history

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

In London someone has paid 310 million for the most expensive house in history. It is proof that the luxury market has no ceiling

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In the world there are expensive houses (increasingly), very expensive houses and then houses within reach only of the greatest fortunes on the planet, like the one that has just been sold in London for a whopping 270 million poundsabout 310 million euros at the exchange rate. The figure is shocking in itself (it is the same that has been paid in other parts of Europe to build a stadium), but it becomes even more interesting when another detail is known: everything indicates that it is the most expensive home sold to date in an operation of that type, focused on a single residence. To get the keys, its new owner, an influential British businessman, had to beat three royal families from the Middle East. What has happened? that the real estate market premium has just reached one of those milestones that sound almost like science fiction, at least among ordinary mortals. The British press has revealed that a wealthy businessman in the country has closed the purchase of the most expensive home sold to date. And “more expensive” can be understood in a literal sense. Although it is not easy to talk about world records in a sector in which properties do not always go on the market nor are operations advertised, the Bloomberg agency slide which is probably the largest sale in history centered on a property of its type: a single single-family home. It is not crazy if you take into account that the transaction was signed for 270 million pounds, about 310 million euros. Some sources raise the figure to more than 315 million. What is the housing like? The property is called Providence House (formerly Gordon House) and is a huge 19th century mansion located in the Chelsea neighborhood of west London. The plot once housed the residence of the British Prime Minister Robert Walpolebut for years it has belonged to Nick Candya London businessman linked to the brick sector and the Reform UK party. Beyond its privileged location, in the heart of one of the most expensive cities on the planet, the house surprises with its figures: the house stands on a plot of two acres (just over 8,000 m2) with a lake and swimming pool and Georgian style decoration. Media like Financial Times they need which has a private cinema with IMAX screen, greenhouse and the second largest garden from the center of London. It is only surpassed by the one surrounding Buckingham Palace. Who bought it? The buyer is Sunel Setiya, co-founder of Quadrature Capitala trading firm that according to Bloomberg data obtained a profit of 411 million pounds in the financial year ending January 2025. Although with Providence House he has broken all the molds, this is not the first time that Setiya has made headlines for his taste for luxury homes… and his enormous generosity in paying for them. In his day he already paid 110 million pounds for a penthouse in One Hyde Park. And that the property, of around 1,300 m2lacked interior divisions and required works. The Times details which on this occasion has had to pay more than 31 million pounds for property tax alone. The operation certainly marks a before and after in the British real estate market. The most expensive house sold in the United Kingdom before Setiya took out his checkbook was the mansion known as 2-8A Rutland Gate, awarded in 2020 for £210 million to Hui Kan Yan, founder of the Chinese developer Evergrande Group. Click on the image to go to the tweet. And who sold it? Nick Candy, another British tycoon who shares Setiya’s taste for exclusive homes. In fact, he has a penthouse in the same complex that is also for sale for around £175 million. Nick and his brother Christian are known in the sector for the development of the complex One Hyde Parkmade up of 86 apartments and duplexes in the heart of Knightsbridge. Beyond their taste for luxury homes, Setiya and Candy are at opposite poles on an ideological level. The first (Setiya) is a important donor of the Labor Party and dedicates large sums of money through his company to fighting climate change. Nick Candy however is a prominent figure of Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s far-right party. Have there been more interested parties? Ideological differences do not seem to have been an obstacle to closing the operation. In fact, to become the new owner of Providence House Setiya had to prevail over three Middle Eastern royal families also interested in the luxurious London mansion. Given its characteristics (and amounts), the operation was carried out outside the market. The operation represents a lifeline for the luxury residential market in London, which, as remember Five Daysis not going through its best moment. According to LonRes, 2025 was the second time since 2011 that no sales of more than £50 million were closed and in February transactions worth five million (or more) suffered a year-on-year drop of 55%. The puncture coincides with a tax change that directly affects properties. Image | Jaanus Jagomagi (Unsplash) In Xataka | If the question is whether house prices will rise forever, London has the answer. And it is a warning for Madrid

Iceland was one of the last places on the planet that mosquitoes had not reached. That’s now history

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For centuries, Iceland has held the ‘privilege’ of being one of the few habitable places on Earth where mosquitoes did not exist, something that can be a source of envy for many, especially with the arrival of summer. All thanks to its particular climate, with constant cycles of freezing and thawing that prevented the larvae from maturing, it acted as an insurmountable biological shield. However, climate change and human action have just broken down this barrier and this Icelandic ‘exceptionality’ has ended. The discovery. The history of this biological invasion starts in October 2025where Björn Hjaltason, a resident of the Kjós region noticed the presence of some unusual insects in his garden. From there he wanted to see them closer, and to capture them he used a fairly rudimentary method based on some ropes soaked in red wine. With this trap he obtained three specimens that were immediately sent to the Icelandic Institute of Natural Sciences, where the entomologist Matthías Alfreðsson confirmed the unthinkable: they were two females and a male. Culiseta annulataa species of mosquito common in Europe, but which had never managed to establish itself on the island of ice and fire. How have they arrived? Their disembarkation in the country may have been conditioned to different situations, such as travel aboard ships that came from Europe or even in the landing gear of commercial airplanes. All this, added to increasingly higher temperatures in Iceland, means that we are facing a major ecosystem problem. A hot Arctic. This very rudimentary discovery has served as a substrate for a profound analysis that has been published in the magazine Science, where it is noted that the appearance of mosquitoes in Iceland is only the symptom of a radical transformation throughout the Arctic. And global warming is affecting this region at breakneck speed, since the Arctic is warming four times faster than the world average. This thermal increase is not only allowing invasive species to survive the Icelandic winters, but is causing a serious biological imbalance throughout the boreal region. A domino effect. The arrival of mosquitoes and the alteration of the populations of native arthropods is not only a problem of annoying bites for its inhabitants or tourists, but it is a threat for birds. Here the early thaw is causing the peak of insect abundance to no longer coincide with the breeding season of waders, leaving them without their main source of food when they need it most. Furthermore, the large swarms of mosquitoes in arctic areas are already affecting the behavior of reindeer, which spend vital energy fleeing from the swarms instead of feeding, compromising their winter survival. That is why experts point to the need to control the arthropods that arrive in the region and, above all, a tracking system for these ecological changes that are so relevant. Images | Andreas M In Xataka | Mosquitoes attack me in summer and I tried these TikTok tricks to get rid of them

Meta will surpass Google in digital advertising for the first time in history

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That Google is the queen of online advertising is one of the great constants of the Internet, but everything indicates that the reign is approaching its end. If the predictions come true, for the first time in history, Meta will be the company that generates the most advertising revenue. Projections. At the moment the surprise has not occurred, but the projections of the advertising analysis firm Emarketer are clear: Meta is going to snatch the throne of online advertising from Google in 2026. Specifically, they project that Meta will earn 243.46 billion dollars from advertising, while Google will earn 239.54 billion. Why is it important. Google’s dominance in the online advertising market was absolute. In fact, that domain has been in the regulators’ crosshairs for years and It has become very expensive for Google. Meta’s surprise, although not by a huge difference, is confirmation that the internet has been reconfigured with social networks and that the cake is much more distributed. Considering that Google has built its empire on the foundation of online advertising, it is even more relevant. The Meta Boost: AI. Meta has a portfolio of products with millions of users such as Instagram, Facebook, Threads and WhatsApp. According to Emarketer, the company has been “incredibly patient” in building solid usage habits in its user base before introducing ads. But what has caused this acceleration has been the integration of AI in content recommendation systems. This has allowed them to increase the viewing time of Reels by 30%, which translates into more advertising and therefore more income, specifically they are expected to reach the 50,000 million only with Reels. Goal Advantage+. It is the suite with AI that Meta offers advertisers. In addition to offering the platform to advertise, Meta also provides a ton of tools ranging from advertising actions to the creation of the ads themselves with generative audio, text and video AI. According to the brand’s results, revenue from video generation reached $10 billion in the last quarter of 2025. It was seen coming. It is not something that happened overnight, but rather The change has been in the works for years.. The displacement of searches was moving to other specialized platforms such as Amazon, Instagram or TikTok. With the emergence of AI, the landscape has become even more fragmented: with chatbots that provide answers to many user queries without us going through the classic search engine. Google is no longer the ‘default’ when doing a search, especially for younger generations who prefer audiovisual content. OpenAI enters the business. A few days ago we talked about OpenAI’s ambitious plans for its newly launched advertising business. The company hopes that, by 2030, they will have generated $100 billion with ads on ChatGPT, that’s nothing. It is still a much smaller amount than those managed by Meta or Google in a year, but it is enough for the impact to be noticeable. With social networks the exodus of searches began and perhaps we are facing the second great displacement. Time will tell. Image | Xataka, with Gemini In Xataka | The US has just opened a new wound in the Google empire: the justice system declares part of its advertising business illegal

In 1953 Hollywood filmed a blockbuster in front of US nuclear tests. It was the most radioactive movie in history, literally

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Year 1953, during a nuclear test in the Nevada desert, several Las Vegas hotels offered their guests privileged views of the mushroom cloud at dawn as if it were a tourist attraction at Disneyland, with cocktails included and terraces full of spectators. The scene, which is difficult to imagine today, reflected the extent to which certain risks were perceived very differently in the midst of the nuclear age. Filming in the Cold War. In the mid-50s, The Conqueror It was born as a historical blockbuster that from the beginning involved decisions that were difficult to justify, such as choosing John Wayne to play Genghis Khan himself under the production of Howard Hughes. Filming moved to locations in Utah, an area that offered spectacular landscapes but was, at the time, close to areas where the United States was filming atmospheric nuclear tests. The context was not a secret, but its risks were not fully understood either, since public and scientific perception of radiation was much more limited than today. That combination of cinematic ambition and geopolitical moment left a scenario that, seen with perspective, is much more disturbing than what it seemed like then. The real environment. This perfectly documented that nuclear testing in the Nevada desert generated radioactive fallout that moved to populated areas, subsequently affecting known communities as “downwinders”. It is also proven that the filming team worked in one of those regions, and that part of the surrounding material was transferred to other sets, potentially expanding exposure. This context is neither a theory nor a subsequent reconstruction, but a historical fact recognized by investigations and official organizations that have studied the consequences of those tests. The passage of time and the uncomfortable statistics. What happened? That, over the years, a significant part of the cast and production team developed cancerincluding figures such as John Wayne himself (who died of the disease in 1979), Susan Hayward and Dick Powell. The most cited figure that gives an idea of ​​the possible impact speaks of more than 90 cases among about 220 people linked to the production, a fact that has fueled the fame of the filming as one of the most disturbing and cursed in the history of Hollywood. Even so, we must remember that this number comes from of informative accounts and not from controlled epidemiological studies, which requires treating it with some caution despite its impact. What is proven and what is not. The line between facts and story is key in history. It’s proven that there was exposure to a potentially contaminated environment and that several team members developed serious illnesses over time. What is not proven is a direct causal relationship between filming and these cancers, since factors such as personal habits (including smoking) and the lack of comparable clinical data, facts or causalities may enter, making any definitive conclusion difficult. Therefore, the case remains an ambiguous terrain: perfectly plausible in its approach, but not scientifically confirmed. From failure to modern myth. Upon its release, the film was received quite coldly and criticalremaining in the popular imagination as another failure within the industry. However, as the decades passed, his memory has changed completely, transforming into a story that combines Hollywood, Cold War and invisible risk. What at the time was simply a bad creative and logistical decision ended up being reinterpreted as an episode from the world of celluloid. loaded with symbolism about the limits of knowledge and (i)responsibility. The context changes everything. Because the story of The Conqueror lies not only in what happened during filming, but in how that same filming fits within an era in which exposure to nuclear risks formed part of the everyday landscape. There is no doubt, what seemed acceptable then is today perceived as true nonsense, and this radical change of perspective is what turns the case into something more than a movie anecdote. It wasn’t just a problematic shoot, but an example of how seemingly normal decisions can take on a completely different meaning. with the passage of time. Image | RKO In Xataka | The day a man dared to go further than anyone else: a real fight with Bruce Lee where there were no limits In Xataka | One of the most iconic scenes from ‘A Clockwork Orange’ had an infallible trick: the pain you saw in the scene was not fiction

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