisbol del mundo, representando a Japón, o a Aaron Judge vistiendo los colores rojo, blanco y azul de Estados Unidos.

Este año las sedes serán Houston, Texas; Miami, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico y Tokio, Japón.

En la final del WBC de hace tres años se enfrentaron dos gigantes del béisbol: Ohtani en el montículo y Mike Trout en la caja de bateo. El mejor jugador “two-way” (es decir bateador y lanzador) del planeta frente a uno de los bateadores más temidos de la MLB.

El resultado fue un momento cargado de tensión, digno de una película de suspenso de Alfred Hitchcock, que acabó por decantar el título.

Tres bolas, dos strikes, dos outs. Parte alta del noveno inning, es decir, con una sola oportunidad para asegurar el triunfo o extender la agonía.

Ohtani lanzó un slider de 140 km/h, imparable, y Trout abanicó… tercer strike y Japón se coronó campeón.

Así fue como un duelo entre superestrellas se convirtió en la esencia misma de lo que un campeonato mundial puede y debe ofrecer.

Y es que este torneo es verdaderamente especial. El Clásico Mundial de Béisbol permite ver a figuras activas de la Major League Baseball representando a sus países, algo que rara vez ocurre. La pasión, la intensidad y la competencia se desbordan en cada juego.

El Clásico es, para muchos, el verdadero campeonato mundial del béisbol, ello si comparamos el título que las Grandes Ligas de Estados Unidos le dan a su gran final, la Serie Mundial (o World Series).

El WBC se jugó por primera vez en 2006. Fue un trabajo conjunto de la MLB y la MLBPA (Asociación de Jugadores de las Grandes Ligas) con el apoyo de federaciones internacionales.

El objetivo era claro: internacionalizar aún más al béisbol, dar visibilidad global a la liga y cumplir el sueño de muchos peloteros de representar a su país haciendo lo que mejor saben hacer.

Hasta ahora se han disputado cinco ediciones. Japón es el máximo ganador, con tres títulos, seguido por Estados Unidos y República Dominicana, con un título cada uno.
Puerto Rico llegó a dos finales consecutivas, en 2013 y 2017, mientras que Cuba fue finalista en el torneo de 2006.

Sin embargo, pese a todo lo que representa y está en juego, en Estados Unidos el torneo genera controversia entre algunos aficionados de los grandes equipos que temen por el riesgo de que sus jugadores se lesionen y no rindan al 100% durante la temporada regular.

Un caso muy recordado fue el del cerrador puertorriqueño Edwin Díaz, quien en 2023 se lesionó durante una celebración y se perdió toda la temporada con los Mets.

Por eso, algunos equipos incluso, protegiendo contratos millonarios, limitan o prohíben la participación de sus jugadores. Una de la formas más comunes es evitar que los peloteros recién salidos de una lesión o que se han lesionado recientemente participen del Clásico.

Pero, para los peloteros el Clásico representa algo distinto: orgullo nac

By Ashley Strickland, CNN

(CNN) — Scientists are one step closer to understanding the origins of complex life on Earth after shedding new light on a mystery about our microbial ancestors. The key, they suspect, may lie in how simple microbes that lived billions of years ago adapted to the presence of oxygen.

Humans, like all plants, fungi and animals on Earth, are eukaryotes — organisms with cells that have a clearly defined DNA-containing nucleus and other structures such as mitochondria, organelles that provide cells with power by converting nutrients into energy.

Between 2.4 billion and 2.1 billion years ago, oxygen levels dramatically increased in Earth’s atmosphere, known as the Great Oxidation Event. A few hundred thousand years after the event, the first identifiable traces of eukaryotes, preserved as microfossils, appeared on our planet, suggesting that oxygen has long been a crucial ingredient for the evolution of complex life.

Many scientists believe that eukaryotes evolved from the combination of two types of microbes.

But in a puzzling twist, one of the microbes, known as Asgard archaea, has only been found in oxygen-deprived environments such as hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor — despite appearing to share complex similarities with eukaryotes.

Researchers have questioned how Asgards even crossed paths with other microbes that required oxygen for survival to create eukaryotes if they existed in such different environments.

But a new investigation of Asgard genomes has revealed previously unknown lineages of the microbes in shallow coastal sediments, some of which appear tolerant of and use oxygen, according to a study published February 18 in the journal Nature.

“The fact that some of the Asgards, which are our ancestors, were able to use oxygen fits in with this very well,” study coauthor Brett Baker, associate professor of marine science and integrative biology at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement. “Oxygen appeared in the environment, and Asgards adapted to that. They found an energetic advantage to using oxygen, and then they evolved into eukaryotes.”

Understanding the role of Asgards in the development of complex life could help solve the bigger mystery of how exactly microbes evolved into eukaryotes — and why we’re all here, Baker said.

A microbe with mythological roots

Asgard archaea, named for the celestial home of Norse gods such as Odin and Thor, is a superphylum, or a group that evolved from a common ancestor.

A single phylum within this group was first discovered in 2015 near an underwater volcano in the North Atlantic Ocean known as Loki’s Castle due to its resemblance to the horned helmet worn by the Marvel Comics character — who also happens to be a god in Norse mythology. The microbe was dubbed Lokiarchaeota.

Other phyla of Asgard microbes have also been named after gods from Norse mythology.

When compared with microbes in other superphyla, Asgards appear to be closely related to eukaryotes and contain genes only seen in complex life.

“They were hailed as sort of the missing link in the evolution of life, from single-celled microbial life to complex life like plants and animals,” Baker told CNN.

By examining samples from a broad range of environments, researchers are increasingly finding more types of Asgard microbes, such as Heimdallarchaeia, named for the guardian of Asgard.

In 2023, Baker and his colleagues found that eukaryotes appear most closely related to the Heimdall group of Asgard microbes, which have high-energy metabolic pathways. The findings supported the idea that animals and other life forms must

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By CNN Meteorologist Mary Gilbert

(CNN) — Supercell thunderstorms are dangerous severe storms that unleash destructive hail, roaring winds and powerful tornadoes.

They are responsible for nearly all of the United States’ most violent tornadoes and the largest hailstones.

Here’s what makes them so potent.

Thunderstorms 101

Thunderstorms need moisture, energy — which meteorologists call instability — and some sort of lift to form. Usually, the lift comes from cold and warmer air masses colliding along a line called a front.

Once thunderstorms bubble to life, they come in two main forms: single cell and multi-cell.

Single cell thunderstorms develop alone and stay solo — think the short-lived thunderstorms of spring and summer afternoons. Multi-cell thunderstorms occur when individual storms develop but then merge into lines or clusters.

Supercell thunderstorms are also single cell, but they last much longer — hours instead of minutes. The “super” in their name refers to that extended lifetime.

What makes supercells different

Supercells have one main feature that keeps them up and running longer than other storms: a powerful, rotating updraft.

An updraft is a column of air that rushes upward in a thunderstorm and feeds it the moist air and energy it needs to grow tall and strong.

All thunderstorms have an updraft, so it’s the rotation that makes supercells the dangerous standout they are.

An updraft rotates when there is enough shear — a change in wind speed and/or direction with height — in the atmosphere. Rotation keeps the updraft strong and steady for a longer time by pulling in more moisture and energy.

Once a supercell thunderstorm gets up and running, it’s almost guaranteed to produce some sort of severe weather in the form of hail or damaging wind gusts.

Not every supercell thunderstorm produces a tornado, in fact only about 20% to 30% of them do, according to the National Weather Service. But any tornadoes from a supercell are more likely to be on the higher end of the EF Scale.

Supercells also often develop a signature look on weather radar, especially when they may be about to produce a tornado. It’s called a hook echo and only supercells develop them. That spiral shape is an easy way to spot a supercell’s powerful rotating updraft.

The-CNN-Wire
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