history

new scrub on the most critical flight in its history

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After postponing the release date several times, it seemed that, finally, version 3 of Starship I was going to take flight. However, flight 12 of the SpaceX giant had to do a scrub after stopping and restarting the countdown several times. In principle, the company is expected to make a new attempt today, at 5:30 p.m., local time in Texas (00:30, Spanish peninsular time). However, it has not been completely confirmed. A countdown that never ends. During the countdown prior to the launch of Starship there were several arrests. This occurs when engineers detect problems that they must solve for the imminent launch. After the necessary checks, the clock was moving again, but then it stopped again. It stopped up to 5 times. Unfortunately, not all the technical problems were solved, so a scrub was finally chosen. This is similar to the launch abort, although the abort occurs when ignition and scrubbing have already begun before ignition. The technical problems. The first stop in the countdown occurred shortly after T-40. That is, when there were 40 seconds left until the launch. At this point, engineers had to check the quick-disconnect grilles for their final setbacks. After this point, the countdown began, but not for long, as it stopped again at T-35 to manage the pressures of the quick disconnect system. Next, the big part came in the T-28. First, a problem was detected in the water diverter. This seemed solved, but when the countdown was reactivated, not even a second passed. He stopped again at T-28 so that the sensors on the arm that controls the quick disconnect system could be checked. And if that were not enough, there was one last stoppage, also in T-28, due to an error in the hydraulic pin that maintains said arm. Did not carry out the necessary retractionso it had to be reviewed. There were already too many problems and they could not be solved properly, so the launch was cancelled. SpaceX has a lot at stake. This is a very important release. It is not just another Starship flight, but the first in which its version 3 will be tested. Both the ship itself and the Super Heavy rocket incorporate a large number of modifications that should make its flight much more efficient. This is very important for future SpaceX missions, but also so that the company can maintain the proposed timeline for joining the Artemis missions as human landing system. If the flight failed, the losses, both economic and confidence, would be immense. It is important to solve even the smallest incident so that everything goes well. another try. Another attempt is expected this afternoon in Texas. In fact, the roads around the Starbase launch pad will be closed from 10 a.m. local time. That is, 17:00, Spanish peninsular time. Unless engineers cannot resolve all the issues, there will be another flight attempt today. We’ll see if this is the definitive one. Image | SpaceX In Xataka | SpaceX is preparing the largest IPO in history: the fact that it is doing so right now is no coincidence

This Prime Video series ends after 7 years and 40 chapters, making history with an audience more divided than ever

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Today Prime Video premieres the last episode of ‘The Boys‘. It is not just any ending: it comes with the highest audience figures in the entire history of the series and, at the same time, with social networks converted into a battlefield over whether this latest installment of the superhero satire has been worth it. What is clear is that one of the most ambitious and rounded productions of the recent era of the streaming. ‘The Boys’ was born as an adaptation of the comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson published between 2006 and 2012 and arrived on Prime Video in July 2019 with a brutal premise:what if superheroes were corporate tools with powers of mass destruction? The series created by Eric Kripke immediately connected with a eerily similar political and information climate to the starting point of the series. In the following seven years, the fiction has accumulated five seasons, a spin-off (‘Gen V’) and an expanding universe that turned Patriot, more than a villain, into a disturbing reflection of reality. For a series to reach its conclusion at the best audience moment in its history is not usual. ‘The Boys’ has done it. The fifth season has reached an average of 57 million viewers per episode on a global scale, the highest figure in the entire history of the series. The season is also among the ten most viewed from any Prime Video original series. All this while there has been a more heterogeneous public reception than ever with the series (often praised by critics, but with very combative detractors for its powerful political message). In addition, this season has encountered criticism of its pacing, filler episodes and lack of action. It has been compared to ‘Game of Thrones’ in its controversial final stretch and although Kripke has defended the decisions that have been made, today is the day to check to what extent the series manages to live up to its prestige. In Xataka | 8 premieres this week on Netflix, including a science fiction and mystery series from the creators of ‘Stranger Things’

Telecinco faces one of the toughest summers in its history. He has bet all his chips on Paz Padilla

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Last August, Telecinco closed the month with an 8% audience share, the worst monthly figure in its history. In May 2026 it averages 9.2%: somewhat better, but it certainly does not provide a much better diagnosis of the state of suspended animation that the channel lives. Mediaset has been setting annual historical lows for four consecutive years, and the response for this summer has a name and surname: old acquaintances such as Carlos Lozano or Paz Padilla return to the channel, in a decision that makes it clear that Mediaset’s bet is not based on risk. Four years in free fall. The channel signed its historic low audience for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, with a 9.5% annual feeafter 2024 had already been the first below 10%. The problem is not only with the public, but with everything that comes with it: the net advertising income of Mediaset España fell 8% in 2025. For the first time, the group was surpassed in advertising billing by Atresmedia. To this we can add a structural crisis of the environment: Daily linear television consumption time fell by 7.7% in 2025, with an especially pronounced contraction among viewers aged 14 to 49. Telecinco competes, like all of them, against the changing habits of a generation more attentive to streamingTikTok and video games. Lozano, Padilla and other old acquaintances. Under the motto “Open for holidays”, Telecinco has presented its summer strategywhich includes the dating show ‘Love or whatever arises’ (with Carlos Lozano returning to the channel eight years after leaving it, reviving the spirit of ‘Women and men and vice versa’ in the same afternoon slot) or the daily version of ‘De friday’ called ‘Monday to Friday’with Santi Acosta and Beatriz Archidona. Finally, the entertainment format ‘The Peace Show’ with Paz Padilla at the helm, the weekend afternoons and reducing the ‘Party’ time. The presenter was fired by the channel in 2021 in quite tense circumstances, which says a lot about how both parties need each other, in a cessation of hostilities pact that must not have been easy. The changes will start in the second half of June. What goes away and what resists. To adjust this whole grid, there are programs that go on vacation. ‘Jorge’s Diary’ takes a break until September, coinciding with Jorge Javier Vázquez’s vacation. Hold ‘Allá tú’ with Juanra Bonet in the afternoons from Monday to Friday thanks to its good audience of close to 10% of share. The same thing happens with ‘The Fair Price’ by Carlos Sobera, which will also try out on the weekends, filling the gap left by the resounding failure of ‘Seen what has been seen‘. The goldmine of dating programs. Along with the realitiesand sometimes incurring almost unnatural matings between both variants, the dating shows They are the only thing that now invariably works for Telecinco. ‘The island of temptations‘has maintained competitive audiences during this four-year crisis; ‘Married at first sight’ was last season’s surprise. ‘Love or whatever arises’ tries to get away from this trend, and also with a specific format that has been tested previously with success. However, even if all these proposals work, they will be nothing more than mere patches to liven up the summer of a chain that needs a deeper reinvention. The return of Lozano or Padilla are symptomatic of the lack of originality of the resources of a Telecinco that survives on the basis of patches and proper names that drag audiences down. Because an ‘Island of Temptations’ is something that only happens from time to time: to get there you have to keep taking risks and, possibly, try formats that don’t smell like you’ve already seen them. In Xataka | The last bullet that Telecinco has left in the audience’s gun is a promo generated by AI and based on a TikTok success

The history of writing seemed untouchable. Until researchers discovered a tablet on Easter Island

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Easter Island is known above all for the moaienormous head-shaped sculptures that natives carved from volcanic tuff and have fascinated scientists for decades. On the Polynesian island there is, however, another archaeological enigma that is much less visible but equally (or even more) important for humanity: the rongo rongothe pictographic writing system used by the Rapa Nui people. Linguists have not yet been able to decipher its signs, but above all they are concerned about one question: When was it invented? It may seem anecdotal, but the answer would be a milestone that would transcend Polynesia and help us better understand how humanity gave birth to one of the inventions that has most influenced history: writing. One word: rongo rongo. It is not nearly as well known as the moai, but the rongo rongo is one of the most fascinating treasures that we owe to the Rapa Nuithe Polynesian natives of Easter Island. It basically consists of a writing system based on pictograms that is preserved in a series of tablets spread around the world. Experts estimate that it is made up of 400 charactersalthough its meaning and logic remains surrounded by unknowns. The experts they have not been able to decipher it Still, something understandable if two pieces of information are taken into account. First, although rongo rongo has centuries of history, Europeans were not interested in it until the 19th. We owe much of the credit to the French missionary Eugene Eyraudwho shortly before dying described the symbols that covered wooden tablets and staffs located on the Polynesian island. The second fact is that we keep a fairly limited number of engraved boards, pieces that are also distributed in places like Rome, Honolulu or New York. The great mystery. A few years ago Silvia Ferrara, professor at the Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies at the University of Bologna, explained to the BBC why the challenge is so complicated: “No one has reconstructed the systematic correspondence between each sign and the sounds it registers.” At first glance, the glyphs seem to represent silhouettes of animals, plants, people, artifacts and geometric designs, but understanding them requires clarifying such basic questions as whether two signs similar to each other, with slight variations, represent the same sound. The curious thing is that, as complex as this challenge is, it is not what experts are most fascinated by. There is another question that worries them even more: When and how was the rongo rongo created? Was it something that the natives of Easter Island came up with or did it develop after the arrival of the first European navigators, to beginning of the 17th century? The key is no longer so much to understand what the pictograms say as to clarify who, when, how and under what influence created the system. Is it so important? Yes. And the reason is very simple. There are many languages ​​(very many), but writing systems developed from scratch, independently, there are very few (very few). “For many, writing represents an essential quality of civilization. There are four cases and places in human history where writing was invented from scratch without any prior knowledge,” explained in 2010 Christopher Woods, of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago. This ‘miracle’ basically occurred in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica. “It is likely that all other writing systems evolved from the four systems,” detailed the expert If rongo rongo developed on Easter Island basically after the arrival of Europeans, in the 17th century, that ‘photo’ would not change. It would be a valuable creation, although not ‘independent’. Its origin would be explained by external influences. But… What if it was the Rapa Nui who devised the system completely autonomously? After all, it is known that, despite being a remote island in the middle of Polynesia, the natives arrived there several centuries before than the Dutch sailors. Solving the unknown. Convinced that this is the great enigma of Easter Island (with the permission of the majority), a few years ago Ferrara tried to clarify the chronology of the rongo rongo writing. The study, carried out together with other colleagues and whose conclusions were collected in Scientific Reportsfocused on four engraved tablets preserved in Rome. To find out what era they were from, the researchers subjected them to radiocarbon dating and asked a botanist to analyze their materials. What did they find out? That three of the tablets appear to have been used in the 19th century, after the arrival of Europeans to the island. The fourth, however, reserved a surprise: it points to a period between between 1493 and 1509. “It stands out as an anomaly in our chronological model, since it shows an antiquity before the arrival of the Europeans,” reveals Professor Sahra Talamo, also from the University of Bologna. This discovery opens a fascinating horizon that contradicts the version that the rongo rongo flourished under the influence of Western navigators. “The common narrative has always been one in which the local population was exposed to writing when Europeans arrived on the island starting in 1722 and this was what drove the creation of writing, as a kind of result of a transmission, of exposure to a pre-existing writing system,” comment Ferrara to the BBC. His work opens another door: he suggests that rongo rongo was an “original invention, an innovation that happened because the brains of local people took them in that direction.” Way to go. Although Ferrara and Talamo’s research is fascinating and sheds light on the origins of Rapa Nui writing, the truth is that it does not settle the debate. Not at least definitively. Radiocarbon analysis concluded that a tablet can be dated between late 15th century and early 16th centurybut that, admits the teacher herself, does not necessarily mean that the engraving it contains is from the same period. That is, the inscription may also have been made in the 19th century, except that its author decided … Read more

164,000 galaxies and 13.7 billion years of cosmic history available to anyone

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The James Webb Space Telescope has made a super-detailed cosmic map, which includes 13.7 billion years of the Universe. No other telescope had been able to reach so far with such precision. Hubble tried, but didn’t achieve that much. What was invisible to him is now shown majestic before our eyes. Further and more precise. This new cosmic map it has been possible thanks to the work of a team of scientists from the University of California, Riverside. They have been in charge of analyzing a catalog known as COSMOS-Web, which includes the most extensive compilation of data from this telescope to date. In a space of sky equivalent to three full moons, they have seen what until now was invisible. James Webb’s superpowers. We know that the Universe is expanding, so the galaxies are moving further away, like painted dots on a balloon that inflates more and more. Since light is a wave, the wave emitted by these galaxies also stretches. That involves longer wavelengths which, in the electromagnetic spectrum, correspond to the infrared. This is known as redshift. The older and more distant a galaxy is, the more of that stretching it will have experienced, so there will be more redshift. Therefore, in order to detect very old galaxies, it is necessary to use instruments capable of detecting these infrared radiations very well. That’s where James Webb comes into play, since he has an instrument called NirCAMwhose specialty is precisely that. Furthermore, thanks to the size of its mirrors, with an area 7 times larger than that of Hubble’s mirrors, much more light can be captured and more precise images obtained. Lifting the cosmic veil. The James Webb also has the ability to look through clouds of gas and dust that normally surround younger stars and planets. It’s something Hubble can’t do either, so many more structures are revealed that were invisible to its predecessor. What Hubble didn’t see. Unlike James Webb, Hubble is specialized in detecting mostly the visible and ultraviolet spectrum of light. For this reason, the oldest structures in the Universe have gone unnoticed. By comparing the James Webb cosmic map with the more precise one made with Hubble, it has been seen that what previously seemed like a single structure is actually many. The sharpness of certain structures that seemed very diffuse has also been increased. In short, the resolution has increased. Distances are better measured and some structures are better distinguished from others. We can all see it. The catalog that has just been created contains 164,000 galaxies and a video that shows the movement they have experienced for 13.7 billion years. It is the furthest journey that has been made in the universe with one of these maps. And the best thing is that all this information is open access. Therefore, anyone can access it. Scientists who wish to do so will be able to study it, in search of data that may have gone unnoticed by researchers at the University of California. In short, teamwork is sought. Just as James Webb works as a team with Hubble and soon he will also do it with Romanscientists on Earth should do the same. Image | Image taken by James Webb that is not part of the map (NASA) In Xataka | We have been studying the planets of TRAPPIST-1 for years with great hope. James Webb just knocked it down

the bizarre history of Toyota and its hydrogen trucks

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Toyota relies on hydrogen as a mobility solution. It is not news in itself. However, the agreement reached in the United States is. And the Japanese have partnered with Hyroad Energya mobility solutions company from the United States that will rent 40 trucks to the Japanese company for use in its support activities. That is to say, It is not Toyota that develops trucks. On the contrary, it is Toyota that pays to have these heavy vehicles available. And this North American company will be in charge of supplying the trucks, maintenance and software. Toyota, for its part, will have its own hydrogen charging network. The move is interesting for the company that has to demonstrate that hydrogen is a still alive formula. But it also needs to make profitable an infrastructure that has been dead in the United States practically since its birth. Everything to hydrogen! Toyota’s relationship with hydrogen seems like that of unrequited love. The Japanese have been ensuring for some time that hydrogen is as valid a solution (or even better) than the electric car. Along the way they have developed the Toyota Miraithe first car powered by a fuel cell. In this type of car, a battery inside the car carries out the hydrogen electrolysis process. With this process, electricity is obtained, which is stored in a battery and used by electric motors. The great advantage of the system is that the time spent on “recharge” the car It is the same as filling a gas tank. Furthermore, the car only expels water vapor through its exhaust pipe. Although some polluting substances can also be found in this water vapor, their presence is so low that it is not considered really harmful. The problem is that the use of hydrogen in light transport It is expensive and inefficient. Producing, transporting and storing hydrogen is very expensive given its volatility. For the Toyota Mirai to be able to use this hydrogen, it must have large tanks where it can be kept at a pressure of 600 bars. This leaves the car with almost no storage space because it takes a lot of space to carry a relatively small amount of “fuel.” The other solution they have found is designed for use on the track or with high-performance vehicles, as an alternative to maintain the sensations of a combustion engine but without emitting smoke from the exhaust pipe. This solution goes through burn hydrogen in liquid form but the high cost of storage and the system used continues to be a real problem. A final solution involves heavy transport. Some anticipate that this last option is the most logical since a truck has a lot of space to incorporate huge hydrogen tanks without sacrificing cargo space. Furthermore, if recharging is only carried out in the large industrial centers of the cities, the cost of transportation would be lower because it would not be necessary to distribute it to many small points in the geography of a country. With the aim of demonstrating that the use of hydrogen is reasonable and interesting for heavy transport, the company has reached an agreement with the aforementioned Hyroad Energy. This company is in charge of supplying 40 trucks to the company for its daily tasks. These heavy transport vehicles have a capacity 12 times greater than that of a Toyota Mirai, with a range of more than 800 kilometers. According to the company, refueling this truck only takes between 15 and 20 minutes. Curiously, these trucks with Nikola vehicles, a promising start-up that was betting on electric vehicles for heavy transportation. However, the company went bankrupt last year and was forced to sell its assets. It was at that time when Hyroad Energy acquired a fleet of more than 100 trucks, so those used by Toyota will be electric vehicles converted for use with hydrogen. It is an operation similar to that Stellantis was carrying out in Germany until terminated the project. The story is, if possible, even more bizarre. And it is that Toyota is immersed in a legal dispute with the American owners of some Toyota Mirai who They sued the company for false advertising. They maintain that when they obtained these vehicles, Toyota promised a deployment of its infrastructure that has never occurred. Without that support network, their cars can barely be used. Therefore, even if Toyota uses third-party vehicles, its bet makes some sense. If the company continues to invest in hydrogen, it needs to demonstrate that it is a viable alternative and wants to take advantage of its charging points in the United States to add value to an infrastructure that has been identified as insufficient. The movement also comes when more and more companies are beginning to think about purely electric heavy transport as the ideal solution for the future. Photo | Hyroad Energy In Xataka | Hyundai and Kia want to save combustion by burning hydrogen. And they have a very promising engine in their hands.

the incredible history of the largest castle in the world

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Europe is full of castles, but there are castles and castles and the one of the Teutonic Order in Malbork plays in another league: more than just a building, it is actually a superb Gothic brick complex built in the 13th century. In fact, It is the largest castle in the world on surface. To get the idea, it is four times that of Windsor. Furthermore, it is UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork stands imposingly on the southeastern bank of the Nogat River in northern Poland, and as interesting as its impressive construction and size is its history. Beyond being a witness to Central European history, this building was built by the Teutonic Knights, a militarized German Catholic religious order of crusaders that served to Christianize the entire Baltic coast for centuries. Among other things. A masterpiece of architecture. The intro has served to whet our appetite, but the Ordensburg Marienburg complex is architecturally a marvel: it comes with a huge palace, a monastery, three different castles and hundreds of auxiliary buildings. In essence, they are three castles separated by moats and towers, three castles in one. The castle began to be built around 1274 and reached its maximum splendor in 1406, that is, it took just over 130 years. The complex that had to expand to provide shelter to 3,000 brothers of the Order, thus becoming the largest fortified Gothic building in Europe. For its construction they were needed 30 million bricks. It was impressive inside and out: inside there were amazing innovations for the time, such as hot air central heating and an advanced sewage system. Its large halls have ribbed vaults that are authentic masterpieces of engineering secular gothic Entrance. Diego Delso Why was it built?. The construction of the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork goes hand in hand with the history and future of said militarized religious organization. And at that time, the Teutonic Order was looking for a new Headquarters after its withdrawal from the Holy Land. After a time in Venice, in 1309 Grand Master Siegfried von Feuchtwangen transfer the seat of the Italian city at Malbork, in newly conquered Prussia. The main objective was to reinforce control over the area after the repression of the Great Prussian Revolt of 1274. Thus, that border area became the nerve center of a Monastic State that would govern much of the Baltic. In addition to its religious and military function, the castle was instrumental in establishing a monopoly on amber. thanks to your strategic location along the Nogat, allowing the Teutonic Knights to collect tolls from ships transiting the river to finance their military campaigns against the pagan peoples of Lithuania and convert the fortress into a commercial center integrated into the Hanseatic League. All this allowed them to ensure their economic power of the Teutonic State in the region. Historical context: the Baltic Crusades. Malbork reached its peak during the Baltic Crusades, a period when Germanic military orders sought the forced Christianization of the northeastern peoples of Europe. In this context, the castle not only acted as a military base: it was also its best visual propaganda. A complex of such dimensions is a financial and military ostentation to potential enemies. Come on, such an impressive architectural work shows that you have God on your side. Malbork became the most powerful manifestation of the Crusades in Eastern Europe. From 1309 it was the headquarters of the Order, a role it played until its decline at the beginning of the 15th century. This period coincides with the height of Teutonic power in the Baltic, with the fortress as the political, military and religious epicenter of a sovereign monastic state. Decline, destruction and rebirth. The Teutonic Knights were finally defeated decisively in the Battle of Grunwald on July 15, 1410 at the hands of the armies of Poland and Lithuania with the support of the Tatars. In 1457, during the Thirteen Years’ War, a Bohemian mercenary they sold the castle to King Casimir IV of Poland, becoming a Polish royal residence until 1772. However, the darkest chapter in its history dates back to 1945, on the verge of the end of World War II: the forces of the German army and the Red Army reduced more than half of the structure to rubble, as can be seen. see yourself in these photos. The landscape was so desolate that restoring it seemed like an impossible mission, but the process began in 1947 and is still continuing. Thus, with the passing of the year and the good work of specialists who have used historical documentation for a detailed restoration, they have managed, among other things, to recover the interior of Saint Mary’s church. In 1997 it was declared a World Heritage Site and since 1961 it has housed the Malbork Castle Museum. In Xataka | That Christian Friedrich von Kahlbut died in 1702 is nothing exceptional. That his corpse has not decomposed, yes In Xataka | We just discovered that a semi-legendary Nile king really existed thanks to a 17th century document found in trash Cover | Gregory

the eventful journey of the rover that seeks to make history in 2028

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Rosalind Franklin made one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century. Her colleagues took ownership of her work and received the Nobel Prize and she didn’t even live to see it. When the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to name the ExoMars mission rover with its name, it was not thought that the robot could also drag down the bad luck of his namesake. Unfortunately, it has been dragging on for years with incidents that have delayed its launch. Of course, it seems that at least the Martian Rosalind has finally had a stroke of luck. Everything is ready again for its launch in 2028. There is still time, but there is a lot to do. NASA enters the scene. This April NASA has announced the signing of the Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation (ROSA) project, with which it is committed to supporting ESA during the ExoMars mission. Specifically, the US space agency will provide hardware and services for the mission, including launch service, brake motors for the rover’s landing platform and radioisotope heating units for the robot’s internal systems. The launch system chosen will be through a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, which will depart from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. An unprecedented mission. The ExoMars mission It is made up of two pieces. On the one hand, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which yes it could be launched successfully and has been in Martian orbit since 2016. On the other hand, the Rosalind Franklin rover; which, if all goes well, will be launched at the end of 2028. The orbiter is responsible for studying the Martian atmosphere, while the rover will land on the red planet to search for signs of present or past life under its surface. It will be the first rover with the ability to drill into the ground. Something similar was done with NASA’s Insight missionbut in this case the instrument used was a lander. It couldn’t move around like rovers, so it couldn’t study the planet as thoroughly as Rosalind Franklin will. Many incidents, but there is hope again. The launch of Rosalind Franklin has gone through many incidents. First, there were technical problems and the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the mission to be postponed to 2022. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, was going to be in charge of the launch service. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all commercial relations between ESA and Roscosmos were severed, so the mission had to be postponed. There was no longer any rocket available to travel to Mars and, in addition, some instruments of Russian origin had to be replaced. It has been many years of waiting, but it finally seems that the agreement with NASA has opened the way to continue with the preparations. Donald Trump’s Government was about to ruin the agreementbut finally the support of Congress was stronger. There is much left to do. Before its launch was postponed, the rover underwent multiple tests to verify that it can withstand Martian conditions. For example, In 2018 it was tested in the Tabernas desert, in Almería. This place was chosen among several terrestrial Martian analogues, among other reasons because it contains a mineral called jarosite that has also been found on Mars. Later in 2020, The rover was tested in a laboratory in Toulousein which Martian environmental conditions were emulated. If it worked well then, it should do so now as well. However, the rover may have to undergo new tests to demonstrate that it is still ready to undertake this journey for which it has waited so long. Surely in these two years Rosalind Franklin finally gives us many things to tell. Image | THAT In Xataka | We have been measuring earthquakes on Mars for years to realize something: its core is not like ours

the history of the Torres Colón, the Madrid skyscraper built upside down

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Around here we love megastructures (and who doesn’t), but there are also curious stories in buildings that do not hold records of any kind and that even seem everyday to us. An example are the Columbus Towersin Madrid (Spain), whose architecture and construction posed certain challenges at the time and which almost made the saying “start the house with the roof” literal. There are 23 floors above and six underground, and its construction was possible thanks to the suspended architecture attributed to its architect Antonio Lamela (died in 2017). Or what is the same, the floors hang from each other, so that the upper floors do not rest on the lower ones. Not one tower, but two, and built from top to bottom This popular saying was already stated by Antonio Lamela, its architect, who maintained that towers could only exist if they were built from top to bottom. The reason: the irregular 1,710 square meter plot on which they were going to settle was too small and the municipal ordinance required many parking spaces, as explained in The Country. For this reason, the foundations would have to occupy a small space, hence Lamela began the construction in the opposite direction, something that in the end would cement (pun intended) an architectural work with a unique building in the entire world. and the decision to do two towers and not a single building as the City Council proposed, it was due to the fact that the architect and his staff confirmed that building a single tower would have deteriorated the urban image “due to the implementation of an element of enormous proportions.” Building them there was by no means a coincidence. The site was in the heart of the city and the City Council established that “the building must be an architectural unit of marked verticality”, as explained on the Estudio Lamela website, and there were numerous changes of criteria regarding a project (as we will see later) that had to adapt to a predictable urban framework, but that could never become a reality because of this. Image: Estudio Lamela And why build them? from the top to the base? As the study itself explains, they found a problem that could not be solved with the usual systems: the adaptation of the needs of the building (residential and with commercial spaces on the ground floor) was incompatible with traditional means, in addition to the irregularity of the site. Hence the idea of ​​”hanging” the towers, so that a double structure could be proposed with the two parts independent and in the end there would be a set of three almost independent buildings: the two towers and the one that acts as a base. Thus, the method consisted of raising a narrow pillar in the center (the core), on which to place the hanging platform (that is, the large concrete head). From there the floors were built downwards, the weight of which falls partly on the central pillar and the rest on the side braces. The pressure of the platform was in turn transmitted by these lateral braces, thanks to the tension of steel cables, thus compressing the soles against the head. “It’s like the building was turned upside down.” Antonio Lamela, architect. A project that was changing in its development The design of the Colón Towers, 116 meters high, was planned from the beginning, differentiating itself from what was usually done in “hanging” buildings, starting from steel structural heads. What was done is a design completely in reinforced concrete, using high-resistance post-tensioned concrete and making the slabs of the typical floors rest on their perimeter on the external tie rods, thus not being in tension but compressed against the post-tensioned concrete structure as we have explained before. In this way, the upper structure (in which the installation machinery would be located) receives the load from the 21 suspended slabs, transmitting it to the core, through which it descends to the ground foundation. For the façade, in principle folded sheet metal was used. anodized aluminum bronze color, although as we will see later this was not what was left in the end. They also count in The Country that this green crown art deco so particular, that it has been popularly known as “the plug”, that the reverse construction of this building baffled those who were watching the progress for years. The Colón Towers began to be built in 1967, but in 1970 the Madrid City Council stopped the works due to “political interests”, according to the architect in numerous interviews. With this (and the lawsuits), the City Council’s compensation allowed the initial use for luxury residences that had been planned to change to house offices, restarting the works and finishing them in 1976. A spectacular ending, but it was not the desired one either. The Colón Towers were considered the “building with the most advanced technology in building construction until 1975” made of prestressed concrete at the World Congress of Architecture and Public Works. It was a pioneering work in its construction, although there were already suspended structures (especially bridges) and over time we have seen more examples of both suspended architecture like this way of building them, like the corporate building of the Nykredit bank by Schmidt Hammer, the Media Tic building by Enrique Ruiz Geli or Hovenring, a suspended platform by ipv Delft that we saw talking about When buildings adapt to bicycles (and not the other way around). The project began being called Torres de Jerez, although it was named after Columbus as its construction took hold and was promoted, in the early seventies and by the construction company Osinalde. After deciding that they would be offices and once built, they were acquired by the family Ruiz Mateosbeing later expropriated to finally be bought by the British group Heron International. The construction company decided to change the aesthetics with a glazed exterior skin to avoid revocation, so that there was a double layer that increased … Read more

It has such a mundane history that it is fascinating.

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In the North Atlantic Ocean, off the southern coast of Iceland, there is a solitary building framed in a postcard setting whose image probably sounds familiar to you because it has been photographed to death: it is a small, lonely white house planted in the middle of a rock, surrounded by intense green grass and vertical cliffs that reveal a rough sea and majestic snow-capped mountains in the background. Of course, the house and the island exist: it is not a montage. It is often referred to as “the loneliest house in the world“and around her there are legends like that the singer Björk lived there, that there lived a religious hermit and until it was a billionaire’s idea to flee there in the face of an eventual zombie apocalypse (all false). And one thing is certain: although the idea of ​​the loneliest house in the world sounds exaggerated and difficult to measure, in practice it is close. If it is not the most isolated, it is not missing much. Of course, the reality around it is much more modest and yet interesting: It’s a hunting lodge.now in disuse. A house in the middle of nowhere. Because technically it is not a house, but a hunting lodge that built the Elliðaey Hunting Association in 1953 to provide shelter to its members during the hunting seasons of the puffina most picturesque bird that nests on the island. In 2017, an Icelander named Bjarni Sigurdsson went there to document what was in a video and the truth is that the inventory is quite modest and functional: bunk beds, a room with a long wooden table with chairs, kitchen, radio, candles, refrigerator… come on, a Scandinavian mountain refuge. The shelter does not have an electrical connection to any external electrical network or running water, plumbing or of course the internet. The water comes from a rainwater system and the energy comes from propane gas that has to be transported there. Of course, like good Icelanders, It has its sauna. The best thing in the world after spending several hours exposed to the cold polar wind from the Atlantic. As a curiosity, on the island there is another construction older and much smaller, probably used as a warehouse by research teams studying the nature of the place. Hansueli Krapf Where Christ lost the lighter. The building is in Elliðaey the northeasternmost island of the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago (called the Vestman Islands or Westman Islands), about eight kilometers off the south coast of Iceland. The archipelago is made up of 18 islets of volcanic origin originated in the last 12,000 yearswhich in geological terms makes them “newborn” territory. The largest island and the only one currently inhabited is Heimaey, with about 4,400 inhabitants. From there on clear days you can see Elliðaey. With just 45 hectares, to give us an idea, Elliðaey has an area similar to that of the Vatican. And its almost vertical cliffs, its sloping plateau and the absence of any port or docking area make getting there impractical: you have to jump from a boat and then climb to reach the meadow, as Bjarni Sigurdsson’s excursion documents. This Iceland tourist guide reflects the difficulty of getting there due to its remote location, the lack of a port and the protection provided by the Icelandic government, since it is classified as a protected area. The island is abandoned. Today no one lives there, but Elliðaey was not always empty. The book “Iceland Adventure Guide” is mentioned that in the past there were fishing camps scattered throughout the island and that there were up to three farms, so that 17 people and 258 sheep and even cows lived there. This census continued until the 20th century: in 1920 there were only five people and around that period Olafur Jonsson and his family became the first fox breeders on the islands. A cycle of precarious occupation, dependent on the sea and the climate that was slowly exhausted. Finally, in the 1930s it became uninhabited. Two decades later, the Hunting Association built the refuge. That void between the last inhabitant and the white cabin is, perhaps, what gives the image its very particular character: it is neither an abandoned house nor a new house, but something in between, a place that was once human, stopped being human, and became human again in the most minimalist way possible. Getting there is quite an adventure, so it’s best to see it from the boat. Diego Delso What is it for today?. We have already seen the concrete and unglamorous function of the hut for which it was built: it is a hunting base for the puffin. Puffin hunting is a centuries-old tradition in the Westman Islands, where the bird has historically been a source of food and continues to be practiced in a regulated manner. Of course, puffin populations have been in decline for years in several areas of Iceland due to the change in ocean conditions and the reduction of their food source, so hunting is becoming increasingly residual. Snopes concludes It is not clear that hunters continue to use the refuge and there are no signs of hunting. In practice, today it is probably more of a tourist attraction than a hunting refuge. Björk’s story. That the Icelandic singer lives there or even owns it is one of the most widespread rumors because, well, the Prime Minister of Iceland sowed the seed: the island was (and is) state property, but the then top leader Davíð Oddsson declared that he was willing to give her the island and build a house for Björk to live there rent-free as a sign of gratitude for her work for the benefit of the country and its people. Of course, the island was not “our” Elliðaey (the one with “the loneliest house in the world”), but another Elliðaey, which is in Breiðafjörður. According to the Irish Examinerthe singer turned down the island’s offer because she didn’t want her home to … Read more

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