finding

In atomized times, the Spanish generation Z is finding a strange refuge in ‘Los Serrano’ and ‘No one here lives’

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“I’m looking forward to the long weekend and finishing the season. The Serranos“A 15-year-old student I recently taught recognized me. Yes, 15 years. Possibly the combination of that phrase and that idea gives us a short circuit: we are talking about a series that ended in 2008; when she hadn’t even started kindergarten. I couldn’t contain myself and as someone who did grow up with Diego Serrano, the brush and the boom for Fran Perea, I had to ask him where that passion had come from. It came through clips on TikTok. That content of a few minutes and loose decontextualized fragments were not enough, and they turned something that began as a simple curiosity into a true marathon to know in detail what happened to Eva and Marcos, the most famous stepbrothers on TV in the 2000s. A fiction as iconic as that, but for generation millennialhad found its new primary audience in Generation Z. I was surprised, of course, but the idea stayed in the back of my head, like a specific issue to which I should not give more importance. Like when your friend tells you that she is pregnant and suddenly you start noticing people on the street and you discover something that we could almost classify as a baby epidemic; Shortly after, another teenage student, whom we will call Victoria, shows me her pending homework on her tablet. Between irregular verbs and vocabulary to learn, I look at the wallpaper: nothing less than ‘Santa Justa Klan‘, the fictional (and not so fictional) group that was formed in ‘Los Serrano’. At this point, I was already ‘mode’Queen’s Gambit‘, projecting theories on the ceiling about something so strange to understand and that he was also seeing everywhere. Just a few weeks ago, at the next table in a restaurant, a group of university girls revealed in their talk that this is not just about ‘The Serranos‘. To a certain extent, declaring yourself a fan of ‘There is no one who lives here‘It is understandable with the common thread that it has with an already veteran series, but still in broadcast, like ‘The one that is coming‘. The thing is that they start quoting ‘The boarding school’, ‘Physics or Chemistry‘, ‘The ship’ or ‘Paco’s men‘, debating passionately about how the revival Prime Video of the first one does not have one bit of the quality of the original. Once again, I could not contain myself, and I assailed them with my doubts about how they had arrived at these fictions so typical of my generation and not so much of theirs. The same pattern: discovery on social networks, the possibility of watching all seasons on platforms or even through those fragments, and the echo chamber that is created in classes and groups of friends. That week-by-week phenomenon effect that we’ve barely seen since ‘Game of Thrones‘, is being achieved organically in the middle classes of Spain. Some actors are still relevant today, and although it is difficult to think that all the youth have come to ‘El Barco’ by looking at the IMDb of Mario Casas or ‘El Internado’ doing the same with Ana de Armascould make sense in certain cases. None of that: it is the series itself is what hooks you so many years later. This is how Catalina, one of these girls, recognizes it: “I’m finishing The Boarding School; When I do it I plan to tell my little sister to start it.” The generational contrast is more than evident, and the lapidary phrase that unsettles an entire generation millennial who, like me, has grown up with ‘Three meters above the sky‘ and ‘SMS without fear of dreaming‘ is pronounced by Sara, to whom her friends were highly recommending ‘El Barco’: “Ah, but Mario Casas went out there? I had no idea.” From meme to marathon The furor over the story of Lucas and Sara from ‘Paco’s Men’ or the crazy theories that ‘El Internado’ sparked now do not begin on television, waiting week after week for a new chapter. Rather the opposite occurs; Like almost everything in recent years, it all starts with the mobile. If before you watched a series and then it was when the meme festival began on the networks, now the journey is the other way around, from the meme it goes to television. And whoever says meme says fancams or fragments of interviews that awaken interest in those fictions dosmileras. “I started watching the story of Teté and Guille in parts on TikTok and I couldn’t stop,” one of my students reminded me. So, the clip opens the door and the series does the rest, becoming almost an involuntary trailer. And, really, this fragmented and instant format is very much in line with the current consumption model. Everything has to be quick, that captures your attention in the first seconds and encourages you to consume something, of whatever nature. So it is no coincidence that the algorithm works as a perfect cultural programmer for generation Z, a tool that prioritizes the high emotional or humorous charge it has in the love drama of Lucas and Sara or in the phrases from Bethlehem to his greatest ally. This resurgence poses a very curious paradox: in the era of rapid consumption, these young people return to long, choral series designed to be watched without any rush. We are also talking about fictions that achieved audience figures that were unthinkable on current television (‘There is no one who lives here‘ either’ The Serranos‘ reached 7,000,000 spectators), so all the merit of their revival It cannot fall on social networks or on the virality of certain clips. In a sea of ​​platforms and on-demand content, available at any time, something unique and special must have that 2000s television imagery. One of the keys is probably the ID with the characters. Even today, many university students from Generation Z find in Belén or Emilio from ‘No one lives here’ that reflection of work … Read more

In 2026 there are still people throwing messages in a bottle into the sea. A man keeps finding them in the Caribbean

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To give us an idea, more than half a century ago, in 1959, Guinness launched 150,000 bottles to the Atlantic to celebrate its bicentennial. Many decades later, in the era of networks and algorithms, some continue to appear on beaches in places as different as the Caribbean, Canada or the Arctic. People keep sending the messages. History remembered her the New Yorker a few days ago. In the era of WhatsApp, TikTok and instant messages, there are people who continue doing something that seems straight out of a 19th century novel: writing a few lines, putting them in a bottle and throw them into the ocean waiting for someone, somewhere in the world, to find them. The surprising thing is that much more happens than it seems. Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer estimates that millions of bottled messages have been thrown into the sea since the mid-20th century, and some continue to wash up decades later on remote beaches. What’s more, in the Caribbean, a man named Clint Buffington He has been obsessed with finding them for almost twenty years. What started as a coincidence ended up becoming a kind of emotional archeology of the ocean: messages written by strangers, couples who broke up, improvised memorials, jokes, goodbyes and small capsules of humanity carried by impossible sea currents. The bottle hunter. Buffington lives in Utah, far from the sea, but spends much of his life studying ocean mapstides and currents to locate beaches where floating objects may end up accumulating. Walk for miles in brutal heat in the Bahamas or Turks and Caico Islands searching for something extremely unlikely: a bottle with a message still readable. Of course, most of the time he finds nothing. Or worse– Find trash, empty bottles or papers destroyed by salt water. But every now and then something extraordinary appears. Ha recovered sent messages from freighters, love letters, confessions written under the influence of alcohol, vacation memories and even tributes to lost pregnancies. For man, each bottle is a kind of human trail floating between continents. He does not look for material treasures, “I look for stories,” explained in the report. Internet before the Internet. Part of the fascination is that the bottles function as a kind of very slow, analog version of modern social networks. A stranger writes something for someone they don’t know, throws it into the void and waits for a response. The difference is that here the algorithm is ocean currents. For example, a Japanese woman found a bottle sent years before by a french sailor and ended up reconstructing his identity thanks to an absurd human chain that involved tourists, hairdressers and neighbors in different parts of the world. Another bottle thrown from an American lighthouse during the pandemic appeared six years later in the Bahamas, after probably traveling thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic. The ocean thus becomes a kind of chaotic postal network where any object can disappear forever or reappear in the most unlikely place on the planet. The sea as an emotional archive. I remembered the NY The most striking thing is that many of these messages do not contain practical information or real requests for help. They are simply deeply human impulses: to leave a fingerprinttalk to someone unknown, demonstrate that one existed at a specific time. Some authors write philosophical reflections, others leave money, cigarettes or small objects inside the bottle. There are messages written by sailors crossing straits out of superstition, bored tourists, lonely people or couples in crisis. There are even real marriage stories emerged thanks to a bottle found on another coast decades ago. For Buffington, that’s the true meaning of it all: the human need to connect with someone, even if it’s in the most unlikely way imaginable. The ocean continues delivering messages. If you like, the story also has something melancholic. Many bottle hunters They believe that the phenomenon is disappearing because cell phones and social networks have destroyed some of the patience and romanticism necessary for this type of slow communication. However, the bottles keep appearing. Some were launched a few years ago, others have been traveling between currents, storms and reefs for decades. Buffington even has found remains of that distant campaign Guinness promotional from 1959 that still surfaces on remote beaches. The ocean preserves these objects like erratic time capsules, battered by sun and salt for years. And every time someone find a bottle intact and manages to read what is inside, something strangely powerful happens: two people separated by thousands of kilometers and several years away manage to connect thanks to an ocean current and a piece of glass floating in the Atlantic. Image | Snapwire In Xataka | 45 years ago we sent a “message in a bottle” to space in the Pioneer probes, today they are making a replica that you can buy In Xataka | We already know how thirsty artificial intelligence is: a 100-word email consumes a bottle of water

Google search engine is killing blue links. So more and more users are finding refuge in DuckDuckGo

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Search things on Google it’s not the same anymore. The technology giant is turning its traditional search engine into something very different in which AI is taking control whether we like it or not. The good news is that if we don’t like it, we have alternativesand precisely in DuckDuckGo They are taking advantage of this opportunity very well. Times change. For nearly three decades, Google has been the gateway to that traditional list of blue links that the search engine presented as results. In recent years, the search engine is becoming an AI engine that tries to anticipate the user’s intentions and autocomplete queries with long answers. AI Overviews. The arrival of AI Overviews (AI Summaries) has made the search engine answer questions directly at the top of the page, but that move is being heavily criticized. The reason is simple: Google is killing those blue links it defended for more than 25 years. The new AI Mode goes in that same direction and points to a future in which we will not ask the Google search engine things, but simply talk to it. DuckDuckGo takes advantage of its opportunity. DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg recently stated that “Google is imposing AI with no way to disable it.” This has not pleased a certain sector of users who are beginning to use alternatives that give them back control. That’s good news for DuckDuckGo, which has seen more and more users start using its services: Downloads of the DuckDuckGo app in the US grew by an average of 18.1% weekly, and peaks of 30.5% were reached on May 25 The adoption rate on Apple devices was even higher, with an average rise of 33% and a peak of 69.9%. Visits to specific page free of AI, noai.duckduckgo.comincreased on average by 22.7% from week to week. Searches like before, and private. The advantages of DuckDuckGo are striking for those looking for alternatives to the Google search engine. To begin with, DuckDuckGo has that aforementioned page that avoids any trace of AI. If you want to use AI canbut in that case you will have access to somewhat more modest models (Claude 4.5 Haiku, GPT-5 mini, Llama 4 Scout, you can pay to access better models) but with which your conversations will remain private. In addition, DuckDuckGo deletes IPs and prohibits the use of those conversations to train models. It is an extension towards AI that iron defense of privacy that since its inception has differentiated this search engine… although there have been some controversy about it. Google doesn’t even flinch. Despite this growth in downloads and visits to its search services, DuckDuckGo remains an alternative with an anecdotal market share in the search segment. Worldwide it has a 0.71% share compared to Google’s 90.02% and Bing’s 5.14%. Anti-AI shelter. Google’s dominance here is absolute and it seems almost impossible for that to change, but even so DuckDuckGo is clearly positioning itself as the refuge for those who see AI as an unnecessary—or unwanted—complication when performing searches. Kamyl Bazbaz, head of company policy, explained it with a simple statement: “people simply want to be able to choose.” Business model at play. The shift towards AI seems to be beneficial for Google, whose search revenue grew by 19% in the first quarter of 2026. It is a striking fact considering that theoretically AI results make it difficult for advertising to enter the search engine, but Google seems to be solving it with native advertising from AI Overviews or Keyword auctions in AI Mode. This is added to the recommendations of affiliate products that also seem to be working and promoting a business model that is being renewed in parallel to what the search engine is doing. In Xataka | Google already knows how to make its AI Overviews more human: use Reddit content ruthlessly

NASA has looked at Torrevieja from space and has seen a huge mass of pink water essential to finding life on Mars

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From space everything looks different. In fact, distance allows us to distinguish strange shapes, such as the Great Dam of Zimbabwe or the eye of the saharabut also colors that go more unnoticed at ground level. Thus, on June 7, 2021, an Expedition 65 astronaut aboard the International Space Station pointed his camera toward the southeast of Spain and took a photograph that looks like a watercolor: Mediterranean blue, a muted green and an intense pink reminiscent of quartz. The color palette is finished off by the white reflection of the sun. The three colors correspond to bodies of water a few kilometers from each other, in Alicante: the Mediterranean, and the saline lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja. What seems like an aesthetic coincidence is actually chemistry visible from orbit. Each tone reveals something: the degree of salinity, which microorganisms dominate the water, and in what fragile balance they coexist. The lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja. The Torrevieja lagoon has been used as a salt mine since the 13th century and today are the largest salt producer in Europe, with an average of 650,000 tons per year, a figure that varies depending on solar radiation, wind and precipitation. It does not function as a natural lagoon, but as an industrial system where water moves according to production needs. The La Mata lagoon acts as a prior concentration chamber: receive sea ​​water through artificial channels and runoff from intermittent streams of the Sierra de San Miguel de Salinas. From there, the water is pumped to the Torrevieja salt mine, where brine from the Pinoso salt diapir through a 55 kilometer pipeline. The result is that the concentration of salt in the Torrevieja lagoon can overcome 260 grams of salt per liter, much more than the 38.5 g/liter Mediterranean that bathes its coast. Two adjacent lagoons but with completely different chemical worlds. Why do they have such different colors?. Each time water of different composition is pumped to produce salt, the chemistry of the system is altered, which determines What organisms can live and in what quantity. Two lagoons a kilometer apart, two different microbial communities and two opposite colors. The pink color of the Torrevieja lagoon is produced by microorganisms. More specifically, in conditions of high salinity and intense solar radiation, the microalgae Dunaliella salina accumulates β-carotene as protection against light. The halophilic archaea that share the lake reinforce that tone: they have red pigments distributed throughout their cell membrane, which makes them visually more decisive in the final color of the water. In La Mata, the lower concentration of salt favors a different microbiota where chlorophyll predominates over carotenoids: that explains the green color. Context. The salinity gradient between both lagoons goes beyond chemistry: it is what allows a different and exceptional biodiversity. The wetland houses up to 400 taxaten species of threatened birds and one of the most important Audouin’s gull breeding colonies in the Mediterranean. Without that difference in salinity, many of those ecological niches would disappear. The NASA image is also more than a photograph: it portrays the fragile balance between industry, microbiology and conservation that climate change is already testing as temperatures rise and salinity fluctuations alter the living conditions of Dunaliella salinaor what is the same, that that striking pink color seen from space could disappear. Why is it important. Dunaliella salina is the organism that supports the base of the food chain in hypersaline lakes around the world. Since 1966 it has been grown commercially to produce β-carotene, which has applications in pharmacology and cosmetics. But it is also an organism that NASA has on the radar because it constitutes a form of life in extreme conditions. It should be remembered that the data from the Perseverance rover indicates that there were hypersaline waters in the Jezero crater of Mars. Studying life in these types of lakes helps understand the potential in these old Martian lakes. What makes Torrevieja pink is the best laboratory we have to know what to look for on another planet. In Xataka | 60 years ago, NASA took a look at the Sahara from space and found a very strange “perfect eye” In Xataka | Europe has been watching Colombia for a decade from space and what it has seen is a tragedy: the death of a glacier Cover | POT

We have found a time capsule in the form of salt in Chile. And now finding life on Mars is closer

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As we continue to explore how to get to Mars with Artemis II As a critical engineering and logistics bridge in the form of a long-term trial of interplanetary travel, science continues to search for traces of life on the red planet. And it is not easy: although 3.37 billion years ago an ocean covered half the planetMars is today a dry planet devastated by radiation. The question is where to look for that life. The answer, as incredible as it may seem, may be more than 3,500 meters high in the north of Chile, in the Salar de Pajonales, a landscape that is also desolate where there is a range of extreme temperatures ranging between -23 °C and 26 °C, one of the highest solar radiation recorded on Earth, there is hardly any precipitation and winds that exceed 100 km/h. And yet, there is life. There a research team has discovered that plaster constitutes the perfect refuge for life. Spoiler: Gypsum is a common mineral both on Earth like on mars. The discovery. According to this research, gypsum is not only a sedimentary rock, but also a biological repository. Thus, this mineral is capable of harboring both current life in the form of microorganisms that live within the crystals and preserving molecular fossils and microscopic structures. A kind of time capsule that protects organic material from degradation for millions of years. Why is it important. The consequence of this finding in space research is direct: if gypsum is a “magnet” for biological preservation in hyperaridity conditions, the scientific community knows that the abundant sulfate deposits on Mars (such as Gale crater) are a magnificent place to continue searching for traces of extraterrestrial life. If there was life on Mars, gypsum is a likely place to house its traces. Context. The Salar de Pajonales seems like a place from another planet: it is in high mountains where ultraviolet radiation is high, there is extreme aridity and thermal fluctuations reminiscent of the conditions on Mars from billions of years ago, when the red planet began to dry out. In this scenario, life has learned to hide from the unfriendly surface in a lifestyle endolithic to survive. Thus, the mineral functions as a solar shield and moisture reserve. How have they done it. To read what the rocks contain, the Tebes-Cayo team has applied a kind of high-precision molecular and mineral archaeology: With habitability and climate analysis with a meteorological station that recorded data every 20 minutes for 40 years monitoring water activity. Using x-rays, petrography and microfluorescence to create thin sections to distinguish minerals and their distribution without destroying the sample. With microscope, isotopes and DNA sequencing to identify the microorganisms, the trapped corpses and to confirm that the carbon found has a biological and not a geological origin. Yesyes, but. We already know that gypsum is the ideal candidate to search for life on Mars, but that is based on a hypothetical premise: that it ever existed. On the other hand, and although the Salar de Pajonales is reminiscent of the Red Planet, the conditions on Mars are even more extreme than in Chile (there is almost no atmosphere and it is even colder), which may have affected the preservation in a different way. And then there is the practical application: it is one thing to detect these biosignatures in the high mountains of Chile and another to use a robot thousands of kilometers away for the same purpose. In Xataka | Europe has thought of throwing three robots into a volcanic lava tube and now colonizing the Moon or Mars is closer In Xataka | If the question is “how are we going to build houses on Mars” the answer today is “with bricks made of urine” Cover | Luiza Braun and BoliviaIntelligent

Finding the cheapest gas station in your area is very simple thanks to this very powerful tool

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We have been very attentive to fuel prices for a few days. It is no wonder, since since the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran has exploded to the point of leaving the Strait of Hormuz in a compromised situation, oil has ended up skyrocketing and gas stations have already begun to notice the impact on their shelters. While the Government study what measures you can applyMany drivers go to those gas stations that have the cheapest fuel. And for this there are tools that the State itself offers. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge made it available to any citizen quite some time ago, the Geoportal from Gas Stations, a free tool that allows you to know the price of fuel at all service stations in the country, so you can filter by the cheapest one in your area. It also has another very useful function: knowing how much has the price changed at every gas station. We tell you all the details below. What is the Geoportal and why is it worth it? The Gas Station Geoportal is a web application of the Ministry that collects the prices of all service stations in Spainupdated every five minutes. What you see on the screen is practically the real price of the moment. The tool has been available for years, but in situations like the current one, or like the one that happened with the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, its use makes special sense. Currently there are gas stations in large cities and in the main corridors that They already exceed 1.70 euros/liter in gasoline or 1.80 in diesel, while others remain below average. With a 50 liter tank, choose carefully where to refuel can mean quite significant savings. How to find the cheapest gas station from the GeoPortal To enter the Geoportal, all you have to do is enter this link. There is also a free mobile application for Android and iOS. It is called Route-E, and it is developed by the Ministry itself. In addition to gas station prices, it includes information on charging points for electric vehicles. When you enter the website you will see a map of Spain with marked service stations. On the left are the filters. The process is simple: Select “Service Stations” as search type. Choose your province and town. The map will automatically center on that area. You can refine it even further with the zip code if you live in a large city. Choose the type of fuel. You will find everything from the usual ones (gasoline 95 E5, gasoline 98, diesel A) to alternative options such as natural gas, bioethanol or hydrogen. As soon as you select one, the map will show the price of each station along with its schedule and operator. Mark “Sale to the public”. This excludes gas stations belonging to agricultural cooperatives or closed groups that are not open to any driver. Check the list ordered by price. When you have clicked ‘Search’, just below the map the tool generates a list of stations. Filter by price and the cheapest ones in the area should appear first, and you can export the list in CSV or Excel format if you need it. As extra information: yes you hover over any station on the map, you will directly see its price, schedule, rating and operator without having to click. There is an additional filter: “Discount plans”. If you activate it, the search engine shows gas stations with current promotions, either because they belong to a specific chain or because they offer discounts to groups such as transporters, farmers or taxi drivers. Mobile Apps If you prefer not to use the Ministry’s website, there are several free applications for iOS and Android that offer a similar feature. At Xataka we already talked about them a while ago, among which are GasofApp, GasAll, Gasolineras or GasOnline, among others. They all draw on the same official data and allow you to locate the cheapest stations near your location in real time. In addition to all of them, there is also Ruta-E, which is the one we mentioned before, but the rest of the apps offer (in our opinion) much faster and easier navigation. How to see the price history of any gas station Knowing the current price is good, but if you are curious about how the price of a specific station has evolved over time, you can also do it from the Geoportal. For that, just enter this page and complete the form that appears on the screen. You have two options to check the evolution of prices: through the price history or through a timeline per gas station. To do this you must: Selectr the interval of time. You can choose between daily, weekly, monthly or yearly views, and set a start date and an end date for the period you want to analyze. Heegir data series. Below in the form will be where you can decide if you want to see the evolution of the average price of all of Spain, of an autonomous community, of a province, of a municipality or of a specific gas station. Select the fuel. The menu includes all available: 95 E5 gasoline, 98 gasoline, diesel A, diesel B, LPG, natural gas, hydrogen and many more. Choose the type of graph. You can view the data in a line or bar graph, depending on what is most comfortable for you. The result is a graph that shows the evolution of the price in the chosen period. With it you can see, for example, how much diesel cost at the gas station in your neighborhood before the situation with Iran became tense and how much it costs today. Cover image | Geoportal and engin akyurt In Xataka | Cuts are coming for the most used Cercanías line in Spain. The reason: more capacity and driverless trains

In South America there is a bird that camouflages itself as a piece of wood. And a young Uruguayan has insisted on finding him

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In the depths of the South American forests lives a bird that has inspired legends, myths and night terrors and is called the ‘ghost bird’, although his real name is urutaú. At first glance it is just a piece of wood that acts as an extension of the tree on which it perches like a chameleonbut behind this mimicry lies a biology that makes many scientists very curious to see it live even if it is really complicated. An ornithologist. The urutaú is not a bird that one finds by chance, but one must know how to look. Mauricio Silvera, a young Uruguayan amateur ornithologist who has been observing birds since he was five years old, knows this premise well, and according to a recent report from the BBCMauricio has turned observing this elusive species into a true passion. In popular culture, the melancholic song of the urutaú has fueled all kinds of folklore and rural legends in South America. However, for observers like Silvera, the true “magical power” of this species is not in the myths, but in its plumage and its peculiar way of ‘hiding’. A chameleon. It is no wonder, since we are not talking about it going slightly unnoticed, but rather its ability to imitate the bark of trees It is so perfect that sighting records on scientific platforms often require exhaustive photographic confirmation. And it is no wonder, because without this evidence it is difficult to convince the experts that they are not looking at a simple branch and a small irregularity that corresponds to this bird. How he does it. Disappearing in broad daylight is not something easy to achieve, but here science has different answers that go far beyond the simple color of their feathers. The key is in visual crypsis, where research shows that these birds not only have a plumage pattern that blends with the environment, but also make active decisions about where to perch in trees. And it is that a 2017 study on the choice of backgrounds showed that these birds carefully select the place where they rest to maximize the coincidence of patterns with their environment, which increases the survival rate against predators. And if they don’t see it, they can go completely missing. Modify your smell. Beyond the visual, researchers were able to see in a fascinating 2022 study that these birds have the ability to change your scent profiles in different seasons to prevent predators from being able to smell them. Echolocation. Unlike most birds, owls have developed this system, emitting acoustic signals to navigate in the darkness of Venezuelan and South American caves, similar to bats. Furthermore, their role in the ecosystem is vital, since research into the “secret life” of these birds reveals that they are formidable seed dispersers. They spend entire days in the trees regurgitating the seeds of the fruits they consume, acting as true foresters who maintain the ecological connectivity of Neotropical forests. A story of the search. As we see, it is not easy to find this bird and that is why Mauricio Silvera relates that finding it is “an adrenaline rush like in the chest of not knowing what to do: whether to scream, take the photo and tell someone.” Even this biology student makes a very comical simile when he sees that it is “almost like looking for Pokémon and seeing how many little birds you find and if you find the rarest one.” Your adventure always begins with a location or a photo that indicates that the bird may be present in a specific place. But due to its great ability to hide, it means that your trips do not always end with a photograph of this bird, much to your misfortune. Images | Wikipedia In Xataka | “Emergency room mentality”: the Dutch philosopher convinced that saving snails is saving ourselves

Madrid and Barcelona have built an entire social and business life with the AVE. They are finding out what happens when it fails

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The Madrid-Barcelona high-speed line has collapsed. The trains do not arrive on time and no one pays their compensation, Adif has asked the companies to withdraw last-minute services, airlift prices have skyrocketed and there are companies working at half throttle because the goods do not arrive. A social and economic backbone of the country has been fractured. A Russian roulette. Taking a high-speed train between Madrid and Barcelona is, right now, Russian roulette if what you want is to arrive on time for an appointment. The link between the two most important cities in Spain has been broken via train and a round trip in the day is almost impossible. It is the result of a hasty revision of the train tracks, a direct consequence of the fateful Adamuz train accident (Córdoba) and the continuous warnings of the train drivers. Actions that have diluted the “high speed” concept between Madrid and Barcelona. What has happened? Since last January 18 An Iryo train derailed near Adamuz (Córdoba) and collided with another Renfe train that was traveling in the opposite direction, leaving 45 dead, Adif has been facing criticism about the track maintenance. In the case of Madrid-Barcelona, ​​the consequences were soon seen: speed limitations. Between confusing messages, Adif ended up imposing temporary speed restrictions at numerous points on the line, especially between Madrid and Zaragoza. Later, 300 km/h returned. But it didn’t last long because speed was reduced once again. The role of machinists. Since then, travelers between Madrid and Barcelona have been reporting severe delays, with trains taking more than four hours to reach their destination. As they explained to us Xataka From the SEMAF union, train drivers have the power to reduce speed if they consider it essential for the safety and comfort of travelers. They must notify the line controllers and put it in writing in a report. In addition, on each journey a document is filled out specifying the problems that have been found on the line. A train driver, who preferred to remain anonymous, corroborated this version to Xataka and made it clear that for months they have been traveling at a speed lower than the maximum speed allowed on the line and, especially, between Madrid and Zaragoza. Likewise, he pointed out that they have been complaining for months about the vibrations suffered by the trains but that they had not received a response until now. Adif’s role. Although unions and drivers claim to have been complaining about this situation for months, it was not until January when Adif appears to have taken more far-reaching measures. The road manager is doing an exhaustive review of the roads based on the continuous complaints from workers. These inspection and repair works, when necessary, are delaying travel times. The company has asked Renfe, Iryo and Ouigo to assume that trips will be extended to three hours (and they just pointed out that these travel times will extend until December) but has also asked them to eliminate the last services of the day to have more time for their performances. Collapsed by land and air. The result is a collapsed train line. The trains are not arriving on time nor in the three hours indicated by Adif (instead of the usual 150 minutes). And the problem for those passengers, who throw in the towel with punctuality, is that The companies are not responsible for compensation either. for delays, pointing out that they are the result of a problem beyond their control and that, therefore, they do not fall within the refund policies. At the same time, demand on flights has skyrocketed. Without the possibility of getting there and back within the day by train or for fear of doubling the usual travel time, travelers have turned to airlines. And the result is full flights and skyrocketing prices. After some bills will reach 300 euros, Iberia has reached its Air Bridge at 99 euros per trip. Vueling has also increased its frequencies. And the road alternative did not improve the situation either. Only in BlaBlaCar has an increase in demand of 130% been recorded, in data provided to The Newspapercompared to the previous year. Car rental companies do not seem to have been left behind either, since The Ombudsman has asked the CNMC to analyze whether illegalities have been incurred by skyrocketing prices for car rentals and plane tickets. And problems for companies. Companies in both cities have not only had to see meetings canceled or postponed these days. Some of them are having problems having their raw materials. In The Vanguard They include the case of some of them. Inovyn, in Martorell (Barcelona) had to send its 300 employees home earlier this week because they did not have the basic materials to produce plastic. “In normal situations we receive one train a day loaded with dichloromethane, a material with which we manufacture many of our compounds, but in the last ten days we have received only one train,” they explain to the newspaper. They explain that 18% of the goods that arrive at the port of Barcelona are sent to their destination by train. Those that use international gauges are stopped due to works in the Rubí tunnel and those that use the Iberian gauge circulate at night and in dribs and drabs. and in The Country They explain that the city’s port is becoming isolated, with an 80% drop in products coming from Germany, France or Poland by train. The road alternative is not working either. The AP-7 already there is enormous congestion since road tolls were lifted but, furthermore, there are not enough trucks to be a complete alternative given the volume of goods that move along the railways. Added to this are problems derived from the latest storms and the increase in traffic derived from a Rodalies service that has not been back to normal for more than ten days. Photo | Phil Richards In Xataka | Spain wants its AVE trains to travel at 350 … Read more

finding the winner has not been easy at all

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For many, choosing a phone with a camera that really delivers what it promises has never been so complicated. A few years ago the map was simple: the options were clear and each range had its well-defined place. Today that ground has moved. New players have entered, the level has been equalized above and It is no longer enough to look at the usual ones If what we are looking for is mobile photography at the highest level. This is even more noticeable when the focus is on the telephoto lens, one of the sections that most separates a “very good” mobile phone from a truly outstanding one. With so many alternatives on the table, the question arises: which one is worth buying? in a new Versus from Xataka We wanted to respond precisely to that. We have faced seven of the best zoom phones of the moment so that you don’t have to, and we have put them against the ropes in a battery of tests designed to see both the muscle of the hardware and the weight of the processing. As is usual in this format, where we have analyzed products and platforms with very different approaches (of the AirPods Max versus the Sony WH-1000XM6 to the iPhone Air vs. the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge), the system is clear: each round adds points and, in the end, only one takes first place. A zoom duel with very serious candidates Ana Boria has been in charge of leading this comparison, with a lineup of protagonists who have already says a lot about the moment that mobile photography is experiencing: Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Xiaomi 15 Ultra, iPhone 17 Pro Max, Vivo X300 Pro, OPPO Find X9 Pro, Realme GT8 Pro and HONOR Magic8 Pro. The test starts with a relatively controlled scenario, daytime photos with good light and optical zoom, and then raises the level of demand as it progresses. the video we just published on our YouTube channel. “In the case of the colors of this garden, it is the Xiaomi, the VIVO and the OPPO that I like the least because of their saturated and bright, somewhat artificial processing. On the other hand, with this sunset, precisely that play of saturation in the colors makes my eyes go directly to those photos,” says Ana while comparing results and showing some of the images captured during the test days. Beyond the pure and simple zoom, there is a particularly revealing block: portrait-type shots without activating portrait mode. The idea is not to evaluate a software effect, but to check how telephoto lenses behave when asked the most difficult things, separate the subject from the background naturally. And there, as usually happens when the level is so high, it is not only important how close each mobile phone gets: it matters how it does it. A particularly interesting result appears in this section. which is detailed in the video. From here comes the most delicate territory: the digital zoom designed to maintain detail without turning the photo into a pixel puzzle. It’s the kind of promise we’ve all heard, but only some phones manage to keep. “If we talk about colors, it depends a lot on the photography whether we notice more or less differences between the seven phones,” explains Ana. At this point, very different trends are clearly seen between brands: from models with “a more intense HDR” to more conservative and balanced proposals, with a more consistent white balance and a less aggressive final image. And if there is a theme that runs through the entire video, that is the role of artificial intelligence. Because today zoom is not just optics. It is also an algorithm. It is also reconstruction. In this part of Versus it is appreciated which manufacturersThey put more into AI to “improve” the capture and what is gained (or lost) with it. Sometimes the result is striking, even spectacular. In others, excess translates into photos that are too artificial, with an aesthetic that may not be to everyone’s taste. “Although if we look at these portrait photos, and we look at my face, the Vivo photo is all AI and my skin has completely lost its texture,” says Ana about the Chinese brand’s mobile phone, although the video leaves more examples of the extent to which AI can mark the character of an image. The comparison does not stop at photography. It also includes optical + digital zoom in low lighting conditions, video tests and, as it could not be otherwise, the section that arouses the most curiosity when we talk about telephoto lenses: the external accessories that allow you to take the zoom to another level. Only three of the models analyzed have this type of option, Xiaomi, vivo and OPPO, and it is one of those details that not only changes the final result, but also changes the experience. “The thing is, how do I get back to my iPhone now?” Ana asks herself after checking it out. To know the winners of each round, see the complete tests and discover Ana’s final conclusions, we invite you to watch the video on the Xataka YouTube channel. And as we always do, you can leave us your opinion both here and in the comments of the video. Images | Xataka In Xataka | It had been a long time since a cell phone left me speechless. So I went to China to test the Honor Magic8 Pro camera

desperately finding your own SpaceX

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In the technological field, it is often said that Europe regulates a lot and innovates little. This regulatory obsession is something that the European Union is often criticized for, but it has managed important technical advances in technology (a universal airdrop and the USB-C standardization). However, it is true that, in certain fields, other countries have overtaken us to the right. In spatial matters, it is evident: China is investing a lot and SpaceX takes the lead in reusable rockets. Europe wants to get its act together and has announced a megaproject. One of more than 900 million euros to find its own SpaceX. In short. November 2023 marked the turning point for European space ambitions. The ESA advertisement the European Launcher Challenge, an initiative to foster competition between European orbital launch providers, promote a diverse ecosystem to access space, develop cost-effective solutions and, above all, improve European autonomy in space transportation. During this time, it has awarded contracts of up to 169 million euros to five companies that will have the task of developing these processes, the Spanish PLD Space being one of them. It was essential that European States respond with financing, and we already have the results. A few days ago, the ESA published ‘Document 100’ that details each of the investments made by the participants. Final amount? 902.16 million euros to finance the space program. Not necessary: ​​vital. Not only countries with companies involved in development have put money in: there are others that do not have production plans, but have committed funds to the program. It responds to the movements that have been occurring in the world for almost four years. If ESA, and Europe, want to be relevant in space, they must be self-sufficient, just as Russia, the United States and China are. The problem is that it wasn’t. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Access to Soyuz rockets was cut off. He Ariane 5 European retired in 2023 and Ariane 6 has had a series of major mishaps until its first flight in summer 2024. This goes beyond sending astronauts to the ISS: it implies that, without rockets, critical satellites such as The Galileo navigation or the Euclid telescope. Europe had to foldwith many reviewsbefore SpaceX and from the ESA management itself, they signed the agreement with a “we have no other option.” Show me the money. With those 902 million euros, Europe seeks sovereignty, something it is doing in other areas (rearmament, for example), because he understands that he cannot trust geopolitical agreements that, at one time or another, can be broken. The biggest bets have been made from the countries that have the most interest in the program: Germany It is the one that has contributed the most: a total of 363 million euros. France It is the second with about 179 million euros. Spain will make a contribution of 169 million euros. United Kingdom about 144 million euros. And then, as we say, other countries like Norway with 29 million euros directly to the European Launcher Challenge, but each country contributes another amount to other ESA programs. The amounts are astronomical and go to each person’s homeland. In the case of Spain, for example, 36.77 million are going to PLD Space to develop the MIURA 5 and another 132 million for the rocket construction sector in Elche. The chosen ones. And the companies that will receive the bulk of the financing to develop their programs, which they will later sell to ESA, are the following: Isar Aerospace – German company that develops the Spectrum rocket to carry medium payloads. Rocket Factory Augsburg – Also German, she works on the RFA One launcher which is already in the testing phase. MaiaSpace – French she is developing Reusable vertical landing technology. This is a key piece to reduce the price of each launch, which is what SpaceX is achieving with its rockets. PLC Space – The Spanish one who develops the MIURA 5, a small class launcher, as well as a family of reusable rockets called Miura Next. Orbex – British company that plans to host launches from the Saxavord outpost in the Shetland Islands and is developing the Prime A. Feet of lead. Despite the ambition of the project and the companies involved, we must go with a certain skepticism, precisely because of what I commented at the beginning of the article: the regulatory desire. While the American model has allowed SpaceX’s ambitions to be unleashed, with a huge investment and one NASA turning to Musk’s company To put its astronauts into orbit, Europe has maintained a model of strong government oversight. Recently, some voices they asked whether Europe could create a reusable rocket industry, taking into account that it is something that requires specific market conditions that have not been cultivated in the territory. This is precisely where the ESA wants to put the patch with its European Launcher Challenge thanks to a change in policies and investment. Since 2023, private investment in space technology has skyrocketed in Europe and institutions have point to a change of course to “recover sovereignty in terms of access to space.” It only remains to see how the five companies develop their systems, something that will happen before the end of 2027 with a view to ESA missions towards 2030. Images | OrbexIsar Aerospace, ESA, MaiaSpaceFRG In Xataka | “Elon Musk can monopolize everything,” warns Arianespace, which has been launching all of Europe’s satellites for 40 years

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