history

The most brutal rains in the history of Andalusia have already ended. Now the real problems begin

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The storm Leonardo little by little begins to fade from the maps, leaving in its wake mainly alerts for strong gusts of wind in certain regions of Andalusia. The problem is that its footprint on the ground is just beginning to show its true dimension, since the main danger is that even if rainfall begins to decrease, the water continues to rise in the rivers. And this gives rise to the feared floods that are already has caused numerous evictions. Extreme saturation. To understand why authorities and the AEMET maintain the emergency level 2 and red warnings despite lulls in rainfall, we have to look under our feet. The soil functions, under normal conditions, like a sponge capable of retaining large volumes of water. However, after weeks of constant rainfall, Andalusia has reached its saturation point. In this way, the land does not support any more water, which increases the runoff coefficient throughout the territory. This means that each new liter that falls, no matter how small, will barely filter through the ground. The result is that it will run on the surface, turning slopes and mountains into giant slides towards the rivers. Increase of the channel. This is the reason why 14 rivers are under red notice today and another 31 under orange. Rivers such as the Guadalete, the Genil, the Guadiaro and the Guadalhorce They are not just responding to today’s rain.but to the inability of the basin to drain what has accumulated in the last 48 hours. We have an example in Huétor Tájar in Granadawhere the Genil River overflowed, making the entire town become a large lake. And this is the main risk we face despite the fact that rainfall is beginning to reduce its intensity. The reservoirs. The other major front of this crisis is hydraulic engineering. The reservoirs act as buffers during floodsretaining the water to prevent it from devastating the towns downstream. But Leonardo has managed to finish filling these reservoirs to their maximum limits. This has forced us to initiate technical releases with increasing amounts of water to avoid breakages or uncontrolled overflows of the dams. The problem is that doing so injects more flow into rivers that are already at the limit of their capacity, keeping towns like Ubrique or the lower areas of the Guadalquivir in suspense. Sierra Nevada. Gravity in the Genil basin is not based solely on precipitation, but on thermodynamics. Leonardo is not a cold storm of polar origin, but rather an Atlantic storm loaded with humidity that is causing snow accumulated in previous weeks melts at a high speed. The result here is clear: a greater flow in the rivers that drain the Sierra that joins all the factors that we have mentioned before. Landslides. For the next few hours, in addition to the increase in the riverbed, we must also keep in mind the risk of hillslide. In these cases, water saturation increases the weight of the soil and reduces its internal friction. This translates into a greater risk of landslides on roads and slopes, something that can especially occur in mountain areas such as Cádiz or Axarquía in Malaga. More rain on Saturday. Faced with overflowing soil, the last thing you want is to receive more rain. But the reality is that this same Saturday a new storm comes in that has already activated an orange alert in a region that has been greatly punished by Leonardo such as Grazalema. In this case, accumulations of up to 80 liters per square meter are again expected, which may further aggravate the situation that is being experienced. Images | Ted Balmer In Xataka | We have always believed that London is very rainy and that Barcelona is not. The only problem is that it’s a lie

The Nintendo DS was the best-selling console in the history of the Japanese manufacturer until now. It’s easy to guess who has surpassed her

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The Nintendo Switch has become the best-selling console in the history of the Japanese company, as revealed by Nintendo in its financial report of February 3, 2026. With 155.37 million units sold until the end of December 2025, the hybrid system has surpassed the 154.02 million of the Nintendo DS, which held the record since its discontinuation in 2013. Two proposals. The data gain more weight considering that the Switch debuted in 2017 with a price of $299.99 (exactly double the $149.99 of the DS in 2004) and not has officially dropped in price in its eight years of commercial life. The concept of the DS (two screens, one of them touch) represented a risky bet when the industry prioritized graphical power. The console found its audience in sectors outside of traditional video games, with titles such as ‘Brain Training’ and ‘Nintendogs’ that attracted users with the same casual profile that the Wii had conquered. Added to this was the DS Lite, launched in 2006, which represented 61% of the system’s total sales: 93.86 million units. The Switch arrives. In 2017, the Switch was double the price of its portable predecessor. Its hybrid concept (functioning as a desktop console connected to the television and as a portable device) eliminated Nintendo’s traditional division between home and mobile platforms. And without price cuts: the OLED model, launched in 2021 at $349.99, meant a net increase in the market positioning of the system. Different pricing policies. The pricing strategy of both consoles differs significantly. Adjusted for inflation, the $149.99 DS in 2004 andThey would be equivalent to approximately $240 in 2024. The DS also experienced reductions during its life cycle, reaching $99.99 in 2011. The Switch, in contrast, has maintained its base price for eight years, something unusual in the consumer electronics industry. The accumulated inflation since 2017 has reduced the real value of the price by approximately 20%. For comparison, the PlayStation 2 dropped its price from $300 to $100 in less than a decade. But the Switch unifies two segments: while the DS competed exclusively as a portable platform (coexisting with the Wii and Wii U as home consoles), each Switch unit captures both the traditional home console and handheld audiences. The difference: the software. Beyond hardware, software performance reveals a gap between both systems. According to data from November 2025the Switch has sold 1,452.79 million software units throughout its life cycle, compared to the 948.76 million that the DS reached at the end of its production. A difference of 53% in favor of the Switch that indicates a greater commitment on the part of its user base. Put another way: each Switch owner has purchased an average of approximately 9.4 games, compared to 6.2 for DS users. The Switch catalog, which includes ports and remasters of titles previously exclusive to other platforms, has reached an audience that goes beyond the traditional Nintendo. PS2 objective. The Switch is still below the absolute industry record: Sony’s PlayStation 2 maintains the position of best-selling console of all time with figures that exceed 160 million units. This brand has generated some controversy after Sony updated its historical data including sales that were not previously listed in its public records. To reach that figure, the Switch would need to sell approximately 4.63 million additional units. However, Nintendo’s current projections contemplate only 750,000 more units until the end of the fiscal year. Besides, Switch 2 It has already sold 17.37 million units. The coexistence of both models on the market could accelerate the withdrawal of the original hardware. Images | Xataka In Xataka | The most recurring criticism of Nintendo Switch 2 is that “it does not innovate.” We have tried it and we have something to say about it

the dark history of mercury in the fashion industry

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When we think of Alice in Wonderland one of the most recognized characters is ‘Mad Hatter’‘, an eccentric character with a top hat and a label that says 10/6. And although it may seem that the author of this story wanted to give that characterization to the famous rabbit, the truth is that all hats at that time had a serious problem which made them look too much like the classic rabbit. What’s behind. And the reality behind the character is much murkier and less colorful than in Disney or Tim Burton films. The expression “mad as a hatter” was not a literary invention in this case, but a quite popular medical diagnosis for the timesince for centuries the hat industry suffered a silent epidemic that led to serious neurological damage. and the culprit it was mercury. The ‘carroting’. To understand why hatters fell ill, we must look at how the felt was made between the 17th and 20th centuries that would give rise to hats. The raw material was usually rabbit, hare or beaver fur, and in order for these furs to become a high-quality, rigid and durable felt, they were subjected to a chemical process called “carroting”. This name came from the orange color of the carrots that the skins acquired when treated with a hot solution of mercury nitrate. But logically it was a death trap for the workshops of the time, just as collect NIOSH historical archives. Security issues. Although there are now strong regulations regarding safety at work, if we look back it was not like that. And the treatment was carried out in a poorly ventilated space, which caused mercury vapors to be released when the acid mixture was heated with the skins. By not being able to escape through any ventilation slits, the professionals who were constantly working with the skins ended up inhaling the mercury vapors. It was not a one-time accident, but rather a chronic exposure that accumulated in the body and directly attacked the central nervous system. A new reality. Although in the popular culture of the time the profession was directly related to being completely crazy, the truth is that current toxicological reviews indicate that chronic mercury poisoning produces a devastating and very specific clinical picture. And the hatters did not simply become ‘eccentric’, but also had Danbury tremorswhich are uncontrollable muscle spasms and intentional tremors that prevented fine movements. But there were also personality changes making pathological shyness, extreme irritability, depression and emotional lability the norm. The countries took note. Logically, this is something that had to be regulated to guarantee the safety of workers. France was one of the pioneers by prohibiting the use of mercury in the manufacture of hat boxes in 1898, but in Anglo-Saxon countries the industry was quite resistant to change. And the resentful. In the United States the process remained in force for decades. In this case, it took World War II for the tables to turn and it was not until 1941 when the use of mercury was definitively abandoned in key states such as Connecticut. But the reason was not the safety of its artisans, but rather that the war required a large amount of mercury to manufacture detonators, which forced the hat industry to look for substitutes such as hydrogen peroxide, as detailed in the industrial records of the time. Alice’s Hatter. It’s tempting to think that Lewis Carroll designed his character as a textbook case of erethism, but the evidence suggests otherwise. A classic analysis published in BMJ puts the dots on the i’s in this case, pointing out that Carrol knew the popular expression “mad as a hatter”, since he lived in a time where hatters with tremors were a visible social reality. However, the character of Alice in Wonderland It doesn’t quite fit the medical profile. The Hatter in the book is hyperactive, talkative, euphoric and a lover of riddles. Mercury erethism, on the other hand, is characterized by extreme shyness, social anxiety, and depression. It is likely that Carroll took the figure of the hatter and the idiom to create a caricature, but the identification of the character as “mercury poisoned” is a reading that we have made a posteriori. In Xataka | If you have ever thought that AI is useless, science has something for you: an antidote to cobras

The first hard drives in history were gigantic. Then a miracle happened: miniaturization

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Nowadays it is normal to have 32 or 64 GB of capacity on our mobile devices, and that capacity is usually multiplied by several orders of magnitude on our PCs and laptops. Storage technology has advanced incredibly in all these years, and to appreciate this evolution it is not a bad idea to take a short trip to the past and see how decades ago hard drives were heavy and cumbersome monstrosities that also had very limited capacity and features. The first example of that evolution we have it in the IBM RAMAC 305a monster that appeared in 1956 and was capable of storing 5 MB thanks to a system with 50 24-inch “platters”. That device rotated at a speed of 600 revolutions per minute and generated such a quantity of heat that it was necessary to enclose it in a large “refrigerator” with two cooling systems. Another curious fact about this product is that IBM already thought about a subscription model to make it profitable: clients who wanted to use this product had to pay $3,200 per month at the time, which would be equivalent to almost $30,000 today with inflation. Miniaturization would still take years to reach an industry that was trying to advance especially in the area of ​​storage capacity: customers demanded more capacity, and those 24 inch plates wereAs seen in the image, huge. In this case these models reached 10 MB capacity per disk. The giant of the time, IBM, dominated the sector for years, and in 1962 the company created the first “removable” drives. The IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive made use of IBM 1316 “disk packs” that allowed the company’s customers to expand their needs to suit. From the 24 inches of the previous disks it went to 14 inches, with 2 Mbytes for each “pack”. The path to smallness Another of those storage devices It was UniDisc.a storage expansion that appeared in 1962 for the Univac 1004/1005 computers. That “flexible” disk similar to those used by IBM had a diameter of 14 inches and was capable of holding 2 Mbytes of information. The drive the disk was inserted into was about the size of a washing machine. At that time, several manufacturers tried to be leaders in a promising sector, and among them was Burroughs, a mainframe manufacturer that, for example, launched this unit of 250 MB in 1979. A true marvel that used, pay attention, regenerative braking: when it was turned off, the motor became a magnetic brake: otherwise the discs continued spinning for an average of 4 hours. A few years earlier IBM had already launched its new hard drive technology, the so-called “winchester“. The IBM 3340 drive had a smaller, lighter read/write head that had a design that allowed it to move across that surface at a tiny distance. Things would advance from that moment even more rapidly, especially in the field of miniaturization (more or less) and the capacity of units that, for example, in 1980 already reached the gigabyte with the IBM 3380 unit. From that year 1980 is also the Memorex Mark XIV “disk pack” in the header image that was advertised as an “error-free” system. It had a capacity of 80 MB and was intended for Memorex disk drives that were again the size of a washing machine. 5¼ units would soon give way to 3.5-inch oneswhich would arrive first from the Rodime company (with former Burroughs employees, by the way). Their devices were capable of storing 6.38 and 12.75 Mbytes and would start a real trend in the PC and laptop market. User needs continued to dictate smaller formats, and this led to 2.5-inch drives that are currently especially widespread due to their use in the solid state drive segment. The rest, as they say, is history: 3.5-inch drives are still widely used today, but that revolution would be followed a few years ago by that of solid state drives or SSD (especially in M.2 format) that have allowed us to achieve reading and writing speeds that were unthinkable just a decade ago. In the area of ​​capacity and cost per gigabyte, yes, those traditional hard drives continue to be (for now) the kings of the market, but if we want examples of miniaturization, the 1 TB drives that SanDisk presented at CES seven years ago made things even better. And what remains. In Xataka | Sandisk has risen 1,000% in the stock market since the summer. Its advantage is called Kioxia In Xataka | The computers of the future have found an unexpected ally to store information: fungi

We thought measles was history. The data shows that we were very wrong

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For years, measles seemed like a disease of the past in much of the developed world thanks to mass vaccination campaigns who had managed to corner the virus until turning the outbreaks into anecdotes. However, everything is changing as the WHO itself points out either the US CDC by drawing a very different scenario: measles has returned and it has done so with unusual force. The return What began as an “immunity gap” after the pandemic has become in a worrying statistical trend. From the Mediterranean to the United States, and with an echo in Spain, the figures for 2024 and what we have for 2025 confirm a global rebound that tests herd immunity. The global ‘leap’. To understand the magnitude of the problem, you have to look at the raw numbers that the WHO itself offers ussince it makes us see that we are not facing a standard seasonal rebound, but rather it is a very important change in trend. In this case the European Region The WHO has registered 127,350 cases in 2024, a figure that not only doubles the records of 2023, but also marks the all-time high since 1997. In depth. If we break them down, we can see that in Europe cases have increased by 47% compared to pre-pandemic levels and in the Eastern Mediterranean the increase is 86% compared to 2019. In the case of the European Union, ECDC documents more than 35,000 cases in 2024, which increases ten times the previous year. The severity lies not only in the contagion, but in the consequences: more than half of these cases in Europe have required hospitalization. And this leads to greater pressure on care. In the United States. If in Europe there is a lot of concern about this issue, in the North American country, since the growth is vertical. The CDC itself has set off alarms after observing how cases have multiplied by five in a matter of months. In this way, while approximately between 285 and 300 cases were reported in all of 2024, projections and partial data for 2025 place the figure above 1,500 affected. This paints a very clear picture: 92% of infections occur among people who have not been vaccinated, with outbreaks concentrating in communities with low immunization. The case of Spain. If we focus on our country The truth is that we have remained free of endemic measles since 2017. This means that the virus does not constantly circulate freely within our borders. However, globalization is causing a change in photography. Official data indicates that while in 2023 only 14 cases were recorded, in 2204 they increased to 229 cases and in 2025 the forecast points to almost 400. Its origin. The Ministry of Health and the Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) point out that the majority are imported cases (mainly from Morocco and Romania) that find “small gaps” to spread. Although there are active outbreaks in communities such as Andalusia, the Basque Country and Catalonia, the virus enters from outside and lights the fuse in non-immunized groups. The mathematics. Measles is one of the most contagious viruses that exists, and to keep it at bay through herd immunity, the WHO establishes a fairly strict safety threshold: 95% of the population must have both doses of the vaccine. This is something where Spain is doing quite well, since the first dose has a coverage of 96-97%, while the second drops to 91-93%. But this difference between having one or two doses is very important. That margin of two or three percentage points below the recommended 95%, added to the anti-vaccine movements and delays in post-COVID vaccination, is the crack through which the virus is sneaking in. Although the general population is protected, there are enough “pockets” of vulnerable population for an imported case to generate a local outbreak. Images | Wikipedia Fusion Medical Animation In Xataka | The myth of 37º: it is increasingly clear to us that there is no “normal” body temperature

The war in Ukraine is the most Looney Tunes in history

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In Ukraine, camouflage has ceased to be a tactical detail and has become an issue immediate survival. The front is no longer just a line of trenches but a space permanently illuminated by sensors, reconnaissance drones and attack FPV that appear in seconds and punish any routine. In that scenario the difference between ingenuity and desperation is a blurred line for hiding. The new battlefield. The consequence is simple and brutal: what previously served to hide from a soldier with binoculars now it is insufficient in front of an electronic eye that does not get tired, does not blink and can observe from above, repeating passes until it finds the smallest error. At that point, Russia is forced to improvise new forms of concealment for his troops, not because it is an aesthetic eccentricity, but because the alternative is being exposed in an environment where detection is almost automatic and punishment comes with surgical precision. “Realistic” camouflage. One of the most striking adaptations has been the use of camouflage covers that are no longer limited to breaking silhouettes with spots of color, but incorporate materials and shapes designed to mimic terrain elementsas if it were a hand-built scenario: fake rocksrough surfaces, textures that imitate rubble and irregularities that deceive the view from above. The idea is simple and quite logical in a front saturated with drones: if the enemy watches from the air, it is not enough to “look green”, there is that “seem terrain”integrate into the visual noise of the landscape and reduce the clues that give away a position. It is an attempt to gain those minutes of invisibility that separate a possible advance from a failed ambush, and it fits with an evolution in which Russia tries to rely more in small and mobile attackswith small groups, assuming that massive concentrations and obvious deployments have become a gift for Ukrainian surveillance. Urban debris like skin. The same logic is transferred to devastated urban areas, where the terrain is not a forest or an open field but a broken brick, fallen walls and dust, and where the most useful camouflage is not so much the traditional “military” one but the one that makes you in part of the destruction. There appear nets and covers designed to look like rubble, construction remains and fragments of buildings, as if the soldier was not hiding behind the ruin but rather merging with it. It is also the response to constant pressure: the impact of drones on the Russian infantry has become so frequent that the front is transformed in a crusher of small movements, and each exposed position can become a scene repeated thousands of times. It is still another paradox in a landscape of rubble, one where effective camouflage is what turns you… in rubble. Debris camouflage “tarps” Field booths. Then there is the image that seems to be taken from a parody, although possibly born of real tactical desperation: soldiers taking refuge in individual vertical structureslike capsules or covers that cover them almost completely and only leave a small gap to observe. They are not typical tents, nor shelters to live in, but rather packaging designed to reduce visual signature and, above all, thermal, against drones that search for targets and finish them off with precision. The logic is simple: if the drone finds you, you are dead, so the first thing is to prevent it from finding you. That said, the price to pay can be enormous because hiding like this means give up all mobilityreaction and situational awareness, just what a soldier needs when danger comes quickly and from any angle. Thermal camouflage The great invisible enemy. It we have counted these days. The most decisive turn, however, is not only in what is seen, but in what is felt: the heat. In winter, thermal cameras become even more lethal because the contrast increases and everything that emits a constant temperature (human bodies, engines, electronics, heaters) stands out like a light signal on a frozen background, even at night. Ukrainian bomber drones, nicknamed “Baba Yaga”they have exploited that advantage effectively: they search for formations or positions, identify thermal anomalies, and release ammunition with an ease that turns concealment into an almost mathematical problem. In these conditions, visual camouflage is of little use if the position “glows” in infrared, and even what seems insignificant (recent footprints in the snow, repeated activity at a fixed point) can become a clue. That’s why it appears thermal camouflagewhich does not eliminate heat because that is impossible, but tries to break the silhouette and blend it with the environment, even if it is degrading the signal instead of erasing it. The great Russian dilemma. The situation forces Russia to move in an impossible balance: If you try to advance towards death zones under drones, the exposure multiplies, and if you decide to stay in fixed positions, persistent observation ends up discovering patterns, entrances and exits, moments of activity, small routines that a drone can record until the attack arrives. The result is that each defensive measure brings with it a new limitation: hiding better usually means seeing less and reacting worse, moving more usually means being detected sooner. And while Ukraine reserves thermal cameras for reusable drones because they make the system more expensive and cannot be used in everything, also play with smart combinations, using a drone with good optics to detect and cheaper ones to execute. Looney Tunes, but with real casualties. If you also want, all this leads us to an idea that sounds like a joke that is not: the war in Ukraine is resembling an episode from Looney Tuneswith soldiers hiding in vertical capsuless, networks that imitate bricks and camouflages that look like movie props. There is no doubt, the background is terribly serious, because this absurd aesthetic is born from a real technological pressure, from an environment where air It is full of sensors and camouflage no longer competes against human eyes, but against machines … Read more

For the first time in history the possibility of a Mediterranean without wine is beginning to appear on the horizon

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The same week we found out that Nabimia is flooding Europe of grapes grown in the middle of the desert, a map goes viral that says that the continent’s wine-growing areas have been moving north for decades. What’s the point of all this? Is it even possible? Let’s see it. Let’s start with the map. In recent days, the map is by Sebastian Gräff for The European Correspondent and shows how, in Europe, the “wine-growing areas” have been shifting for 60 years due to the effect of climate change. Not only has it gone viral, it has also become very controversial. Just look at the map to see that historical areas full of vineyards (such as the Jerez countryside) do not appear on it. And it is not a specific failure: there are ‘gaps’ of this type in practically all of the countries that come out. And yet, this isn’t exactly a problem. How is that not a problem? Because what the map represents is the Huglin index: one of the many indices that tries to determine the areas with optimal conditions for growing vines. It is based on a viticultural principle: that each grape variety needs a certain amount of heat to be grown successfully. The Huglin index tries to make an estimate, but (due to the nature of meteorological data) it is not useful for concrete detail. The best-known example is the slopes: having one orientation or another can change the average daily temperature of the area by more than two degrees. It is rather a tool to classify areas, predict ripening and plan the cultivation of certain varieties. But a tool that only makes sense in its context. And the map is not its context. I mean, it’s not what it’s intended for, but that doesn’t mean it’s not interesting. At the end of the day, climate change is one of the most important “game changers” in the world of vines: we must not forget that, in 2024, the harvest took place earliest of the Marco de Jerez since there are records and experts fear that, if the trend continues like this, there will come a time when it will not be viable to grow grapes. In the same way, there are huge regions of the world that they are about to be able grow vines: UK wine production has doubled in a very short time and indeed the area planted with vines has increased 75% in the last five years. They are not yet large amounts, but the harvests are getting better and the sector is moving more and more money. And the expectation is that it will go further, of course. Bad omens. All this outlines something that researchers are beginning to take very seriously: the first time, in historical times, the Mediterranean run out of useful vines for wine production. In this sense, the Jumilla disaster of 2024 serves as a warning to navigators. Wine is entering unknown territory and we are going to bear the worst part. Image | Sebastian Graff In Xataka | The oldest wine in the world is “Andalusian” and has been resting for 2,000 years. If it’s good or not, no one wants to know.

There is a reason why Germany allows driving at 300 km/h and it is not history or politics: it is the asphalt

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If you like to step on the accelerator, you will have already seen firsthand that cornering at 100 km/h is better than at 130 km/h. I don’t need to remind you that the maximum speed allowed on state roads is 120 km/h. Although there are quite a few countries within the European Union with higher limits, Germany is the only state where there are sections without speed limit. 300 km/h without breaking a sweat. Obviously, this poses a danger to driving as cars such as a Porsche at 322 km/h. At these speeds, the risk of the car jumping or losing control is notable. But the “recipe” for manufacturing the German Autobahn has its particularities that allow it to offer enviable flatness and a road surface with high load capacity. And it can be found in the regulations and standards of the FGSV (Research Society for Highways and Transportation) and the BASt (German Federal Authority for Road Safety and Traffic). Blessed sandwich. While in Spain Flexible or semi-rigid pavement predominates with thicknesses of 40 to 60 centimeters. In Germany they use a standardized layer system called RStO 12 (Guidelines for the Standardization of Pavement Structures). That is, with a total thickness of between 70 and 90 centimeters with an antifreeze base composed of highly permeable gravel and sand so that water does not remain trapped (in case of freezing, it would generate large cracks as a result of expansion). About this, layers of gravel mixed with concrete or asphalt to provide sufficient rigidity to prevent collapse under the passage of heavy trucks. cwhen concrete and when asphalt. In the intermediate section the Germans use two materials, highlighting the concrete for those stretches of free speed and high truck traffic thanks to its rigidity and durability. In more detail: The 25 to 30 centimeter high-resistance concrete pavements longitudinally integrate plastic-coated steel bars. Thus, they allow some thermal expansion but do not allow them to move independently, causing steps. The transition between the concrete slabs is barely noticeable. Asphalt with stone matrix (S.M.A.), a combination with crushed stone and cellulose to offer extreme resistance to deformation and maximize the tire’s grip. The “superstructure” of German roads. Von Susan from Bielefeld, Deutschland – Straße, CC BY 2.0 Extreme plain for safety and by law. If you hit a speed bump at a certain speed, your car will go away. If you go 300 km/h in a sports car, the loss of aerodynamic load is such that it could be fatal. So Germany takes the plain very seriously by regulations: the maximum allowable deviation three millimeters in four meters. They achieve it with controlled pavers by global navigation and laser sensor systems. Auf wiedersehen, aquaplaning. Once the risk of steps, cracks and unevenness has been minimized, there remains another staunch enemy for speed: water on the asphalt. And they fight it in two ways. For starters, autobahns have a slope of at least 2.5% on the sides to evacuate the water as soon as possible. For concrete pavements, it is used waschbeton or washed concrete, a technique that brushes the surface to expose the aggregates, thus creating a rough, non-slip area that breaks up any water film that may form. In Xataka | Germany, Austria and Switzerland have plenty of roads. So they have started covering them with solar panels In Xataka | The Autobahn are the only roads in Europe without a speed limit. More and more Germans want to end them Cover | Wes Tindel and Nick Fewings

In 1792, before the telephone, a Frenchman invented the first telecommunications system in history: the optical telegraph.

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We live in full Digital Ageand sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that until the end of the 20th century anything similar to the Internet was pure science fiction. But it is not true, because already in the 19th century the telegraph began to allow us to disseminate information in real time, which has earned Morse’s invention the nickname of the Victorian Internet. optical telegraph. But before Morse invented the telegraph in 1832, there were other attempts to make information travel long distances almost in real time. One of them saw the light in 1792 at the hands of the French inventor Claude Chappe. It is about the optical telegrapha tower with two mobile arms that changed position depending on what was wanted to be communicated, and which today is considered the first practical telecommunications system. The origins. This type of communication medium was first devised in 1684 by the British scholar Robert Hooke, although he never put his theory into practice. In 1767 Sir Richard Lovell Edgeworth proposed a first design optical telegraph to transmit the results of a race, but it was not until Chappe developed his that they began to become popular. Claude Chappe and his brothers developed their communication system in 1792, and it was so successful in France that the country created a network of 556 stations that communicated an area of ​​4,800 kilometers. The system was promoted for commercial use, but Napoleon Bonaparte liked the idea and decided to use it to coordinate his troops over long distances. How it worked. The system was made up of a mast from which two mobile arms came out. At two meters long each, the arms were so large that they could be seen from great distances, and only two levers were needed to make them move. As we see in the image, the position of the arms would determine the number or letter that was wanted to be transmitted. The milestone. The first message with the French optical telegraph network was transmitted from Lille to Paris in 1794, and 22 towers were used to carry it across 230 kilometers. It was used for national communications until the 1850s, and the model was modified and used in other countries such as Sweden, Hungary, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Spain of Charles IV. became famous. In France it enjoyed great popularity, and reached be described in works as important as “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas in 1844. But the same desire to quickly and effectively develop communications that drove and led Chappe’s invention to success also ended up being his undoing. In 1846 and after several failed attempts, Samuel Morse finally managed to convince France to replace it with his new electric telegraph, which could be used at night and in poor visibility. And it ended up prevailing despite the fact that many experts of the time predicted its failure due to the ease with which its lines could be cut, although that is another story. Images | Wikimedia (1, 2, 3 and 4)

four years later it is experiencing the biggest audience crisis in its history

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Telecinco has lost its way. Since the disappearance of Sálvame from his grill and the definitive closure of the Vasile era, the chain seems to have been left in no man’s land. The initial idea in summer 2023 was clear: Ana Rosa would take over the afternoons of that audience that was orphaned without Jorge Javier’s farmhouse. On the other hand, that was the first setback and what led to the fact that, faced with more than discreet audiencesthe presenter returned to her comfort zone, recovering the morning space. From then on, the situation did not rather than getting worse. With Joaquín Prat becoming the currency of the chain, the commitment to new contests and a weekend that, despite a rebranding constant (‘Viva la Vida’, ‘Ya es Verano’, ‘Fiesta’…) belongs for life to Emma García, the data remains unrecorded; In fact, the new stage of its news programs led by someone very established in that space within TVE has not even worked, as is Carlos Franganillo. The numbers show how little benefit the change of direction and this replacement of the Mediaset leadership is. And it is not only the new CEOs who have been unable to turn it around to the situation, but, paradoxically, the only thing that holds the chain is the Vasile inheritance. The audiences are clear: Telecinco finds it difficult to exceed 10% of the daily share and has been in decline for four years, with a historical monthly low 8% in August 2025. What is happening? Vasile continues to keep Mediaset afloat If we review what Mediaset has defined through its flagships, we can get an idea of ​​the type of programming that the audience wants and expects from the network, in addition to its editorial approach. During Valerio Lazarov’s era the ‘Mama Chicho’ led; Maurizio Carlotti will be remembered for promoting series such as ‘Family Doctor’ or iconic formats such as ‘Martian Chronicles’; and in the Vasile stage we remember that essence ‘Save me’. However, what stood out in its content management was the firm commitment to reality television and circular content, a move that was undoubtedly key to the chain’s success. The contestants of the latest edition of GH. ‘Big Brother’, ‘Hotel Glam’, ‘The Farm’, ‘Survivors’… The choice of this type of format may have seemed at the time a risky maneuver to boost the audience, but the truth is that the active participation of the public, its involvement in the personal plots of the contestants and the enormous amount of associated content that did nothing more than regurgitate the realities (debates, gatherings, 24-hour connections…) managed to keep an audience tremendously dedicated to reality television hooked and in suspense. Maybe the concept reality It was moving away from the classic contest format, but its essence remained intact and it was consolidated for years as the driving force of the network. ‘Women and Men and Vice Versa’ or ‘Sálvame’ were still, deep down, a 2.0 version of reality television. To understand and stay up to date with the cameos, the cross accusations and the melodramatic plots, it was essential to follow the different spaces spread throughout the grid, where the contestants, journalists and collaborators were part of the same network, which ended up building an extraordinarily loyal audience. Now we are in the middle of 2025 and after the debacle in hearings and the futile attempts to overcome the sharewhile the new management intends to more than shelve the Vasile stage, the only thing that it seems to still work as a claim to the public it is ‘Temptation Island’. A format that is still the natural evolution of Telecinco’s original reality television, more current and oriented towards young audiences, although keeping intact the philosophy of entertainment and controversy that defined the Vasile era. And this is not an isolated case: the other space that maintains acceptable figures in the chain is ‘Friday’a show that wants to appear whiter and more moderate in tone but is still another variant of the heartfelt programs that historically always triumphed on Telecinco during the reign of Paolo Vasile, such as Salsa Rosa or Sálvame Deluxe. Was this the revolution? Therefore, everything seems to indicate that the more they want to clean the slate, the more they need to resort to the ghosts of the past. As a way forward they wanted to rely on a format like ‘Big Brother‘ but this only highlighted the key deficiency: we have a Mediaset without a soul. There is no longer a synergy of programs with the same zeitgeist which in its day provided, for example, ‘Sálvame’. Without that transversal ecosystem that was nourished by that reality television, it is very difficult for a format like Big Brother to once again have the success of yesteryear. The contents appear too dispersed, without a clear common thread and, thus, the grid lacks cohesion. It seems that the solution and innovation proposed by the new management is based on decisions that go from bad to worse. When the debate on ‘Temptation Island’ (remember: its star program with three (!) weekly broadcasts), is relegated to the ‘Mediaset Infinity’ platform and on the contrary, they insist on broadcasting the debate of a program that gave his last blows like ‘Big Brother’ mean that the viewer was not surprised by that “sudden” cancellation of the format with an express final. The combination of a worn-out program, increasingly stronger competition, changes in consumer habits, the questionable selection of anonymous contestants and a fragmented programming has sentenced an edition of Big Brother with data that do not reach 10% of shareand confirming that the reality emblematic no longer connects with the audience like before; also entering into direct contrast with the wonderful data of ‘Temptation Island’; a fresher, viral and intense format that challenges the viewer. Only ‘Temptation Island’ saves the furniture. Mediaset only has to analyze how it is possible that a format like ‘The House of Twins’ has eaten the toast of his GH edition; … Read more

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