finding

For decades rats devastated these Pacific islands. Now we’re finding out what happens when they leave

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Before we get to work I propose a game: open Google Earth, type “Bikar Atoll” either Jemo Island and let the search engine take you to those remote points lost in the middle of the Pacific. What do you see? Beaches with turquoise waters and white sand, leafy trees, nature in its purest form. The typical place that promises paradise on earth and where anyone would want to go for a week’s trip. The problem is that until recently both islands had a problem: they were rat infested that had turned their ecosystem upside down. Until recently. In a remote part of the Pacific… They are found Marshall Islandsan island republic located in the region of Micronesia, Oceania, famous for its paradisiacal images and dreamy sandy beaches. Among its string of islands there are two in particular that in recent months have caught the attention of environmentalists: Bikar Atoll and the Jemo Islandboth included in the Ratak island chain. The reason? After intense conservation work and a campaign that dates back to 2024, the two islands have seen their fauna and vegetation recover little by little. As an example, environmentalists they explain who have found a colony of hundreds of onychoprion fuscatus (sooty terns) with chicks in an area where until not so long ago there was not a single one. Not to mention the thousands of sprouts that have begun to appear on previously bare soil. An annoying (and voracious) stowaway. There is little mystery about this change. It is explained by a campaign launched last year and which focused the focus on the big problem that was devastating the ecosystems of Bikar and Jemo: rats. Although both islands have always stood out for their birds (when Spanish explorers discovered Jemo They nicknamed her ‘The Birds’‘), over time they ended up displaced by another animal with a voracious appetite: rodents that arrived hidden on board ships and fed on eggs and other local species, which drastically impacted the delicate island ecosystem. A date: 7/24. Things began to change in July 2024when Island Conservationtogether with the Marshallese Marine Resources Authority, launched an ambitious campaign to eliminate the invasive rats. With the help of a drone he launched baits throughout the islands, a meticulous task that led him to cover each hectare with around 25 kilos of a product designed especially for rodents without affecting the rest of the native species. Months later the team returned to Bikar and Jemo to assess the scope of the campaign. “As soon as you step onto the island, your senses are activated to the maximum: you look for the rats, you look for birds on the ground, look for any clue that indicates whether we have won or lost,” confesses Paul Jacquesdirector of Island Conservation to CNN. What he obtained during that visit was “a great revelation,” confirmation (confirmed with studies) that the plague had subsided. Change of terrain after the disappearance of the rats. Baby birds found on the island. “Drastic transformation”. The quote is by Paul Jacques, who summarizes what they found on the islands: “A colony of 200 sooty terns where there were none before fed hundreds of chicks.” “We also counted thousands of seedlings of the native tree Pisonia grandis in just 60 supervised 12-meter plots in the forest. In 2024 we had not found any,” relates the person responsible for the project, who remembers that this regeneration is essential for the fauna that inhabits both islands. “Native forests are essential for nesting seabirds and crucial for carbon absorption and the ecological health of the island,” insist. When the rats disappeared, the turtles, crabs and birds were no longer harassed, which was soon reflected in the rest of the ecosystem. More birds translated into more guano, which in turn improved soil fertility, encouraging more native vegetation and reefs. And as a picture always says more than a thousand words, Island Conservation has taken care of document the change with a series of photos that show the before and after of the campaign. Far beyond Bikar and Jemo. Change is important for the islands, but from Island Conservation it is insisted in that the success of your campaign goes further. “This integrated approach offers enormous benefits for biodiversity, demonstrating how land and sea conservation, when strategically linked, can boost resilience and ecological impact.” The organization also recalls that the regeneration of the islands benefits neighboring island communities, such as the one located in Likipe, which have historically come to Jemo in search of natural resources. Without rats, they now find more crabs there and hope to achieve sustainable fishing. Images | Andrew Arch (Flickr)Google Earth and Island Conservation In Xataka | New York rats have become a pest that is impossible to eradicate. They have a secret: their own language

‘Stranger Things’ changed everything for Netflix. Your problem now is finding another brand just as powerful.

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The expectation is through the roof: Netflix has just taken the first steps of the final season of ‘Stranger Things’‘, which will run throughout December with several episodes, many of them feature-length. In fact, the desire of the fans is such that Netflix even saw its servers falter. A (very possibly) triumphant culmination that, however, leaves a few unknowns in the air. Netflix flashes. Netflix experienced a service outage that in some cases It lasted about twenty minutes. (although the thing did not exceed about five, according to the platform’s official statement) with the premiere of the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’. The incident occurred despite the fact that the series co-creator, Ross Duffer, had shared that Netflix would increase its bandwidth by 30% to avoid precisely this type of incident. All in all, thousands of users reported NSEZ-403 errors that prevented them from accessing the content, or accessed it with problems, which worked as a perfect thermometer of the expectation generated by the series. ‘Stranger Things’ continues to be a phenomenon capable of collapsing digital infrastructures three years after its previous season. Devastating figures. The fourth season accumulated 140.7 million viewsestablishing itself as the third most watched series in English on the platform, only behind ‘Wednesday’ and ‘Adolescence’. Of course, it is the only series with all seasons in the Top 10an unprecedented milestone on the platform. The impact on subscribers is more difficult to quantify: the third season, for example, contributed to add 520,000 subscribers in the United States. The cultural impact. The impact that ‘Stranger Things’ has had on modern pop culture is enough for a book, but let’s stick with some figures that will give us a rough idea. First, the economy: Netflix, for example, closed agreements with approximately 75 brands to promote the third season. Coca-Cola relaunched New Coke, generating 1.2 billion dollars in media value; Similarly, Nike obtained $178 million in media coverage with their Hawkins High collection. But this goes far beyond benefits for some brands: Butts County in Georgia, where the series is set, reported a 12% increase in tourism during the years the series was broadcast. And the small city of Jackson, with barely five thousand inhabitants and a per capita income of less than $30,000, revitalized its economy thanks to thematic tours. And of course, there is the strong role that the series has had in the recovery of the aesthetics and fashions of the eighties. It is no longer just that they have been revitalized Stephen King’s books and John Carpenter’s films: platforms like LTK registered increases of 3,000% in searches for clothing similar to those worn by the characters. What can we expect? For now, Netflix has planned very well to divide this final season into three: 4 episodes on November 27, 3 on December 26 and a final one on January 1. That is, coinciding with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and thus, contrary to what is usual on the platform, stretching the cultural conversation for two months. As for audience expectations, as expected, they are very high: analysts predict new viewing records given the three years of waiting until this end. Of course, the critics have spoken and they point to the signs of exhaustion that were already seen in previous seasons: 87% on Rotten Tomatoesthe lowest rating of the series so far, although the audience rises to 92%. It is not easy to maintain narrative quality after so many years, with obstacles such as the age of the protagonists. The future. The really interesting thing about the phenomenon is wondering what Netflix has ahead. Or to put it more awkwardly: can the platform replicate the phenomenon? It has certainly had successful series in its catalogue, such as ‘Wednesday‘, ‘The Squid Game’ or ‘The Bridgertons’, but except for the first, all of them have finished or are about to do so. It is true that Netflix has the ability to generate new hits like ‘Wednesday’, which also, although it came as a bit of a surprise to everyone, could be well exploited by the platform. Now, Netflix is ​​in a phase of prioritize quantity over qualitymercilessly canceling what does not interest you and attesting that we are in a different moment than the initial success of ‘Stranger Things’: the competition has multiplied and it is more difficult to get noticed among multiple offers. Netflix has all the space in the world before it to compete, but perhaps its main rival is its own legacy: how to make ‘Stranger Things’ forgotten. The series was perhaps, before the almost infinite atomization of the offer of the streamingthe medium’s latest great global success. And that is very difficult to overcome. In Xataka | Netflix loved movie theaters. Then he hated them. Now you have reached a very beneficial middle ground

Jeff Bezos’ grandfather had the key to finding a job in the age of AI: being an inventor

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With saturated selection processes (or directly broken) and the AI conditioning skills that companies demand, there is a skill that Jeff Bezos considers irreplaceable: the ability to invent. The millionaire value this skill above traditional knowledge or experience. Bezos considers that inventiveness is vital to maintaining creativity and innovation in modern companies, ensuring that he himself has applied it to bring Amazon and Blue Origin to their current situation. Lessons from his grandfather. In an interview During the Italian Tech Week 2025 conference that took place in Turin, the millionaire commented that his grandfather was capable of solving any problem on his Texas ranch by himself, without depending on outside help. “He bought a bulldozer for about $5,000 because it was completely broken. We spent a whole summer fixing it. To remove the transmission, we had to build our own crane. And that’s why he had an incredible ability to adapt. He believed he could solve any problem. And I watched him,” Bezos said during his interview. “He did veterinary work with the cattle. He made the needles himself. He took a small piece of wire and heated it with a blowtorch, flattened it, sharpened it and made a small hole in it. Some cows even survived,” he commented sarcastically. That ability to adapt and create practical solutions taught him the value of inventiveness in facing difficulties, a lesson that Bezos has also applied in his life and in the management of Amazon. The “inventor” of Amazon. Bezos himself defines himself as an inventor, stating that “it is his fundamental nature. Put me in front of a white board and I can generate a hundred ideas in half an hour.” The founder of Amazon looks for those creative skills in his team members. In an interview In 2012 at the Utah Technology Council, Bezos indicated that “when I interview candidates, I ask them to give me an example of something they have invented.” Obviously the millionaire was not referring to a patent, but to a process, an idea or a solution to a problem that existed and for which he imagined a solution. “You have to select people who like to invent, think innovatively,” said the millionaire. Innovation as an antidote to fear. One of the six fears that have defined Jeff Bezos’ career is the fear of garages. Not in the literal sense of the place but of the symbolic sense of innovation that they have acquired: HP was born in a garage, just like Apple. “Two kids in a garage scare me more than the competitors I already know,” assured Bezos in an interview. The inventive capacity is a lever towards innovation and experimentation, which has been one of the pillars of the business culture that has taken Amazon to where it is today. “Someone who comes to Amazon and doesn’t like pioneering, doesn’t like exploring, doesn’t like going down dead ends that often turn out to be dead ends, will leave soon,” Bezos said in his interview. In his job interviews, Bezos asks: “How can we do A and B? What invention do we need to bring the two together?” That is, value those candidates who do not see the options in black and white, but rather look for new ways to combine and improve processes to innovate. AI has accelerated everything. More and more CEOs and senior officials at large technology companies agree that they are the skills and attitudes, and not the knowledgewhich will make candidates stand out in the age of AI. The current CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, ​​pointed out that knowledge can be acquired over time, but what companies need in this era of constant innovation are people who know how to adapt to any circumstance and learn from it. “The biggest difference between the people I started with in the early stages of my career and what they are doing now has to do with how good they were at learning.” According to Jassy, ​​the attitude and talent to innovate It has to come standard. In Xataka | Jeff Bezos has the world’s laziest metaphor for AI: “someone invented the plow and we all got rich” In Xataka | If your chair limps during a job interview, it’s no coincidence: they’re evaluating more than just your resume. Image | Flickr (iafastro)

is that it is preventing you from finding one now

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One of the areas in which the use of AI has had the greatest impact has been in the ATS automatic filtering systems of candidates (Applicant Tracking System) of the personnel selection processes, and in general throughout the process including interviews. When AI began to be integrated into these processes, it was done thinking that this technology would streamline screening and selection of the best candidates. However, the use of this technology has led to the collapse of the entire process: neither those selected are the most suitable, nor should those discarded be. As technology journalist Tim Rogers laments in an article published in Slate: the hiring system “is broken.” Sending resume is a waste of time. Rogers said that looking for a job is no longer just a matter of updating your resume and sending it to companies looking to fill their vacancies: automatic systems and artificial intelligence have created an invisible wall that makes it even more difficult to get a real opportunity. The problem is that ATS systems, which in theory should make the selection of candidates easier, now filter and discard hundreds of resumes with rules so strict that many candidates never get to be reviewed by a real person and, therefore, a factor that many CEOs of large companies are missing they are claiming as priorities: attitude and commitment. A system blocked by saturation. According to data According to the World Economic Forum, 80% of companies use some AI system in their recruitment processes. The direct consequence of this automation, which occurs both from the human resources departments and from the candidates themselves, is the saturation of applications and the opposite effect that was expected to be obtained: the selection processes are becoming increasingly longer and recruiters can’t cope to review so many profiles. According to report figures ‘Huntr Q2 2025’, the average time elapsed from the beginning of a job search to receiving the first offer has increased by 22% in just three months, going from 56 days to 68.5 days. The data indicates that the main employment platforms, such as LinkedIn or Indeed, concentrate around 80% of the applications and, even so, their response rate is around 3.3%, which shows that the vast majority of applications do not even manage to attract the attention of a human recruiter. AI plays both sides. Faced with the use of AI in their application filtering systems by recruitment platforms, job seekers have not stood idly by and have also They have used AI to optimize your requests. So they told it from Manfred, who published on their blog that, until recently, they received between 20 and 50 applications for each vacancy they opened. Currently, the same job posting can return 500 applications in the first 24 hours, with most of them generated by AI. As they point out, this avalanche of requests is not due to the fact that there has suddenly been a fivefold increase the talent availableit has only been automated. You hire a profile, not a person. Rogers lamented that automated candidate filtering left out of the process profiles that, in human hands, could be a perfect fit and provide value. “Quality is lost among thousands of documents generated by machines,” the journalist wrote. “We are sold the idea that AI can fix the mess it has created,” warning that this strategy only intensifies the problem and further triggers the digital noise that makes it difficult to really be seen by an employer. Amid frustration over the lack of human treatment, the journalist maintains that “in-person contact continues to be the most effective way to get an interview. The few opportunities I have gotten did not come from algorithms, but from people,” a literal statement based on his own experience. The data proves him right. According to the data collected According to the INE in the 2nd quarter of 2023, 57.5% of people search for employment through their network of contacts. According to Eurostat data As of 2020, Spain does so in 72.6% of cases and Italy in 77.5%. Our neighbors in France use their network of contacts in 63.5% of cases and Portugal in 65.7%. An infinite circle that leads nowhere. Rogers points out that the reliance on AI-automated processes has led to a vicious cycle where “machines write resumes and other machines evaluate them,” reducing the job search to a kind of profile puzzle in which the best fit does not necessarily have to be the most suitable for the position or the team with which you will work. The last experiences with hiring of this type have shown that one of the few reliable avenues for recruitment remains the face to face interview between the candidate and the recruiters. In fact, companies like Google and Amazon are already demanding that their new candidates have a face to face interview to prevent AI distort real capabilities of the candidates. In Xataka | The latest trend to ace job interviews: training with ChatGPT as a recruiter In Xataka | If your chair limps during a job interview, it’s no coincidence: they’re evaluating more than just your resume. Image | Unsplash (charlesdeluvio, Emiliano Vittoriosi)

In 1995 some researchers discovered the “peaceful gene” of our body. Today their finding has earned them a Nobel

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The Nobel Committee at the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm has done it again. He has rewarded one of those investigations that, for years, seemed like a page note in textbooks, but today are the basis of revolutionary treatments. He Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine of 2025 He has been granted jointly to Japanese Shimon Sakaguchi and Americans Mary E. Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell for “their discoveries about Regulatory T cells And the role of Foxp3 gene In the immune function “ The beginning. Already in the previous decade, Sakaguchi had identified a subset of T lymphocytes that did not attack, but did the opposite: they suppressed the activity of other T lymphocytes. They were pacifying cells, a kind of riot police of the immune system. In 1995, He published a job Key that characterized these cells, today known as regulatory T cells (TREGS). The finding was transcendental. Sakaguchi showed that without these tregs, The immune system went crazy and began to attack the tissues of the body itself, causing devastating autoimmune diseases. He had discovered the natural mechanism of the body to maintain tolerance and avoid self -destruction. But the key piece of the puzzle was missing: what made a T cell become a peacemaker and not a soldier? Brunkow and Ramsdell. Although this discovery was transcendental, the reality is that there was a lot of skeptic that he did not believe in his theory. But the answer to the big question that stayed in the air came in 2001 (still far from the year 2025 and the delivery of this award). Here, on the one hand, Mary E. Brunkow’s team investigated a rare and deadly disease Autoimmune in children called IPEX syndrome. The investigation pointed to a gene as a cause of this disease: Foxp3. On the other hand, Fred Ramsdell’s team was studying a mouse model with very similar symptoms and reached the same conclusion: The defective gene was Foxp3. The connection. The connection was immediate and explosive: Foxp3 was the “master switch”. It is the gene that, when activated in a T lymphocyte, gives you the instructions to become a TREG. Without functional FOXP3, there are no regulatory T cells, and the immune system is uncontrolled. Sakaguchi’s discovery finally found his genetic explanation and already gave him enough weight so that the scientific community saw that he had sat a great precedent. A revolution. This double discovery, Sakaguchi’s cell phone and Brunkow and Ramsdell’s genetic, has completely changed the immunology paradigm and has opened two great therapeutic pathways with immense potential. On the one hand, the door opens up to the fight against autoimmune diseases since with the lack of tregs the body attacks itself. The solution in this case is to increase this type of cells, and there are already different clinical trials to extract patient T cells, “convert” them into the laboratory and re -inject them to the patient. Something we now know as ‘immunotherapy’. But it also serves for the fight against cancer. In these cases it has been seen how tumors are ‘intelligent’ and surround themselves with tregs to protect themselves to the immune system that tries to end these cells. These pacifying cells prevent “soldier” T lymphocytes from attacking cancer. The new immunotherapies seek precisely to temporarily deactivate these tregs or block the action of Foxp3 in the tumor environment, eliminating the protective coat of cancer so that the immune system can destroy it. This has been especially promising in tumors such as lymphoma. Time has passed. The most surprising of all this is the large amount of time between the initial discovery and recognition with a Nobel. If it is true that it has been expected to have a crucial relevance within the clinical aspect, with trials that give very good results for diseases that are really serious. Images | Wikipedia (2, 3) In Xataka | A Spanish team has taken a giant step in a hopeful cancer treatment: chemoinmunotherapy

The last great finding only confirms how little we know about it

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The moon always shows us the same facea family face full of dark “seas” of basalt. But what about his hidden face? For decades, we have known what is radically different: More mountainous, with a thicker and firing cortex of craters, but with much less volcanic activity. This enigma, of having a moon with two faces, has been one of the great mysteries of astronomy. Now We are getting to know More details of its composition. As. The key lies in the first rock samples brought from the hidden face of our satellite by Chinese mission chang’e-6 that has given us the key to continue investigating in this line. That is why a research team from the University of Peking and College London University He has discovered that the interior of the hidden face of the moon is significantly colder than that of the visible face. And this temperature difference is key to everything. The analysis. When starting to study the fragments extracted from the Aitken basinscientists have confirmed the first of all the age of the stones. Specifically, they have seen that these rocks were formed from Lava about 2.8 billion years ago. But the real surprise came to see the chemical “thermometer” of its minerals. The results, published in the prestigious magazine Nature GeoscienceThey show that this lava was formed at a temperature of about 1,100 ° C. That said, it may not seem much, but it is approximately 100 ° C longer than the lavas that gave rise to the seas of the visible face, according to the samples brought by the missions Apollo and Chang’e-5. “The visible face and hidden face of the moon are very different on the surface and, potentially, inside. It is one of the great mysteries of the Moon. We call it the two -sided moon,” explains Professor Yang Li, co -author of the study. Testing. Faced with evidence like this, the only thing that can be done is to be sure of what is being said, and for this the scientific team arrived a second method of analysis. In this case, the satellite remote sensing data of the Chang’e-6 landing zone with a similar age region on the visible face were compared. The result was consistent: the potential temperature of the mantle of the hidden face was about 70 ° C lower. In this way, there was no doubt: the interior of the hidden face was colder. Because. The answer seems in this case a “cocktail” of chemical elements that has been called from Kreep. This acrononic groups Potassium (K), Phosphorus (P) and Rare Earth (REE), which in turn is also accompanied by radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium. The key to all this, which is the elements act as an internal “thermal blanket.” As they disintegrate radioactively, they generate heat, maintaining the hottest mantle for longer and favoring volcanic activity. But the truly interesting thing is that the Kreep distribution is not uniform, but is almost everything concentrated in the visible face of the satellite. This is something that Chang’e-6 samples confirm Retrieved: the basalts of the hidden face have a less or insignificant Kreep component ‘. Without that extra heat source, its mantle cooled faster, the bark became thicker and, therefore, volcanism was much more scarce. The final mystery. This matter does not stay here, since more questions are raised in this regard, such as why all the Kreep material ended in the visible face? This question is not answered by this study, but confirms the real thermal asymmetry of the moon, giving more weight to several fascinating theories. Among them is one of the most accepted hypotheses that points to the gigantic impact that formed the Aitken basin in the hidden face (the largest crater of the solar system). In this case we talk about being so violent, the impact pushed the magma rich in Kreep to the opposite side, the visible face. Another theory suggests that the Earth initially had two moons. The smallest ended up slowly colliding with the largest, forming the thickest bark of the hidden face and explaining the composition difference that has now been demonstrated. But in the end we are talking about hypotheses that must still be confirmed in subsequent studies. Images | POT Chuttersnap In Xataka | Australia has decided to make a contribution to the lunar race in the most Australian way possible: with a giant spider

We believed to know what killed Napoleon’s army in Russia. The finding of a tooth has shown us something else

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In 1812 there is a moment that was going to be registered in the history books. The Russia invasion by Napoleon culminated in one of the greatest military tragedies: The great arméeformed by more than half a million men, was forced to a devastating withdrawal marked by hunger, cold and disease, a combination that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Or we believed. Health catastrophe. In the summer of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte gathered up to 600,000 soldiers for his campaign against Russiathe greatest force he had ever deployed. However, the burned land strategy of Tsar Alejandro iwhich involved Evacuar Moscow and deprive the supplier of supplies, forced the withdrawal of the French army to Poland during a brutal winter. Between October and December of that year, more than 300,000 men perishedvictims of hunger, the extreme cold and a wave of diseases that devastated to an already weakened force. For a long time, the testimonies of survivors and the first scientific analyzes pointed to the TIFUS and the trench fever as the main culprits, reinforcing the idea that the bad hygienic conditions had sealed the fate of the great Armée. The new findings. Now, research carried out In the Pasteur Institute in Paris they have contributed a more precise vision thanks to metagenomic techniques, capable of identifying genetic material of any pathogen present in human remains. Nicolás Rascovan’s team analyzed Thirteen soldiers Buried in Vilna (current Lithuania), epicenter of mortality during the withdrawal. The results did not detect traces of typhus or trenches fever, but they did reveal the presence of Salmonella Entericacause of paratyphoid fever, and Borrelia recurrentis, transmitted by lice and responsible for recurring fever. These diseases, although not always fatal, would have deeply weakened soldiers already exhausted by endless marches, lack of food and glacial temperatures. In that context, even pathologies that in other circumstances could have overcome became mortal. Napoleonic invasion in Russia Lethal combination He New scenario It suggests that defeat is not explained by a single infectious agent, but by a devastating combination: physical exhaustion, starvation, extreme cold and a set of diseases that, together, undermined the resistance of tens of thousands of men. The Parathyphoid fever It would have caused diarrhea and dehydration, while recurring fever progressively weakened with cyclical episodes of high fever. All this, added to the lack of hygiene, to the spread of lice and the impossibility of adequate medical care in the middle of the chaos of the withdrawal, turned the Napoleon army into a paid field For the disease. The magnitude of the health catastrophe even exceeded combat losses, and became one of the decisive factors that precipitated the collapse of the campaign. Historical and scientific implications. Although some experts warn that the amount of recovered DNA is reduced and that the results are not entirely conclusive, The study It marks an important advance in the use of modern tools to reinterpret historical episodes. Demonstrates the Metagenomics potential To trace diseases in ancient human remains and offers new perspectives on how biology, and not only military strategy, it can explain the collapse of whole armies and populations. Researchers They point That these techniques could also be applied to the study of communities in America and Australia after European contact, where the lack of reliable records and historical biases make it difficult to understand the true impact of epidemics. The defeat that sealed the empire. The Tragedy of 1812 It is still one of the most studied inflection points in military history. The collapse of the Great Armée Not only stopped the Napoleonic expansion, but triggered the offensive of his enemies and the beginning of the end of his empire. While the epic of the campaign has traditionally been narrated in the key of battles and strategic decisions, the New evidence They confirm that biology and disease played a central role in the debacle. The withdrawal of Russia was, ultimately, both a military disaster and an epidemiological catastrophe, and the DNA of a few teeth found in Vilna has allowed to illuminate more precisely the executioners invisible and tiny that decimated the soldiers of Napoleon in one of the most lethal winters in history, starting with an unexpected “army” of lice. Image | Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Blaue Max In Xataka | “Even if I told you, you would not believe me”: the mystery of what Napoleon saw when he slept in the great pyramid of Egypt In Xataka | ‘Napoleon’ is Ridley Scott’s most controversial film in years. Not among critics: among historians

In León there are small villages that are finding a peculiar phenomenon: thousands of “ghost tourists”

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In the world there is good and bad touristsrespectful tourists and disrespectfulclean and others capable of converting places such as Everest either The Fuji In authentic stercolera, but much less common is what some peoples of the province of León are living. His municipalities are finding a kind of “Ghost Tourism”a drip of thousands and thousands of travelers that nobody has seen or heard or housed, but that in theory they have visited the town. Or at least he assures it A study of the INE. Multiplying the census by 24. Carbajal sources It is a town of León located about 50 minutes by car from the provincial capital and surrounded by hectares and hectares of cultivation. It doesn’t usually sneak into the news, but Monday León News He dedicated him A broad article which explains a peculiarity of the people: in summer there are few municipalities in which the population shoots more for tourism. According to A study INE experimental that measures the flow of tourists from the position of mobile phones, between July and August 2024 the town received 1,826 tourists. Many do not seem like many, but it is that INE himself acknowledges that in the Leonese town there are barely registered 76 people. That is, when the heat arrives, the summers multiply by 24 the municipal census. Next to nothing. “It’s a mockery”. Such data would be compressible if Carbajal sources had a natural park, an old fortress, parties known throughout the community or some other claim that explains that avalanche of visitors, but the City Council itself itself Recognize that this figure of 1,826 tourists (464 in July and 1,180 in August) is difficult to explain … and even more difficult to assume. “It is a burial,” nods The mayor of the town, Carlos de León Saluds, in León News. Similar opinion, Ana María Ortega, former mayor and councilor, Explain That one thing is that the influx of visitors increases in July and August for the people who returns to the village or visit to their relatives and a very different one that the data is triggered in an exorbitant way. “In summer you can triple the population, but multiply by 24 the number of inhabitants with veraners and tourists cannot be.” So … what happens? To understand that mysterious “Ghost Tourism” the first thing is to go to the prine sources. The data of the 1,826 tourists leaves a new “Experimental Statistics” of the INE that resorts to the signals of the mobiles to calculate different metrics related to tourism: the place of origin of foreigners arriving in Spain, the destinations that visit the Spaniards when they leave the country and the movement between communities, provinces and municipalities. The study has been prepared for a few years and always talks about the same: “Tourists.” If we consult the “internal tourism” data and more specifically the flows of “Interprovincial tourists” Residents in Spain, classifying the results by municipalities, the surprise arrives: in July of last year Fuentes de Carbajal received 646 and in August 1,180. In total 1,826. The question is therefore … how are those figures calculated that collide the mayor and the former mayor of the people? Mobile and antennas matter? The response is given by INE in The technical file From the survey: the data is related to the position of mobile phones and are obtained thanks to the collaboration of the country’s large operators. The approach is interesting and promising, but implies certain challenges. “The location of mobile phones is estimated from mobile phone antennas”, collects the institute itself: “This implies that the location of a mobile is not established with total precision, and the error depends on the concentration of antennas.” In summary, the more mobile antennas, the greater precision. Unraveling the mystery. The INE’s ability to analyze the data is also limited. The records on mobile location are anonymous and processed each operator, so the institute receives only aggregate data and in tables, without option to examine loose values. In rural areas it is also found that the low density of the network conditions the type of ‘cells’ with which it operates. By statistical secret, the institute also hides certain data. With that information about the Ortega table Slide that the balance of carbajal sources (which is so adjusted to what is perceived in the people itself) may be due to technical issues, such as coverage or that for some reason the data of other municipalities are added to those of the Leonesa Villa, thus blurring the real photo. Near Fuentes de Carbajal there are other villas with a balance of zero visitors. In Xataka we have already addressed the INE to ask him about that apparent mismatch. Is it the only case? No. León News Informs other equally striking, although none reaches the level of carbajal sources. In San Millán de los Caballeros, for example, the INE registered 1,648 tourists in July and in August 1,602, which adds 3,250. Again they may not seem like many, but it is that the town has 191 inhabitants registered. The same occurs in Izagre, of 137 residents and who according to the statistical institute receives almost 2,000 Veranians. “We don’t have great parties, just four performances during the summer,” remember the mayor of San Millán. “There are two campsites close to the people, but they are in the municipal terms of Valencia de D Juan and Villamañán.” Nor does the Izagre councilor achieve to understand everything that happens: “On central summer days, with the holidays, between 150 and 200 people can be reached in each of the villages, but reaching the 1,987 veraneantes in those two months cannot be.” Images | Zed Mendez (UNSPLASH)Google Maps and Wikipedia Via | León News In Xataka | It is increasingly easy to see from the road a crop that had never been dominant in Spain: the pistachio

In Galicia they have tired of finding garbage outside the cubes. So they will begin to rummage in it to fine their owners

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In Sanxenxo They are fed up of finding trash out of the containers. Hence, the cleaning service and the local police of this coastal municipality of Las Rías Baixas, very popular as Tourist destination During the summer months, they have assumed a peculiar task: rummage in the bags to hunt receipts, tickets or any other track that reveals who has skipped the ordinance. And the City Council already warns: the ‘joke’ can be expensive. What happened? That Sanxenxo, a municipality of the Pontevedrés coast, He said enough. Its authorities have tired of being garbage bags outside the containers spread throughout the people and want to cut that annoying root habit. As? Searching on the bags to identify their ‘owners’. And how will they do it? In A statement Published on Tuesday the City Council explains that the concessionaire dedicated to the collection of waste, Ascan, will be responsible for “analyzing” the bags thrown out of the collection points to “locate the offender.” It will also do so from the hand of the Municipal Police and with a strategy worthy of the classic detectives. The operators will look for receipts, cards or any other track that can reveal where the bag came from. What if they locate the person in charge? Sanction. The Galician City Council recalls that those who skip the Environmental Protection Regulations, public cleaning and garbage collection face a fine of up to 600 euros. After all, The Consistory insistsArticle 39 of that rule makes it clear that pouring garbage into “unauthorized places” is considered a very serious infraction. Why do you do it? Because over the last days the Consistory has encountered garbage bags thrown in the center of the town, in areas as crowded as Consistory or Praza do Pazo, although it has also located abandoned waste in other parts of the interior of the municipality. In Sanxenxo there are some 18,000 neighbors registered, according to the latest INE data, but the number of people who walk and spend the night in the town He shoots every summer. Some estimates They point out that its population It is quintupple During July and August and, at least in 2020, the town had 11,100 second residences. Only in August last year the INE registered 70,000 travelers housed in hotel stores. To give services, to them the usual neighbors, the town has 2,000 containers and 651 islands of waste, spaces that the City Council wants them to use yes or yes. Although it must resort to fines to achieve it. Is it the first to do it? No. Sanxenxo is not the first town hall to which it occurred to search in the garbage bags to hunt offenders. Before they have already done other municipalities in the country, with disparate results. Similar measures were raised in their day in Sherry, Barcelona, San Sebastián either Seville. In the case of Donostia, In 2015 The Consistory ended up issuing an order so that the operators in charge of the collection of garbage stopped opening the bags. The decision was made after the complaint of a neighbor they had fined 250 euros. Images | Sanxenxo 1 City Council 1 and 2 and Hugo Cadavez (Flikr) In Xataka | The rent has risen so much in Galicia that its beaches have problems hiring something fundamental: lifeguards

In case not finding waiters were not enough, the hospitality faces a new problem this summer: where to accommodate them

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According to a recent report Prepared by Obsbusiness School, tourism represents 15.2% of the total of the national economy and 2025 has all the signs of becoming a year of record for this sector, with an estimate of 98 million tourists, which represents an increase of 4% compared to last year. These tourists will spend about 138.5 billion euros. The data from the Ministry of Industry and Tourism They pointthat the sector will use a total of 2.99 million people. Such and as they highlight in Five daysthe main problem facing the hotel sector is not just the Personnel shortage. Is that, although they can hire workers to cover the high season in summer, these They cannot be paid The accommodation by the High price of rentals In tourist areas. Homemade. According to the last ‘Rent prices report in Spain’ Published by Idealista, the average price in Spain is 14.5 euros per square meter. That is, a 60 square meter accommodation should cost about 870 euros. However, the price increases when we approach tourist areas such as Málaga (16.3 euros/m2), Balearic Islands (19.7 euros/m2), Barcelona (23.9 euros/m2). In the case of the Balearic Islands, for example, the rent of a 60 -square -meter house would amount to 1,182 euros, a figure that can be doubled in high summer season. The high price of rentals makes it unfeasible that workers from other territories move to the main tourist destinations during the months of greater influx because, literally, The salary is gone Only in the rent. Work and accommodation. The hoteliers of the Balearic Islands were the first to alert the situation. Hotel chains Meliá, Riu, Barceló and Iberostar had planned increase your templates To meet summer demand. Due to the difficulty of finding accommodation for their new employees, chains have been forced to reserve a part of their facilities as accommodation during the summer months, offering it for free as an incentive to attract qualified talent. Hospitality entrepreneurs in the Canary Islands, meanwhile, They offered to build homes at priced price to rent to workers in the sector. However, the Ministry of Tourism estimates that only about 455,000 employees work in these large chains that have enough financial muscle to assume the cost of the accommodation of its employees. The other 2.5 million remaining employees belong to restaurants, bars and other small businesses. That leaves them with a serious problem, no longer due to lack of labor, but because rental price It makes someone from outside move during the high season to work. The only way out: adapt. It is materially impossible that the supply of local labor covers all the demand for the hospitality during the high season, so, given the impossibility of hiring more personnel, restaurants and small hospitality businesses of those those Tourism areas “Tensioning“They have chosen to adapt and reduce their care schedule depending on their staff. According The data of the Turijobs Employment Portal published by Self -employed and entrepreneurs87% of restoration businesses have had to apply these time adjustment measures to adapt to the lack of personnel. Desestationalization of tourism. One of the objectives of the tourism sector is Destationalize itTo, thus stabilize demand throughout the year allowing a more rest and economic continuity market, instead of focusing all the activity in the summer months. As they highlight in The countrypart of that goal is being achieved, and during the first three months of 2025 it has been increased by 5.7% The number of tourists, so that the tourist season is now ahead of May and ends beyond October. The de -stationalization of tourism would allow employees to settle in these destinations throughout the year, not only during the summer months, stabilizing in turn the availability of a sufficient local workforce. Long -term strategies. Given an unlikely scenario of moderation in rental prices, the most affected companies in the sector have adopted a long -term local personnel collection strategy. Thus, the dependency of personnel from other autonomies is reduced and, with it, the problem of accommodation. Portaventura World and University Rovira and Virgili signed a training agreement In 2024 for 150 employees per year. This agreement offers, in addition to a training accreditation, a job at the facilities and the Tourist Resort of Port Aventura once the training is finished. In the same line the initiative of the hotel chain THB Hotels moves that, through Your program THB College has offered accommodation and training to more than 2,000 employees since its creation in 2014, eliminating the problem of the shortage of qualified and accommodation personnel for them. In Xataka | Construction and hospitality do not hire the same pace as before. Health and education cut cod in job creation Image | Pexels (Allan González)

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