Hundreds

hundreds of Chinese boats preying on fishing grounds

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There are maps that speak for themselves, like the ones has disclosed during the last few days the Ecologist Movement of Peru (MEP), an organization dedicated to the defense of the environment. Last week its managers hung up two satellite maps in which dozens and dozens of colored arrows can be seen crowded together in the Pacific, just off the coast of Mollendo. Each one of them, MEP complaintreveals the position of a Chinese ship that goes to the edges of Peru’s national waters in search of its squid schools. His presence already has put on guard to local fishermen. What has happened? That MEP has stirred up an old debate in Peru (and other nations of South America): the impact that the Chinese flag fleet has on the maritime resources of the region. On June 22, the organization published a satellite map online showing the concentration of dozens and dozens of ships just 220 nautical miles off the coast of Mollendo, south of Peru. According to the organization environmentalist, there are around “300 Chinese vessels” dedicated to “exploiting fishing outside the limits” of their national waters. Just one day later, on June 23, MEP returned to the fray with another satellite map that shows a long trail formed over the Pacific by ship marking points. “Satellite images from June 1 to 19 show that the Foreign Squid Fleet has completed its migration (north-south) along the edge of the Peruvian EEZ,” warned the entity. “Around 400 Chinese fishing vessels are concentrated 220 miles off the coast of Mollendo.” @ecocentristas This is what the fleet of around 300 Chinese fishing vessels that are concentrated 220 miles off the coast of Mollendo looks like 🇵🇪 🛰️These are China’s boats, exploiting fishing off the limits of the seas of Peru. 🇵🇪🦑🦑🦑 Ecological Movement of Peru ♬ original sound – Ecologist Movement of Peru – Ecologist Movement of Peru What is the problem? Basically the number and location of that large fleet of fishing vessels. If MEP is correct, these are hundreds of Asian ships mobilized right on the border of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a region in which the coastal States (in this case Peru) have sovereign jurisdiction, which affects, among other things, their natural resources. The EEZ usually extends 200 miles, which would put the Chinese fishing fleet almost on the edge. The problem is that, beyond the demarcations drawn in offices or the distances included in international treaties, the Peruvian EEZ is situated in a much larger context: the ecosystem of the humboldt currentmaking that region of the Pacific especially valuable for fishermen. The UN itself recognizes that it is one of the “most productive areas in the world”, although it has also been warning for years about the serious threat which involves both climate change and the overexploitation of its fishing resources. What impact does it have? The million dollar question. In 2025 the newspaper The Republic public a report in which he echoed several complaints from Peru’s artisanal fishermen: incursions by Chinese vessels into the EEZ, indiscriminate exploitation of resources and fear that squid schools would be depleted. “The Peruvian boats go out, but they don’t bring the amount they used to. The Chinese boats prey on the sea, our boats are small, everything is done by hand. On the other hand, they have machines that take the fish faster,” explained to the newspaper Alberto Sánchez, fisherman from Paita, from Lima. Sailors dedicated to the artisanal capture of Pucusana even have denounced the sighting of large vessels in the 200 miles of the Peruvian EEZ despite the fact that the fleets must transmit their position via satellite. @ecocentristas 🛰️ Satellite images from June 1 to 19, 2026 show that the Foreign Squid Fleet has completed its migration (north-south) along the edge of the Peruvian EEZ. Around 400 Chinese fishing vessels are concentrated 220 miles off the coast of Mollendo. 🇵🇪 @ecocentristas ♬ original sound – Ecologist Movement of Peru – Ecologist Movement of Peru Is it something new? No. In 2024 MEP already launched a similar complaint. He even shared a map showing the accumulation of Asian ships right on the border of the Peruvian EEZ. “Where is the foreign squid fleet located? How many ships are there? What type of vessels are they and how many are in Peruvian ports?” I questioned the organization. A few days ago, after its last complaint, the Peruvian Navy (MGP) carried out an exploration flight which confirmed that, at least today, the foreign fishing fleet operates outside the Peruvian maritime domain, 230 miles away. Does it only affect Peru? No. The debate regarding the presence (and impact) of foreign fishing vessels on the South American coast is not new and goes far beyond Peru, also extending to nations such as Chili. Infoae cites studies that estimate that in 2024, 1,359 vessels will operate in the 500 nautical miles located off the coast of Peru. Of them, 525almost 40%, were ships of Chinese origin, a figure that far exceeds those of other nationalities. MEP’s warning also comes just a few days after Sustainable Fisheries Partnesihp launched a statement resounding in which they warn of the importance of not overexploiting the region’s resources. Hence, among other things, it requires that any legislative change be supported by a “scientific basis”. In the specific case of Peru, the agency warns of the registration of around 2,000 new vessels “built outside the legal framework” at a time when “the fishery has captured 83.27% of the quota” planned for this year. Does context matter? Yes. And not only because of the warnings from environmentalists or the misgivings of the sector. Two years ago the organization The Outlaw Ocean published a report in which he warned that China’s fishing footprint goes far beyond its fishing grounds or Asian flag vessels. The country also operates in other waters of South America, Africa and the Pacific thanks to ‘flagging’, which basically consists of arranging for a ship to fly the … Read more

“A microsecond lag in GPS could miss a moon landing by hundreds of meters”

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The competition and space disagreements between the United States and China are one of the main geopolitical problems in 21st century science. We might think that this effort to be first only harms them, but in reality it can be a problem for anyone who enters the space race. There are many issues that serve as examples, although the most recent is the one that concerns lunar time. It has long been clear that there must be a lunar standard time, but The United States has decided to establish a and China another. The consequence is a weak satellite navigation system, which can affect anyone who wants to land on the Moon. At the moment, it seems that NASA is the most advanced in this regard, but it is possible that it will have to do so under Chinese standards, so the conflict, if they do not agree, is served. Two hours for one place. USA has agreed determine the lunar time under something called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC). That would be the time under which the LunaNet satellites would work, a satellite system projected by NASA in 2019in order to control the first navigation system of our satellite. For its part, China has decided to establish the time according to the Lunar Time Ephemeris (LTE-440). This is the system with which both Queqiao-1 and Queqiao-2, the only two lunar relay satellites that are currently active, maneuver. They are designed for communications and would be the first step towards a lunar GPS system. Why is it necessary? Gravity is very different on Earth and the Moon. We know that gravity, in addition to generating attraction on bodies, also curves space-time. As a consequence, time passes more slowly the greater the gravity. And what does that mean? Well, basically, time passes faster on the Moon. Specifically, 56 microseconds faster. That means we can’t use the same time on Earth as we do on the Moon. Our natural satellite needs its own schedule. Be careful with the GPS. GPS systems work by signaling temporal signals measured by satellites. It measures how long it takes for the satellite signal to get from one point to another and, thus, the distance can be calculated. Therefore, it is very important that satellites and clocks work with the same time system. When traveling to the Moon, you should take into account how the satellites used by GPS measure time. But we have already seen that China and the United States do not agree on that. For now, LunaNet is nothing more than a project. The Chinese lunar GPS system too, but at least there are already satellites. Those from the United States have not been launched. Therefore, if NASA lands on the Moon without taking into account the Chinese time system, there could be problems. Just a microsecond of difference in lunar time can affect hundreds of meters away. That can be very dangerous in the face of a moon landing. China has already tried it. The Asian country is the only one that has landed a ship on the far side of the moon. Terrestrial radio systems do not reach this area of ​​our satellite. Therefore, this unmanned moon landing had complete dependence on Queqiao-1. It was proven to work, as the moon landing was a success. But of course, the ship was synchronized with the satellite time system. It is necessary to reach agreements. Sometimes these types of political disagreements make scientists quite lazy. They may want to reach agreements to work in a safer way. At the moment, NIST, which is the United States Standards Institute, is having conversations with the Purple Mountain Observatory (Zijinshan). This institution is one of the main managers of Chinese satellites, so its decisions are very important in the decision to use one time system or another. For everyone to achieve their goals, this time it would be necessary to work as a team. The grudges and competitions could end up delaying the space race for both sides. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | Mars was the great space battleground between China and the US. Now it’s the Moon and there’s too much at stake

The European Union is successfully demolishing hundreds of dams across the continent. It’s for our good

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When Tore Sorebakken and a team of workers reached the Vinstra River in the heart of Norway in December 2025, no one knew what they were looking for. But when they emptied the pond, drilled dozens of holes and installed 750 kilos of explosives, local authorities stopped them and asked them what why were they trying to destroy that natural waterfall. Sorebakken, surprised, had to explain to them that this was actually a dam built at the beginning of the 20th century to facilitate the transportation of wood and generate a minimum amount of hydroelectric energy. The locals had completely forgotten about it: as I say, they had no idea that it was a human infrastructure. And that is a beautiful metaphor for the enormous abandonment that European rivers have suffered for decades. Free the rivers. Six years ago, the demolition of old dams and clogged weirs was anecdotal in Europe. But in 2024 it came into force European Union Nature Restoration Regulation. It sought to return 25,000 kilometers of river to “free-flow” status before 2030. Since then (since before, really, because there were countries that began to implement it before it came into force) we have had five consecutive years of historical highs. In 2025, according to Dam Removal Europe annual reportat least 603 barriers were removed on the continent. This allowed more than 3,740 kilometers of river to be reconnected. The ‘more’ in the previous paragraph is because reconnection data is only available for 198 of the 603 barriers removed. But why do we want to ‘reconnect kilometers of river’? There are many data, but one that is especially clear is that More than 42% of European freshwater fish species are threateneds and about two-thirds are at risk of being so. Whether we like it or not, 9 out of 10 natural disasters in the European Union in the last decade have had to do with water. And having the rivers full of forgotten structures is part of the problem. ‘Taking back control’ of rivers is essential to reduce the risks of contemporary European society. But that will have consequences, right? This can be read in many places: that European policies of “dam demolition” aggravate droughts. The problem is, of course, that is inaccurate. At least, if we go by the majority of the demolitions. Almost everything that is being torn down are weirs of less than two meters. That is, small barriers that do not store water, but rather raise the sheet to divert flow to an irrigation canal, hydroelectric plant or mill. In fact, most of them should already be demolished because the concessions that allowed them have expired, but no one has paid special attention to it. Until now. Image | Red Zeppelin In Xataka | “In the next ten years, Spain and Latin America are going to suffer (a lot) with water,” Robert Glennon (University of Arizona)

Sudan hid hundreds of unknown tombs of a lost civilization. They have appeared thanks to satellites

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If there is a known civilization within the African continent, it is Ancient Egypt and figures like Ramses or Cleopatra. However, relatively nearby there was another kingdom studied at length by archaeology: Nubia (although less famous to the general public). And between the two, a desert to pass by, literally and figuratively. Because there is the Atbai desert, a region between the Nile and the Red Sea where an archeology team just discovered hundreds of tombs from more than 5,000 years ago arranged in a monumental way, as you can see on these lines. The discovery. An international archeology team has identified 280 stone funerary monuments scattered throughout the desert, of which only 20 were known to exist. That is, 260 are “new.” The funeral complex has been called Atbai Enclosure Burials and its construction probably dates back to between 4500 and 2500 BC. These structures consist of large circular or ovoid enclosures delimited by large walls made of local stone, whose diameters vary from five meters in the most modest examples to reaching 82 meters. Inside they have found remains of both humans and cattle, sheep and goats. The internal layout of some tombs points to a certain social inequality: in several landmarks there is a central burial that dominates the structure, with other humans and animals arranged around it. In fact, the tomb with the most grave goods contained the remains of about 18 cows. Why is it important. Because these tombs suggest that the region was not a mere passageway between civilizations, but the home where pastoral people lived. The Atbai Desert was not a no man’s land between Egypt and the Red Sea, but had its own identity. As suggests the paperthe monuments are the cultural expression of a society with social strata in which wealth was evidenced with rituals, these stone milestones and livestock, like other neighboring regions. Context. According to previous excavations and the radiocarbon used on them, these monuments were probably built during the decline of the African Humid Period, when that area located in northeastern Africa went from more humid conditions to aridity because at that time the Atbai desert was not such: it contained vegetation and water sources, even if they were seasonal. As the climate became harsher, herding cows also became a more arduous task, so they adapted their herds: sheep, goats and finally camels. How they discovered it. In a word: satellites. The team made up of archaeologists from Macquarie University, France’s HiSoMA research unit and the Polish Academy of Sciences used satellite remote sensing over the eastern Sudan desert to map 1,000 kilometers of desert in search of more clues to its history. Why would an archaeologist want to avoid digging? Basically because in Sudan there is an armed conflict which means that field work can be directly lethal. But in addition to locating the tombs, the satellite images also revealed dense networks of ancestral trails engraved in the landscape by the repeated passage of livestock between grazing areas and water sources, a direct and visible trace of livestock activity linked to the funerary sites. That is, they not only found where they buried their dead, but also the paths they traveled in life. Yes, but. The first “but” is obvious: the majority of this funerary display has only been seen on satellite and has not been excavated, which leaves basic information such as precise dating in the air. On the other hand, this discovery located in the Atbai Desert could be just the tip of the iceberg: others may have been lost due to erosion, floods or even modern mining, which is very active in the area. The authors themselves acknowledge that they do not know with certainty whether these structures are exclusive to the Atbai or if they existed in neighboring regions and simply have not survived. The million-dollar question is: if in a desert as little studied as this one, 260 monuments have just appeared at once, how much history of the pastoralist Sahara will still be hidden under the sand waiting to be discovered? In Xataka | We just discovered that a semi-legendary Nile king really existed thanks to a 17th century document found in trash In Xataka | A Spaniard claims to have solved how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built: the answer was right under our noses Cover | Atbai Enclosure Burials: Monumentalism, Pastoralism and Environmental Change in the Mid-Holocene East Nubian Deserts edited with Gemini

Alcasec managed to access hundreds of thousands of banking details in Spain: now it has accepted prison

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There are cybersecurity cases that seem distant until they force us to look inward. We are not talking about a large foreign technology company or a gap lost in some remote corner of the Internet, but rather about banking data of citizens in Spain, access linked to public infrastructure and a chain that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, ended with hundreds of thousands of records entered into a portal for sale. What we have seen with Alcasec It matters not only because of the name itself, but because of what it reveals: personal information has become a very valuable commodity. The agreement. This part of the case has been settled in the National Court with an agreement between the accused and the Prosecutor’s Office. According to EFEJosé Luis Huertas, alias Alcasec, has accepted a sentence of two years and seven months in prison for the crimes of illegal access to computer systems and discovery and disclosure of secrets. The Prosecutor’s Office initially requested three years, but applied the mitigating circumstance of confession. Along with him, Daniel BE and Juan Carlos OG, thus identified in the judicial information, have also accepted a sentence: two years and two months for the first as a cooperator and one year and three months for the second for discovery of secrets. The access. The indictment describes an entry built in layers, not a simple stroke of luck. On October 19, 2021, Alcasec contracted two massive data storage systems with Cherry Servers, a company based in Lithuania, using an email account created when he was a minor to hide his identity. Later, Daniel BE, whom the Prosecutor’s Office links to Russian forums specialized in the unauthorized sale of passwords, provided him with a stolen digital certificate issued to the General Directorate of Traffic. With that certificate, always according to the accusation, he managed to navigate the SARA network, connect to the CGPJ Judicial Neutral Point website and obtain the credentials of an official from a Bilbao court. The impersonation. The next step, always according to the Prosecutor’s Office, was to convert that first access into a way to obtain more credentials. Alcasec and Daniel BE created a page that pretended to be the access website to the Judicial Neutral Point, and the former sent a text chain to different courts that redirected to that false page. Two officials mistakenly entered their passwords, which allowed the scope of the attack to expand. The mechanics are important because they show that the intrusion did not depend only on a technical vulnerability, but also on deception of real users. The scale. With these credentials, according to the indictment, Alcasec made 438,099 requests to the Tax Agency’s “extended bank accounts” web service and shortly after carried out a second attack. The data is not minor: we are not talking about an isolated query, but rather a massive volume of queries to sensitive information through a system connected to the Administration. For the sale of data, some of relevant people, the portal was available. The reduction. The accepted sentence does not come out of nowhere, but from an agreement in accordance with the Prosecutor’s Office. As we noted above, the initial request was for three years in prison, but it was reduced to two years and seven months when the mitigating circumstance of confession for the recognized crimes was applied. The prosecutor also valued the collaboration of the accused during the investigation, particularly in providing their codes and passwords. In addition, they accepted the confiscation of the effects and the physical and virtual money seized in the searches carried out in Madrid, Cartagena and Dos Hermanas. Another investigation. There is an important nuance to not mix planes. Alcasec has been in provisional prison for a year for a different reason, related to a network of cyberattacks that seized sensitive and private data of millions of citizens and that he allegedly led. In that investigation he was arrested along with former Secretary of State for Security Francisco Martínez, currently on trial for Operation Kitchen. The reading. What this case leaves behind is not only an accepted conviction, but a fairly clear photograph of where part of cybercrime has moved. We are no longer just talking about entering a system, but about chaining access, taking advantage of real credentials, consulting sensitive services and preparing information for sale. Images | Capture YouTube In Xataka | We have spoken with one of the leading cybersecurity companies in Spain. And his diagnosis is not encouraging

six companies, hundreds of millions of dollars and 25 missions to conquer the South Pole

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NASA has already launched phase 1 of construction of your moon base. They have not yet taken a new batch of humans to the Moon, but it is important to prepare the ground, which is why this Tuesday they announced the first steps they are taking to do so. And, as it could not be otherwise, it all starts with million-dollar hires. 6 companies in total. At the moment, NASA has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in hiring six companies that will be in charge of developing the technologies necessary to launch the first phase of the lunar base. The companies in question are Blue Origin, Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Astrolab, Lunar Outpost and Firefly Aerospace. In general, in this first phase of construction of the lunar base it is expected to explore the south polar region, test various technologies and prepare surface operations. All of this will be carried out through 25 missions that will include 21 moon landings. Moon Base 1. To begin with, the first three missions are expected to launch this year. The first, Moon Base 1, will be carried out by Blue Origin. Jeff Bezos’ company will take its lander to the Moon Blue Moon Mark 1the “brother” of the Blue Moon Mark 2 that is preparing to become the human landing system for the Artemis missions. As payload will include the Stereoscopic Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies to study how thrusters interact with the lunar surface, and the Laser Retroreflective Array, which helps spacecraft in orbit determine a more precise location using reflected laser light. The mission will take place in autumn 2026 if all goes well. Since it will be the first to land in the Shackleton crater, where the base is to be built, it will also be in charge of checking the viability of lunar landings near the lunar base. Moon Base 2. The second mission, which will also travel to the Moon at the end of 2026, will be carried out by Astrobotic. It will send its Griffin lander to the Moon, loaded with 500 kg of instrumentation, including a rover to study the surface on which the base will be built and mature the mobility systems for future manned vehicles. Moon Base 3. The third mission to be sent in 2026 has been granted to Intuitive Machines. This company will take its Nova-C Trinity lunar module there, which will be in charge of studying lunar eddies and the behavior of materials under extreme conditions. Furthermore, this mission will not be 100% private, as it will include payloads from the European Space Agency and the Korean Institute of Astronomy and Space Sciences. Some of the models that NASA showed during the press conference Boogies to move around the Moon. So that future astronauts who travel to the lunar base can move around it, they want to take two manned lunar vehicles there. Said so that we can all understand each other, two boogie-type strollers, designed to move around the lunar surface, both with and without a crew. Its development has been entrusted to the companies Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, also as part of this first phase. Delimitation drones. The company Firefly Aerospace has been entrusted with taking the 4 Moonfall drones to the Moon, whose main mission will be to inspect the area in search of the best landing places for the astronauts. Although they will also have a much more peculiar mission. As explained At NASA’s press conference, its executive director of the lunar base program, Carlos García-Galan, these drones will also be stationed in the corners to delimit the perimeter of the lunar base. Next phases. This first phase will last until 2029. Then the next phase will begin, which will end in 2032. In this, the permanent infrastructure of the lunar base will begin to be built, including electrical installation. From then on, it will only be necessary to refine more and more details and little by little receive the astronauts of the Artemis missions of the future. Without a doubt, this is the beginning of a new era of space exploration. Image | POT In Xataka | We knew there was water on the Moon, but not why some craters were empty. Finally we have the answer

We have hundreds of abandoned silos in Spain. Extremadura has found the perfect technology to convert them into batteries

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There are industrial infrastructures that, when they stop being useful, end up blending into the landscape without making much noise, turned into concrete ghosts. The old grain silos, which for decades were the vibrant heart of the agricultural economy of many towns, are today the best example of this reality in rural Spain. However, the energy transition has brought them a destiny that is as unexpected as it is promising. The region of Extremadura has decided to give a second life to these abandoned giants next to roads and plains, transforming them into enormous facilities to store renewable energy. Silos in batteries. All of this materializes under the THESILO projecta cross-border initiative that has just been officially presented in the small town of Torremocha in Cáceres. There, the City Council has donated a disused silo to house the first experimental pilot that will test this technology in real conditions. The urgency of this essay is better understood when looking at the sector’s figures: over the last year, according to data from Red Eléctrica de España (REE)nearly 10,000 MW of new renewable power were installed in the country. The conflict arises when this enormous production is concentrated at specific times of the day, especially with photovoltaic technology. In very sunny regions like Extremadura, the electrical grid collapses as it cannot absorb all the available energy, causing the dreaded “dumps”: plants that must stop their production because there is nowhere to store the electricity and the energy is wasted. So the solution proposed by THESILO is brilliant in its simplicity: take advantage of these enormous concrete structures to store electrical surpluses in the form of heat. Nordic inspiration. Although visually it may seem like science fiction, this concept already has a solid precedent in northern Europe. In Finland already operates successfully the system Power to Heat (energy to heat) through gigantic “sand batteries”. In the town of Pornainen, a silo filled with 2,000 tonnes of crushed soapstone is capable of storing heat at temperatures of up to 500°C for months, achieving an efficiency of between 85% and 90%. The Extremaduran project It is based on the same principle: When renewable production skyrockets and electricity loses value in the market, that excess energy will be used to power high-efficiency resistors that will generate heat. This heat will be trapped inside the silo using very low-cost granular materials as a storage medium. There is no need to use construction sand; The use of recycled waste from quarries, industrial by-products and demolition materials that resist high temperatures in a stable and economical manner will be investigated. Once stored, the objective is that this heat can be distributed through thermal exchange systems to supply the local agri-food industry, public buildings or homes in the surrounding municipalities. The project, whose execution It is scheduled between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2028, and is structured around four main axes, ranging from the adaptation of the silos to the analysis of their legal and environmental viability. X-ray of the project. To understand the magnitude of THESILO you have to look at its figures: framed in the European Interreg POCTEP programthe project manages a budget of more than 1.5 million euros, largely supported by FEDER funds. The cross-border consortium is led by the Iberian Center for Research in Energy Storage (CIIAE), which has built a strategic network with Spanish and Portuguese allies such as AGENEX, INTROMAC, ADAI, AreanaTejo, the Polytechnic of Portalegre and ITECONS. An essential union of forces to cover the EUROACE euroregion (Extremadura, Alentejo and Central Portugal), an extensive territory where today 1,050 disused silos await with the potential of becoming the thermal battery network of the future. An impact that crosses borders. Beyond the technological component, the socioeconomic impact is the true driving force of the initiative. The Secretary General of Science, Technology and Innovation, Javier de Francisco Morcillo, stressed during the presentation that the ultimate objective is the “boost of business growth and the revitalization of rural communities.” According to the secretary, Europe demands that the knowledge generated “leads to a transfer of results that results in immediate socioeconomic improvement.” Furthermore, he highlighted the capacity of Extremadura to lead these cross-border funds, recalling that the region has captured between 2021 and 2025 more than double the funds from the Horizon Europe program compared to the 2014-2020 period, according to data from the CDTI. The future involves recycling the past. There are still unknowns to clear up and regulatory procedures to overcome to demonstrate that this model works on a large scale. The Torremocha pilot will be the true test of fire to evaluate how the original structure of the silo responds to high temperatures and certify whether the investment makes sense compared to other solutions that are gaining ground, such as hydraulic pumping or chemical batteries. However, THESILO perfectly summarizes where the energy transition in Europe is headed. Decarbonization cannot depend solely on newly built pharaonic infrastructures; It also requires projects that embrace the circular economy. Reusing already built infrastructure not only reduces costs and avoids new construction, but also brings forgotten giants back to life, attracting investment and employment to areas that have been losing population for years. A demonstration that the solution to tomorrow’s energy challenges may be hidden in plain sight in the towns of rural Spain. Image | Xataka Xataka | Finland has found a cheap way to store energy all winter: a tower of 2,000 tons of sand

Argentina and Taiwan have hundreds of Chinese fishing boats in front of them. And no one has cast their nets into the sea to fish

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In January 2026, a NASA satellite captured off the Argentine coast a strange image: a huge luminous spot floating in the middle of the South Atlantic, so bright that it looked like a city that had suddenly appeared on the ocean. From the ground nothing could be seen, but from space, however, it was impossible to ignore it. The new floating wall. Last February we count what was seen through satellites, and since then it has not stopped repeating itself. For years, the world assumed that Chinese fishing boats were just that: boats dedicated to fishing. In 2026 that perception is changing rapidly. From the South China Sea to the South Atlantic, different governments are observing the same phenomenon: enormous chinese civil fleets remaining for weeks in strategic areas without clear fishing activity. To be more exact, Argentina and Taiwan, separated by half a planet, now face a surprisingly similar situation: hundreds of Chinese vessels off their coasts whose function seems to go far beyond catching fish. What is disturbing is not only their presence, but the growing suspicion that Beijing is using apparently civilian ships like tools permanent geopolitical pressure and maritime surveillance. Get paid to occupy the sea. I counted last April the ABC chain that investigations into the so-called Chinese “maritime militia” have shown the extent to which Beijing has professionalized this strategy. In the South China Sea, many ships receive state subsidies simply by staying in certain disputed areas. The crews spend entire days at anchor, with hardly any fishing activity, while they help consolidate the Chinese presence around reefs, maritime routes or foreign military exercises such as Balikatan. For Western analysts, the goal is clear: physically saturate the sea with civilian vessels to intimidate rivals without the need to directly deploy traditional military units. Taiwan discovers that anyone can be a problem. The pressure on Taiwan has made this tactic much more visible. This same month of May, Taipei expelled to the Chinese scientific vessel Tongji after detecting suspicious operations near the island. Officially he was carrying out oceanographic studies, but Taiwanese authorities suspect that collected strategic information on the seabed and nearby waters. The incident reflected the great problem what Taiwan faces: It is already difficult to distinguish between civil ships, scientific ships, coast guard ships or military support platforms. That is why the island has even begun to adapt its coast guard patrol vessels to carry anti-ship missiles and act as part of national defense in the event of conflict. Argentina sees the same pattern. Also in May, Reuters reported an extensive report. Thousands of kilometers from Asia, Argentina has been observing another enormous concentration of Chinese ships in front of its waters for years. Every season, about 200 fishing boats illuminate the South Atlantic during squid fishing, forming a gigantic floating city visible from space. Although they officially carry out legal fishing activity outside the Argentine EEZ, Washington and part of the Argentine defense apparatus suspect that many of these vessels could be gathering intelligencemapping the seabed or measuring local surveillance capacity. The context makes the issue especially sensitive for a reason: the area is close to the Strait of Magellan and the access to Antarctica, two strategic areas of enormous geopolitical value. Master the sea without shooting. For its part, China denies that there is any military use of these fleets and maintains that their ships act according to the law international. However, it is becoming evident to many countries that Beijing has found a very effective way to expand its maritime influence without resorting to open war. In other words, the real change does not seem to be in the Chinese destroyers or aircraft carriers, but in the ability to bind a huge number of civilian ships in the ocean until the border between fishing, surveillance or strategic intimidation becomes unrecognizable. Meanwhile, Argentina and Taiwan are already seeing the same reality: one where there are hundreds of Chinese boats off its coast, and with each passing day it seems more strange that everyone has gone there so as not to cast their fishing nets. Image | CSIS/AMTI/Vantor In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has concentrated thousands of fishing boats off Japan In Xataka | China’s best weapon doesn’t fire a single bullet: 300km ‘moving wall’ to close sea routes instantly

The orchards allowed Galician households to save hundreds of euros on purchases. Now they are disappearing

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The proverb says that ‘he who has a friend, has a treasure’. In the Spain of 2026, that of house price skyrocketedthe accumulated inflation two digits and loss of power purchasing power, the reality is much more mundane: those who really have a ‘treasure’ are families with access to a garden, a corral, fruit trees or a small stable with sheep and cows, self-consumption tools that help save and lighten spending in the shopping basket. Curiously, at least in Galicia, fewer and fewer people take care of their own vegetables or livestock. And that allows you to save more than 100 euros per month. What has happened? That the garden is losing weight in Galicia. And in an accelerated and indisputable way. So revealed it on Monday Vigo Lighthousethat after styling the published data by the Galician Institute of Statistics (IGE) has concluded that in the region fewer and fewer families resort to self-cultivation, fruit trees or small farms to alleviate their economy. It’s not just that their number has decreased in the last decade, it’s that it is already at historic lows. If in 2007 45.1% of the community’s households saved thanks to the potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots… harvested in their gardens, in 2024 that percentage was already a meager 25.1%, the lowest level in the historical series. What do the figures say? If you walk through Galicia it will be increasingly difficult for you to see people working in small gardens or taking care of animals. The IGE statistics They do not talk about large agricultural holdings or farms with a business focus, but rather about family savings, which is why they focus on a very specific part of the Galician agrarian map. All in all, its reading is resounding. If in 2007 there were 452,200 families that saw their economy lightened thanks to the cultivation of their own vegetables, at the end of 2024 there were already 278,500. In between, years of almost uninterrupted decline. There are small swings, but they are largely explained by the context. For example, between 2019 and 2020, coinciding with the pandemic, the number of households with gardens grew slightly. The IGE also reflects that the trend is not equally clear throughout the region. Although the garden is losing weight in the community, it is holding up better in the interior provinces. Its decline is much more pronounced in A Coruña and Pontevedra. Does it only happen with orchards? No. The IGE also investigated how savings have evolved thanks to other forms of self-consumption, such as the use of fruit trees, the production of homemade wine or cheese, the care of livestock to obtain meat, milk or eggs, fishing… And the ‘photo’ is practically the same always. For example, in 2007 there were 372,000 homes saving thanks to their own hens, chickens and eggs. In 2020 there were already 298,300 and at the beginning of 2025 they barely exceeded 202,600. The collapse is not only due to a loss of population. Its incidence rate also fell: from 37.1% in 2007 to only 18.3% in 2024. Exercise Households that save on food thanks to the garden (no.) Households that save on food thanks to the garden (%) 2007 452,188 45.09% 2011 444,843 42.00% 2016 406,384 38.34% 2021 384,283 35.81% 2024 278,519 25.12% And other forms of self-consumption? The same. The same thing happens with the food (and savings) obtained thanks to fruit tree cultivationhe cow milkingthe elaboration of wine or spirits homemade, the cattle breeding or the ‘pig slaughter’, which despite its roots in rural Galicia has also deflated. If in 2007 it was practiced in 20.7% of homes, in 2020 it was already reduced to 7.6% and in 2024 to less than 5%. In practice, this means that the slaughter has gone from being a saving for 207,300 homes to being a saving for 55,100. And why is it important? Beyond the greater or lesser interest that weight loss in gardens may have, the phenomenon is curious because it coincides with another, also noted by Lighthouse: Taking care of orchards or farms pays off. And a lot. After years of inflation and increases that have been fueled by products like eggsself-consumption has become a way to cut spending by more than 100 euros per month. In certain cases the savings can reach 120. On average, the garden allows you to reduce the shopping basket by 30 euros, chicken farms by another 22, beef (or rabbit) farms lighten the basket by almost 40 euros and domestic fruit trees by 18. The greatest source of savings continues to be the slaughter of pigs. Those who practice it save 51 euros every month, since they avoid buying pork. So why does it decline? The million dollar question. Having a garden, a corral or even a small farm with cows and sheep may save money on purchases, but it requires other precious resources: time and space. Added to this is the expense involved in caring for vegetables and livestock. In a Galicia that is no stranger to demographic crisis and she is getting older, that is a challenge. The region is not spared from the rural exoduswhich makes it difficult for families to have space for gardens. Image | MRC Témiscamingue (Unsplash) Via | Vigo Lighthouse In Xataka | In emptied Galicia there are town councils taking charge of gas stations and stores. The objective: not to be left without services

Astronomers’ trick to hunt hundreds of nearby exoplanets: look for suspiciously “quiet” stars

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The hunt for exoplanets in the universe has always depended on our ability to observe the invisible. Until now we have mainly noticed the flickering of a star when it passes in front of one of these planets or the subtle gravitational wobble that it causes, but we have never seen them directly. Now a team of astronomers has perfected a much more ingenious method: searching for planets based on the “false” magnetic tranquility of their stars. And now it works. The project known as Dispersed Matter Planet Project (DMPP) has just confirm the discovery of seven new planets spread across five star systems, and its projections indicate that there could be hundreds of rocky worlds hidden in our closest cosmic neighborhood. And we have not been able to ‘see’ all of these with our traditional systems. How it works. The DMPP method is fascinating because it turns the traditional way of observing the universe on its head. Now, instead of looking for active stars, the team selects bright, very nearby stars that have anomalously low calcium emission. In fact, they show levels of magnetic activity below their basal level. But these samples do not indicate that the star is without activity, but rather that it is hidden. Here astronomers have discovered that these systems host planets very close to the star, which due to the intense heat are evaporating. From this gas that is released from these worlds, a kind of ‘shield’ or orbital cloud is formed that absorbs radiation and hides the activity of the stellar chromosphere. That is, the star’s apparent inactivity is the gas “fingerprint” of a disintegrating planet. Its precision. To confirm these suspicions, the team does not stop at observing the gas, since it uses very high precision radial velocity spectrographs such as HARPS-Nwhich are capable of measuring minute variations in the star’s motion. One of the most intriguing case studies of the project is the system DMPP-4located about 25 parsecs away. In this star, candidates for planets with sub-Neptunian masses have already been detected, on the order of between 8 and 12.2 times the mass of the Earth, orbiting at breakneck speeds, with “years” that last only between 2 and 5 days. Where are they? These planets inhabit what astronomers know as the “Neptunian Desert,” a region very close to the star where planets the size of Neptune are rarely found. The leading theory is that these worlds are actually rocky cores of ancient Neptunes that migrated into the system and whose atmospheres were swept away by intense stellar radiation. Many to discover. The implications of this study are massive for modern astrophysics, as data from the DMPP project suggests that between 10% and 20% of these low magnetic activity stars could host compact systems of rocky planets that we have not known about until now. This not only helps explain certain anomalies in the historical catalogs of the Kepler telescope, but gives us a treasure map. As they are star systems so bright and close to Earth, these newly discovered exoplanets become the perfect candidates to be observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the future generation of Extremely Large Telescopes (ELT). Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | A new “solar system” has just been discovered. There’s just one problem: it shouldn’t exist.

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