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We fill the field with solar panels to stop climate change. We have unintentionally saved 122 species of bees

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There’s a hum under Minnesota solar panels that engineers didn’t put in the plans. It is a biological, dense, ancient hum. Beneath the photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight into electricity, 122 species of native bees have found something that has been disappearing from the fields of half the world for decades: flowers. It’s not a coincidence. It is the result of a management decision that costs money, requires planning and that, according to the latest science, is producing results that no one expected when the first solar panel was installed in a meadow. The bees are disappearing. A study published in Nature Ecology & Evolutionwith data from 681 agricultural fields on three continents and more than 19,500 specimens of 910 species of wild bees, reached an uncomfortable conclusion: pesticides and habitat loss are reducing bee populations in an additive, independent way, without one factor compensating for the other. That is, having more natural habitat around a field does not neutralize the damage from pesticides. And reducing pesticides is not enough if the habitat has disappeared. They are two different problems that require two different solutions. The work, led by Anina Knauer and researchers from Agroscope among other institutions, found that pesticides not only reduce the number of bees: they also reduce their functional and phylogenetic diversity. Communities not only become smaller, they become simpler, less resilient, less able to cope with future shocks. A desert with seasonal flowers. In Iowa, in the heart of the American Corn Belt, 72% of the territory is covered in corn and soybean monocultures. Less than 0.01% of the original prairie remains standing. This is what researchers at Iowa State University publish in BioScience described as “an extreme example of landscape simplification”. Bees literally have very little to go to. And when the soybeans stop flowering at the end of summer, there is nothing. The colonies enter what science calls the feast-famine dynamic: the festival of flowering followed by famine that kills hives before winter. This is the background scenario. An agricultural world that urgently needs more pollinator habitat, free of pesticides or with minimal exposure. And in that desert, solar panels are doing something no one expected. 14 floors. 122 species. And an unexpected star. A team of researchers led by Bethanne Bruninga-Socolar of Western EcoSystems Technology and James McCall of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory asked a very specific question: Of all the plants that can be grown under and around solar panels, which ones actually establish? And how many bees can they hold? The work, published in Environmental Research Communicationstested 101 plant species in eight different seed mixtures at three solar farms in the tallgrass prairie region of Minnesota. After three years of monitoring, 14 species of flowering herbaceous plants had successfully established themselves. With those 14 species as a starting point, the researchers cross-referenced the data with an exhaustive catalog of plant-bee interactions from the same region. The result is that those 14 plants can support 122 unique species of native bees, 24% of all bee diversity in the state of Minnesota, which has 508 documented species. The star of the system is Zizia aureathe golden Alexander, a yellow flowering plant that blooms early in the season. Alone, it supports 67 species of bees. And 36 of those species—30% of the total study—only visited Zizia aurea among all the plants studied. If it is not in the seed mix of the solar park, those 36 species have nothing. Not all flowers are worth the same. The study also documents an important nuance: bumblebees, the group of pollinators with the most species in decline—three of the eleven species of Bombus of the study are classified as vulnerable by the IUCN: B. pensylvanicus, B. terrestrial and B. fervidus—they don’t get along with Zizia aurea. Only one species of bumblebee visited that plant. Bumblebees prefer Monarda fistulosathe wild bergamot, visited by nine of the eleven species of Bombus of the study. The practical lesson: there is no universal mix. The design of what is planted must respond to what is to be conserved. And what if there are pesticides in the surrounding fields? He study by Toth and colleagues in BioSciencewith more than a decade of data on strips of native prairie embedded in corn and soybean fields in Iowa, systematically reviewed chemical contamination in that type of habitat. Pesticides arrive—neonicotinoids, pyrethroids, fungicides—but in concentrations that, for the best studied species, are below the damage thresholds. And most importantly: the concentrations are no higher than in the rest of the surrounding agricultural landscape. They are not an ecological trap; They are an island of resources in a sea of ​​fields that already have pesticides on them anyway. In addition, a diet rich in quality pollen—exactly what these plants provide—makes bees better tolerate chemical exposure. Nutrition acts as a shield. The authors of that work themselves explicitly point out that their conclusions are applicable to “other types of landscape improvements for pollinators such as hedgerows, pollinator gardens, solar installations with pollinator habitat.” It is not a journalistic extrapolation. It’s in the text of the paper. If there are flowers inside there are bumblebees. If field studies answer the “does it work now?” published in Global Change Biology by Hollie Blaydes and colleagues at Lancaster University answers “will it still work in 2050?” The team modeled the 1,042 operational solar farms in Britain under three socio-economic scenarios for mid-century: a sustainability scenario, an intermediate scenario and a fossil development scenario with maximum agricultural intensification. The main finding is compelling: the management of the solar park is the main determining factor of bumblebee density within the park, above land use changes in the surrounding landscape. Solar parks last between 25 and 40 years. That means decades of stable habitat in landscapes that are going to change and possibly get worse for pollinators. And there is an economic angle that is not minor either. Colonies located near diverse native vegetation avoid feast-famine dynamic which in monocultures weakens … Read more

In Nepal they have begun to fill their streets with tons of plastic waste. Their goal: to be more sustainable

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In Nepal they have begun to fill their streets with garbage. Kilos and more kilos of discarded plastic, old open noodle packages, cookie containers and other synthetic waste that (due to their characteristics) it’s not always easy recycle. The prospect of walking or driving on trash-strewn asphalt may not seem too appealing, but it makes perfect sense and is something that has been done before (or at least tried out) in other parts of the world. Asia, Europe, Africa either America. Of course, usually in a timid way. The key is that plastic waste is not dispersed directly on the pavement. No. They are part of it, of its structure. Even there are those who maintain that improves it. Pavement with garbage? Exact. If every year we produce more than 400 million tons of plastic, much of it destined for single-use packaging and which is then difficult to recycle, and we also build (and repave) kilometers and kilometers of roads every year… Why not connect both things? What if we used the most difficult to recycle synthetic waste to make pavement? What if this material was also better than conventional asphalt? The idea It’s not entirely new and there are those who question whether it is really as sustainable and good as it seems, but the truth is that over the last few years it has attracted the interest of entrepreneurs and institutions from different countries. Usually (not always) in a timid, almost experimental way, with pilot projects and in more or less short periods, but it has managed to stay in the limelight. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Where has it been tested? A quick search on Google shows that over the last five years, “plastic paving” has convinced a few entrepreneurs and institutions from around the world. We see examples in Philippines, Thailand, South Africa, Netherlands, USA, Singapore either Indiaone of the countries that has opted most decisively for this solution. In 2024 Business Standard informed that in the Asian country they had built almost 40,000 kilometers of rural tracks that included plastic waste, 13,000 of them completed in recent years. In Singapore the idea too seems to have curdled and has received the endorsement of the Public Works area. And Nepal arrived. Nepal is one of the latest to join the list. In 2025 the AFP agency published an extensive report in which he explained how the idea has reached the Asian republic, where it has already been used on at least one highway in Pokharaa city of 600,000 inhabitants that serves as the capital of Gandaki province. There the plastic flooring formula has the support of Green Road Waste Managementan organization that is trying to expand it in Nepal. Step by step. In 2025, the founder of the entity, Bimal Bastola, he assured AFP who had completed around a dozen projects totaling just over a mile. It’s not much, but the organization maintains that each kilometer of pavement uses about two metric tons of shredded plastic to build. Bastola advocates going further and carrying out projects at the government level. “We try to collaborate with the highway office.” A priori it seems that the Government does not take a dim view of the measure. Arjun Nepal, an engineer at the capital’s highway department recognize that the country “is interested in testing the technology in pilot projects,” but warns that to move forward it is necessary to first guarantee a series of quality standards. Hence the authorities wanted to carry out a test in Kathmandu. “We saw possibilities”. Bastola defends the virtues of paving with synthetic waste and remembers that it even allows lower value waste to be reused. “We saw possibilities in using these plastics as raw materials, partially replacing tar in road construction,” argues to AFP. The new system does not dispense with this material, but first covers the pavement components with crushed plastic. In addition to providing an outlet for part of the tons of plastic that are generated every day in Nepalese urban areas, Bastola assures that the system saves certain materials, reduces costs and has extra advantages for the pavement itself. “It prevents water infiltration and increases the useful life of the track,” claims. There are studies that endorse These surfaces can last longer than normal ones. Perfect, right? Depends. Although the system has sparked interest in several countries, including Nepal and its neighbors Bhutan and Bangladesh, not everyone is sure it is such a good option. Or at least it has proven to be so. From the World Bank have admitted that there are “promising” pilot studies, but they lack more research: What and how many emissions are produced during the production of the pavement? How does it actually behave in practice? Does it release microplastics? What is their impact once the plastic tracks are removed? “Garbage in for garbage out”, they warned in 2020 at GAIA on solutions such as asphalt and cement with crushed plastic remains. Images | Laurentiu Morariu (Unsplash) In Xataka | We have been thinking for decades that plastic recycling was worth something. Maybe we were wrong

Aragon’s great plan to fill its reservoirs with solar panels has just collapsed due to a bureaucratic oversight

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There is an image that sums up our times: reservoirs covered in solar panels floating like technological water lilies. It was the Government’s great bet to squeeze clean energy without consuming soil. However, that landscape has just collided head-on with the Supreme Court. According to the national climate roadmapBy 2030, Spain has to achieve a renewable penetration of 42% in final energy consumption and 74% in electricity generation. Swamp water, free of conflict over agricultural or forest land use, seemed the ideal setting. But the legislative rush has truncated the plan. The Supreme Court agrees with Aragón. The Fifth Section of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court has declared null Royal Decree 662/2024, of July 9. It has done so by upholding an appeal filed by the Autonomous Community of Aragon. The ruling annuls the regulations by operation of law and condemns the State to pay the procedural costs. The Aragonese regional executive had full legitimacy to appeal, since, as the court confirmed, the execution of this decree directly affected its powers in territorial planning, the environment, tourism and hydroelectric development. But what did it consist of? Published in the Official State Gazettethe objective of the text was to develop the regime to which the installation of these plants in state-managed reservoirs should be subject. The preamble of the standard strongly defended the technology, ensuring that these systems have better energy performance due to the cooling effect of water, reduce evaporation by casting shade, and slow down the growth of phytoplankton in waters at risk of eutrophication. To put order in this deployment, the Government articulated a strict system of temporary concessions that limited the exploitation of the plants to a maximum of 25 years, including extensions. The regulatory text also imposed space limits according to the ecological state of the waters. Likewise, the conditions required the promoters to provide a provisional bond of 4,000 euros per megawatt (MW) installed only for the application – which became up to 12,000 euros per MW to respond for damage to the public domain -, all conditional on the presentation of environmental studies, monitoring of invasive species and a continuous monitoring program to evaluate water quality. The legal stumbling block: legislating without asking. The central problem was not the content of the norm, but how it was approved. The Government omitted the process of prior public consultation with affected citizens and groups. This is a procedure that the ruling considers inexcusable, and its omission has been the nail in the coffin of the decree. The State tried to justify this legal shortcut in the courts with two arguments that the Supreme Court has dismantled. Firstly, the State Attorney’s Office alleged that there was an extraordinary situation of public interest due to the increase in energy prices due to the war in Ukraine. The High Court rejected this premise, recalling its own doctrine: to skip public consultation, it is not enough that there is urgency; the rule must also be of a purely organizational or budgetary nature, something that does not happen in this case. Secondly, the Government tried to rely on an “urgent processing” route. The response of the magistrates It was forceful.: “In this case, the aforementioned procedure cannot be dispensed with because there is no declaration of urgency nor was the procedure developed on that legal basis.” There was no agreement from the Council of Ministers that supported the rush; therefore, the shortcut was illegal. Why it matters: form, not substance. There is a crucial nuance that changes the reading of this news. The Supreme Court has not ruled that putting solar panels on water is a bad idea or that it is harmful. In fact, it rejected the rest of the complaints presented by Aragón, resolving that the text did not violate the principles of good regulation or legal certainty. We are facing what jurists call a formal procedural defect. The law falls only because the Government did not listen to the parties involved before acting. It is especially ironic that the Council of State itself I would have already warned to the Executive during the draft phase that this matter was going to need, in the medium term, a much more complete and systematic regulation. And now what? The renewable energy sector, which saw floating platforms as an unbeatable alternative to avoid the controversy over the consumption of agricultural land, is left in limbo. All the regulations of the decree disappear, including the modification of the Regulation of the Public Hydraulic Domain of 1986 that articulated these concessions. Meanwhile, in the affected territories, caution is already a reality. The Ebro Hydrographic Confederation, for example, had previously vetoed the installation of these floating plants in the Cinca swamps. The legal basis that allows these facilities continues to exist in the Water Law. What has fallen is the regulatory development, so the Government can go back to square one and draft a new regulation. But he will have to do it by scrupulously complying with the steps that he ignored this time. It has been shown that the rush in the energy transition has a high legal cost. The decree that was going to order solar panels on water has been shipwrecked. For not having listened before. Image | RawPixel Xataka | Europe throws away 16 billion a year in electronic waste. Spain has just turned on the first oven in Europe to recover them

fill rivers with converted plastic bottles

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It must have been the end of 2009 and, while no one was looking, a handful of wasps crossed the Nivelle River and sneaked into Dantxaria. We found them a few months later installed in Amaiur, 15 kilometers further down, already in the Batzan region. Since then, heto vespa velutina has been consolidated throughout the Cantabrian coast, Galicia and the entire Ebro valley. We have been finding and destroying nests throughout the peninsula. And in 2025, nine of them were found in Alcañiz, the first documented case in the province of Teruel. Given this, the Government of Aragon decided to take action on the matter: set traps made from plastic bottles. What are they doing? In a joint action by the Forest Guard of the Alcañiz City Council and the Nature Protection Agents of the Government of Aragon traps have been placed on the banks of the Guadalope River to catch the Asian queen wasps as they emerge from torpor. In fact, there are two types of traps: on the one hand, there are the VespaCatch, which have special holes for these queen wasps. vespa velutina for which, for example, the native wasp does not fit Vespa crabro. On the other hand, handmade traps made with plastic bottles and a pair of black zip ties have also been installed. The mechanism is the same: they work with a natural attractant made with water, sugar and fresh yeast. Once inside, they cannot leave. In this way, it is hoped that they will be prevented from creating their primary nest and end up forming a new colony. And does it work? According to Alcañiz, they have already captured 62 Asian wasp queens in what seems like a huge success. The Environmental Biology group at the University of Vigo is not so clear. This group, coordinated by Sandra V. Rojas-Nossa and Salustiano Mato, has published between 2018 and 2024 a series of works that compare the effectiveness and selectivity of the most used trap models. And the results are bittersweet. Bittersweet? Yes, it’s true: VespaCatch is the one that records the highest capture rates of the Asian wasp. But it does so at the cost of capturing vulnerable native species. In fact, according to their conclusions, “with the traps tested, bait trapping continues to be environmentally unsustainable and is not recommended as a control method in regions with an already established invasive population.” To give us an idea, according to Rojas-Nossa data, approximately 100 individuals of other species for each V. velutina captured in spring. It’s true that it’s difficult transfer Galician data to Teruel, but the capture of 62 queens could have caused a small damage to the local fauna of Guadalope. It is the great paradox of the velutinas: we have reached a point where ending them means ending everything else. Image | Alcañiz Town Hall via La Comarca In Xataka | After centuries of disappearance, there are people releasing beavers into the Tagus and other rivers in Spain. The problem is that we don’t know who

fill their residences with MMA fighters

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In 1964, during the Tokyo Olympics, Japan deployed thousands of young volunteers to assist foreign visitors with tasks as basic as finding their way or moving around the city, in a coordinated effort that surprised his discipline and efficiency. Decades later, that idea of ​​mobilizing unexpected profiles to cover social needs reappears, although in a very different context. Unexpected solutions to aging. Japan has been facing for years a demographic pressure increasingly intense, with an aging population that grows at high speed and a care system that fails to meet demand. He told in a report the new york times that the figures indicate that one in six Japanese is now over 75 years oldand the residences are overwhelmed due to the lack of staff, aggravated by immigration restrictions and the low attractiveness of a demanding job traditionally focused on women. In this context, the country has begun to explore very unconventional formulas to sustain its healthcare system, opening the door to profiles that until recently seemed completely alien to this world. Muscle as a response to the crisis. But not financial, but literal. Yes, the solution that is beginning to take shape in some centers breaks with any preconceived idea: incorporating bodybuilders, MMA fighters and exsumos as caregivers. Apparently, The Times explained that specialized companies have seen in these profiles a useful combination of physical strength, discipline and work availability, offering stable jobs for athletes with short careers and few economic outlets. In fact, what began as an experiment is being consolidated as a real strategy to alleviate the lack of labor, while introducing an element of renewal in a sector that had been operating for decades under the same schemes. Everyday life in residences. In practice, these new caregivers perform the same tasks as the rest of the staff, but with an obvious advantage in physically demanding jobs such as moving patients or assisting in their daily hygiene. Thus, in centers such as those in Ichinomiya, Kochi or Tokyo, residents live with muscular figures who help them get up, cook or accompany them in daily activities, generating unusual but increasingly normalized scenes. Furthermore, these workers They combine their shifts with trainingwhich allows them to maintain their sports career while developing a second professional path. Change the perception of a forgotten sector. Beyond functionality, the initiative seeks transform the image of elder care, attracting male profiles who have historically avoided this type of employment. Plus: the presence of athletes introduces dynamism to the residences and breaks stereotypes, showing that healthcare work can also be associated with strength, energy and commitment. In some cases, the residents themselves perceive these caregivers as close, almost family figures, which contributes to improving the emotional environment in the centers. Between hardness and its impact. They remembered in the report that, over time, many of these athletes discover that the real challenge is not physical, that is, but emotional, when facing illness, dependency and the death of patients. This experience transforms their relationship with work and daily life, providing a dimension that goes beyond employment or training. Thus, what began as a pragmatic solution to a labor crisis is becoming a deeper shift in the way we understand care in Japan, one where muscle has gone from being a sporting symbol to a key tool to literally support everyone. an aging generation. Image | PicrylOneFC In Xataka | The Yakuza is no longer the criminal force it once was in Japan. The reason is very simple: aging In Xataka | While half the planet aspires to retire, in Japan the opposite is true: 100-year-olds who only want to work

In the middle of the war, Israel’s underground parking lots have begun to fill with something: tents

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On the fourth floor of the underground parking lot of the Dizengoff Centerone of the most popular shopping centers in Tel Aviv, the difficult thing these days is seeing cars. There are also not many motorcycles, vans or any other type of vehicle. What has occupied the squares painted on the ground for weeks are dozens of tents, the ‘home’ improvised by Israelis looking for a place to protect themselves from the attacks with which Iran has responded to ‘Operation Epic Fury’ that on February 28 ended the life of its leader, Ali Khamenei. While on the surface the sirens sound warning of the arrival of missiles, there, on the -4 floor, life goes on among removable tents. “Look where I am”. With that phrase I started a few days ago tiktoker Andrea Bisso (@Latinaenisrael96) a video in which it shows the parking lot of a shopping center in Israel. The curious thing is that as you walk through its corridors you don’t see cars or people with shopping carts, but rather tents, an improvised table on pallets where food is distributed, handwritten posters hanging from the columns, clothes hanging from cables… The landscape that marks the daily life of the dozens of families who take refuge there. “People are living here now, in times of war. This is where they have moved. It’s incredible how people started to live in a parking lot. These are people who have small children, can’t run to a shelter, don’t have one nearby or are elderly who can’t go down the stairs… They prefer to live here,” relates Andrea as she walks through the parking lot. “Alternate reality”. The tiktoker is not the only one that has shown how the war has transformed some unexpected places in Israel. A few days ago Zeb Stub also did it on an extensive report for The Times of Israel in which it affects the same idea. In fact, he talks about the “alternative reality” that has been created on the -4th floor of the Dizengoff Center parking lot, where “a city” basically made up of dozens of tents has been deployed. Curiously, life activates beneath the surface while it decays in commercial areas. Stub explains for example that in the Azrieli Centeralso in Tel Aviv, some businesses estimate that activity has fallen by 20% or even 50% in recent weeks. “Many people come simply to get out of the house,” they say from a shoe store. “The normal thing before Passover is that people come to buy new clothes, but this year they are not thinking about that.” Life goes on underground. Gal, a teacher who teaches remotely, explained to the Israeli newspaper that she decided to move to the Dixengoff shelter last week among other reasons because she had to constantly interrupt her work in her apartment. “I teach online classes and having to stop every time the siren sounds is making my work more complicated,” recognize the woman In the shelter you don’t just see people eating, sleeping, working or simply hanging out. a chronicle from the Associated Press (AP) talks about much more casual scenes, such as a bride posing with her family for a wedding photo session or young people dressed up for celebrate the holiday Purim Jewish… There are also spaces for attend to medical emergencieslike the improvised one in a parking lot under the Sheba Medical Center, in Ramant Gan. Are there no conventional shelters? Yes. Israel has public shelters. It is also not unusual to find private spaces designed precisely so that people can take shelter during emergencies. When the alarms sound, people barricade themselves in them, usually for fifteen minutes, half an hour… however long the alert lasts from when the sirens sound. However, there are those who, for one reason or another, choose to put their belongings in a suitcase and temporarily settle in spaces where they feel safer than in their homes, such as parking lots. The Dizengoff Center is an example, but there is more. Under the Tel Aviv bus station there are dozens of families, especially immigrants, who have settled in tents. Crossover attacks. Noah Efron, from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, claimed these days that the underground shelters in Tel Aviv are designed to house families at times like the current one, when the Middle East is convulsed by the offensive launched by Israel itself and the US on Iran. Over the last few weeks, cities like Tel Aviv have received attacks of the Islamist regime, damaging buildings and causing injuries and even fatalities. Israel is not the only one living under the threat of missiles. His army has also been hitting Iran and Lebanon for weeks. In fact, in cities like Tehran or Kfar Rumman there are a significant balance of wounded and dead. Images | TikTok and Wikipedia In Xataka | Iran has just crossed the great energy red line: Türkiye is the first victim of a blackout that is already looking to Europe

They fill you up in the moment, but leave you emptier later

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Every time we are more alone and so? it’s a problembut don’t worry, AI has arrived to save us. Mark Zuckerberg believes AI friends can fill that gap. In South Korea They are sending AI robots to older people to keep them company and in New York they are also testing it. New studies suggest that it is a bad idea. The study. Was conducted by the University of British Columbia on a sample of 300 first-year students. The study leader tells 404media which is a very vulnerable time because often students are away from their family and don’t know anyone. The students were divided into three groups: the first would chat with an AI chatbot, the second would chat with another unknown student and the third, the control group, would have to write a diary. The rules were that they had to write at least one message a day and complete several daily surveys, including the UCLA Loneliness Scale. The chatbot was based on ChatGPT-4o, the model known for being more empathetic and close and whose withdrawal generated criticism precisely among those who seek emotional connections with an AI. The results. Participants who talked to another peer showed lower levels of loneliness, while the other two groups (AI chatbot and diary) showed no change. They did see a decrease in negative mood when chatting with the AI, suggesting that it offers momentary relief, but does not have a lasting effect. 33% of students in the first group continued talking to their partner after the experiment, while only 14% continued talking to the chatbot. There is more. The University of British Columbia conducted another study with a sample of 2,000 adults over a full year. It was seen that people who feel lonelier are more likely to increase the use of chatbots to try to fill that void. However, in the long run the effect of emotional isolation increases even more. According to one of the authors, it “suggests a negative feedback loop” and compares them to “social junk food,” meaning it fills but does not nourish. Connect with an AI. When we saw Her in 2013 we did not imagine that a few years later the story was going to come true. There are people falling in love with AIssome even they cheat on their human partners with one It is an increasingly common trend and AI companies know it. There are apps that offer AI companions like Replika or Character.ai, but AI is also coming mainstream. We have the example with the controversial erotic mode that OpenAI is preparing for ChatGPT. They are not always romantic relationships, there are also those maintain a friendship and who goes to the AI ​​to tell it their problems, as if he were a psychologist. The experts have already warned that machines cannot replace a real connection, but the machinery advances unstoppably and AI is already redefining relationships. In Xataka | People Blaming ChatGPT for Causing Delusions and Suicides: What’s Really Happening with AI and Mental Health Image | Talha Uğuz, Pexels

It has Taiwan in front of it and Japan is going to fill it with missiles

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At the westernmost tip of Japan there is a paradise place where, on clear days, you can see another territory from the coast. It is the same enclave where they live more native horses than school-age children. That isolated corner, for decades outside the big headlines, has begun to occupy an unexpected space in the strategic conversations of the Indo-Pacific. Also to become in a fort. A red line. That island has become the new red line against China. The reason? Japan will deploy missiles 100 km from Taiwan. In this way, Yonaguni, the westernmost point of the Japanese archipelago, has gone from being a remote enclave in just a few years. a centerpiece of the Indo-Pacific strategic board. Its location, at the end of the Nansei island chainplaces it right in the geographic arc that connects the East China Sea with the Western Pacific, the same corridor that worries Tokyo and Washington facing a possible conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The calendar changes. A few hours ago, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi set for the first time a very specific horizon: before March 2031, a set of surface-to-air missile medium range, projectiles with 360 degree coverage capacity and the possibility of intercepting multiple targets simultaneously. The decision is not isolated, but is part of the strategic turn started in 2022 to reinforce defenses on the southwestern islands, shifting the historical focus from Russia to growing Chinese military activity in the East China Sea. The diplomatic context and Chinese pressure. The announcement also comes after months of deterioration between Tokyo and Beijingaggravated by the statements of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about the possible Japanese involvement if there was an attack on the island of Taiwan that represented an existential threat for the nation. China’s response It was devastatingresponding with trade restrictions, diplomatic pressure and a battery of military demonstrations that, how do we countincluded drone flights and an increased naval presence in the area, while maintaining its claim to Taiwan and its dispute with Japan through the Senkaku Islandsadministered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing as Diaoyu. The internal transformation. Since 2016, the island has hosted a surveillance unit coastal with about 160 troops, to which electronic warfare capabilities and new military infrastructure will be added. In a community of barely 1,500 inhabitants, where depopulation has been a constant since the postwar period, the presence of military personnel and their families alters the structure demographic and economicgenerating a division between those who see militarization as an investment opportunity and those who fear that the enclave will become a priority objective in the event of conflict. From peripheral paradise to strategic bastion. From that perspective, the expansion of the base, the plans to improve the airport and port and the possible installation of advanced defense systems They consolidate Yonaguni as a key link in the Japanese deterrence architecture. What for decades was a marginal territory is now integrated into a defensive network designed to complicate any attempt to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, sending a clear message about even where is it arranged Japan to arrive to protect what it considers its most sensitive front. The new map. If you will also, the Yonaguni decision reflects a broader transformation in Japanese defense policy, one underpinned by a historic increase of the military budget and the security treaty with the United States, which could drag Tokyo into a larger scale regional conflict. What is clear afterto official statement of Tokyo is that, on the new strategic map of the Indo-Pacific, the small island is no longer a lost point in the ocean: it is the place where Japan has decided mark your limit and where any future crisis could have its first warning signal. Image | GetArchivejpatokal In Xataka | The Japanese island of Yonaguni was known for its beauty and Bad Bunny. Now it is a military fortress because of Taiwan In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has concentrated thousands of fishing boats off Japan, and its idea is not to fish

now everyone wants to fill the sky

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Launching the first commercial satellites, Telstar-1 and Telstar-2, cost almost $400,000 per kilogram in the 1960s. Today it costs about $6,500 per kilogram if you use the program Falcon 9 of SpaceX to send cargo, according to data from the Kfund venture capital fund. The drastic reduction in costs has enabled organizations and companies to send more and more satellites per year and, consequently, the Earth’s orbit to become saturated at an unprecedented rate. filling the sky. What was once the exclusive territory of governments and large corporations is now within the reach of startups with modest budgets. FOSSA Systems, a Spanish company, has deployed more than 20 satellites with less than 10 million euros in total financing, according to Kfund. In Spain, the number of objects launched into space has more than tripled between 2021 and 2024, going from 21 to 69 payloads. At a global level, the change is even more dramatic, because while it previously took decades to deploy entire constellations, now this is achieved in a matter of months. Changes. The drop in prices is mainly due to a series of converging factors. On the one hand rocket reuse that they have perfected since SpaceX. In addition, there is now a satellite standardization (from giant, customized machines to modular microsatellites), while also taking advantage of economies of scale. Everything indicates that the cost per kilogram would continue to trend downward, and the next jump could come from StarshipSpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket that promises to reduce costs even further. More satellites, also more problems. This democratization has been a complicated scenario. Now the barrier to entry for sending objects into space is much lower than before, so the risk of launching satellites without centralized coordination also increases. A while ago we also talked about the risk of collisionwhich has accelerated in recent years due to the massification of low Earth orbit. Among the consequences we find space junk that grows exponentially (each collision generates fragments that can cause new collisions), interference between communication frequencies, and a growing orbital militarization difficult to monitor. Insufficient legal frameworks. Outer space operates under international treaties designed since the Cold War, when only two powers had orbital access capacity. Today, with hundreds of private and state operators, these legal frameworks are insufficient. For this reason, the limitations on how many satellites an operator can launch, where they should be located or where they end up at the end of their useful life are issues that They are not managed by any global authority. The result is a kind of orbital “tragedy of the commons” in which everyone benefits from cheap access, but no one fully bears the costs of this massive traffic. Fragmentation. “The world is continually changing, in some places faster than before,” points out Silviu Pirvu, Chairman and CTO of Optimal Cities, to the firm Kfund. Space infrastructure serves us more than ever to respond to crises, manage risks or make decisions in real time, although the control and governance landscape of this same infrastructure is difficult. Meanwhile, Europe is trying to gain sovereignty with initiatives such as IRIS² to reduce dependence on non-European suppliers, but regulatory fragmentation persists. The long-term risks. The scientific community has been warning for years about the Kessler syndrome: a scenario in which the density of objects in low orbit reaches a critical point where cascading collisions make the use of certain orbits unfeasible for generations. Although we are far from that extreme, each year that passes without effective regulation brings us closer to that reality. The European Space Agency esteem that there are already more than 36,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters in orbit, most of them junk. Regulate a common good. There are several questions on the table, but perhaps the most interesting would be to know how a global common good is regulated when there are commercial and strategic incentives that push in the opposite direction. Although there are numerous spatial monitoring systems, such as the SSA (Space Situational Awareness) of the ESA, this capability is not a solution to the underlying problem of setting limits. Cover image | THAT In Xataka | The Challenger explosion: 40 years of the accident that forever changed the course of NASA and space exploration

the “miracle” of Namibia to fill Europe’s supermarkets with grapes

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The country of ‘Namibia’ may a priori be truly unknown to many people, but the reality is that many of the grapes we buy in the EU come from here. a country practically desert that has been achieved and that a priori is not ready to host cultivation, but that has achieved something unusual: converting one of the most arid landscapes on the planet into a large grape plantation that compete in the most demanding markets. An evolution. In this way, what three decades ago was a silent, sun-battered valley on the banks of the Orange River, Today it is the epicenter of the billion-dollar grape industry.. The Aussenkehr region has not only “greened” the desert, it has redefined the global table grape calendar. The origin. The industry was born from the vision of Dusan Vasiljevican entrepreneur who in 1988 identified Aussenkehr’s hidden potential. The challenge was monumental: an environment with less than 50 liters of annual rainfall, a total lack of infrastructure and no previous experience in growing grapes in the area. A priori, only a madman could build a grape plantation here, since it seemed like a guaranteed waste of money. But in the end it was quite the opposite. Overcoming critical financial obstacles, Vasiljevic planted the first 150 hectares, achieving an initial harvest of 1,000 tons in 1991. Since then, expansion has been constant. Collaboration between the private sector and entities such as the Namibia Grape Company (NGC) and the national government has allowed cultivation to be extended to more than 700 additional hectares, turning the valley into an engine of development that currently exports to a good part of the planet. great growth. Namibia’s quantitative leap in recent decades is an economic case study without a doubt. The country’s ability to take advantage of its ideal climate for early harvests allows it to enter the European market before its competitors, obtaining very good prices. This way, exports have passed from 1,917 tons in 1997 to having 7.5 billion cartons ready to ship this season. All this with a value that in 2023 reached 84.2 billion dollars. Your logistics. Namibian success does not depend only on production, but on robust logistics. Right now the main market for this production company is in the European Union, which absorbs 75% of the production, followed by the United Kingdom and emerging markets in Asia. That is why the company’s focus has been on high-value varieties such as Arra Honey Pop and Arra Fire Crunch that offer greater flavor and, above all, more resistance in transportation. Regarding its exit routes to other countries, the strategic ports of Walvis Bay and Cape Town stand out above all, which guarantee the necessary freshness for European shelves. satellite images. But words can sometimes create confusion or even give rise to the idea that we are completely exaggerating. But the reality is that the satellite images do not deceive, and reveal a great contrast between the bright green of the plantations in contrast with the ocher sand of the Namib. View from Google Earth of the grape plantation in Namibia It is also fantastic for lovers of geometric shapes, since in the images you can clearly see different almost perfect green squares in the middle of an arid background. And the truth is that it seems a miracle that it has been possible to revitalize this land that now supplies the European market with a large quantity of grapes. This is something that in 2010 was the focus of NASA that used he Advanced Land Imager and gave recent scientific studies, like those from WaterWatchwhich highlight that Namibia has achieved these yields with exceptional water efficiency, using precision irrigation systems that minimize waste of water from the Orange River. Socioeconomic impact. Beyond foreign currency, grapes have become the livelihood of thousands of families in this area. Right now, the industry supports 3,500 permanent workers and 7,000 temporary employees during harvest peaks. Furthermore, this model has been praised in international forums such as Davos, where it was presented as an example of how irrigated agriculture can be sustainable and profitable in arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa. In Xataka | In the midst of desertification, Australia has had an idea as strange as it is effective to retain water: covering the land with wool

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