enigma

The Vitruvian Basilica is the “holy grail” of Roman architecture. Also a huge enigma that we have finally solved

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If there is one thing that abounds in the presentations of archaeological finds (no matter where, when or who makes them) they are superlatives. Each discovery is the most important, the definitive one, the last missing piece to complete the puzzle. Another thing is that it really is like that. In the province of Pesaro and Urbino (Italy) the authorities they just announced a finding in which the opposite occurs: yes, there are superlatives, but they fall short. In the end, what they have unearthed there is neither more nor less than the “holy grail” of Roman architecture. In a stroke of luck, archaeologists have found the basilica erected 2,000 years ago by Marcus Vitruvius, which concludes a search for more than five centuries. What has happened? That Italy has put an end to a 500 year adventurethe time that archaeologists, architects and historians have been searching for perhaps the “holy grail” of Roman architecture: the legendary Vitruvian Basilica. Scholars placed it in Fanum Fortunae (current city of Fano) and for decades they probed its soil in search of vestiges or at least some indication. In vain. things changed about three years agowhen during the renovation works of the market square they found themselves (shortly half a meter deep) some remains that, we now know, belong to the basilica. “Millimeter correspondence”. What we have found under the cobblestones of Fano are Roman columns. So far nothing exceptional considering that we are talking about an ancient coastal city in the Marche region of Italy. The curious thing is that these vestiges fit closely with the description that Marcus Vitruvius left us of the basilica in his famous treatise. ‘Of Architecture’. The columns, their arrangement, the shape and layout of the nave coincide. The “definitive confirmation”, clarify from the Italian Ministry of Culture, arrived after the discovery of a fifth pillar that confirms both the position and orientation of the property. A planimetric reconstruction based on the description left by Vitruvius finally provided the guide. The coincidence is so precise that the authorities speak of a “millimeter correspondence”. “Imposing structures”. “The columns, around five Roman feet in diameter (147-150 cm) and about 15 meters high, rest on pillars and pilasters that supported an upper floor,” points out the Italian Government, which recalls that in 2022 experts were on the trail after discovering some “imposing masonry structures and marble floors” on Via Vitruvio. The confirmation that the remains belong to the old basilica does not complete the work. In fact, Cultura is already advancing that it will continue researching with the support of community funds. “Everything necessary will be done to recover and promote this exceptional find,” guarantees the regional president, Francesco Acquaroli. “Like Tutankhamun’s tomb”. During the presentation neither Francesco Acquaroli, nor the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, nor certainly the mayor of the town, Luca Serfilippi, spared praise (and superlatives). “The column behind us changes the history of the region. It is a discovery comparable to that of Tutankhamun’s tomb,” celebrated the regional leader. Giuli has used similar effusiveness, for whom the location of the mythical Roman basilica, erected ago two millenniabrand “a before and after” in archaeological history. “History books and not just journalistic chronicles will document this day and everything that will be studied about this exceptional discovery in the coming years. The scientific value is of absolute caliber,” he emphasized the Minister of Culture. “The vestiges discovered clearly demonstrate that Fano was and is the heart of the oldest architectural wisdom of Western civilization.” Is it so relevant? Whether the discovery of the Vitruvian basilica is comparable to that of Tutankhamun’s tomb may perhaps be discussed, of course what is undeniable is that it is one of the great archaeological news of the year (and that at the very least). The reason is not only the value of the building but that of its creator, Marcus Vitruvius (1st century BC), architect, engineer, treatise writer and author of ‘Of Architecture’a fundamental manual to understand Renaissance architecture. In his treatise Vitruvius addresses the three axes that would mark architecture for centuries: firmitas (firmness), utilities (functionality) and venustas (beauty). His work influenced, among others, León Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio and Leonardo Da Vinci, who was inspired by its proportions to create one of the most iconic (and recognizable) drawings of all time: the ‘Vitruvian Man’. In ‘De Architectura’ the Roman architect does something else: he describes in detail the basilica that has now been found (finally) in Fano, a project in which was directly involved. In fact, the Ministry of Culture remember that it is the “only building attributable with certainty” to the Roman writer. Now we no longer need to imagine it. Images | Office Stampa e Comunicazione MiC In Xataka | We have discovered (again) the secret of Roman concrete. It’s less impressive than it seems

A teenager discovered the ‘Málaga’ virus and ended up founding VirusTotal. The enigma that remains is the same since 1992: who programmed it

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Bernardo Quintero (@bquintero) was 14 years old and his first PC, an Amstrad PC-1512, had just arrived home. It was 1987, and the co-founder of VirusTotal He was excited by this machine that allowed him to exploit his computer curiosity. His hobby ended up being trying to circumvent the copy protection systems of some games, and he was there one day when something suddenly happened. A little white ball moved on your screen. By itself. Without him having done anything. He soon discovered that it was a computer virus. One that he ended up studying to know how to detect and eliminate it. He succeeded, and over the next three years he ended up improving his first antivirus, a tool that allowed him to recognize and eradicate seven different viruses he had encountered. It didn’t seem like that project was going to go much further, and Quintero began his studies in Computer Science at the Polytechnic University School of Malaga. In one of the first classes, a professor asked if anyone wanted to raise a grade with a Pascal programming project. He signed up, and when talking to the professor, he asked him if he had done any previous projects. “Well, yes,” he replied. “An accounting program, disk utilities, an antivirus…”. The teacher cut him off. “Did you say antivirus?”. When he answered affirmatively, the professor asked him to accompany him to his office. There he showed him how the entire IT department had been infected by a virus that the antivirus did not recognize. Fragment of the code in Turbo Pascal 5.5 of the antivirus that Bernardo Quintero developed to eliminate the “Málaga-2610” virus (1992). Source: Bernardo Quintero. Quintero soon detected where the problem could be and went home with an infected disk to work on an antivirus. It took him more than he thought, but after a few hours he managed to figure out how to detect it and delete it. That helped him pass the subject, but it also ended up being the definitive seed of the professional project that would end with the founding of Virus Total. He tells it all in more detail in his novel, ‘Infected‘, which he published at the beginning of the year and in which he narrates those beginnings and how that ended up leading him to create VirusTotal, the Malaga company that would later end up being bought by Google. That virus in his faculty was called “Málaga”, and Quintero spent years without paying much attention to it again. So, three years ago, this expert posted a message on Twitter (X) to try to solve the mystery of who would have created it. Already then he discovered that according to several sources the virus had been created at the Polytechnic School of Informatics. The objective, I counted thenit was not about bringing the name to light, but about chatting with that person and remembering those times. He failed to reveal the mystery, and that mystery remained unsolved again. But Bernardo Quintero never forgot that and returned to the fray with a new attempt a few days ago. After first publishing a message on X, the next day he published a summary of that story on LinkedInand asked for help in that post to try to solve the mystery once and for all. We contacted him, and he told us how while in the past he had focused on discovering how it infected and creating the disinfection tool, he never tried to find out who had created the “Malaga” virus. But he told us that “now, looking at it with new eyes, I have seen a couple of interesting details and I have discovered the motivation.” In fact, he adds that thanks to those messages on X and LinkedIn “I have received stories from several people who studied those years at the Polytechnic of Malaga and who believe they know the author.” Of those candidates, he explains, “I have ruled out 3 or 4, but there is one that fits very well with the new data I have.” The mystery seems to be close to being solved. “I just need to clear up one unknown to confirm the author.. And if it is confirmed, there is a beautiful and sad story that will be worth telling.” Everything therefore indicates that it will finally be known who was the author of that virus, and Quintero has promised to tell more details these days. We will be attentive. Image | Mika Baumeister In Xataka | The computer with the most malware in the world: this is MICE, the challenge of Bernardo Quintero and VirusTotal

The Black Death continued to hide an enigma almost seven centuries later. The answer was in some trees in the Pyrenees

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There are few episodes in the history of humanity more famous, studied and debated than that of the Black Deaththe epidemic that spread death across Europe between 1347 and 1353. However, there remained an enigma to solve, one as basic as it was relevant: Why the hell did the epidemic break out when, where and how did it do so? Why did this wave of death break out in the 14th century and not before or after? Solving a puzzle. This mystery is what Martin Bauch and Ulf Büntgen, from the GWZO and the University of Cambridge respectively, have wanted to solve in a study just published in Communications Earth & Environment. With it they not only want to shed light on one of the darkest episodes in Europe. They also show that, almost seven centuries later, the “black death” continues to be one of the chapters that most fascinates the world. Nothing surprising if one bears in mind that between 1347 and 1353 it took millions of lives in Europe, reaching mortality rates that in some regions they touched 60%. Searching in the Pyrenees. Perhaps the most curious thing about Bauch and Büntgen’s study is that it does not start in historical archives. Or that wasn’t at least his main place of work. The key to his research is in the Spanish Pyrenees, more specifically in the secular pines that they found there. When studying the interior of their trunks in search of clues about the medieval climate of Europe, they found something unexpected: a succession of “blue rings”. For most, that detail would go unnoticed, but Bauch and Büntgen saw something in it: evidence of a chain of colder, wetter summers than usual. “Unusual summers”. When the tempera falls, the trees cannot properly lignify their cells, which in turn leaves a bluish mark in the ring register of the trunk. In the Pyrenean pines, researchers found such marks that suggest that much of southern Europe must have experienced “unusually cold and wet summers” in 1345, 1346 and 1347. What’s more, when digging through libraries and written sources they found clues that point in exactly the same direction: a period marked by “unusual cloudiness and dark lunar eclipses.” The next question is… What caused this change in climate? And why is it important? The power of an eruption. Regarding the first question, researchers have few doubts. In his opinion, the drop in temperatures in summer was caused by a volcanic eruption (or even a chain of them) recorded around the year 1345 and which triggered a fatal domino effect: a considerable expulsion of ash and volcanic gases that generated a layer and caused a drop in temperatures, just as happened in other episodes throughout history. Climate, agriculture… Hunger. For the next question, why is it important that a volcano began releasing gases and ash almost seven centuries ago, the answer is simple: agriculture. The changes in climate not only left their mark on the centuries-old trunks of the central Pyrenees, they also punished the fields of the Mediterranean region, reducing crops and generating losses that threatened to lead to famine… and social instability. Against this backdrop, the powerful maritime republics of Italy did the most logical thing: chartered ships to import grain from the east, from the Black Sea area, more specifically from the Golden Hordein the Sea of ​​Azov region. It didn’t matter that Genoa and Venice were at war with the Mongols. Hunger was pressing, the threat of riots loomed and European diplomacy did its job. Already late in 1347, ships with grain began to arrive in Europe, unloading their precious merchandise in Mediterranean ports. More than grain. The problem is that in the holds of the ships mobilized by Venice and Genoa, the same ones that were supposed to prevent Europe from being besieged by famine, there were not only tons of grain. On board they brought fleas infected with Yersinia pestisthe bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague. “The exact origin of this deadly bacteria is still unknown, but ancient DNA suggests that a natural reservoir may have existed in wild gerbils somewhere in central Asia,” they explain from the University of Cambridge. The result: grain ships suddenly became vectors of a fatal disease, the bacteria jumped from rodents to humans, and the Black Death soon spread across Europe, with something much worse than famine. The ships of the black death. The rest is known history. Between 1347 and 1353 the disease killed millions of people. It is often said that the plague took the lives of 60% of the European population, a percentage that some raise to 65%, although in recent years some studies They have warned that the calculation is overstated and there were regions in which the registry was maintained. “Evidence of the Black Death can be found in many European cities almost 800 years later,” Büntgen and Bauch explain. “We were also able to show that many Italian cities, such as Milan or Rome, were probably not affected, because they did not need to import grain after 1345.” Why is it important? The study is interesting for several reasons. The main one, because it sheds new light on an aspect as basic as until now enigmatic about the Black Death. We knew about the role of Yersinia pestisabout the ships, about the role played by rodents, we knew the tragic death toll, its impact on the society, culture and economy of Europe… But we did not know why the epidemic broke out just when it did and not before or after. The succession of factors is so fascinating that researchers speak of a “perfect storm” in which climatic, agricultural, social and economic factors were added. A cocktail that, they insist, does not only speak to us about the Middle Ages. “Although this coincidence seems unusual, the probability of zoonotic diseases emerging due to climate change and resulting in pandemics is likely to grow in a globalized world,” Buntgen adds.. “It is … Read more

We have detected a mysterious and very potent radio signal of a nearby galaxy. And its origin is a complete enigma

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In March 2025, an energy pulse as powerful as the one that emits our Sun in several days hit the earth. It lasted just a few milliseconds, but its detection, and above all, the location of its origin, mark a before and after modern astronomy. Now a team from Northwestern University has managed to identify the origin of the fast radio gust (FRB) brighter ever registered. Although there are still many questions to answer. What is a fast radius gust. To understand the magnitude of this finding you must first know what we are talking about. The astronomers themselves describe THE FRB LIKE a cosmic lighthouse of immense power that ignites during a fraction of second In a vast and distant universe. These signals are incredibly energy and travel for millions of light years to reach the earth’s telescopes. Detect one of these bursts It is already an achievement. However, the real challenge is Respond to the origin of these bursts of energy. Until now, the frb that were repeated, which gave scientists multiple opportunities to triangulate the position, had been precisely located. Now they have done it with only one signal. A “photo” with unprecedented precision. The protagonist has been baptized as FRB 20250316A which was detected on March 16, 2025. To achieve this, it is where our current technological capacity enters. Thanks to a telescope network called Chime Outriggerastronomers were able to locate this burst of energy with an amazing accuracy of 13 parsecs, which is equivalent to 42 light years. If we move this measure to the universe itself, we could talk that they have been able to point out a specific house in an entire city seen from space. Something that marks preceding, is that the first time it is achieved for a burst that has apparently been a unique event. An origin that was almost empty. The address from where this signal came to a spiral galaxy called NGC 4141. At that time, all the great telescopes of the world, from the MMT in Arizona to him Keck in HawaiiThey turned to observe that little corner of the universe. Everyone tried to look for some explanation to this event, but what they found did not square them at all. And it is that in the exact place of the outbreak of this signal there is nothing. Not a supermagnnetic neutron star (a Magnetar), Neither a nebula, nor any continuous radio source. A very quiet neighborhood. When looking around the point that scientists had located, you could think that there would be something spectacular. But nothing is further from reality. It was seen that the signal could not come from another close place. Specifically, the formation of stars closest to the localized point is 190 Persecs away. In this way, the origin is located in a really quiet region of the universe. There have been no more repetitions of the event. Despite looking intensely for months, the signal has not reappeared. This is key. Many frb are “repeating”, emitting bursts sporadically. If it were, given its closeness and power, we should have detected weaker pulses. Statistical calculations are clear: the probability that it is a known repeater and we have only seen this bright pulse is very small (with a tension of more than 3.7σ, a very high level of certainty in physics). What could cause this signal. This combination of factors puts the main theories about the origin of FRB. The most accepted hypothesis is that they come from young magnetares, neutron stars with incredibly powerful magnetic fields. These objects are usually born in active star formation regions. The fact that FRB 20250316A is displaced from its “cradle” could mean that the Magnetar He is older of the one that is thought (between 200,000 and 3 million years) and has moved away. However, this clashes with the active life that is presupposed to these objects. The study also rules out other scenarios, such as outbreaks gamma rays Recent The “cleaning” of the environment and the lack of any residual glow in radio or X -rays do not fit with the models of cataclysms such as the Fusion of two neutron starsat least not immediately. The beginning of a new era. Beyond the enigma of the origin of this particular signal, this phenomenon marks a before and after in astrology. The capacity of the Chime/FRB system to locate unique events with this precision The field will revolutionize. It will no longer be necessary to wait for a source to be repeated to be able to study it in detail. Now, astronomers will be able to create a large -scale map of the environments of hundreds of FRB, allowing to compare the unique bursts and those that are repeated every so often. Perhaps in this way we discover that, after all, not all FRB are born from the same type of event. We may be facing two (or more) different phenomena that produce the same type of signal. The universe is plagued by mysteries. From how The stars were formed to him How the ‘big bang’ formedthey still have Many intrigues For our scientists. This makes every time there are more fronts in open -open astronomy And also the hardware field for put our best teams pointing to space with the aim of increasing our knowledge. In Xataka | There is a radio signal arriving at Earth since 1988. The pulsar from which an important mystery is hidden

We know more than Mars than the seabed. An expert helps us to understand why it is still an enigma and what mysteries keep

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What if we told you that there is such a tiny creature that it can hunt generating a bubble at more than 100 km/h, with a temperature similar to the sun? What if the orcs were smarter than we believe, even capable of having bait traps or hunting the very blue whale? The bottom of the sea It is still a place full of mysteries. We think we know him because we have seen documentaries or movies, but we have barely scratched his surface. Science and separate With a new episode On our YouTube channelalso available as Podcast on Spotify and Ivoox. A space in which we address scientific issues from a close and informative approach. In this second installment, our partner Ángela Blanco talks with Álex Avelloethologist and disseminator, to explore the amazing behavior of marine animals and everything we still do not know about the ocean. The pistolera gamba is one of those animals that costs to believe that they really exist. It is tiny, but its way of hunting has nothing subtle: it closes one of its tweezers to more than 100 km/Hy generates a bubble whose temperature, according to some studies, could approach the surface of the sun. “This always caught with tweezers too, a little above, a little below,” says Alex. The click is so brutal that it can be detected by the sound of a submarine. If the puppets can submerge up to 3,000 meters is not only because of their size or strength, but by a fascinating biological mechanism. “It has an organ that is called sperm … I always say it is like a bag full of wax, a wax -full supermarket,” explains Álex. When they prepare to descend, they let cold water into that organ, which solidifies the wax and turns their heads into a natural ballast. “In this way they go down to every tablet,” he adds. While they descend, they emit clicks that bounce with everything they find, as a kind of sound. There is an idea that is repeated throughout the episode: we barely know what is in the depths. “We know 4% of all oceans,” says Alex. And that leaves a lot of room for imagination. “Today, to me someone comes to make sure Megalodon is impossible for it to exist …”Every time he gives a talk in schools, children ask him about mythical sea creatures. And his answer is not a resounding. Because the truth is that we have not yet reached there. Are dolphins smarter marine animals? Álex clarifies: “Orca is within the family of dolphins … but the orca is superior to the dolphin. In fact, the orcs hunt dolphins, the dolphins do not hunt orcas.” What comes later in the conversation ends up clarifying why. And it is worth listening. Not all animals eat what they are in front of them. Some know how to wait. “Have that ability to say: ‘Ok, I have this that I can eat it right now, But I can use it as a tool… ”, Recalls Álex when talking about an orca who saw in a video as a child. What he did with that fish is difficult to forget. He tells him in detail in the episode. This is not all. In the second episode of science and apart there are more stories that surprise, that make them think and that remind us of everything we do not know yet. You can see or listen to it. Where do you prefer. Images | Xataka In Xataka | There are thousands of people hooked to streaming. One to 3,900 meters deep full of marine curiosities (and memes)

The conversation between geniuses that gave name to the greatest enigma of the universe

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It was the year 1950. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, the best cafeteria conversation of all time took place. The physicist Enrico Fermi, eating with his colleagues Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller and Herbert York, asked: “Where is everyone?” The Fermi paradox was born. What does Fermi’s paradox say If our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains between 100,000 and 400,000 million stars, many of them thousands of years older than the Sun. Yes, by extension, we are surrounded by a huge number of exoplanets. Yes, as we know today, The rocky planets are common in the habitable zone of other solar systems. Why have we not found any evidence of extraterrestrial life? That is the essence of one of the most disturbing problems of modern science: Fermi’s paradox. From the abundance of worlds, intelligence and technology should have emerged capable of colonizing the galaxy or at least sending detectable signals. A flagrant contradiction between the high probability that there is intelligent life in other places and the absolute lack of evidence: a cosmic silence that persists in our telescopes and explorations. Until today we have not seen a convincing proof of visits, or artificial signals from other civilizations. The Milky Way is old: it is 13,000 million years old. A species capable of making interstellar “slow” trips would suffice to colonize it in less than 100. But we still do not see its mega -structures. And what is worse, we still do not detect its radio transmissions. Or they are extraordinarily rare civilizations, or do not exist. What is the difference with Drake’s equation Fermi’s paradox is an empirical observation that was born from an informal conversation. To give it structure and mathematics, astronomer Frank Drake proposed in 1961 the Drake equation: a probabilistic formula that tries to estimate the number of technologically advanced civilizations and with the ability to communicate that there should be in our galaxy. The equation multiplies a series of factors, such as the rate of stars, the number of planets per star and the fraction of planets that could develop life. Statistics are overwhelmingly favorable. Drake’s formula serves to give meaning to the search for extraterrestrial lifefeeding our statistical hope. But while Drake’s equation tells us that there should be someone out there, Fermi’s paradox asks us why we haven’t found anyone. This contradiction is actually the heart of Fermi’s question. It is not a formal theory, but a line of argument that forces us to ask ourselves why the universe seems so empty. And perhaps the best possible tribute to Enrico Fermi, astronomers are still looking for answers to their question 75 years later. Who was Enrico Fermi Known as the “Architect of the Atomic Bomb”, it was an Italo-American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1938 for his works on induced radioactivity. Fermi was a key figure in the Manhattan project, the program that developed the first nuclear bomb during World War II. He directed the construction of the Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor. His team achieved the first self -sustained nuclear reaction in 1942. Born in 1901, he died of cancer at age 53, shortly after formulating Fermi’s paradox. The question “Where is everyone?” He emerged during a lunch with his colleagues in the National Laboratory of Los Alamos. Despite the informal nature of the conversation, the depth of the question and the authority of those who raised it gave it a weight that has endured 75 years, becoming a pillar of thought about extraterrestrial life. Responses to Fermi’s paradox Image | Jiang et al. (CC By-C-SA 4.0) Throughout these decades, scientists, philosophers and astronomers have proposed innumerable hypotheses to resolve Fermi’s paradox. These responses can be grouped into three great families of hypotheses. Smart life is extremely rare. Maybe the simplest and desolate solution. It suggests that there is a “great filter”, a barrier or a series of barriers extremely difficult to overcome so that living beings appear, evolve or come to expand through the galaxy. It may be the conditions for life to arise, they are so incredibly specific that they only occur once, here on earth. It may be to move from simple microorganisms to complex and multicellular life, it is the true bottleneck. Or intelligence like ours may not be an inevitable consequence of evolution. Or maybe, as the Apocalypse clock From the bulletin of atomic scientists, technological civilizations tend to self -destruct before being able to expand through the galaxy, either by a nuclear war, by climate changes or by pandemics. In any case, Humans do not usually succeed In our apocalyptic predictions. They exist, but we cannot detect them. There are many hypotheses to explain our lack of contact. A recent one NASA funded study I found the simplest. The space is so great and we have been observing it so little, that it is normal for us to continue without clues: “Fermi’s paradox is a very large extrapolation from a very local observation. You could look out the window and conclude that bears do not exist because you don’t see any.” Perhaps its technology is undetectable. They may not need to build mega -structures as Dyson spheres that would be visible to us. They could use energy sources that we don’t even understand. Maybe they have decided to enter hibernation and are asleep. As the summation hypothesis says, it is possible that are waiting for the cosmos to cool Within billions of years to maximize their computational capabilities. And his communications? As the astrophysician Amri Wandel postulates, our radio signs have only traveled about 100 light years. Any response would take the same to return. We might need between 400 and 50,000 years for a first contactassuming that someone who is listening to answer. But first they would have to find our needle in the haystack. They exist, but they deliberately avoid us. The most disturbing hypotheses propose that other more advanced civilizations know our existence, but have decided … Read more

The James Webb has found a galaxy when the universe was 330 million years old. Hide an entire enigma

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The immense capacity of the James Webb space telescope (JWST) to see the confines of the observable universe also allows us to see how our universe was billions of years ago. Recall that, the finitude of the speed of light implies that what we see further in space is also further in time, which makes JWST a kind of time machine. JADES-GS-Z13-1. The James Webb has detected again the light emitted by a very distant and therefore ancient galaxy. The telescope has captured the appearance of Jades-GS-Z13-1 as was 330 million years after big Bang. So old and distant is that its observation implies a new enigma: the enormous density of the universe in that era should prevent its observation billions of years later. And light was made. The original universe was a dark place. If we go back enough, we will reach an era in which the universe was too dense for the light emanating from its particles to travel the space. The cosmos cooled as it expanded, so, when the photons had space to move around, there were no particles to issue them. The thing changed when hydrogen atoms began to join to form the first stars and galaxies when the universe I was a few million years old. In this long process it is called reionization, a byloys in which hydrogen clouds were reactivated and emitted new light. Even in this context, the universe was dense enough to part of the radiation of these first galaxies was overshadowed by a dense layer of neutral hydrogen. This is the case of Lyman-Alfa or Lyman-α. Redshift 13. The team studied the luminous spectrum of the galaxy to estimate its red shift or Redshift. The expansion of the universe means that, in the long run, the frequency of the light emitted by this galaxy is reduced, that is, the universe, when expanding stretches the electromagnetic waves as if it were a magnet. This causes the visible light to store towards the red tones and to the infrared after long trips. The level at which the light comes “stretched”, its value Redshiftallows us to estimate the distance at which the galaxy is found that the broadcast. The observations made from the JWST Nircam instrument allowed the team estimate value Redshift of 12.9 (either z= 12.9) For this galaxy, but to confirm this value, the team decided to study the complete spectrum through the Nirspec instrument (Near-Infrared Spectrgraph), also aboard the space telescope. It turned out that they were infrastiming their distance, which was closer to z= 13. Lyman-α. However, the spectrum study caused the team to detect something strange in this galaxy, at a specific point of the spectrum, the Lyman-α radiation lamade, a type of electomagnetic emission associated with hydrogen atoms. The broadcast captured by James Webb’s instruments was much more intense than it should according to current cosmological models. The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Nature. Two possible explanations. In his article, the team speculate with possible explanations To this anomaly. The first involves the possibility that the stars of the galaxy, which would have been some of the earliest in the universe, would have created a “ionized gas bubble” around the galaxy. This possibility would imply that the primal stars would have been “more massive, hotter and more luminous” than the stars formed in later stages of the universe. This possibility would give us new clues about the enigmatic population of stars known as Population III and that represents precisely these early stars of the universe. The second possibility implies the existence of a supermassive black hole in the center of an active galactic nucleus. In Xataka | These real images were unthinkable before the Webb Telescope: they are planets orbiting other stars to 130 light years Image | ESA/WEBB, NASA, STSCI, CSA, JADES COLLLABORATION, BRANT ROBERTSON (UC SANTA CRUZ), BEN JOHNSON (CFA), SANDRO TACCHELLA (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CFA), J. Witstok, P. Jakobsen, A. Pagan (STSCI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

For 15 years a strange circle under an island in Japan was an enigma. The author’s identity was a surprise

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If we go to the dictionary to be exact with the term, the verb “courtej” accompanies the following definition: try to get the love or favors of someone flattering him and looking for his company. Therefore, the finding that took place several decades ago was so surprising. Normally, when we talk about courting WE THINK HUMAN KEY. However, in the animal kingdom they exceed everything seen in our species when it comes to claim the attention of the other. The enigma of the circles. In 1995, a group of divers who were exploring the waters near Amami ōshima, Japan, Japan, They discovered strange circular formations In the seabed. It was surprising, since those structures were symmetric, with radial spikes and valleys, and with such a prominent geometric perfection that it aroused all kinds of speculation about their origin: were they facing a human creation, or was it due to some kind of unknown natural phenomenon , or maybe an unusual organism? The years passed, and it was not until 2011 that A team of scientists managed to solve the mystery. Not just that. They managed to “catch” the suspect repeating the lavish scene. To the surprise of the researchers, the protagonist was A tiny torquigener albomaculosusa small kind of balloon fish that, with a size of just 12 centimeters, seemed to be able to sculpt structures 16 times larger than their own body with a very specific purpose: seduce a couple for reproduction. The art of courtship under the sea. The year of the finding, the scientists recorded the process of creating these circles in the seabed, observing up to 10 reproductive events in two study areas. Each structure took between seven and nine days to complete and required extreme precision. The male balloon fish used its pectoral, anal and flows fins to dig and model the sand in a perfect radial pattern, alternating between rapid and strategic pauses movements To give texture to the formations. In addition, he decorated the peaks of his work with decorative elements such as shells and coral fragments, while the center of the circle was completely clear as we see in the images. Only when these final details were ready, The females began to approach to evaluate the design of the “artist”. The mating ritual. At this point, when a female was interested in the structure, The male stirred the fine sand of the center to attract his attention. If she decided to enter the circle, the male withdrew momentarily before swimming quickly towards her in a repetitive courtship dance. If the female was impressed, she put her eggs in the center of the circlemaking it a temporary nest. If that was already fascinating, shortly after it was revealed that the impressive structures were never reused, they were of only one use. After reproduction, males leave their creation and begin a new one from scratch, since the process of sculpting the circle consumes most of the finest and most adequate sand for reproduction. This apotheosic nest construction ritual, documented years later In the Big Pacific series of BBC Earth/PBS and narrated by Sir David AttenboroughHe has amazed biologists and spectators since then. Ephemeral art. No doubt, the complex work of the balloon fish is One of the most fascinating exhibitions of the animal kingdomcomparable to the elaborate dances of mating of birds or the constructions of some mammals. However, what makes these structures unique is that these are true underwater works of art, carefully designed and molded with geometric precision. In addition, its discovery also offered a new perspective on the evolution of courtship in vertebrates. Although humans tend to think about art and architecture as exclusively ours capacities, these seabl , all that, and surely something else, in the extraordinary work of a tiny creature. Image | H KAWASE et al (2017) FISHES, CC by 4.0 In Xataka | What science tells us about when a romantic relationship will be a success or complete failure In Xataka | We have lost track of one of the few mammals that put eggs. Now we have rediscovered it

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