Month: October 2025

how to get your ticket for the gala on November 20

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Just one month left! He November 20 we will celebrate our long awaited Xataka NordVPN Awards 2025 at the Capitol Cinemas in Madrid on a very special night to which, once again, we would like to invite you to join us. If you want to attend in person, pay attention because we will explain how to get your ticket. Agenda When: November 20, 2025 Where: Capitol Cinemas (Madrid) Schedule: Start of the gala at 8:00 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time), although we will tell you more about door opening and access by mail, when you receive your confirmation. Request your entry in this form If you want to join us on November 20 at the Capitol Cinemas at the Xataka NordVPN 2025 Awards, please register in the following form. Tickets are free and will be delivered in strict order of registration until full capacity (important: register quickly if you don’t want to be left without a ticket). During the registration process you can indicate whether you want to come with a companion or not. In a few days you will receive a confirmation email with all the details about the event and the party. Pay attention to your inbox! Note: If the form does not work for you, you can sign up here. And if you can’t join us physically, remember that we will broadcast the awards gala live from our website, so be sure to visit us that day. NordVPN offers you a fast and stable connection thanks to your more than 6,300 servers in more than 110 countries. Enjoy advanced cybersecurity tools with Threat Protection Pro™, securely access your streaming platforms favorites wherever you are and enjoy the best offers on flights and hotels. Advice offered by the brand Help us choose the winners In addition to attending the gala, either in person or online, you can participate in the Xataka NordVPN 2025 Awards by helping us choose your favorite products and services this year. There are already several categories open in which you can vote: We will publish the rest soon and you will be able to see them here. Not only will your votes be the ones that select the finalists in each category, but they will also be added to those of the jury to choose the winners. We encourage you to participate! Thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you on November 20!

The case of mathematics shows that the hype threatens to explode in their faces

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A group of OpenAI researchers claimed to have “found solutions to 10 previously unsolved Erdös problems, and progress has been made on 11 others.” The statement seemed to indicate that GPT-5 had made an important qualitative leap in the field of mathematics, but the reality was very different. In fact, it all turned out to be an exaggeration that may harm OpenAI’s reputation going forward. what has happened. The OpenAI engineers’ claim was promising, but exaggerated. The original message from Mark Selke, one of them, was added to those of other researchers such as Boris Power—who he apologized after realizing that they had screwed up—or Sebastian Bubeck—who also ended up modifying the tweet and acknowledged the error—. The original tweet seemed to make it clear that GPT-5 had managed to solve several of the famous Erdös mathematical problems. I hadn’t really solved them. GPT-5 served to find solutions. The mathematician Thomas Bloom, who is precisely in charge of managing the website where all these open problems are managed, quickly clarified the situation. As explained on X/TwitterOpenAI’s claims were “a dramatically misinterpretation.” When he talks about “open” problems on the website, what he means is that he doesn’t know the solution, not that the problem has not been resolved. The only thing GPT-5 did was find recent research and studies that Bloom had not found. Here we must say that AI has managed to make striking mathematical advances recently: Meta AI, for example, managed to generalize the Lyapunov function. Demis Hassabis and Yann LeCun criticize OpenAI. Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, indicated in X that this event had been “shameful”, while Yann LeCun, one of the top AI managers at Meta, highlighted how OpenAI had believed its own hype sales message with the message “Hoisted by their own GPTards”, which plays on GPT and “tards” (a suffix derived from “retards”), in reference to the gullible expectations that OpenAI usually sells. Expectations are everything. Although OpenAI researchers and engineers admitted their mistake, what we see here is a dangerous pattern: one in which even the company’s own employees—or the enthusiasts who follow it—can end up falling victim to those expectations. It is very likely that internally the pressure to achieve great advances with their models is enormous, but that can lead to oversights and exaggerations like this that can cost the company’s reputation dearly. GPT-5 didn’t do badly at all. Although the role of GPT-5 in this process was exaggerated, what must be recognized is that this model demonstrated its ability to become a very valuable assistant for researchers. Thus, this AI model can search the Internet and scientific study libraries in a very powerful way, and can “find solutions” already published where academics had not yet seen them when trying to solve related problems. Research assistant. For mathematician Terence Tao, this is precisely a very striking element of these AI models: they may not solve the most complex mathematical problems, but can speed up tedious tasks such as those of the search for academic literature that helps solve them. For this expert, AI can help “industrialize” mathematics and act as a catalyst or “lubricant” for mathematicians’ hypotheses and theories. But this is important. OpenAI is a machine for creating expectations, and its CEO, Sam Altman, does not hesitate to make vague and impossible to verify promises to attract more interest in his generative artificial intelligence models. A year ago promised that the AGI would arrive “in a few thousand days”something that sounds like one of those “Musk’s promises”. risky bet. In recent weeks we have seen how OpenAI has reached unique circular financing agreements with NVIDIA, amd either Broadcom to create data centers, but the reality is that all these projects focus on one promise: that AI will be a fundamental part of our lives sooner rather than later. That can happen, of course, but if it doesn’t, the domino effect can be an absolute catastrophe given the tens of billions of dollars invested in such projects. Image | Vitaly Gariev In Xataka | If the question is whether there is an AI bubble, Sam Altman has just given the answer. One with which he wins

This is what robotics needs to look like the movies

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Imagine an AI that not only answers questions, but can imagine scenarios, predict consequences, or plan actions before executing them. This is precisely what world models promise, a technology that is attracting attention from the main artificial intelligence laboratories and that could radically change how machines understand and interact with their environment. What exactly are they. World models are AI systems that build an internal representation of the environment, as if they contained a simulation of the real world. Unlike traditional supervised learning, which simply maps inputs to outputs using labeled data, these models learn how an environment works and they can predict what will happen next. It is similar to how humans use mental simulations to anticipate outcomes without needing to physically experience each situation. The example of the batter. Researchers David Ha and Jürgen Schmidhuber they explain it With a sports analogy: a baseball batter has just milliseconds to decide how to hit the ball, less time than it takes for the visual signal to reach the brain. What allows him to hit a fastball at 100 miles per hour is his ability to instinctively predict where the ball will go. Your muscles react reflexively based on the predictions of your internal mental model, without the need to consciously plan every possible scenario. Why they matter now. Prominent figures such as Yann LeCun (Meta), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind) and Yoshua Bengio (Quebec AI Institute) consider that these models are essential to building truly intelligent systems. The startup World Labs of Fei-Fei Li, one of the most influential figures in AI, raised last year 230 million dollars to develop them. On the other hand, General Intuition, a new AI lab owned by Medal (known for its app for recording and sharing game clips), just got a financing round of 133.7 million. The investment came primarily from Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla (one of OpenAI’s early investors), who affirms that “multiple companies valued at hundreds of billions, potentially even trillions of dollars will be built” in this field. How they work. These systems have three fundamental capabilities. On the one hand, they compress complex sensory data (images, videos, text) into simpler representations. Second, they predict future states of the environment based on past and present information. Third, they use that learned model to simulate different actions and choose the best option. It is as if the AI ​​can “dream” different scenarios before acting. The case of video games. Ha and Schmidhuber also have a clarifying example To do this: imagine an AI learning to play a racing game. Instead of memorizing sequences of moves, you first build an internal model of how the game world behaves: how the car moves, how the road curves, where obstacles appear. You can then imagine future scenarios, testing different driving strategies in your simulated world before applying them in the real game. Promising applications. world models They are already transforming several fields. In autonomous driving, they allow vehicles to simulate traffic dynamics and pedestrian behavior to make safer decisions. In robotics, robots can imagine different ways to complete a task before executing it, especially useful when real-world training is expensive or dangerous. And in video generation, help create more realistic content: A model that understands why a ball bounces is going to represent it better than one that has simply memorized patterns. Beyond the video. A better video generation model would be just the beginning. LeCun describe how a world model could help achieve goals through reasoning: Given a video of a messy room and the goal of cleaning it, you could devise a sequence of actions (vacuuming, cleaning the dishes, emptying the trash) not because you have observed that pattern, but because you understand at a deeper level how to go from dirty to clean. “We need machines that understand the world, that can remember things, that have intuition and common sense,” affirms. The obstacles ahead. Train and run world models requires massive computing powereven compared to current generative models. Although right now thousands and thousands of GPUs are needed cloistered in gigantic data centers that They consume a lot of energy to run current models, training world models is another level. Furthermore, like all AI models, they also have the risk of hallucinate and internalize biases from your training data. The industry’s bet. Despite the technical challenges, there are different strategies in place. Google DeepMind and OpenAI they bet because with enough multimodal training data (video, 3D simulations and beyond text) a world model will spontaneously emerge within a neural network. LeCun, for his part, believe that a completely new, non-generative AI architecture will be necessary. What comes next. Several experts also predict that world models will allow you to create interactive 3D worlds on demand for video games, virtual photography and other applications. According to Justin Johnson, co-founder of World Labs, “we already have the ability to create virtual, interactive worlds, but it costs hundreds of millions of dollars and a lot of development time.” They could also revolutionize robotics by giving robots real awareness of their environment and their own body. As resume Mashrabov, “with an advanced world model, an AI could develop a personal understanding of any scenario it finds itself in and begin to reason out possible solutions.” Although LeCun esteem that we are still at least a decade away from the world models he imagines, the great expectation of the industry to see evolutions in the field of AI and the monstrous investment that this phenomenon is receiving, indicate that this technology could be the next great leap towards machines that not only react to the world, but understand and model it. Cover image | Michael Marais In Xataka | “The safety of our children is not for sale”: the first law that regulates ‘AI friends’ is here

New technology captures energy from even the slightest breeze

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As China builds wind turbines so big they alter the microclimateGermany has decided to blow in another direction. Instead of climbing towards the sky, it has opted for a quiet revolution: miniaturize and optimize. The result is a small wind turbine so efficient that it is activated by a simple breeze and borders on the theoretical limits of physics. In search of precision. At their Wildau plant, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research (IAP) have developedtogether with the BBF Group, an experimental rotor with a composite structure and optimized weight. Their goal: to test whether materials engineering can improve aerodynamic performance in low wind conditions. The first prototypes are already spinning on the ground: Starting with wind of only 2.7 m/s (compared to 4 m/s for conventional models). Up to 450 revolutions per minute. Output power of 2,500 W at 10 m/s. Efficiency of 53%, bordering on the physical limit of 59% established by Betz’s law. Five units are currently being tested at different BBF Group locations to evaluate how height and location affect performance. Almost as efficient as physics allows. The Betz limit explains that No wind turbine can convert more than 59.3% of the wind’s kinetic energy into useful energy. This value represents the theoretical ceiling of aerodynamic performance. For this reason, the Fraunhofer IAP wind turbine reaches 53%, that is, 89% of the maximum possible limit, an exceptional performance for a small format turbine. In comparison, similar commercial systems barely exceed 30%. Precision engineering. The secret It’s on the rotor blades They are made of fiber composite materials and are hollow inside, without the traditional foam core. This choice reduces the total weight by 35% and improves the structural response to wind. The manufacturing process combines industrial 3D printing – capable of creating molds up to two meters per side – with an Automated Fiber Placement (AFP) system, a common technology in the aerospace industry. This method deposits fiber strips with millimeter precision before impregnating them with resin, reducing overlaps and ensuring greater structural quality. Additionally, a special laminated structure allows the blades to flex elastically during storms, rotating in the face of the wind and reducing rotation speed without the need for control mechanisms. A paradigm shift. In a global context dominated by megainfrastructures and concentration of energy power, the miniaturization of wind power represents a total change. These turbines could be installed in homes, companies, rural cooperatives or humanitarian missions. They allow energy autonomy and resilience against network outages or supply crises. The German model does not seek to compete with the giants of China, but rather to democratize the wind. Each small turbine can be integrated into local networks or microgrids, reducing transportation losses and facilitating distributed generation. Looking to the future. The next step of the project aims for complete sustainability. Fraunhofer is already working on recyclable monomaterial structures, made with a single type of polymer. This simplifies end-of-life recycling and dramatically reduces the environmental footprint, a crucial aspect as Europe prepares for mass recycling of wind blades before 2030. If field tests confirm the laboratory results, Germany could take a new turn to its strategy: combine its network of large wind farms with thousands of local microturbines that convert wind energy into a truly distributed resource. When small becomes powerful. While China raises its wind power to the sky, Germany explores the power of a breeze. Fraunhofer IAP engineers are not looking to break size records, but rather to break the efficiency ceiling. In a world that associates progress with gigantism, the future of energy may literally come in compact form. Because in the new wind race, the one who blows the strongest will not win, but the one who knows how to move best with the breeze. Image | Unsplash Xataka | The new wind energy giant will not be in China. Germany begins to build the tallest wind turbine in the world

a giant plane made of wood

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On November 2, 1947, thousands of people gathered near the port of Long Beach, California, without knowing that they were going to witness something that was not in their plans. In front of them, a huge plane built almost entirely made of wood He was preparing to move on the water. It was larger than any aircraft that had existed until then. Its creator, businessman and filmmaker Howard Hughes, decided to take charge. That day, for a few brief seconds, the H-4 Hercules —popularized as “Spruce Goose”— managed to take off and prove that it could fly. Five years before that unexpected flight, the world was at war and German submarines were sinking hundreds of Allied ships in the Atlantic. The United States needed a safe way to transport troops and supplies without relying on sea routes, and magnate Henry Kaiser thought he had the answer: a gigantic transport plane capable of crossing the ocean. Since he had no experience in aviation, he went to Hughes, who accepted the challenge of building it under a condition that would complicate everything: the government prohibited the use of strategic materials such as aluminum or steel. When aluminum was lacking and ambition was left over: the birth of the H-4 Hercules The agreement between Kaiser and Hughes was signed in 1942, in the middle of the war, with the idea of ​​manufacturing three units of the new aircraft. They called it HK-1, after the initials of their last names. However, the initial enthusiasm soon collided with reality: the size of the device, the complexity of the design and material limitations caused the project to be delayed more than expected. Kaiser, accustomed to meeting deadlines in the naval industry, grew impatient and abandoned the program in 1944. Hughes decided to go ahead alone and renamed the aircraft the H-4 Hercules. Deprived of metals such as aluminum, Hughes turned to an unusual material in aviation: wood. But not just any wood. He opted for a system innovative called Duramoldwhich consisted of laminating thin layers of birch and gluing them with synthetic resins until forming a structure that was as rigid as it was light. This process, developed a few years before, allowed the parts to be molded with great precision and reduced the total weight of the fuselage. The result was a gray and smooth surface that, at first glance, barely allowed one to guess that this colossus was made of wood. The result of Hughes’ experiments was a monumental flying boat. The H-4 Hercules had a tall wing that extended almost 98 meters from tip to tip and eight enormous28-cylinder Pratt & Whitney enginescapable of propelling the ship with surprising smoothness. Two floats were installed on the outside of the wings to give it balance when sailing. The entire fuselage was built with the Duramold methodwhich provided a smooth surface, without rivets. It was a strange combination of strength, elegance and enormous size. The H-4 Hercules measured almost 66 meters long and more than 79 meters in wingspan, figures that made it the largest aircraft ever built at its time. Its height, more than 24 meters, was equivalent to an eight-story building. Empty, it weighed about 136 tons, and fully loaded it could reach 180. With a cruising speed of about 240 kilometers per hour, it was designed to transport up to 400 soldiers or the equivalent in war material. Despite its size, Hughes was confident that the design would allow it to take off smoothly from the water. The morning of November 2, 1947 dawned calm in Long Beach. The H-4 Hercules was to carry out simple displacement tests, with Hughes at the controls and a small group of technicians and journalists on board. What happened next was not on the flight plan. Halfway through the trip, the pilot increased the power and the seaplane, of more than 130 tons, rose a few meters above the water. It remained in the air for half a minute and traveled about 800 meters before descending gently. It was his first and last flight. The H-4 Hercules cost about 23 million dollars at the time, the equivalent of more than 278 million today. Its development had spread so far that, by the time it flew, the war had ended two years ago. Many considered it a waste of public money and the press dubbed it “Spruce Goose,” a label Hughes detested. For years he defended his project against critics and kept the aircraft in perfect condition, with a full-time team in charge of keeping it ready to fly. For more than three decades, the H-4 Hercules remained hidden in a climate-controlled hangar under the direct supervision of Howard Hughes. After his death in 1976, his company, Summa Corporation, donated the plane to the Aero Club of Southern California. In 1983, heThe aircraft was again shown to the public: The Wrather company moved it to a huge dome-shaped hangar next to the Queen Mary ship, also in Long Beach. For the first time since 1947, the “Spruce Goose” was again seen by thousands of curious visitors. In 1992, the Oregon-based Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum submitted the winning proposal to give the H-4 Hercules a new permanent home. The plane was disassembled piece by piece and transported by barge from Long Beach to Portland, following the Pacific coast and then the Columbia and Willamette rivers. After several months of waiting for the water level, in February 1993 the sections arrived in McMinnville, where temporary hangars were erected to begin restoration. In 2001, the “Spruce Goose” was again shown to the public, fully assembled. More than seven decades after its only flight, the H-4 Hercules remains a benchmark in aeronautical engineering. To this day it maintains three historical titles: it is the largest seaplane, the largest wooden plane and the largest propeller plane ever built. Its technical influence can be seen in numerous subsequent developments, and its history continues to inspire engineers and enthusiasts. What was born … Read more

Ode to rounded corners, the visual element that has proven Steve Jobs right once again

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Let’s pay a small tribute to a visual element that we almost never pay attention to, but that is already an integral part of our lives. Let’s talk about rounded corners. They are everywhere and have taken over technology. We love them. We are full of devices and interfaces dominated by rectangles and squares with rounded corners. They are more elegant, softer to look at, much less aggressive and strident. But there is a true psychology behind that way of designing objects and interfaces. For example: since we were little we always knew that sharp corners were dangerous – today corner protectors for children are a big deal. These elements facilitate visual perception, and their introduction into the technological world deserves to be remembered. Steve Jobs was right (again) Andy Hertzfeld was one of the team members who developed the Apple Macintosh. In May 1981 he shared a curious story, now recovered by the Computer History Museum. Lisa OS 1.0. Look at the edges of the calculator app. They are rounded! The protagonist of that story is Bill Atkinson, legendary Apple engineer and Hertzfeld’s partner on that project. At that time Atkinson was working on the development of his QuickDraw application – then called LisaGraf – and although he usually worked from home, if he made any significant progress he would quickly go to the office to show off the improvement. That’s what happened that spring. Atkinson approached Apple’s offices in mythical “Texaco Towers” Cupertino campus and showed how he had added code to be able to draw circles and ovals very easily. Programming that was much more complicated than it seems because square roots were usually involved to achieve it and the Motorola 68000 of the Lisa and the Macintosh did not support floating point operations. Atkinson managed to solve it with calculations that only used addition and subtraction—he was probably inspired by the Bresenham algorithm—and began to fill the screen with circles and ovals while his companions probably smiled in astonishment and satisfaction. But there was someone who was neither too amazed nor too pleased. That someone was Steve Jobs. Upon seeing the demonstration, Jobs said —Okay, circles and ovals are fine, but How about drawing rectangles with rounded corners? Can we do that too? —No, there is no way to do it. “It would actually be really difficult to do, and I don’t really think we need it,” Atkinson replied, probably annoyed that Jobs hadn’t been too impressed with his method for creating circles and ovals. —Rectangles with corners are everywhere! Look around this room! Hello, Mac OS X with rounded corners (2001). Sure enough, the room had objects like whiteboards and tables with rounded corners, and Jobs insisted that they were everywhere and that he only had to look out the window to notice. He ended up convincing Atkinson to take him around the block and point out all the rectangles with rounded corners they saw. After seeing a no parking sign that was rectangular with rounded edges, he said: —Okay, I give up. I’ll see if it’s as difficult as I thought. And he went home to work on the problem. The next afternoon he returned to the office with a huge smile: his new demo I didn’t just draw rectangles with rounded cornersbut it did it almost as fast as it did drawing rectangles with corners. He added that code and called that primitive “RoundRects”. In our pockets we usually carry a device that makes good use of these rectangles with rounded corners. The iPhone, of course, does it. That design element soon became an integral and indispensable part of the Macintosh operating system interface. And it also ended up being part of the hardware (hello, mobile phones with rounded corners) and software design at both Apple and many other technology companies. Source: Freepik. The Cupertino firm also fully integrated it into its iPhones starting in 2013, when iOS 7 and its “squircle” arrivedan even more subtle type of rectangle with rounded corners that he ended up using, for example, in his icons. It was one more example of the particular relevance of a design element that has ended up completely taking over our screens and the technological world. Long live the rounded corners. In Xataka | Many young people already see and hear everything at 1.5x. They didn’t get there by chance: there was a lot of money at stake

Iceland’s public television did not broadcast on Thursdays. Since then the legend of a Thursday “baby boom” has circulated.

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For approximately twenty years, Iceland decided not to broadcast television on Thursdays. The reasons for this decision were varied, but they triggered a belief: the obligation not to watch television made many young people look for other entertainment. And they did it. And the birth rate skyrocketed. Today we delve into the history behind this decision and decide what is reality and what is urban legend. TV stories. Iceland did not have its own television channel until 1966with the creation of the state radio station RÚV. Until then, the only television available to some Icelanders was the one broadcast by the US military base in Keflavík, since 1955 and with an antenna only for soldiers, an invention soon imitated by Icelanders. When RÚV began broadcasting (after the controversial decision to leave Icelanders unable to receive the signal, which caused a tidal wave of complaints), it did so with a very restricted schedule. Initially, it only broadcast two days a week (and a few hours a day). As its programming expanded, a day without television was established: Thursday. Why wasn’t it broadcast on Thursdays? There were two reasons. The most well-known and romantic reason is that they wanted to promote social and family life. The government wanted Icelanders to dedicate a day to socializespend time with family, read or enjoy the outdoors instead of staying home in front of a screen. People were encouraged to participate in community activities, meet with neighbors and keep traditions alive. There was also some concern about foreign cultural influence (already present with the programming at the Keflavík military base) and it was felt that limiting national television hours could help protect Icelandic identity. A more practical reason. But there was another reason of a budgetary and personnel nature. RÚV, the state broadcaster, operated with a very limited budget and staff. Leave a day without broadcast (and also a whole month in julyuntil 1983) was a practical way to give a day off to its employees, many of whom multitasked to keep the channel running. Since the station had a monopoly, it could afford this luxury without losing audience, since there was no other option to watch on television. A summit ended the custom. The first interruption of the Thursday blackout occurred in October 1986, when RÚV broadcast on an exceptional basis on Thursday to cover the historic Reykjavík summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The definitive change, of course, came with the appearance of competition: in 1986 a new private channel, Stöð 2, was launched, broadcasting seven days a week. Since October 1, 1987, RÚV also began broadcasting on Thursdays, ending this tradition of almost two decades. The myth of “Thursday babies.” The popular belief that this tradition increased the birth rate is actually a joke or myth that Icelanders who lived during that time tell themselves: by not having the distraction of television, couples spent more time together, which supposedly increased the probability of conceiving. And although it is a correlation that has remained in the popular imagination of Iceland, there is no scientific evidence to show that the birth rate in Iceland increased significantly on Thursdays, or nine months after Thursdays. But it says a lot about how entertainment and family life were conceived not so long ago. Photo of Cassie Mouth in Unsplash In Xataka | The story of the old television that left an entire Welsh town without internet at 7 in the morning

Cuenca has been watching its “Palace of Versailles” fall apart for decades. There are those who have proposed to change it

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He Gosálvez Palacea mansion built at the beginning of the last century in Casas de Benítez (Cuenca), near the Júcar River, is not going through its best moment. In its day it was the luxurious residence of the industrialist Enrique Gonsálvez and his extended family, but the building has been suffering plunder and abandonment for decades to the despair of the neighbors. Or at least it has been until now. In March the news broke that the mansion was changing hands to be reborn as accommodation and event venue. The question is whether the known as “Versailles of Cuenca” Will he be reborn or will he only write one more chapter in the sad chronicle that he has dragged on for decades. An unknown gem. They know him as “the Versailles of Cuenca” either “from La Mancha” and (although without reaching the size or splendor of the French building) the truth is that the Gosálvez Palace It is a gem worthy of admiration. In fact, this old palatial residence built around 1900 in the province of Cuenca by order of the businessman Enrique Gosálvez is cataloged as an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC), attracts the interest of hundreds of visitors and even has its own ‘admirers’ associationa group that has been calling for some time to stop the deterioration that the property has suffered for decades. Is it that important? arrives with take a look to the Catalog of Cultural Heritage of the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha to understand that the palace is a unique piece. Both from a historical and architectural point of view. The construction is of French inspiration, “a little Versailles” very much in line with the palaces that were built in the north of Spain at the beginning of the 20th century. There, in its nearly 20 rooms, the industrialist Enrique Gosálvez once lived with his very extensive progeny between luxuries, elegant furniture and sumptuous gardens. Beyond the architectural interest of the palace, the complex includes additional pieces, such as towers, a neo-Gothic style chapel, a gazebo… and an extensive garden that, remembers the Department of Cultureis a reason in itself to visit the farm. “Some species are unique in the Community of Castilla-La Mancha,” he highlights. As if that were not enough, among its decoration the palace included a fountain popularly known as “The Tsarina”a gift (it is said) that the wife of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II gave to Enrique Gosálvez. A gem in low hours. Neither its splendor nor its rich history prevented the palace from ending up in the worst possible way: ruined after the death of Gosálvez. Although it is protected as a BIC, the construction has clearly deteriorated until it fell into disrepair. “red list” of Hispania Nostra, a list that includes Spanish heritage “at risk of disappearance.” Over there is warned that the building is the victim of decades of “disastrous neglect” and “mutilations” that have caused the structure to degrade and suffer looting. A ray of hope. The future of the property seemed to change a few months ago, when he became interested in it a swiss couple who set out to recover it with a clear purpose: to dedicate it to accommodation, social events and visits. at least like this He published it in March. elDiario.es, which reported that the couple had taken ownership of the venue. They themselves had taken care of announce it through Instagram, from an account in which he accumulates 24,400 followers. The news of the change of owners was echoed other media premises and even the Friends of the Gosálvez Palace and its Surroundings Association through your Facebook account. The issue was actually discussed at an extraordinary assembly in August. “The good news of the change of owners and their interest in bringing the palace and its surroundings back to life have been paralleled by a renewed interest from many heritage lovers to be part of the association,” celebrated. Perfect, right? Not at all. On Monday The Confidential public a chronicle that updates the situation of the palace and shows that its recovery is probably not going to progress as quickly as the Swiss couple wanted. The land has been cleaned and cleared, but when the new owners wanted to touch the construction, Heritage put the brakes on them. At least that’s what it says another post published on the same Instagram account at the beginning of October. “We have been informed that neither basic maintenance work, nor provisional protection of the building, nor removal of debris are authorized.” The authors of the post remember that the mansion is a BIC, a figure that “in theory” seeks to protect the heritage, but in his opinion “in many cases” achieves the “opposite” effect. “The immense bureaucratic and administrative regulation to obtain permits means that no one dares to restore them since costs multiply and work times are prolonged,” abound. “This makes any investment unfeasible, both by individuals and public administrations. This is the reason why we find countless BIC buildings in ruins. The intention of wanting to save buildings does not matter. Only respect for rules that are impossible to comply with.” “They were a little wrong”. The Confidential has interviewed also to the mayor of Casas de Benítez, the municipal area in which the mansion stands. In his opinion, the couple has been optimistic. “They were a little wrong about what this process entails,” he reflects. “They believed that everything could be managed with the City Council and I accompanied them to Cuenca so that they could see that each step must be approved by Heritage. They discovered that it was going to be longer and more expensive than expected. They planned to make it profitable in three months with garden parties.” Pedro Pablo Correas, from the Association of Friends of the Palace, clarify also that “they have only been asked to meet certain minimums”, such as “that there be an architect in charge of the project.” “This couple came from … Read more

A geologist explains why natural disasters continue to surprise us

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How can an eruption on the other side of the planet cause a “year without a summer”? Why does an apparently small earthquake devastate a city while a larger one goes almost unnoticed? The answer is not always in magnitude of the phenomenon, but in the place where it occurs, in the number of people exposed and in how the risk is managed. Understanding it is not just a scientific question: it is a way of looking at the planet with different eyes. ‘Science and aside’ It is the space where we talk about science with experts. It is part of our YouTube channel and is also available as a podcast on Spotify and iVoox. In her fourth episode, Ángela Blanco interviews Rosa María Mateosgeologist and director of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME-CSIC), a reference voice in the study of natural disasters. With decades of experience and a doctorate focused on this field, his vision helps us understand what is happening on Earth. When science faces the fury of the planet The conversation starts with a seemingly simple question: what is the most damaging natural disaster? The interviewee responds calmly: “It depends where you are and where you live.“In his explanation there are no hierarchies between volcanoes, earthquakes or tsunamis, but nuances. “Living in the Canary Islands, which has a high probability of a volcanic eruption, is not the same as living in Madrid, where the probability is zero.” The danger changes with the map, and understanding it requires looking at the geology of each place before its history. “Among the great episodes that marked the history of the Earth, Rosa cites one that was on the verge of erasing our species from the map. “We are talking about 74,000 years ago, which probably was on the verge of ending the Homo sapienswith our species.” It refers to the eruption of the Toba volcano, a megaeruption in Indonesia. Rosa explains that not all earthquakes are measured the same and that their magnitude can be misleading if you do not understand how it is calculated. “The magnitude of the earthquakes It is measured on a logarithmic scaleto. This means that an earthquake of magnitude four is not twice as strong as one of magnitude two.” The difference, he clarifies, is exponential: each point on the scale multiplies the energy released, and that is enough to turn an earthquake into a colossal force. Some historical episodes demonstrate this better than any graph. Rosa remembers the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 not only for its magnitude, but for what it represented for science. “The waves reached the coasts of Finland.” The phrase summarizes the scope of a phenomenon that destroyed the Portuguese capital and left traces throughout the Atlantic. From that disaster a different way of thinking was born. To understand why some catastrophes are devastating and others are barely mentioned, the expert introduces an essential distinction. “We geologists talk about two very different concepts that we often confuse. One is the danger… and another thing is the risk.“In the video he explains what each one consists of, their scope and also the consequences of confusing the terms. The conversation with Rosa María Mateos shows that natural phenomena cannot be avoided, but their effects can be reduced. In this episode of Science and apartthe geologist explains how observation and knowledge help to anticipate risks and live better with them. A talk that leaves open the door to continue learning about the planet we inhabit. Images | Xataka In Xataka | The Nobel Prize in Medicine illustrates the importance of the “story” to win it: a story that Spain has been losing for years

a million-dollar luxury yacht sank just 200 meters from the dock

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What should have been a day to celebrate ended in disaster off the Turkish coast. A luxury yacht, valued at approximately one million dollars, sank for only 15 minutes after its launch in the Black Sea. The boat disappeared underwater just a few meters from the shore, while the owner and his crew managed to swim to land without major problems and without suffering any damage. The boat simply floated…but just a little. An ephemeral joy The ship called Dolce Ventowas going to be a nautical jewel, but a video that has gone viral due to the paradoxical nature of what happened shows that even the most expensive and luxurious projects can fail unexpectedly.

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