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The board game that was removed for making children steal food rations from Titanic survivors

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

There have always been games with a morbid theme, but they are certainly not a thing of today. Already in 1975, board game creators were racking their brains to come up with the darkest and most impactful idea for the whole family. And what better way to spend an afternoon of harmless fun in the company of loved ones that one of the greatest tragedies in the history of modern locomotion. It sinks. When in 1975 Ideal Toy Corporation put on the shelves ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’the slogan printed on the box left no room for imagination (or interpretation): “Play while the ship sinks… and then face the dangers of the open sea.” From 8 years and older, be careful. The controversy, of course, was immediate, the game was withdrawn from the market, and although it was reissued under different names, today it is a sought-after piece for collectors of classic board games. How to play. The game has two phases. First, players are ship’s officers who must navigate the cabins of the Titanic rescuing passengers and stocking up on food and water rations as the ship sinks. In the second phase, with the liner already under water, survivors in boats race to reach the rescue ship. The first to arrive with two passengers, two rations of food and two of water wins. What does it look like? The board is cleverly articulated into two pieces joined by clips. Every time someone rolls a 1 or 6 with the dice, the board “sinks” into the bar, and more and more squares of the ship’s hull disappear under the water. If an empty lifeboat touches the water, it is removed, and if the player cannot find a place in any boat, he loses. In 1975, the idea was very ingenious: a board that is transformed. Ideal itself had already explored these possibilities with a previous success, ‘Mouse Trap‘, in 1963. Storms and cannibals. But the real morbidity (and, let’s face it, the distancing from historical facts) came with the modifying cards that threw the players against “violent storms, cannibals, the cruel sea and each other,” as the instructions. Actually, the game has little to do with what happened on the Titanic, and in that sense it is quite modest: there are no mention of real passengers and the tropical islands with cannibals have nothing to do with the frigid North Atlantic where the real ship sank. The controversy. Ideal received criticism for turning tragedy into entertainment. The game was withdrawn from the market and re-released under the name ‘Abandon Ship’, with all references to the Titanic eliminated, something not difficult because as we have said, the game had few authentic elements, except perhaps the unmistakable silhouette of the cruise ship on the box. Because of this, the original version of ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’ has been revalued and It is easy for it to reach approximately 150 euros on websites like eBay. Too soon. The Titanic sank in April 1912 and Ideal recovered from the tragedy 63 years later. What is significant is that the remains of the ship, located by oceanographer Robert Ballard in 1985, had not yet been found. The 1,500 bodies that lay four kilometers deep certified, with bodies included, the magnitude of the tragedy. But ten years before, after the sinking of the Titanic, there were only ghosts missing in the sea, a myth about the unfathomable dangers of the ocean. In 1975 you could still make a board game about it. In Xataka | AI is so good at chess that it is changing something: the way humans play it

Generation Z is uploading videos of their work routines to TikTok and Instagram, and it is already a phenomenon

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

If we have learned anything from social networks, it is that everything can be contained, including boring office work. After all there are people hooked on toilet cleaning videosso it’s not that strange. Worktok. It’s how these creators, most of them very young, tag the content they publish about their work. Browsing the hashtag we found mostly humorous gags about work life, but digging a little deeper we found all kinds of videos. There are those who tell their routine, those who use it as a space to vent to complain about their bosses and even those who broadcast his dismissal live. There is a subcategory within this trend and it is the ‘Quittok’, that is, young people who tell why they want to resign from their jobs. Some they even record themselves doing it. Viral. It is not an anecdotal phenomenon, the hashtag #worktok It has already accumulated almost 300,000 publications and the total views amount to 1.8 billion. What has led so many people to share details about their work life? The label began to become popular in 2020 during the pandemic. At a time when teleworking was imposed throughout the world, many people began to share their daily lives on TikTok and that also included work. Why is it important. In statements to the BBCAccording to Sara McCorquodale, head of an influencer firm in the United Kingdom, the fact that it has been maintained over time responds to a need to create a community and seek validation online. It’s like looking for that “coffee machine moment” that for many young people does not exist either because they work remotely or because they do not have that connection with their office colleagues. A space of identity. According to McCorquodale, sharing with the world the day-to-day life of work – with its achievements and its dramas – is also a way of reaffirming one’s identity and taking control of the narrative. It is a way of saying that my work life belongs to me and I am going to narrate it as I want, not as the company dictates. It is also a symptom of a broader trend, that of a generation that prioritizes their mental health and well-being over promotions or working hard. They are the opposite of workaholics. Yes, but. Sharing certain company details or recording videos during working hours can cause problems. It’s what It happened to a paint store worker who started recording videos of how he mixed different colors of paint. The company saw the videos and fired him for recording during work hours and using store materials. Primark also fired an employee in the United Kingdom for having recorded TikToks. It doesn’t seem like ‘worktok’ is going to disappear, so both companies and employees will have to adapt and navigate without crossing boundaries. In Xataka | A generation totally disconnected from their work: 80% of “genzers” want to change jobs Image | Vitaly Gariev in Unsplash

Migratory fish populations have plummeted 81% since 1970

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

Large animal migrations usually evoke wildebeest images crossing the African savanna or flocks of birds crossing the continental skies. However, beneath the surface of our rivers and lakes lies an epic journey that is about to disappear. Here the UN itself pointed out that the populations of migratory fish of freshwater have fallen by 81% in the last half century. An abyss of data. Data published by the UN with support from WWF and Wetlands they point to a major collapse of the fish population. And to understand the magnitude of the problem, the researchers analyzed 1,864 populations of 284 species of migratory fish between 1970 and 2020. Here the overall result was the loss of that 81% of biomass with a panorama that changes depending on where we look. This is why Latin America and the Caribbean is the most affected region, with a terrifying decrease of 91% of its populations, while in Europe the collapse is 75%. A conservation paradox. A very important fact is that 97% of migratory fish that are already on the CMS protection list are threatened with extinction. However, science indicates that there is 325 species candidates (and long forgotten) that urgently need to be included in the appendices of international protection to survive. Brazil, for example, is already promoting the protection of emblematic species such as the painted surubí so that its delicate situation is recognized. Because? Migratory fish, such as salmon or sturgeon, need to swim hundreds or thousands of kilometers to reproduce or feed, using what scientists have baptized such as Global Swimways, or global navigable waterways. In this way, one of the reasons that is causing this great change is the fragmentation of the habitat, since the massive construction of dams and artificial barriers has cut off these ‘highways’. So if a fish can’t make it up the river to spawn, its lineage ends there. Other reasons are found in overexploitation, since unsustainable fishing continues to decimate adult populations before they can reproduce. But we cannot forget about pollution either, since agricultural, industrial and urban discharges have degraded water quality to toxic levels for many of these sensitive species. It has consequences. Environmental organizations here point out that the disappearance of these animals is not only a zoological tragedy, since migratory fish are a fundamental pillar of food security. In the end, tens of millions of people around the world depend on these animals and we cannot forget that they are the ecological engine that keeps the rivers themselves alive. That is why the message that the scientific community leaves us is an ultimatum: we must restore the connectivity of our rivers to protect the remaining migratory routes, or we will face the imminent extinction of some fascinating species. Images | Jinomono Media In Xataka | Although it may seem impossible, there is a 12-millimeter fish that makes as much noise as an airplane turbine

The first “autonomous” car in history dates back to 1958 and had a peculiar problem: it smelled like fish

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

Nowadays, and with few exceptions such as Cybertruckautomobile design is moved by very clear trends. However, in the 1950s and in the midst of the space age, the sky was the limit. Some examples are the amazing General Motors Firebird Ihe Zündapp Janus that you don’t know if it comes or goes or the refrigerator with wheels called BMW Isetta. At that time was born the Golden Sahara IIa car truly ahead of its time. It was so far ahead that it brought driving assistance and full connectivity (of what there was). It is, in short, the grandfather of today’s smart car. A crazy repair idea. If I say George Barris you may not know who I’m talking about, but if I reveal that he is the creator of the Batmobile things change. Well, back in 1953 the car designer had a car accident with his Lincoln Capri: crashed into a hay truck and as a result, the top of the vehicle was destroyed. Probably many of us would have taken the car to the workshop or scrapyard based on the mechanic’s bill, but Barris invested a whopping $5,000 and what was left of his battered Capri (which had a 200 horsepower V8 engine) was built into the Golden Sahara. Be careful, to give you an idea of the inverted grassland: in the 50s the luxurious Cadillac Eldorado It cost $7,750.. Clean slate in the form of an ultra-futuristic car. Equipment from another era. At a time when FM radio was an extra, Barris himself tells its most differential design elements: hand-molded steel panels, vertical design headlights installed in fenders and bullet-type bumpers, fins integrated into the fenders, lounge-type seat with bar furniture on the sides, a removable bubble dome for the roof. Kontinent Media …and paint of with sardines The streamlined design was finished with a two-tone 24-karat gold finish (hence its name) instead of the classic chrome and a paint that shone like a diamond. Barris was looking for a finish never seen before, so he came up with a natural way to achieve a pearlescent touch before that type of paint became popular: with fish scales. As explained the designer in an interview with Jonnie King for his “Hall of Fame Legends” series: “So Shirley and I went to the fishmonger, and I remember that the fish looked very pearly. I had the fishmongers turn all the sardines so that their bellies could be seen until I found the one with the gold. We took it, removed the scales, put it in a jar, took it to the store and mixed it with a natural cellulose clearcoat and toner lacquers. Then I gave it a base of matte white and I sprayed it on top, and it turned out a spectacular pearly gold. The only problem was that it was very difficult to smell because it smelled like fish.” An even more extravagant Golden Sahara II. In 1954 the first Golden Sahara was born and from ’56 to ’58 Barris teamed up with Jim Street and Bob Metz to give it a twist until they found the Golden Sahara II. For this second generation, Goodyear added Translucent and luminous tires to replace the conventional white band tires of the time. It is just the tip of the iceberg of a car that is surprising both on the outside and (especially) on the inside. But Metz also gave it a good facelift and modified the windshield, hood and roof of the vehicle, he put quad headlights and rear fins. And it went from having a radio and steering wheel to truly futuristic technology: with panels on the upper part of the dashboard where it housed a television, tape recorder and even a refrigerator for its bar. It is said that the total cost of the Sahara exceeded $75,000 of the time. Under the hood: ahead of its time. Jim Rote’s electronics It was what made the difference compared to the cars of that era and brought it closer to ours. The steering wheel gave way to a fighter-style central joystick and implemented voice control for tasks such as opening the doors or starting the engine. Likewise, it integrated proximity sensors in two antennas on the front bumper, so that it could brake autonomously. What happened to him. In his days of wine and roses he went to fairs like the Petersen Motorama (his debut), he appeared in ‘cinderfella‘ (1960) with Jerry Lewis, Ed Winn and Judith Anderson and also in the competition ‘I’ve got a secret‘, in 1962. But in the 60s it disappeared from the front page and was relegated to ostracism for half a century, until it returned in style and restored in the Geneva Motor Show of 2019 from the hand of Goodyear. In Xataka | Make your old stickerless car a historic vehicle. A shortcut to circulate through Madrid without fines that does not always work In Xataka | The Bugatti Veyron was a unique car. And we say “was” because Bugatti has decided to betray him with nostalgia Cover | Matti Blume

Your refrigerator has a compartment designed for eggs in the door. It’s the worst possible place to keep them.

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

Almost all refrigerators on the market, when purchased, come with an accessory designed specifically for this purpose: an egg cup that goes on the shelves of the appliance door. This has become the place that many of us look at at first to catch the eggs, but the truth is that it is the worst refrigerator place to save the eggs. The thermal trap. The reason lies not in the fragility of the food, but in a microscopic enemy that surrounds us and can be potentially dangerous: the Salmonella. Here the main problem with the refrigerator door is that it is the area most exposed to thermal changes, since every time we open the refrigerator to get milk, water or simply to think about what to eat, the temperature on the door shelves fluctuates drastically. Here are the regulatory bodies of the United States They are quite clear pointing out that these constant rises and falls in temperature are the ideal breeding ground for bacterial growth. Furthermore, as pointed out by the South Korean Ministry of Food, the door is prone to generate condensation, creating a humid environment that facilitates the proliferation of pathogens in the shell that end up in the food when we break the eggs in the same bowl where we beat them (something also not recommended). The ideal temperature. To keep salmonella at bay, the temperature must be stable and below 4°C – 10°C, since under these conditions, the growth of the bacteria is suppressed by more than 99%. But this on the refrigerator shelves is something that is not always achieved. What the studies say. Here the science is quite clear with different studies that have pointed to the survival of strains such as Salmonella Typhimurium and the Salmonella Enteritidis in very specific conditions. A 2021 study demonstrated that at room temperature the bacterial load increases alarmingly in both the white and the yolk. On the contrary, keeping them at 5ºC limits their multiplication and reduces virulence. But if we come more to the present, a study launched in 2024 found that, under alternating temperature conditions, that is, in cycles of 25 ºC to 5 ºC, similar to taking food in and out of the refrigerator, salmonella manages to migrate to the yolk in 64% of cases. How to preserve them. Taking all this into account, the big question is: what should we do when we get home from the supermarket? In this case, the health authorities point to two strategies, the first being to put them directly on the interior shelves, preferably on the lower or middle ones. In this way, the temperature remains stable below 4ºC, and especially if it is at the bottom of the refrigerator. Do not throw away the cardboard. Although we usually take eggs out of their boxes to put them in plastic egg cups for convenience, the truth is that it is a mistake. That is why the second conservation strategy is to keep them in the original packaging, since the cardboard not only protects them from possible knocks, but also acts as a crucial barrier against moisture loss, prevents the shell from absorbing odors from other foods and protects the egg’s natural cuticular barrier. Images | Onur Burak Akın Katie Bernotsky In Xataka | The internet has become obsessed with drinking hot water in the morning. Science is clear about what it does (and what it doesn’t)

Iceland has solved it in the middle of the desert

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

Trapping carbon dioxide emissions and literally turning them into stone seems like an invention straight out of the blue. Futuramawhere in the future everything is recycled. The problem is that this trick of underground alchemy hid a terrifying small print: his exorbitant thirst. To get carbon to mineralize underground, the system needs to swallow absurd amounts of liquid, specifically between 20 and 50 times more water than the mass of CO₂ we are trying to store. However, a new industrial-scale study published in the magazine Nature just rewritten the rules of the game. An international team, with researchers from Iceland, Saudi Arabia and Italy, has shown in the western Saudi desert that it is possible to petrify CO₂ without wasting a single drop of external fresh water. Salvation under the sands of Saudi Arabia. As the authors of the research detail, this area is a real challenge: it is full of large facilities that emit a lot of CO₂, such as refineries and desalination plants, but it lacks the underground saline aquifers or sedimentary traps that are traditionally used to inject carbon. Salvation was under his feet. About 24 kilometers from the Jizan Economic Complex and Refinery, geologists took advantage of an immense bed of highly fractured volcanic rocks (basalts) that have been there for between 21 and 30 million years. There they tested an ingenious system for recirculating subsoil fluids. The gigantic “soda” trick. To carry out the experiment, the engineers used two main wells, separated by just 130 meters: one functions as a “production” well (extracts water) and the other as an “injection” well. The process is a closed circuit and isolated from the atmosphere so that oxygen does not enter or gas escape. They extract the water that already lives in the depths, circulate it through pipes and, 150 meters underground, inject pure CO₂ into it in the form of bubbles until it completely dissolves. According to the project scientists, dissolving the gas in water has two brutal chemical and mechanical advantages: It gets heavy: CO₂-laden water is denser than regular still water, so it creates a non-buoyant fluid, greatly limiting the risk of the gas migrating to the surface and back into the atmosphere. It becomes acidic: This liquid is acidic and greatly accelerates the dissolution of the silicate minerals present in the basaltic rock. As the rock dissolves, it releases metals that provide the cations needed to form stable minerals, such as calcite. A question of geopolitical survival. The data from this pilot is a resounding success. The team injected 131 tons of CO₂ into the subsoil. After monitoring the area with trackers, they discovered that approximately 70% of all that injected carbon had been mineralized within ten months. Measurements showed that the concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon in the returning water had been reduced by 90% compared to what was initially injected. Reusing water from the reservoir itself offers substantial advantages. Not only do you forget about bringing external water, but you also reduce the risk of the pressure of fluids underground increasing dangerously. Furthermore, by injecting water that has the same composition as the original underground reserve, the risk of compatibility problems, such as losses of permeability in the reservoir, is reduced. The current dimension. As we recently analyzed in Xataka In the wake of military escalation in the region, the real Achilles heel of the Arabian Peninsula is not oil, but thirst. Countries like Saudi Arabia depend 70% on their desalination plants to survive. In a scenario where the supply of fresh water is a strategic vulnerability and a matter of biological survival, allocating massive volumes of water to bury emissions was simply unfeasible. Therefore, this advance opens the door for the Middle East – where a large part of global oil production is also concentrated – to be able to use its basalt rocks to store carbon without sacrificing a vital resource. A providential accident. Sometimes setbacks are the best of tests. In September 2023, the submersible pump in the extraction well broke down. When the technicians brought it to the surface, they found its interior full of rock grains cemented by up to 14% calcite, as well as other minerals such as siderite and ankerite. The isotope analyzes made it clear: these solid cements were formed from the CO₂ injected during the pilot project. The gas had literally petrified in the very bowels of the machine. An “energy bargain”. As if that were not enough, we must add energy savings. As the research details, injecting CO₂ with this method requires a surface pressure of only 12 to 14 bars. That’s 8 to 16 times less pressure than conventional carbon capture plants require. Basically, CO₂-laden water is drawn into the system driven by gravity. Regarding its future potential, engineers calculate that the underground pores of this particular area (estimated between 24,000 and 43,000 m³) would have enough space to house between 22,000 and 40,000 tons of mineralized CO₂. Geology dictates: the limit of the stone. Every geological technology has its own physical limits. As experts explain Natureas water, CO₂ and basalt interact, the total volume of solid minerals increases. This means that the pore space is reduced and can end up blocking water flow paths in the long term. To get around this problem, the researchers propose that we may have to resort to fracturing the rock (fracking), an option still little explored in basaltic systems. What is clear is that this technological innovation is proposed as a great complement to conventional capture systems, not as an exclusive alternative, since in the end it is the geological conditions that rule. But thanks to this pioneering experiment, there is something we can take for granted: the lack of rivers or fresh aquifers is no longer an excuse for not returning our emissions to the subsoil and turning them into stone. Image | Eric Gaba and Nature Xataka | Neither oil nor gas: if a total war breaks out between the US … Read more

When he finishes he will steal the last advantage that the US had left

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

It is estimated that around more than 80% of the planet’s oceans remains to be mapped in detail, and in many areas we know less about the seabed than about the surface of the Moon. Still, that unknown environment is key to some of the world’s most advanced technologies. Also for war. The invisible map. I had a few days ago in a extensive Reuters report that China has been mapping the planet’s ocean floor for some time and that, when it is finished, it will have the last tactical advantage that the United States had left: knowing better than anyone else the terrain where the quietest war of all will be fought. For decades, American superiority under the sea rested not just on more advanced submarines, but on something much more intangible: a deep knowledge of the ocean environment. Now that balance starts to change because Beijing is building, step by step, a detailed image of that invisible world that conditions every movement underwater. A global network. What at first glance seems like oceanographic research is actually a global scale operation which combines dozens of vessels, hundreds of sensors and years of data accumulated in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and Arctic. These ships travel repeated routes, scanning the seabed and collecting key information on temperature, salinity and currents, factors that determine how sound propagates underwater. It is not a trivial detail, it is crucial because, in underwater combat, seeing does not matter so much: what is really key is listening better than your opponent and hiding from them. The “transparent ocean”. Here is possibly the crux of the whole thing. radiography that Beijing is carrying out. Because the heart of the strategy is the idea of creating a species of “transparent ocean”a network of sensors capable of monitoring what happens beneath the surface with an unprecedented level of precision. The reason: although not everything is in real time, even delayed data allows build models that anticipateFor example, where a submarine can hide or how to detect it. In other words, China not only wants to sail better, but reduce uncertainty which has always protected these ships, transforming the ocean into a much less opaque and much more controllable space. Military power. They remembered in Reuters that one of the keys to the Chinese advance is how it is using universities, scientific institutes and civilian ships to build this knowledge base without openly resorting to military means. This fusion between civil and military allows it to operate more freely in international waters, accumulating strategic information without raising the same level of alert that a direct naval presence would cause… although the result is the same: a database that can be translated into operational advantages in the event of conflict. The end of a historic advantage. There is no doubt, all this effort aims to a clear objective: erode one of the greatest strategic advantages the United States has had, its dominance of the underwater environment. If China manages to match (or even surpass) that knowledge, it will be able, a priori, deploy your submarines more effectively, detect those of the adversary and monitor critical routes such as the approaches to the Pacific or the Strait of Malacca. It is therefore not a race of boats, but of information, and in this field the one who best understands the bottom of the ocean will have the initiative. A new balance. Taken together, the Chinese strategy reveals a profound change in the nature of naval power: one where it is no longer enough to have more ships or better weapons, but rather dominate the environment in which they operate. By systematically mapping the seafloor and deploying sensors at key points, Beijing is preparing the ground for a competition in which the advantage will not be visible, but yes decisive. And if that process is completed, the United States could find itself for the first time in decades without its traditional superiority in the most difficult domain to control: the one that cannot be seen. Image | RawPixel, Youth Daily News In Xataka | There are two global superpowers fighting to gain a foothold on the coast of Peru: the United States and China. In Xataka | It’s not that China is serious in the Pacific, it’s that space has revealed the size of a dizzying naval domain

SpaceX is now a company in the railway sector and it is very bad news for its employees

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

For some people it will be ingenuity, for others a very hard face, but the point is that SpaceX has found a way to avoid lawsuits and strikes by its workers when obtaining the name of air transport company. This means that it is regulated under the Railway Labor Law, with all the benefits that it entails within US legislation. The news. On March 13, the official resolution was made public by which SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space agency, is now considered a company in the railway sector in the United States. This means that your activity is no longer subject to the supervision of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)which is typically responsible for protecting the labor rights of private sector workers. The layoffs that started it all. In January 2024, the NLRB put a lawsuit against SpaceX on the tableafter the company illegally fired 8 employees. The lawsuit requested reinstatement of the employees, back pay, and a letter of apology to each of them. Given this situation, SpaceX responded with another lawsuit to the NLRBalleging that the procedure being carried out was unconstitutional. Rockets have the same legal treatment as cargo planes. An ace up your sleeve. According to Elon Musk’s company, the NLRB should not be able to act against a company that is dedicated to transportation. He added that One of its main missions is the transport of humans and goods to the International Space Station.. In many cases, these jobs are carried out for NASA, so they would also be providing a service to the Government. For all this, they requested to be covered under the Railway Labor Law. A plan that suits many. In recent years, SpaceX, as well as other Elon Musk companies, have been the subject of complaints from a multitude of dissatisfied employees, either due to their personal situation or due to bad practices carried out in the company. In the case of Neuralink, for example, Very bad practice towards laboratory animals was reported. But returning to SpaceX, the increasing volume of complaints could put the company’s work pace at risk. This, logically, would harm its managers, but also the companies that benefit from its services. The entire US space program would probably collapse. For all this, although it seemed difficult, in the end Elon Musk’s company has had a resolution in favor of its new name. Immune to strikes. One of the peculiarities of railroad companies in the United States is that they benefit from special state protection. Since minimum transport services must be guaranteed, strikes and other similar activities that would normally slow down the normal pace of work are closely controlled. The NLRB no longer rules. Another of those special protections for railroad companies is that the NLRB no longer has power over them. Therefore, dismissed employees cannot resort to it to report their situation. Instead, the company is governed by the rules of the National Mediation Boardmuch more lax in the mediation of labor disputes. It is true that employees can request strikes, but to do so they must undergo a long and tedious process that often causes them to change their decision. And now what? With this new name, SpaceX has even more power and freedom than before. If measures are carried out that involve malpractice towards employees, it is difficult for their complaints to come to fruition legally. This gives them a lot of leeway and greatly speeds up their protocols. Other curious legal victories. It is not the first time that SpaceX has obtained an unexpected legal name. Last year, for example, The Starbase base was given the name of cityso that all employees who live nearby would also become inhabitants. This, far from changing a few patterns, also gave SpaceX more freedom when maneuvering in the areas surrounding its base. As with railway legislation, what may seem like a small name change can change everything. Image | Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia Commons) |SpaceX In Xataka | SpaceX is preparing the largest IPO in history: the fact that it is doing so right now is no coincidence

While Spain does everything possible to preserve the Iberian wolf, one group has very different ideas: ranchers

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

A few days ago, a six-year-old Iberian wolf named Raksha traveled from the Basabrere center in Lezaun (Navarra) to the Jerez de la Frontera Zoobotanical Center. A trip that aims enrich the captive breeding program started in 1995 in order to guarantee the conservation of the species. The problem is that it is being done at a time when ranchers are fighting against the presence of the wolf due to the damage it is causing. Wolf x-ray. To understand the conflict, you first have to look at the numbers. According to the last national censusSpain has 333 stable herds, which translates into about 1,600 to 1,700 individuals, and it is good news because it marks an increase of 12% compared to the previous census. Here the vast majority is concentrated north of the Duero River, although a clear trend of expansion is observed towards the south and east of the peninsula. The problem is that we are still quite far from reaching the 500 herds that can guarantee good genetic variability that allows them to survive. That is why the Government maintains until this March the classification of the wolf’s conservation status as “unfavorable.” The war in the countryside. If science is telling us that there is a need for wolves, livestock farmers affirm that there are plenty of them, and they see this due to the increase in attacks on livestock that has forced the State to inject 20 million euros annually for prevention measures with fences or mastiff dogs, as well as to compensate financially. However, organizations such as WWF denounce that management by the autonomous communities is deficient, with a lack of transparency and little progress compared to what is set out in the 2022 National Strategy. Lots of criticism. But these measures seem to be not enough for some, such as the Popular Party, which points out that in the province of Lugo, where more than 1,400 affected animals were registered, much more still needs to be done. The Xunta de Galicia itself also points out that right now the winners do not have state funds to be able to face these attacks. Although the tension is undoubtedly placed right now on the temporary inclusion of the wolf in the List of Wild Species under Special Protection Regime (LESPRE). Under this legal umbrella, any action of capture, disturbance, sale or destruction of the species’ habitat is prohibited. A legal pulse. If we look back, a few months ago various amendments and regulatory changes They allowed a partial departure of the wolf from LESPRE, authorizing controls based on hunting to mitigate economic damage. But in February 2026 a ruling from the Supreme Court turned the situation around 180 degreessince it tightened the requirements to authorize these extractions, obligatorily prioritizing non-lethal alternatives and drastically limiting hunting. This sentence has acted like gasoline in regions of northern Spain where ranchers report significant attacks on their animals, and that is why the autonomous communities threaten to report the Spanish government to the European Union for not acting on the regulation of this species. But what is clear is that the crossroads of the Iberian wolf in 2026 is the perfect reflection of a coexistence problem. While Raksha and other specimens in captivity ensure the genetic lifeline of the species, in the offices and meadows of northern Spain the formula that allows the wolf to howl without the rural world starting to tremble has not yet been found. Images | Arturo de Frias Marques In Xataka | We have managed to make the dire wolves return after 10,000 years of being extinct. The problem is that “come back” may not be the right word.

turn a neighborhood into an unbearable oven

April 4, 2026 by usatoday24

In some cities around the world, the shape of a building has come to alter its environment greatly. more than expected: from skyscrapers that generate dangerous winds at street level to facades capable of concentrate sunlight as if they were giant mirrors. Contemporary architecture, in its search for recognizable icons, has shown that even the most invisible details can have very real consequences. From icon to problem. At the end of the 20th century, the city of Los Angeles decided to build one of the most ambitious concert halls in the world and commissioned the project to Frank Gehryalready converted into a global figure after the success of Bilbao Guggenheim. The result was the Walt Disney Concert Halla shiny, curved steel building that promised to redefine contemporary cultural architecture. However, in this commitment to formal spectacularity, the a basic factor: the actual behavior of materials in a dense urban environment. What should have been an icon became a source of risk, capable of reflecting sunlight with such intensity that it turned nearby streets and homes into authentic ovens. The invisible failure. The problem was not simply aesthetic, but physical. Some of the stainless steel surfaces, especially the more polished ones with concave shapes, acted like parabolic mirrors capable of concentrating solar radiation at specific points in the environment. This effect, amplified by execution decisions that altered Gehry’s originally intended finish, generated extreme glare and raised the temperature in nearby areas to dangerous levels. What on paper was a play of sculptural light became a real thermal phenomenondemonstrating how small deviations between design and construction can trigger unforeseen consequences in large-scale projects. Heat, complaints and public alarm. Shortly after its inauguration in 2003, the complaints from neighbors and workers of nearby buildings. The main problem? The reflection of the sun on the façade generated heat spots that They exceeded 60 degrees Celsius, affecting homes, sidewalks and even traffic, where drivers reported dangerous glare. The building, intended as a cultural symbol, began to be perceived as a threat urban. The local press documented how some areas became practically uninhabitable during certain hours of the day, turning the work into a paradigmatic case of how iconic architecture can fail when it ignores its impact on the immediate environment. An unusual solution. In the face of growing public pressure, the solution was as radical as it was symbolic: sand the building. Specialized teams subjected part of the façade to a process “sandblasting” to remove the polished finish and reduce the reflective ability of the steel. In practice, this meant physically altering one of the most distinctive features of the original design. And although Gehry defended that the problem derived more of the execution From conception, the episode made clear that even the most celebrated works can require drastic fixes when they come into contact with reality. As various media reflected at the time, the icon had to be “domesticated” in order to coexist with the city. Lessons from a partial failure in modern architecture. The case of the Walt Disney Concert Hall It was neither a structural collapse nor a total failure, but it was a strong warning on the limits of spectacle architecture. He demonstrated that formal innovation, when not accompanied by a deep understanding of factors such as solar radiation, the urban environment or real materials, can generate problems as serious and unexpected. Not only that. It also highlighted the fragility of the balance between aesthetics, engineering and habitability in contemporary architecture. The legacy. There is no doubt, today, the concert hall continues to be one of the most admired buildings in the world and a cultural reference in Los Angeles. But his story carries an uncomfortable lesson: even the most prestigious architect and a client with unlimited resources can overlook the most essential. In their search for a global icon, they forgot for a time that architecture is not only looked at, you also live. And in this case, for a few months, living near the work could mean something as simple and brutal as enduring unbearable heat generated by the building itself. Image | Pexels, Wally Gobetz, Slices of Light In Xataka | If the solution to the housing crisis is to “build high”, Spain has the best possible example at hand: Benidorm In Xataka | If the question is whether a skyscraper can be erased without demolishing it, Paris has the answer: yes, in exchange for a fortune

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