cities

the alternatives to asphalt that Spanish cities already use

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With the temperatures skyrocketing and the Aemet warning of new heat waves Above 40 degrees in much of Spain, it is clear that, beyond active cooling solutions such as fans and air conditioners, cities must also plan to implement urban solutions that dissipate heat in buildings and streets. In this article we wanted to highlight one of the measures that we have been using for decades. It is a type of pavement that effectively reduces the temperature of the streets thanks to its porosity. But it is not the only type of pavement that fulfills the mission of reducing temperatures (nor the only remedy that cities have). Below these lines we tell you the details. The thing is about pavements. There are two large families of “cold pavements”. The first are the permeable or porous pavements. These are surfaces with holes connected to each other that allow rainwater to pass into the ground instead of diverting it directly to the sewers. This retained water evaporates little by little and cools the environment, in addition to reducing flash floods. The second family are reflective pavements or high solar reflectance (also known as “cool pavements”), which do not seek to filter water, but rather return a greater part of the solar radiation they receive to the atmosphere, instead of absorbing and storing it as conventional black asphalt does. A type of porous pavement. Image: Pavipor Heat trapped in the streets. Dark asphalt and concrete absorb much of the sun’s radiation during the day and slowly release it at night, preventing cities from cooling even when the sun goes down. This phenomenon, known as urban heat islandcauses large cities to register noticeably higher temperatures than in rural areas, especially at night. And of course, with episodes of extreme heat becoming more frequent, any measure that lowers the street temperature by a few degrees already helps a lot. Examples. The most recent case is that of Barcelona. The City Council, with technical support from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), approved last year a new reflective agglomerate on a section of Martí i Franquès street, in the Les Corts district, directly comparing it with a section of conventional black asphalt to measure the real temperature difference between both materials. As explained by the City Council itself, this pavement has the capacity to reflect a greater part of solar radiation than traditional asphalt, which helps reduce both surface heating and the temperature of the environment. Barcelona installing a type of reflective pavement. Image: Barcelona City Council The test is part of the municipal Climate Plan, and is not the first of its kind, since according to collect El Diario, before testing with the pavement, Barcelona had already launched a pilot plan to paint the roofs of several buildings white and with reflective pigments, including a school in the Les Corts district. Seville, one of the cities hardest hit by heat waves in Spain, has also proposed similar solutions. And in recent years, the City Council has been adding to its planning the massive planting of shade trees, replacement of dark pavements with lighter materials in various parts of the city, awnings on commercial streets, sustainable drainage and a network of “climate shelters” distributed throughout the neighborhoods to give respite to the population during heat peaks. These types of measures are increasingly applied on Spanish streets, especially in those large cities in the country that become an oven when summer arrives. It doesn’t work the same everywhere. A recent study by the University of Granada, has analyzed the thermal behavior of the eight Andalusian capitals and has come to the conclusion that there is no single solution to cool a city. According to the project researchers, in Seville and Malaga the factor that weighs the most is the albedo of the materials, that is, their ability to reflect solar radiation, while in Córdoba the building density and the waterproofing of the soil have more influence, and in Granada the key is in the urban geometry and how open the streets are to the sky. The same study also recalls that dense canopy trees continue to be, by themselves, one of the most effective tools, since they can lower the temperature between 3 and 5 degrees in parks where it is well designed. It is clear that reflective or porous pavement helps, but they work more as a complement to other urban solutions. In Xataka | Madrid is going to open a tunnel that monitors traffic with AI in real time: this is how the new Castellana subway will work

the cities are no longer yellow

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The astronauts who have been lucky enough to travel to space more than once in the last decade are privileged witnesses of a chromatic change on a planetary scale. From their vantage point 400 kilometers high, they have been able to see that the cities, previously faint spots of amber, now shine with an intense white light. It’s not a metaphor. It is the visible trace of one of the most rapid and widespread infrastructure transformations in recent history: the great replacement of public lighting. We have retired the old sodium vapor streetlights and massively embraced LED. This change, driven by regulation in favor of energy efficiency, has redrawn the night map of the Earth, a phenomenon that can be seen more clearly from space. The invention that earned a Nobel Prize in Physics. Old sodium vapor lamps, especially low-pressure ones, were monochromatic in nature. They emitted light in a very narrow band of the spectrum, resulting in that characteristic and ubiquitous yellow-orange hue that tinted our streets and skies. LED lights work in a completely different way. His breakthrough, which earned Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physicswas the invention of the high-efficiency blue LED. By combining this blue LED with a phosphor coating, it was finally possible to generate a bright and affordable white light. This diode is not only more efficient (exceeding 300 lumens per watt, compared to 16 for an incandescent bulb), but it offers a much broader spectrum. Southern Europe in 2025 from the International Space Station. Image: Don Pettit The cities changed color. To the eyes of a night observer in space, cities have gone from being yellow to glowing bluish white. Milan is the paradigmatic case: it completed its transition to LED in 2015, and appears in an ESA comparison with before and after photos taken by astronauts André Kuipers and Samantha Cristoforetti. But it is by no means the only case. Los Angeles was a pioneering city: it ordered the replacement of 140,000 streetlights in 2009. Buenos Aires modernized its lighting with smart LED streetlights between 2013 and 2016. New York finished replacing 500,000 bulbs in 2023. Barcelona plans total remote management of public lighting by 2028. But India is the country that carries out the largest replacement in the world, with more than 13 million LED streetlights already installed. The b side of this transformation. Like any revolution, the LED has a dark side. Light is cheaper, so cities are not only replacing old streetlights, but also increasing the number of light points or their intensity. The result is that we are leaving a brighter planet, where it is most difficult to escape of light pollution. The statistics indicated otherwise, but it must be taken into account that light pollution is measured by satellites, and satellites are partially blind to blue light. This means that the actual increase in light pollution, especially that perceived by human beingsis much higher than official figures indicate. To make matters worse, blue light is the one that interferes the most with our biological clock, and can affect the quality of sleep, in the same way that disorients migratory birds and the moths. The future is adjustable. The solution is not to go back to sodium. The efficiency of the LED is indisputable. The key, as with any technology, is in its application. The next phase of this transition is not about changing light bulbs, but about installing smart streetlights. It is estimated that almost one in four streetlights will be smart by 2030. When connected, they can regulate their intensity depending on the time or traffic, detect faults in real time and collect environmental data. This remote management will allow one of the new lighting maxims to be applied: using only the necessary light, when and where it is needed. In parallel, other solutions have emerged to protect biodiversity, such as red light streetlights being tested in Nordic cities so as not to disturb the bats. and the idea of ​​bioluminescence as an organic way of generating light without any electrical consumption and with minimal environmental impact. Image | The Iberian Peninsula in 2012, by astronaut Don Pettit In Xataka | Why sunlight doesn’t illuminate space: solving the question a child sent to the ISS

We believed that cities were a desert for bees, but 5.5 million live under this cemetery in New York

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Although cities have their own fauna, the reality is that one could reasonably think that for animals of all kinds the urban environment is far behind the countryside in diversity and quality of life: there is a lot of asphalt, noise, pollutants… well yes, but no, because there is a place where bees have found a true residential paradise: a cemetery in IthacaNew York. Where you see a cemetery, the bees see paradise. It turns out that a laboratory technique called Rachel Fordyce had a trick to get to your work at Cornell University without paying for parking: park on the other side and take a walk through the East Lawn Cemetery. In spring 2022 he arrived at his post with a jar full of bees that he had found along the way: that was the beginning of it all. The bees inside were Andrena regularis, known as the “common mining bee,” a wild, solitary species that nests underground. That is, it does not have a queen and it does not build hives either. Each female digs her own tunnel, lays her eggs, supplies them with food, and seals them. And under the ground of the Ithaca cemetery there are millions, more specifically 5.56 million in just over 6,000 square meterswhich come out every spring to pollinate the surrounding apple trees. Why is it important. Because it is the largest population of wild bees with a nest in the ground ever documented and very far of the secondof 1.6 million individuals of a different species in Arizona. And their work is essential: pollinators in general are responsible for the production of approximately 75% of the world’s food crops. according to the FAO. As explains Bryan Danforthprofessor of entomology at Cornell University, they must be protected: “If we don’t preserve nesting sites and someone paves them, we could instantly lose 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators.” The most striking thing of all is that this enormous population was there, in the midst of civilization and next to one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Context. Contrary to popular belief, the most common way of life for bees is solitary and with a nest on the ground: approximately 75% of the bees on the planet live like this. Those bees that produce honey and live in hives may be the most famous, but they are an absolute minority. Solitary wild bees are not as well known, but their pollination work is key in nature and in food. Thus, this enormous population lives independently but concentrated in that place because the substrate conditions are optimal. The bad news is that pollinators are in decline: according to the report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Servicesmore than 40% of pollinating insect species are threatened. In this scenario, finding such a large population in a city shows that there are more refuges for biodiversity than we thought and we must find them before they disappear (and if possible, avoid it). In detail. We knew about the presence of Andrena regularis in that cemetery since 1935, but it was not until 2021 when the scientific community began to intuit what was underground. To estimate the population, the team installed mesh traps at 10 points in the cemetery between March 30 and May 16, 2023. The result was extraordinary: as explains the press release from the New York university, is the equivalent of 200 honey bee hives on just 0.6 hectares of land and more than triple the population of Manhattan. Yes, but. The study has important limitations, such as that the population data is from a single spring (2023) and that the figure is a statistical estimate and not a real inventory, so we do not know if the population is rising, falling, remaining stable or how climate change affects it, which is advancing the flowering of apple trees and therefore altering the life calendar of the bees. And although it is the largest aggregation of wild nesting bees documented to date, its presence in a cemetery suggests that there may be others whose existence we are unaware of. In Xataka | We have a serious problem with the extinction of bees. The United Kingdom wants to solve it with bricks In Xataka | If the question is how to protect bees and other insects, in Peru they are clear: recognizing their legal rights Cover | Marisol Benitez, Chad Madden and Damien TUPINIER

The secret weapon to cool cities is exactly the one that Spain uses the least: trees

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Madrid is not only one of the five cities with the most trees and green areas in Europe according to the European Environment Agency, but the FAO has been doing it for six years recognizing it as “Tree City of the World”. And yet, it is at the bottom of the continent in ‘useful cup’ (with only 9.4%). It has many trees, but they are useless. And that, far from being a Madrid curiosity, is the best possible summary of the great Spanish problem with urban trees. What happens to the trees? The short explanation is that they are the cheapest cooling tool available. It’s not a secret. However, the lesson we need to learn is not a crude “we need more trees.” That is what explains the ‘contradiction’ of Madrid. We need more trees, yes. But we need trees of the right species, covering the right layers, planted where they are needed and provide more, and well watered. That is, we need a comprehensive plan that stops seeing trees as inconveniences and begins to see them as opportunities. How do we know all this? The work of Mohammad A. Rahman, Senior Lecturer in Urban Horticulture at the University of Melbourne It is very useful to study how they really work the trees. The results are contradictory, but very interesting. According to their work, for example, the trees in Melbourne (a city with a temperate climate) reduce the radiant heat absorbed by pedestrians by up to 18 degrees compared to an open street with the same characteristics. In the cold climate of Munich, layered vegetation (the combination of trees, shrubs and ground cover) reduces heat stress in summer by up to 8 degrees. In Hong Kong, on the other hand, where the climate is subtropical and humid, dense vegetation increases the humidity of the environment and limits cooling. That is why researchers are beginning to agree that, even maximizing the use of trees, it is difficult for trees cut more than 20% of future urban warming. But be careful, 20% is a lot. Above all, because Spain has a lot to do. According to ISGlobalthe Spanish cities are at the bottom in canopy coverage on urban land: 5.5% in Seville, 8.4% in Barcelona or 9.4% in Madrid compared to 33.3% in Berlin or 23.3% in Frankfurt. To give us an idea, the average of the 93 cities was 11% and only Athens (with 3%) was below Seville. We need to take this seriously. Historically, Spain has bad care of its urban trees. And that “evil” can be summarized in very few words (“few resources, bad management and political decisions isolated from any current technical knowledge”), but it has a very difficult solution. Fundamentally because all this evidence translates into “planting more trees is cheap and saves lives”; but its implementation systematically fails. Image | Ch Photography In Xataka | In Spain, cutting down urban trees seems like a national sport. These Swiss have just proven it wrong

While Europe looks at Ukraine, the US has sounded the alarms for Spain on a closer front: losing two autonomous cities

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In July 2002, a handful of Moroccan soldiers landed on the islet of Perejil and raised a Moroccan flag there. The Spanish response came days later with a military operation so rapid and measured that it ended up becoming one of the diplomatic-military episodes strangest of the recent Mediterranean. What worries Spain. While Europe concentrates much of its military attention in Ukraine and the eastern flank of NATO, a much closer concern is growing in Spain: the south of the Strait. The problem is not just Morocco or the military balance in the Maghreb, but the change in the United States’ attitude toward the region. The appearance in Washington of official documents that describe Ceuta and Melilla like cities “under Spanish administration” in Moroccan territory has generated unprecedented alarm because it breaks a historical diplomatic taboo. For decades, the sovereignty of both cities was considered out of the question for Western allies. Now some American political sectors are beginning to treat her as an open dispute susceptible to future negotiation. US pressure. Spanish concern does not arise solely from a parliamentary report, but from the political context that surrounds it. Republican congressman Mario Diaz-Balartclose to Marco Rubio’s entourage and aligned with positions very favorable to Rabat, has not only publicly defended that Ceuta and Melilla are “in Moroccan territory”, but that the own report encourages the State Department to promote diplomatic talks about their status. All this coincides with the deterioration of the relationship between Donald Trump and the Spanish Government for military spendingNATO and the disagreements over Iran. In certain strategic Spanish sectors, the feeling is beginning to spread that Washington increasingly considers most useful to Morocco as a regional and less essential partner to Spain within its Mediterranean architecture. Morocco and the new balance. The most profound change may be occurring on the other side of the Strait. Morocco has been accelerating for years its military modernization through agreements with the United States, Israel, Türkiye and France, while also promoting its own arms industry. Since 2021, industrial projects linked to drones, weapons and advanced military production have multiplied. At the same time, Rabat has consolidated his diplomatic position in Washington after the American recognition of Western Sahara. For many Spanish analysts, the problem is no longer just migratory pressure or specific border crises, but the emergence of a regional power much more militarily connected to the West and increasingly secure in its strategic position. Spain is left out. The other big concern is that Spain seems have been left out of the new network of military alliances in the Maghreb. Italy has become the main strategic partner of Algeria in the Mediterranean, expanding defense agreements, industrial cooperation and military coordination with one of the most powerful armies in Africa. Morocco, meanwhile, close ties with Washington, Paris and Tel Aviv. Spain has managed to rebuild diplomatic relations with both neighbors, but it hardly has any relevant agreements on defense matters. This vacuum is beginning to be perceived as a serious problem in certain strategic circles, especially when linked reports to the Ministry of Defense they already admit that “South of the Strait of Gibraltar, military pressure is a reality.” Ceuta and Melilla as vulnerable points. That is why the reports of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies raise with increasing clarity the need to a specific plan defense for Ceuta and Melilla. The focus goes far beyond the military and includes logistics, cybersecurity, maritime surveillance, institutional resilience and protection of critical infrastructure. Fear does not necessarily point to an open conventional conflict, but rather to hybrid scenarios constant pressure: migration crises, diplomatic tensions, partial blockades or political attrition campaigns. Autonomous cities thus appear as especially sensitive enclaves due to their logistical dependence and geographical isolation. A brutal return: geography. If you like, all this reflects something broader: the return of geography as a central factor of European politics. For years, Spain observed the Maghreb mainly from a migratory and commercial perspective, while the greatest threats seemed to be far from the western Mediterranean. But the war in Ukraine has accelerated regional rearmament and has reorganized alliances throughout the area. And in the midst of this transformation, Spain begins to discover that one of its potentially most delicate fronts is not in the Baltic or in Eastern Europe, but just in the other side of the strait. Image | US Army In Xataka | The US threatened to take the Rota base to Morocco. Spain has buried it with an unbeatable offer: more territory In Xataka | ANDhe tunnel between Spain and Morocco seemed like a chimera. Now a tunnel boring machine manufacturer says it is viable

Ukraine has resurrected one of the oldest tactics of warfare. And he is isolating Russian cities without the need for soldiers

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One of the many movie scenes that took place during the soviet blockade of berlin occurred in 1948, when the United States and its allies kept an entire city alive using an airlift that landed every few minutes with food, coal and medicine. The operation highlighted a lesson that military strategists never forgot: in any war, sometimes the most important thing is not to conquer a city, but to decide who can continue to supply it. A silent return. For centuries, sieges were one of the tools more brutal and effective of the war. Surrounding a city, cutting off supplies, and waiting for hunger, exhaustion, or lack of ammunition to do the job was a military logic as old as empires themselves. Ukraine is now recovering that same idea, but adapted to the drone era. The big difference is that you no longer need to physically surround a city or send thousands of soldiers to isolate it. It is enough to control the roads, monitor movements and constantly destroy everything that enters or leaves. What is happening around Mariupol It is beginning to look less like a traditional war and more like a medieval siege executed from the air and hundreds of kilometers away. Mariupol as a laboratory. After conquering Mariupol in 2022, Russia turned the city into one of the ggreat logistics centers of its southern front, using its roads and port to move fuel, ammunition, troops and equipment towards Donetsk and Zaporizhia. Ukraine has started to attack precisely that circulation network. Reconnaissance and attack drones patrol the main access routes to the city looking for tanker trucks, ammunition transports or logistical convoys. The logic is extremely simple and very old: There is no need to destroy a fortified position if you can prevent it from continuing to function. According to different military sources and published videos by Ukrainian units, some drones already operate up to 160 kilometers within of territory controlled by Russia, turning entire roads into permanent risk zones for any Russian military vehicle. Turn logistics into the new front. The most important transformation of this strategy is that the main objective is no longer necessarily soldiers, tanks or trenches. They are the supplies. Ukraine is exploiting a classic vulnerability: any army depends on fuel, food, ammunition and constant transportation to maintain positions. The drones greatly facilitate that job because logistics trucks are relatively easy targets: they follow predictable routes, have little protection and often transport extremely flammable or explosive material. Even small ammunition can destroy them completely. That explains why Ukraine is dedicating so many resources to chasing supply vehicles instead of directly attacking fortified positions that are much more difficult to neutralize. From Mariupol to Moscow. The same logic also appears behind the massive drone attacks against Moscow. They remembered in Insider that Ukraine no longer uses only small improvised FPVs near the front. Now deploy long-range platforms such as FP-1 Firepointthe RS-1 Bars or the new Bars-SM Gladiatorhybrid drones between a cruise missile and unmanned aircraft capable of traveling hundreds of kilometers and crossing one of the densest anti-aircraft networks in the world. The objective is not only to cause specific damage, but to force Russia to disperse defensesspending resources and living under constant pressure even far from the front. The attack with more than 120 drones on the Moscow region demonstrates the extent to which Ukraine attempts to transfer the logic of attrition and isolation far beyond the traditional battle lines. A battle for movement. What is really important is that Ukraine seems to be redefining a fundamental idea of modern warfare: it is no longer necessary to completely control the terrain to control the situation. Just control movement. If any road can be surveilled by drones, any convoy can be destroyed and any resupply can end up intercepted, maintaining a position begins to be much more difficult even if the enemy retains numerical superiority. There is no doubt, that profoundly changes traditional military logic. The future sieges They may no longer be represented with circles surrounding cities on a map, but with invisible networks of drones capable of slowly collapsing enemy logistics without the need for major ground offensives. The war in Ukraine is demonstrating precisely that: that today you can isolate a city, wear down an army and force it to abandon positions without moving practically a single soldier. Image | Pexels In Xataka | Once again, Ukraine has opened a missile launched by Russia. Once again, surprising manufacturers have been found In Xataka | Russia has been advancing at a snail’s pace in Ukraine for months. That’s about to change because of one season: summer.

Spain’s problem is not the lack of buildable land. It is a huge land jam that blocks three million apartments in cities

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The brick crisis at the beginning of the century may be left far behind in time; But the truth is that, almost 20 years after the bubble burst, the sector has not yet recovered from its hangover. And that has dragged it into a paradox: although the country drags a serious deficit residential (some 700,000 homes) and prices they don’t stop going upin Spain there is a huge amount of immobilized buildable land, plots that after the crisis have ended up in the hands of municipalities incapable of promoting housing on them or of groups, funds and companies that have not been able to develop them or have not considered it viable. It might seem like a minor issue if it weren’t for the fact that there are calculations who estimate that that ‘big traffic jam’ of land is costing the cities of Spain 2.9 million potential apartments. That is, houses that could be built on developed lots, but for one reason or another they still do not go beyond paper. Just over half (1.5 million) are also concentrated in the 15 main metropolises. One figure: 1.5 million. The data comes from a study published in the last notebook of the Civic Circle of Opinion by Ignacio Ezquiagaeconomist and expert in the real estate sector. In it he basically dedicates himself to reviewing the “pending planned housing” in the main urban areas of the country. These are apartments and houses that should be built on plots of land in an “advanced state of urban development” or sectorialized (endorsed by a plan and the corresponding city council), but that still do not go from paper to work. Why is it important? Because as Ezquiaga’s study recalls, that bag of land could accommodate millions and millions of new homes. To be precise, it speaks of about seven million properties, although a good part is located in rural areas where the gap between supply and demand is not as serious as in the capitals. If we focus on the 86 urban areas of Spain, we find vacant land with the potential to host 2.93 million of housing. If we refine the shot even further and limit ourselves to the 15 main metropolitan areas of Spain, the figure remains at around 1.51 million homes. Of these, half a million would be located in areas with already urbanized land. Madrid, in the lead. In your studioEzquiaga includes a table prepared with data from the Ministry of Housing that shows that the largest housing stock planned and pending execution is located in the Madrid area, at least if we talk about raw figures. There the potential is 351,000 properties, almost 15% of the total existing housing stock in 2021. The potential is equally high in Murcia (226,600 units), Seville (142,900) and Barcelona (142,900), although in general terms it adds up to thousands of homes in all areas of the country. The smallest is Palma, with almost 12,000. In “dead hands”. To understand part of this large pool of stuck housing we have to go back almost two decades ago, to the bursting of the real estate bubble and its subsequent hangover. When brick ceased to be the business of the century and many developers were forced to close, the plots that had recently hosted residential projects began to become an asset with an uncertain future. A part ended up in private hands. Another, from the town councils. Their casuistries are different, but in the end the result is the same: what Ezquiaga calls properties in “dead hands”parked plots, stuck despite having the potential to inject millions of homes into a market that, 20 years later, is once again tense. “Judging by its urban status, blocked for more than two decades in which many have remained vacant, these are not temporary but structural situations; that is why they remind us, overcoming the distance, of those owners who went down in history as dead hands,” reflect. Who controls that land? As remember The Country There are two major fronts. 30% has remained in the hands of municipal administrations that once received them from the developers as part of the land that they had to give up to carry out their real estate projects. The problem is that not all town councils have the capacity, will or simply the resources to take advantage of that land and convert it into public housing (VPO). The result is that it ends up blocked, up for sale or redirected towards other uses, such as endowment services. The remaining 70% of the land depends on private entities, but that does not guarantee that it will be exploited and converted into housing. The key is whether or not its development is profitable. And if they can finance it. This also explains that when city councils opt for public-private collaborations to take advantage of the land they control, they do not always find partners willing to embark on the projects. One of the keys is provided by Ezquiaga in your studio: The 15 main metropolitan areas in Spain have land with potential for a million and a half homes, but only a third are located in environments with already developed land. “Vacant land”. Last year, in another study published by the think tank Funcas on the Sareb, Ezquiaga I already warned of the complexity of the scenario: “With a development industry with lower capacities compared to previous decades, the original projects were discontinued. Thus, many of the still viable lands would not adapt to the regulatory changes or the new territorial needs, paralyzing them and contributing to a surplus of vacant lands with negative consequences on the valuation of Sareb’s portfolio and, above all, for the long-term generation of new residential supply.” He is not the only one who has drawn attention to the land with still pending potential in the cities of Spain. The Ministry of Housing itself has analyzed the main pockets of land available in Spain for new apartments, focusing above … Read more

Birds in cities are more afraid of women than men

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Walking through a park and having a pigeon, a parrot and a sparrow fly away when we approach is quite an everyday occurrence, since they see us as a threat, probably due to our large size in comparison. But the truth is that we now know that this gesture It is more common when the human approaching is a womanas if it were a genre that scared him more. They have investigated it. This curiosity has been the conclusion reached by a published scientific study in British Ecological Society in which it is noted that birds escape sooner when women approach than when men approach. And to get here, the research team did not rely on a few observations, but designed an experiment that grouped 2,701 observations across five European countries and 37 different urban species. The results. If we look at specific figures, it has been seen that when the person approaching the birds is a woman, the flight distance is approximately one meter greater than when a man approaches. And here the question we can ask ourselves is whether this is a simple coincidence, but here the researchers have made it clear that this is not the case, since the conclusion that birds distinguish the sex of the human observer is statistically solid. And to ensure this accuracy, the researchers controlled multiple variables during the approaches, including initial distance, the size of the bird school, and surrounding tree cover. Because? Although the pattern of behavior is undeniable, the exact causes remain largely a mystery, with researchers pointing to a lack of a concrete explanatory mechanism. The theories that are mainly pointed out are related to different factors, such as differences in body shape between the woman and the mobile phone or even movement, since the way of walking can be a warning signal for animals. Furthermore, it is proposed that the smell that each of the genders has is a possible hypothesis to explain this anticipated flight reaction. But the truth is still a great mystery. Survival in evolution. The fact that birds pay so much attention to humans makes sense if we take into account the enormous evolutionary pressure that cities exert, since in a very short time birds have had to adapt to our presence and above all to the pressure of having us literally on top of them in part of their environment. And little by little we are learning that not all human beings have the same effect on them. Images | wirestock at Magnific ArthurHidden on Magnific In Xataka | Spain has a very ugly bird that does not want it to become extinct. And all of Europe depends on you not doing it

Wolves, bears and wild boars are dividing up the map of Spain and the real battle is between the rural world and the cities

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Wolves, bears, vultures, cormorants, wild boars, lynxes… When, a few months ago, Christian Gortázar, professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, was asked about Spanish wildlife, his words were tremendously accurate: “the problem is everywhere.” And dozens of species are being redistributed throughout traditional territory while rural and urban society confront each other over something extremely basic: what the hell nature is and what it is for. Why are we talking about this? Complaints from the agricultural sector about wildlife have been with us for years. However, in recent months (and spurred by the African swine fever crisis) the “mismanagement” framework has been gaining weight in public debate. But the truth is that the idea that “there are many animals and no one controls them” is not innocent. It is, in reality, a ‘discursive umbrella’: an idea-force that brings together very heterogeneous demands (the cuts from the future CAP, the fears derived from the Mercosur treatybureaucratic burdens, rising costs, rural identity, etc.). That is the main reason why the political debate does not fit with the scientific one, but not the only one. How to survive the end of the field. Talking about Spain being emptied today is almost obvious: 62% of Spanish municipalities has lost population since the nineties. In Castilla y León and Asturias that figure is around 85%. For the urban population it is only a sociological question, for the rural population it is an existential question. And in that context, the wolf has expanded to the southeast, the bear has doubled its area of ​​influence and the wild boar has sneaked into towns and neighborhoods (causing a complete economic and health earthquake). Regardless of the real effect of conservation measures on the rural world, it is easy for the feeling of general abandonment to curdle into an aversion to this way of seeing the countryside. A legitimate debate. From an ecological point of view, species recovery makes sense (as long as it is done properly). Degraded ecosystems lose the ability to adapt and become much more fragile: recovering species is the simplest and most cost-effective strategy. But we must not forget that these species return to a world completely different from the one they left and that the gaps they left are now occupied by “de facto powers” and realities historically established in the countryside and that still survive. And those powers They maintain that the ‘intervention’ of cities In their world it is counterproductive. The debate, as I say, is legitimate (and even healthy). And then? The real problem is not the discussion about whether the resources allocated to recovery measures would be better invested in other policies. The problem is that in the public debate the data and arguments are missing; and everything has become a partisan quagmire that is very difficult to manage. But the wildlife is still there. And the farmers too. In fact, all the actors who have taken us here are still there. The fundamental question is whether there is a future that can be understood as a solution. Image | Nancy Stapler In Xataka | Wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it

Belgrade’s “liquid trees” are the fascinating biotechnological solution to clean the air in cities

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Today, the city of Belgrade has a significant problem in terms of air quality, which is already something quite typical of large cities. The situation here, the truth is, is quite critical, with some areas where the limits recommended by the WHO are exceeded by up to 5 times, and to solve it, the idea that we can have in mind is need to plant more treesbut the reality is that there is little space available to plant them, so they have had to choose to install what they have called liquid trees. The solution. Under the name of LIQUID 3this project has been operating since 2021 in front of the Stari Grad City Hall in the Serbian capital, and to the surprise of many it is not shaped like a tree, but is a simple glass tank that is filled with 600 liters of water inhabited by local microalgae. But just because it doesn’t have the shape of a tree doesn’t mean it doesn’t work as such, since it literally uses photosynthesis to absorb carbon dioxide from the environment and release pure oxygen into the environment, and the truth is that they are very efficient, since a single tank of LIQUID3 is equivalent to the absorption capacity of two 10-year-old trees or 200 square meters of grass. How is it possible? That a simple tank surpasses an adult tree when it comes to ‘purifying’ the air, the truth is that it seems strange, but biotechnology has achieved something incredible. Specifically, science has seen how microalgae have the ability to capture carbon dioxide and fix it between 10 and 50 times faster than land plants under controlled conditions. In fact, studies indicate that these algae can fix approximately 1.8 grams of CO₂ for every gram of biomass generated, achieving CO₂ removal efficiencies close to 50%. And designed for the city. Being in the center of a city is not easy, and that is why scientists have had to use strains of Serbian freshwater microalgae that grow with simple tap water and withstand extreme temperature fluctuations. And here the research indicates that these species are ready for the most hostile environments. And another positive point they have is that they hardly require maintenance, since it is limited to the fact that the biomass generated must be extracted every month and a half, and in addition, water and fresh minerals are added. The positive here is also that biomass can be used as a great natural fertilizer. More than a lung. The LIQUID3 is not just a laboratory experiment that has taken to the streets, but has been designed as multifunctional urban furniture, since, in addition to purifying the air, the structure functions as a bench to sit on and even adds solar panels to charge your cell phone or provide night lighting. It is not definitive. Although it seems incredible, the truth is that we must put our feet on the ground in the face of technological enthusiasm. Although right now the figures are very good, there is still a lack of studies that can validate the impact it has in the long term and measure whether they are really giving good results, and above all that they are real. But the most important nuance here is that these systems do not replace traditional trees or forests, which logically must remain where they are and promoting their implementation. In this way, we are left with the fact that this technology has been designed for dense and highly polluted urban areas where traditional planting is logistically impossible. Where the asphalt does not give an inch to the roots, the liquid trees rise like a high-tech green oasis, giving the city’s lungs a break. Images | LIQUID3 In Xataka | Tell me where you live and I’ll tell you how healthy your tap water is: the map of Spain that analyzes each municipality

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