bridge

A municipality in Cáceres has waited more than 30 years for its bridge with Portugal. After moving wind and tide, it is already on its way

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Cedillo, the westernmost town in Extremadura, has been separated from its Portuguese neighbors for more than thirty years by a river that, paradoxically, has always united them. The solution is easy: build a bridge. The issue is that its approval and construction has been in the works for years. Now it seems that things are finally moving forward. The problem. Cedillo (Cáceres) and Montalvão-Nisa (Portugal) are separated by just 13 kilometers in a straight line. But by car, any trip between both towns requires a detour of between 100 and 120 kilometers. The reason: the dam that Iberdrola manages at the confluence of the Tagus and Sever rivers. Until 1995, residents on both sides could cross it freely. That year, with the entry into force of Schengen AgreementIberdrola closed access citing security reasons. Since then, it has only opened on weekends, with a security guard and at controlled hours. “We are brother peoples absurdly separated,” counted in 2021 to El País the mayor of Cedillo, Antonio González Riscado, who has been in office since 1987. How did it get here? The bridge project has been circulating through offices and negotiation tables for decades without finally coming to fruition. In 2011, the Provincial Council of Cáceres, then in the hands of the PP, renounced some European funds destined for the work, according to account The Country. When the PSOE recovered the institution in 2015 and requested them again, Europe had already denied them. The project became a political bargaining chip for years. The turning point came in March 2023, when the Ministries of Transport of Spain and of Territorial Cohesion of Portugal signed a joint declaration committing to promote the initiative. Just over a year later, in October 2024, both governments signed in Faro an international agreement which established the definitive legal framework to build the bridge. According to this agreement, Portugal assumes the design, construction and financing of the main structure, while Spain facilitates the permits and procedures in its territory. The works have already started. In October last year, the machines began to move on the Portuguese side with the first land preparation work. The award went to the company Alexandre Barbosa, according to counted The Extremadura Newspaper. The bridge will be about 160 meters long and 11.5 meters wide, with two twin concrete arches that avoid placing pillars in the riverbed. In fact, as the media reports, this last technical solution was key for the bridge to obtain the favorable Environmental Impact Declaration. The total cost exceeds 19 million euros. Spain does its part. In November of last year, the Ministry of Transport and the Government of Extremadura they signed an agreement to coordinate the work on the Spanish side. The Board assumes the bidding, construction and financing of the accesses to the bridge in Extremadura territory, with an estimated budget of just over 5.1 million euros distributed between 2025 and 2028. Once the work is completed, the infrastructure will become the property of the Board of Extremadura, which will also be responsible for its maintenance. What this means for the area. The bridge is going to solve a problem that has been on the lips of the surrounding towns for decades day after day. Just like counted El País, there are residents of Cedillo who have been hearing about the bridge all their lives and whose lives have been conditioned by that barrier. According to collect El Periódico, the bridge will also shorten the distance between Cáceres and Lisbon by about 70 kilometers and half an hour. “It is a bridge that we need no matter what,” the mayor of Cedillo told the media. What remains pending. On the Spanish side, the access to the bridge was still pending bidding when Portugal already had the machines running. Both countries will coordinate the work through a Joint Technical Commission. The agreement between the Ministry and the Board has a maximum validity of four years, extendable. If the deadlines are met, Cedillo could have his bridge before the end of the decade. Cover image | The Extremadura Newspaper and Google Maps In Xataka | Spain built its roads thinking about extreme heat: the rains are showing how vulnerable they are

The most famous bridge in the US recorded more than 2,000 suicides. Until in 2024 they found an “invisible” solution

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When the golden gate Opened almost a century ago, it was celebrated as an architectural triumph of engineering and modernity. It happens that the history of many of the great works has had a second reading. Sometimes they have failed due to technical problemsand others have ended up marked by uses that no one foresaw. Over time, a bridge can become something very different from what its plans imagined. The bridge and its dark history. The Golden Gate Bridge, inaugurated in 1937 between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific, has been for decades one of the places most associated to suicide in the United Stateswith a rate of more than 2,000 jumps confirmed and a real figure surely higher because not all cases are seen nor all bodies are recovered. In 2006 there was one of the worst years, with at least 34 deathsand that was also the turning point in which relatives of victims, as Paul Mullerdecided that it was unacceptable to continue living with that routine of tragedies without a physical and effective response on the bridge itself. The barrier that changed destiny. The solution ended up being a deterrent system “invisible” installed along both sides of the bridge, one based on stainless steel cables of marine grade placed about six meters below the pedestrian walkways. It is not something that can be seen from afar or from normal traffic, but it is evident to those who look over the edge. The idea is simple and tremendous at the same time: if someone tries to jump, they fall on that structure, are injured or shocked, and the possibility of completing the fatal fall into the water is cut off. The barrier created to prevent suicides The effectiveness of the new impact. For many years the Golden Gate recorded an average of about 30 deaths annuallya figure that seemed entrenched and almost impossible to break. However, in 2024, with the facility entering its final phase and with adjustments still underway, the deaths they went down to eight. Last year, in 2025 and with the system already operating for twelve months, there were only four and there were no falls between June and December, a stretch that could be one of the longest without suicides on the bridge, although old records are not always complete. By the way, from the beginning of 2026 there is already a casewhich reminds us that there is no such thing as zero risk. That said, the general decline is so evident that even its promoters see it as clear proof of effectiveness and a mirror for the rest of the hanging architectures. Surveillance and intervention. The barrier does not act alone, because the bridge maintains an electronic surveillance system and a team of agents whose task is to detect and stop attempts before they occur. In the last year, 94 successful interventions were achieved, about half of what was normal before full installation, suggesting that the problem does not disappear suddenly. In fact, there are still people who come with the idea of ​​jumping, but now the margin of action is greater and death is no longer as immediate or as certain as it was for decades. Installation of anti-suicide barriers, February 2020 Against inertia and cost. The truth is that the installation of the barrier came after a very long road full of political blocks, doubts about aesthetics, discussions about price and debates about if it would really work. Already in 1939 it was recommended to raise the railings, but for decades measures were avoided while the death count rose from 500 to 1,000 and it continued to grow with chilling regularity. The organized pressure from family and professionals ended up crystallizing at the Bridge Rail Foundationand after years of paperwork the work started in 2018. The project also became very expensive, going from an estimate of 76 million dollars to a final cost of 224 million dollarsand even took longer to install than the bridge itself to build. The “invisible” barrier Why it saves lives. One of the central ideas is that reducing easy access to a lethal method works, even if it sounds too simple. A 1978 study by Richard Seiden, at the University of California at Berkeley, followed 515 people who had gone to the Golden Gate with the intention of jumping and were deterred, and concluded that 94% were still alive or had died of natural causes. This reinforces the idea that many suicidal crises are acute and not permanent, and that placing a specific obstacle at the exact moment can make the difference between dying and surviving. Bridges and the same problem. There is no doubt, the Golden Gate incident was not an isolated case, and there are other iconic bridges that have ended up with a similar reputation by becoming recurring scenes of suicides. In the United States, the royal gorge bridge next to Hoover Dam, or the Chesapeake Bay Bridgethey have had known histories and episodes that have fueled debates about surveillance and barriers. In Canada, the Bloor Viaduct in Toronto was for years one of the most problematic points until it was installed a great prevention structureand something similar happened in the United Kingdom with the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, where the combination of height, accessibility and symbolism forced action and reinforce early intervention. Also in Australia, the Sydney Harbor Bridge has been targeted of concern and initiatives preventive, and in Europe there are numerous cases on urban bridges and high-rise viaducts that share the same pattern: very busy and at the same time very exposed. The same idea is repeated in all of them, when a bridge becomes a known point, it is not just a problem of physical security, it is a social phenomenon that feeds on itself, and the more famous it is, the more important it becomes to cut that inertia before it becomes part of your identity. The legacy. The Golden Gate had been in operation for decades … Read more

The bridge with the largest steel span has completed its most difficult challenge. And it’s in China, of course.

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There is not a month that does not release one mega constructionand in that area, China leads with an iron fist. Both due to the magnitude of his works, the technique used or the land they save with the structurethe Asian giant has become an example of perseverance when it comes to creating, above all, infrastructure that connects all its regions. After the highest bridge in the world, in the province of Chongqing, they are involved with another record-breaking bridge. One with the largest steel span in the world. Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge. As is often the case with these works, something that stands out as much as its magnitude is the construction time. In just three years, they have up a bridge in an extremely complex area. It clears two cliffs and the causeway will be 310 meters above the water surface. But more than because of the terrain, if it is news for something, it is because of the opening, that space between two columns. The total length of the bridge will be 1,136 meters when it is finished and the span is almost half of it: 580 meters that are suspended leaning on an arch-shaped structure made of steel. The height The arch in its central part is 116 meters and both the photos and videos show the complex lattice-type structure. Precision. More than a whim, it is necessary if you want to bridge that distance while looking for a bridge that can withstand both the weight and the possible tremors that are frequent in the region. To build the structure, engineers turned to BIM methodology (either Building Information Modeling) that simulates by computer all the processes of both the construction of the structure and its future maintenance. This is common, but essential in this lattice structure where many embedded components require an accuracy of less than a millimeter of deviation. On November 28, the team complete the union of each of the pieces weighing more than 300 tons that form that great puzzle of the lattice span, and now it remains to create the road that will consolidate the union between regions. Necessary. Because the Fenglai Daxi River Grand Bridge is not simply a feat of engineering: it is a catalyst for something China is aggressively pursuing. The country wants to carry out an economic and social transformation of the most challenging regions of its geography, and the Chongqing region falls into those plans as it has a large number of mountain ranges that have traditionally challenged communication with large centers. When completed, the bridge will be part of the Wu-Liang Expressway that will link the urban center of Chongqing with the Wulong district in approximately one hour, when with the current detour it takes approximately three hours, having to do a mountain route. And it is just one piece of a much more ambitious plan, which includes 52 construction projects, more than 1,200 kilometers of highways and a total investment of 155 billion yuan, about 19 billion euros. Megathings = tourism. Thus, the bridge will seek to become an element that will facilitate the flow of goods between the regions, but also of people with the objective of promoting tourism. Currently, in Wulong About 350,000 people live there and it has traditionally been a poor area due to the soil not being the best for farming and its natural isolation. However, since 1994, tourism has transformed it, especially since the Karst Geology National Park out including on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2007. Now, Wulong aspire to become a global tourist destination, and this improvement in infrastructure seems key to achieving that goal. Furthermore, it is no longer just that China’s megaconstructions facilitate mobility: The buildings themselves are designed with the aspiration that they become points of interest. An example is Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridgean immense construction 625 meters above the level of the river that is used to cross from one side to the other, but It has a cafeteria and some adventure activities. Another is the Three Gorges Damwhich can not only move the axis of rotation of the Earthbut it also has a museum that documents the construction, an example of how the dam itself works and multiple observation points. Images | Xinhua Sci-Tech In Xataka | Young tourists from China have begun to visit random places en masse. There is an explanation: Xiaohongshu

Italy snuck a bridge between Sicily and Calabria into NATO as “military spending.” Not even tanks can cross it

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The hyperbolic idea of a mega suspension bridge record to unite the Italian peninsula with Sicily is something that the Romans already dreamed of. We are talking about an infrastructure that, if carried out, would become the largest suspension bridge on the planet. However, its chronicle as the driving force of rearmament in Europe is comparable to the project of underwater tunnel between Spain and North Africa. The old dream of the Strait. The ambition to link Sicily with the Italian peninsula by means of what would be the longest suspension bridge in the world reappeared at the center of the national debate not as a technical proposal, but as a head-on crash between political power and institutional control. Although the project It has been orbiting the imagination of different governments for decades, it was the combination of Matteo Salvini’s personal impulse and the political will of Giorgia Meloni’s executive that tried to reactivate it with an extraordinary sense of urgency. However, that speed caused the breakup: the Court of Accounts, constitutional guarantor of the control of public spending and compliance with national and European standards, rejected the file considering that the 2005 competition could not legally support a work that has tripled its estimated cost, that presents significant documentary gaps and that could violate essential rules of competition and environmental evaluation. Stand by. The decision made a few weeks ago, preventive and not definitiveexposed deep fissures in the management of the project, where political urgency prevailed over internal technical warnings from the Ministry of Transportation itself, which had requested more time to complete the documentation. The duel for two. The government’s reaction was immediate and furious. Meloni accused The judges were accused of overstepping their bounds and Salvini, who had turned the bridge into a symbol of his political survival, denounced a political gesture disguised as a technical judgment. They both had to moderate tone after recognizing that, although the Court of Auditors does not have the “final word”, its reservations are binding in the sense of raising the political responsibility of the executive: if the government decides to move forward without satisfying its objections, the Court will register the reservations and send them to Parliament, leaving an official record of the risks, including legal, budgetary and procedural ones. Continue without permissions. This warning is especially important given the possibility of future litigation promoted by groups opposed to the work. Still, the law allows the government go ahead even without the full endorsement of the institution, a path that Meloni and Salvini do not rule out, although aware that putting maximum pressure on the Court could open an institutional fracture that is difficult to manage and increase the likelihood that the courts will overthrow the project in later phases. The figures and the promises. The bridge 3.7 kilometers It is not just an infrastructure: it is a political symbol. Salvini presents it as a public work most important in the worldcapable of regenerating southern Italy, generating more than 36,000 jobs, stimulating economic growth of more than 23 billion euros and reducing crossing times across the Strait ten minutes away. But these arguments compete with other factors: its cost has escalated from the 3.8 billion expected in 2005. up to 13.5 billion current, and the Sicilian railway routes remain precarious. Furthermore, the local population asks before improvements in internal mobility that an iconic megaproject and the seismic risks of the Strait, one of the most active points in the Mediterranean, still lack a fully convincing technical response. For Salvini, however, abandoning the project would mean accepting a decline in his influence within the Italian right, especially at a time when Meloni dominates the political scene and his own bases are looking for evidence that he retains capacity. The technical fissures. The decision of the Court of Auditors was based on concrete elements: missing or poorly presented documentation, procedural shortcuts, inconsistencies between old figures and current projections, doubts about compliance with European procurement standards and an environmental file that, according to the judgesis based on claims of “imperative public interest” without the required technical support. The institution denounced that part of the essential documents They weren’t even pointed out. by the ministry, forcing the magistrates themselves to identify them. In parallel, the ministry’s technicians had warned Salvini months before that the precipitation could lead to exactly this scenario. The minister decided move forward anywayaware that delaying the process would have meant admitting that the work schedule set for the end of the year was impossible to meet. That political obstinacy is now turning against him, in the form of doubts about his ability to manage such a monumental project. The labyrinth of the contest. The most explosive element for the immediate future of the bridge is the question of the tender. Salvini opted to reactivate the contract awarded in 2005 to Eurolink consortiumled by Webuild and accompanied by companies from Spain and Japan, precisely to avoid a new contest. In 2012, when the project was paralyzed, the consortium demanded 700 million euros in compensation, which it will only withdraw if works resume. But the judges have pointed out that financial changes and uncertainty about the updated cost could force a new tender, which would delay the work for years, perhaps more than a decade. Environmental objections. The government tried to shield the project with a document that proclaimed reasons of public interest imperative to overcome environmental obstacles, but the Court of Accounts he replied that these justifications lack solid technical support and do not adequately detail the impact on extremely sensitive coastal and marine areas. Thus we arrive at the executive’s attempt to present the bridge as an infrastructure of strategic value. for NATO (arguing that it would facilitate rapid movement of troops in the central Mediterranean), an idea that was welcomed with skepticism and even irony: for regional experts, the bridge would be “at most a military objective,” not an operational tool. The use of international security as an … Read more

Spain no longer knows what to do with its surplus of renewables. So he is going to build a huge electric bridge with Ireland

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Spain shines with sun and wind, but is drowning in its own green electricity. Solar and wind farms break generation recordsbut a good part of that energy is wasted due to lack of network, storage and connections with Europe. While the country operates in “reinforced mode”has found a possible solution to dispose of its renewable surplus. An electric bridge. On this path of releasing its excess energy, Spain has found in Ireland the best matches to connect. Irish Minister for Climate, Energy and Environment, Darragh O’Brien, advertisement After a meeting with the Spanish Secretary of State Joan Groizard, both countries are working on the construction of an underwater electrical interconnector between Ireland and Spain. Speaking to RTÉ NewsIrish Minister Darragh O’Brien announced that the project will seek to be co-financed with European funds and be completed in the mid-2030s. It will not be a minor project: the cable, he explained, will allow the buying and selling of electricity between both countries, balancing generation peaks. O’Brien acknowledged that, for now, “Spain is more likely to export energy to Ireland,” because the country usually has a surplus of renewable power that it cannot always take advantage of. We’re going to a wedding. The idea of ​​joining Spain and Ireland with an electric cable may sound eccentric, but it responds to continental logic: countries that produce green energy need to sell it, and those that are isolated need to receive it. In this context, our country is a clear example of the first group. The country has one of the largest renewable capacities in Europe —more than 40GW new since 2019—, but its level of international interconnection it barely reaches 2.8%well below the European target of 15% set for 2030. On the other hand, Ireland belongs to the second group. Its system depends almost entirely on the United Kingdom and France, and the country is, along with Spain and Finland, among the most exposed to blackouts due to lack of interconnections. according to a study by the consulting firm Ember. The analysis warns that 55% of the European electricity system has limits on importing electricity, which increases the risk of supply failures. How will the new cable work? It will be a high-voltage underwater interconnector (HVDC), the same system already used to move clean electricity over long distances between countries. The project is inspired by the Celtic Interconnectorthe Ireland-France link that will open in 2027, and will allow gigawatts of renewable energy to be transported under the Atlantic. There is still no closed route, but the Bay of Biscay appears as the most likely option: there it is already another cable advances between Spain and France, co-financed by the European Investment Bank. The political objective is clear: integrate the networks of the European periphery into an interconnected continental system, less vulnerable to blackouts and more efficient in the use of green energy. Furthermore, both countries recently led a meeting in Luxembourg of the “Friends of Renewables” group, together with 15 Member States and the European Commission. At that meeting, the new European Electricity Grids Package was presented, considered “one of the key pillars to facilitate affordable, safe and clean renewable energy.” Everything starts from the cables. The challenge is not only in producing more, but in transporting and storing energy. Spain invest only 30 cents in the network For every euro allocated to renewables, half of the European average. In this way, the cable with Ireland would fit into a map of projects that aims to break the energy isolation of the Iberian Peninsula. In addition to the Bay of Biscay link, are underway the Navarra–Landes and Aragón–Marsillón connections with France, a third interconnection with Morocco and new links between islands and the continent. If all these cables materialize, Spain will go from being “an energy island” to becoming an energy node between Europe and Africa, capable of exporting its renewable surpluses at competitive prices. The next great leap in European energy could start here: an electrical wire under the sea that connects the Spanish sun with Irish houses. Image | Jules Verne Times Two Xataka | When an undersea cable breaks in Africa, there is only one solution: call the only ship that has been repairing them for more than a decade

Italy is going to build the suspension bridge with the largest opening in the world. And they will load it to NATO’s budgets

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The megaconstructions are the order of the day. We find each other Colossal projectssome that They make us crack an eyebrow thinking If necessary. However, few can boast of being the culmination of a work of centuries, or even millennia. Italy is close to getting it when approved A huge bridge that connect the continent with Sicily: the Messina bridge. The turn is that they have described it as something key to the NATO. So that? So that the bridge budget is included in the percentage of military spending that Italy must contribute. Historical dream. Sicily is a complicated territory. Isolated from the continent, it remains Italy and, although they have a very strong identity feelingthat isolation has led to some problems and difficulties throughout history. In it Roman empire I know proposed Unite the territory through the Strait of Messina with a peculiar plan: connect Calabria and Sicily using barges and barrels. It was ruled out for obvious reasons such as intense maritime traffic or its technical unfeasibility. In the Middle Ages, Charlemagne too study take actions to unite the territory and, in 1866, firmer plans were drawn to build a viaduct, but they were also discarded when considering that A tunnel would be more suitable. In whatever, it also ended in nothing and, during the following decades, the project of the bridge in the Strait was changing hands without success, maintaining the connection with the peninsula by ferry. Colossal. Throughout. Everything changed in 2023, when the new Giorgia Meloni government resurrected the plan. Contemplating an investment of more than 13,000 million euros, the bridge would mark a turning point in Italian, European and world architecture, depending on who we ask. The length will be about 3.7 kilometers with twin towers of 399 meters on both banks, a height of 72 meters above sea level so that large boats and capacity can pass and capacity to move A large number of vehicles. The three lanes in the direction offer a capacity for 6,000 vehicles per hour, and their two railways would allow a cadence of 200 trains per day. It is a transport barbarity to connect Sicily, but the only thing about this bridge will be the central opening: 3,300 meters that would set a new world record for a suspended vain. Necessary. The start of the works is scheduled for this same 2025 and its estimated completion by 2032. As we say, after many comings and goings, the project is already officially underwayas the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure of Italy, Matteo Salvini, advertisement Last Wednesday. Finally, the cost will be 13,500 million euros and, as we read in New York TimesItalian minister and vice president, he is “absolutely proud of work.” Stating that “it will be an unprecedented public works in the world.” The justification of the bridge, as we read in Financial Timescomes from the side of the revitalization of Sicily. With this volume moved from the continent, the economy of one of the poorest regions of Italy can be promoted, where unemployment practically double The national rate: 13% compared to 6.5% of the rest of the country. But … necessary? The question is why, if a bridge between both territories was so important, something had been done. And, above all, why firm projects such as 2011 threw himself by land, arguing concerns about his price, about 5,000 million euros at that time and, in addition, about his real need. And it wasn’t the first time: Silvio Berlusconi He already proposed This project in 2005 for about 3.9 billion euros. Criticism. Many. There are few detractors of the bridge. This “unprecedented work in the world” faces opposition, environmentalists and even nature itself. The opposition, as New York Times states, considers that it is “an economic and social catastrophe” by diverting funds from other projects more necessary to build “a cathedral in the desert.” The animalists lo consider A disaster for local flora and fauna, as well as for a bird’s migration route. And when we say he has against nature, it is because those critics too comment that the area is prone to earthquakes that could make the bridge collapse. Even the ‘thing nostra’, the Sicilian mafia, said Be against the bridge in 2023. It has a trick. If you have so much against, if it is not clear that you will revitalize Sicily after a mastodontic investment, why do you go ahead with the project? During the NATO summit in June, Meloni declared that, due to the convulsive moment that is lived in several parts of the world, “there are many threats and hostile actors operating on the southern flank of the Atlantic Alliance.” In addition, he commented that “Russia projects more and more His presence in the Mediterranean” And this bridge would be a key piece, according to the Italian government, “in the context of NATO defense and security, facilitating the movement of the Italian and international armed forces in a context in which the Mediterranean is a geopolitically sensitive area.” And the trick? Well, like other NATO allies, Italy has beenOppromeded to increase its annual expenditure in defense Up to 5% of its GDP during the next decade, including 1.5% for strategic infrastructure. If the bridge is 13,500 million euros and include it in their proposals for “strategic infrastructure”, they would already be hitting a good bite to that 5% They must invest. Instead of armament or other elements, in a new bridge. Germany goes behind. “The Mestina Strait Bridge constitutes a fundamental infrastructure in relation to military mobility, taking into account the presence of important NATO bases in southern Italy,” they said in a report prepared last April, but Italy seems to be the only ones that will try to ‘put’ a renewal of infrastructure in that 5% of NATO. Germany, in a recent reporthas included in these defense budgets other 1 billion euros for the maintenance of ‘autobahn’, Your highway system. Forcing the machine. Returning to the Italian Bridge, and … Read more

We have found a “dark matter bridge” thanks to its predictions

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Optical telescopes are instruments that allow us to see very distant objects thanks to the combination of lenses, objects that, through refraction, modify the path of light allowing us, among other things, to see objects unimaginably distant. However, there are other types of lenses that astronomers have used for a few years, gravitational lenses. An intergalactic “bridge”. Thanks to these lenses, a group of researchers He has discovered The remnants of an object that collided in the past with the galactic cluster of Perseus. Some remnants that have finally been detected thanks to the elusive dark matter. A resolved mystery. He Perseus cluster It is a group of galaxies located about 240 million light years from Earth. These clusters are formed from very high energy mergers, events that are among the most intense from the big Bang. Thanks to these mergers, Perseus has been accumulating An equivalent mass 600 billion the mass of our sun (or the equivalent to several hundred times the mass of our galaxy). Until now we believed that mergers were a thing of the past in this cluster, which was already in a kind of stable balance. However, more recent and detailed observations had shown clues of recent collisions that implied that Perseus He was not in the stability situation we thought. The mystery now, was to determine which object had recently collided with this Cluster And why we were not able to detect it. Now, it seems that we have resolved this enigma. Using lenses, otherwise. All thanks to the phenomenon we know as gravitational lens. This phenomenon, predicted by physicist Albert Einstein, is caused by gravity. This, far from “throwing” an object. It is common for astronomers to use this phenomenon as if it were an additional lens in a telescope, allowing to see beyond what in principle would be possible. In this new study, logic It has been the opposite: Use the bottom galaxies, to detect the lens, in this case, the one formed by dark matter. Display Dark matter bridge. Thus they found a huge cluster of dark matter, of an approximate mass of 200 billion solar masses and located around 1.4 million light years of the accumulation of Perseus. Between both structures a structure is extended that connects them, a “dark matter bridge” that the team considers direct evidence of the last collision. The collision would have occurred, according to team estimates, about 5,000 million years ago. “This is the piece that was missing and we were looking for,” James Jee, co -author of the study, stood out in a press release. From the Subaru telescope. The finding was made thanks to the observations made by the Subaru telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, located in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Specifically, the team resorted to the Sprime-Cam instrument of this 8.2 meter telescope. The details of the study were published In an article In the magazine Nature Astronomy. But is dark matter? Dark matter is one of the most popular enigmas of contemporary astrophysics. The generally accepted cosmological models are based on the existence of a “something” that interacts with “conventional” matter and energy through gravity. Dark matter is the name we give to what would otherwise be anomalies in astronomical observations. Still From the assumption about what There is this “something” And we are not, for example, using erroneous models, the nature of this matter remains one of the great mysteries of the cosmos. In Xataka | One of the objectives of the Webb Space Telescope was to look for signs of life on other planets. He just found them Image | Hyeonghan et al.

This bridge built by China is so high that two Eiffel tower fit under it. And they have built it in just four years

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We have been having bridges from prehistory. From that tree That someone would use to connect two sides to the majestic Roman bridges, humanity has evolved while doing the bridges he built. The more recent techniques They allow us to connect extremes that are separated by tens of kilometers, but Talk about bridges It is currently looking at China. They not only have The longest maritime bridgebut also the highest in the world. It is the Bridge of the Grand Canyon of Huajiang and the most surprising thing is not that under it two Eiffel Tower enter one over another, but that it has only taken four years to lift it. Necessary. The Gran Canyon of Huajiang is located in the province of Guizhou. It is an area that, traditionally, has been isolated from the rest of the area for a reason for weight: more than 90% of the territory is mountainous terrain that hinders communication. For centuries it did not have much importance for the rest of the empire, but China has been raising infrastructure (and also excavating) to demolish those geographical barriers. Puzzle. The objective of the government is to connect rural areas with urban centers and, in this case, you had to get the Liuzhi-Anlong highway to raffle the mountains to speed up transport times. The only way was through a bridge, and after an analysis period, in 2022 They started The construction of the great bridge. It was not going to be simple: it should not only be at a considerable height, but to have a length of almost three kilometers. And the problem was not so much to create the suspension bridge, but to raise the necessary materials. To do this, implemented Advanced technologies to raise steel beams by up to 215 tons of weight and, despite the difficulties in the field, the works have gone at a pone rhythm. To all fuse. That is what usually attracts the attention of these Chinese infrastructure that, weighing some exceptions such as half -building abandoned skyscraper For years, they are an example for the rest of the world. The works advance with speed and, if At the beginning of this year We already saw the two towers of 262 and 205 meters on both sides of the bridge, as well as the cables of 9,000 tons each, now we observe that they have already built the section that joins the ends. The length Total of the bridge is 2,890 meters and the main section, which is among the towers, has a length of 1,420 meters that positions it not only as the highest bridge in the world (it is 625 meters from the ground, reaching the end of the towers at 776 meters), but as the longest hanging section built in the mountainous area. The comparison with the height of the Eiffel Tower is interesting, but almost two Empire State Building would also enter. The technology used in construction is also interesting. For example, when the concrete pour, Guizhou Bridge Group builders devised a system of pipes that pump cold or hot water depending on the outer temperature to ensure that fresh concrete dried in the best possible conditions to avoid cracks. And, to guarantee maintenance, the cables have sensors that measure vibrations or wind intensity to offer reports on the state of the hanging section. Impact. In January of this year, it was reported that 75% of the project had been completed, but in recent months we have seen how they have advanced so much that it is practically only missing and installing the security elements. The idea is to open at some point in June this year and, once open, will allow Crossing the canyon in just a couple of minutes when before it was something for more than an hour. But beyond all this, the most impressive thing is that they have been able to build an infrastructure in a very complicated place and condense 439,000 m³ of concrete and 49,000 tons of steel in just four years. And the cost? In theory, 280 million dollars that are difficult to estimate whether they will recover by joining rural areas, but as infrastructure and demonstration of strength, the Huajiang Grand Canyon bridge is imposing. And will remove the record from the highest bridge Lege’s, also in China. Images | Xinhua (1, 2) In Xataka | With 526 meters in length, China has a new record of the longest glass bridge in the world

This Seoul bridge seems ordinary, but stars one of South Korea’s biggest problems: suicides

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South Korea is a country that advances by leaps and bounds in technological question. It is home to some of the most important companies in the world -Samsung or Hyundai- and He is fighting To become one of the referents in the chips segment. Seoul, its capital, is a look at what could be the future of cities hypertecnologicalbut after that image of modernity, an increasingly silent pandemic is hidden: that of suicide. And no place better reflects this crisis than the Mapo bridge in Seoul, nicknamed ‘The Suicides Bridge’. Alarming figures. Suicide is a taboo issue in many societies that sometimes have not paid attention to avoid the tragic outcome. It is not something that Pille so far. In 2020, in Spain it committed suicide One person every two and a half and a half. Each country Try to deal with your way With this situation, but the case of South Korea is bleak. Do not go to the archives to see the evolution of suicides in the Asian country: In 2021, 13,352 people committed suicide. In 2022, approximately 13,000 were given. In 2023, the figure rose to 13,770. In the first six months of 2024, 6,375 people committed suicide, assuming a increase of more than 10% compared to the same period of the previous year. He total It was 14,439 dead. Cocktail. They are figures distant to the maximum of 2013, when 14,427 occurred, but in 2020, the country had the highest rate among OECD countries with 24.1 suicides per 100,000 inhabitants. It is more than double the average. The reason is that there is a social and cultural cocktail that pushes thousands of people to end their lives. There is one very high social pressure and competitiveness for being the best in studies and work life. If you do not achieve it, economic problems occur, but although that ‘success’ is achieved, there is a high level of stress and low social awareness about mental illnesses. Also idealized and impossible beauty canons for much of the population. And it is not something that cares only to suicide, since the scarce birth that is taking the country to an unsustainable situation is also the gross of those social pressures. THE MAPO BRIDGE Effect called. The most affected group is the one between ages of 10 to 39 and is the major Cause of death among South Koreans between 10 and 39 years. Between 40 and 56% of deaths in these age groups is due to suicide. These brutal pressures even affect celebrities of the country, so much that studies have already been carried out that relate the increase in suicides with the moment in which one of these celebrities ends with his life. As if there were an effect called or idealization of the act, three of the eleven cases of suicides between celebrities resulted in an increase in the rate among the population, leading people to use the same methods as said celebrity. In recent years, there have been numerous cases among young Astros of K-Pop, cinema and television, very exposed to criticism in a country where there is a very strict moral standard that these celebrities must meet. The notice says: “Line Life. Methods. They have gone changing These last years. At the beginning of the century, most used pesticides to get intoxicated. This poisoning remains one of the most used methods, but now it is through burning YoTan: Carbon cylinders that produce poisoning by carbon monoxide aspiration. The hanging has also become common (with examples such as’Sulli‘That they expose that effect called), but throwing themselves to train tracks or from bridges is also a method. THE MAPO BRIDGE. And all this leads us to the Seoul bridge. We have talked about Many bridges in Xataka And Mapo’s is, structurally, a normal bridge, almost ordinary. It does not stand out for design, certainly, but it has become the sad secondary protagonist of dozens of suicides in recent decades. It is not the only one from which the South Koreans throw themselves to end their lives, but one of the most used due to the current of the river has very difficult the rescue work very difficult. So much is the impact of the bridge on the statistics of the country that began to call colloquially as ‘The Suicides Bridge’. From the city, this was wanted to combat the structure as ‘bridge of life’ as part of a Samsung Life Insurance initiative. But it was not a simple name change. Measures. The company placed photos of happy families, among other measures to deter suicides, such as movement sensors that activated light posters with mood phrases, but they were considered a failure In 2015 and that was when the focus was changed to prevent suicide instead of deter. Thus, a series of active and passive measures were installed to stop the high rate of vacuum throwing, such as phones from which to request help every few meters (it has a length of about 1,300 meters), mirrors so that those who plan to jump see their face, cameras, high barriers and rollers that make it difficult to get to the edge. The fences are high and in the last upper section there is a roller We can see the roller, as well as the mirrors Social strategies. It is, in short, a series of actions to make jumping more difficult, but beyond this (which is still a patch), in recent years the country has taken the mental health of citizens more seriously. For example, strategies to prevent suicide thanks to greater media coverage than public awareness, as well as training campaigns and notions of suicide prevention for teachers and social workers. Also reviews focused on adolescents and another series of infrastructure measures to strengthen security on bridges and train tracks. Despite the efforts to reduce the incidence of suicide, the Mapo bridge remains a symbol of this crisis, with 846 people jumping From the bridge between 2014 and 2018, … Read more

To build the longest world bridge, China turned to a peculiar material: bamboo

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Although Saudi Arabia and Arab Emirates are immersed in a particular war for have the most beast buildingstalking about megaconstructions is to automatically look at China. The Asian giant has some of the works more tremendous, impossible bridges and even Higher abandoned skyscraper in the world. And one of those pharaonic constructions is the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao bridge. With a length of 55 kilometers, it turns out that it is not only formed by steel and concrete: the secret ingredient is bamboo. And according to those responsible, continue like the first day. The bridge. After six years of planning and another eight of construction, in 2018 China opened the imposing bridge that connects Macao and Zhuhai. Its 55 kilometers, 6.2 of them underground, allow to convert a trip that previously lasted three hours into a ‘walk’ of just 30 minutes. And something that resonated in its day was the 420,000 tons of steel (which would be equivalent to 60 Eiffel towers), its more than one million cubic meters of concrete and the flexibility necessary to support typhoons and earthquakes. It is a barbarity, with an underground stretch that disappears and emerges from the sea It looks like a ship, but it is one of the two inputs/exits of the sea Bamboo. It turns out that the mixture added a plant: bamboo. And it is something that is not so weird, since, as we can read In South China Morning Post, China is the largest bamboo producer in the world and is something to give way. In the aforementioned bridge, this element was used on the panoramic platforms that are found throughout the same and the official newspaper Science and Technology commented a few days ago that, after six years installed, these panels have resisted sunlight, typhons and The corrosion of seawater, keeping “as solid as ever.” One more element. Lou Zhichao is a member of the Bamboo Research Institute of the Forestry University of Bamboo and pointed out that, apart from in China, bamboo occurs mainly in developing countries, which gives China a unique advantage and position to the time to process this bamboo. His team, in fact, has been developing more advanced technologies to process bamboo a decade, causing the process to emit less co₂ while encouraging the use of bamboo under constructions due to a relationship between resistance and weight higher than some alloys of some alloys of some alloys of steel. In addition, it can replace wood, plastic and steel itself in some constructions. Bamboo II. Now, although it has interesting properties, it also has a problem: it is prone to decomposition. This means that when bamboo facilities are done, toxic preservatives must be used that make the material much less ecological. The chickens that come through those that come out in environmental matters, basically. And, precisely, the Zhichao team has been working in recent years. One of its latest advances in research is a heat treatment that eliminates nutrients that cause the accelerated decomposition of the material. This allows to reduce its processing time by 50% while increasing durability outdoors without antimoho treatments. Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport. You don’t have to go to China to see great structures in which bamboo is clear protagonist. In Spain we have examples such as Madrid airport Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas, in which the roof of terminal 4 is formed by lames 100 mm wide of bamboo sheet. In total, there are 200,000 m² of bamboo with fire resistance and was the ideal material due to the peculiar curved forms of the terminal roof design. It is also a material that was raised for the Futurist Ciudad Oceanix City And the protagonist of the bamboo towers that Paris wants to build for 2050. And scaffolding. Beyond in places as punished as a bridge in such a complicated area and applications in other buildings, bamboo is absolute protagonist in Hong Kong. Specifically, in its skyscrapers, like an exoskeleton that really is a system of Scaffolding During the construction of buildings. For the rest, Zhichao continues to work to expand the use of bamboo as high quality material for several reasons. One because it absorbs 50% more co₂ than common trees. Another because it is estimated that its crop and market benefits some 50 million people throughout the country. And, therefore, he hopes that the government “finance the development of key technologies and reinforce regulation by national and local standards to boost the industry.” Industry tech. Apart from in structures, bamboo is positioning as a material that can be very useful in other sectors. An example is that of consumer technology not as an element that goes within the devices, but as part of the packaging. A few years ago, on a visit to the Innovation Center of Lenovo, They told ushow they were starting to use bamboo in the boxes of their laptops. Bamboo box to the right. On the left too, but after a year underground. The reasons were environmental due to the degradation of their fibers in normal conditions in nature. In fact, it can be buried directly in the garden to use it as fertilizer. In the photo that we leave just on these lines you can see two boxes, one new and one after a year underground, to appreciate its degree of decomposition. And, that sustainability is one of the keys (along with many others, of course) of decarbonization. Images | Xataka, Moso, NRG800, Chronus, HMZB, Chris 73, Kamakura In Xataka | After 120 years of growth, a Japanese bamboo has just flourished. And that is a problem

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