bridge

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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