kilometers

There are only 20 fateful kilometers left on the Gobi border

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China and Mongolia have been trying to solve one of Asia’s costliest logistics problems for more than a decade: getting coal and metals from Mongolian mines to Chinese steel plants. without using eternal truck caravans. The solution: a railway corridor between the mines of Tavan Tolgoi and the Chinese network capable of transporting up to 50 million tons of cargo, such as declared the Mongolian president. The project carries on the table since 2012 and, after delays and stoppages, the first part was completed. In 2025 the second phase started: a cross-border link of just 19.5 kilometers in length at the Gashuunsukhait-Gantsmod pass whose completion is scheduled for 2027. Let China be capable of remodeling a train station in one night but it takes 22 months to build only eight kilometers, anticipating the technical and orographic challenges it faces. Context. Mongolia owns some of the largest reserves of coal and copper in the world. deserves special mention Tavan Tolgoione of the largest unexploited coking coal deposits on the planet, with an estimate of 6.4 billion tons of this resource. Copper and gold also works well in Oyu Tolgoi. In fact, has a projected production by 2030 of 500,000 tons of copper per year. But Mongolia is landlocked. China is historically the largest importer of Mongolian coal. As? With lines of trucks crossing the desert. From an environmental and economic point of view, the switch to rail makes the most sense but it has fine print: the Mongolian railway network It has 1,815 kilometers of Soviet gauge trackof which the majority are part of the TransMongolia line that connects Russia with China. The network is practically single track, with limited capacity and vulnerable to snowfall in winter and Gobi sand in the southern section. Trans-Mongolian crossing the Gobi Desert. PIERRE ANDRE LECLERCQ Why is it important. Because this fully completed corridor will close a strategic logistics chain for China at a time when there is tension in the supply of critical raw materials. Without going any further, he already faced a Australian coal veto a few years ago, having to seek supply in Russia and Mongolia. Mongolia also gains by improving its coal and metals export infrastructure. As declared the Mongolian governmentthe average export volume will go from 83 million tons to 165 million per year, which represents an increase of 1.5 billion dollars. Of course, it reinforces its dependence on China: It already exports 90% of its raw materials. First phase. The history of the Tavan Tolgoi–Gashuun Sukhait railway is checkered to say the least: it began in 2012, when Mongolian Mining Corporation announced a railway from Ukhaa Khudag to the Gashuun Sukhait border crossing, with completion scheduled for 2015. With the earthworks very advanced, the work became entrenched both due to economic and political problems how to choose what the track width should be. Work resumed in 2018 under new management. Finally, the line will be inaugurated in 2022 233.6 kilometers long crossing the Gobi Desert (258 km with auxiliary infrastructure), with 16 bridges and designed for loads of 25 tons per axle. According to Tavantolgoi Railway LLC and collected by AFPthe price of a ton of coal fell from 32 dollars to 8. The pending critical phase: the border. The Mongolian railway reaches the border from 2022, but the critical thing remained: coal could not cross to China by train. The main reason for being is pure engineering: Mongolia uses the Soviet width of 1,520 mm and China uses 1,435 mm, the international standard width. At the Gashuun Sukhait pass there was a physical gap that required the transshipment of goods, with the delays, costs and inconveniences that it entails. They are going to solve it with a double track widthwhich extends both the Mongolian and Chinese lines, thus allowing trains from both systems to enter the area without transfers. This cross-border link will have a main road 19.5 kilometers and includes bridge structures between 8 and 31 meters high, necessary to bridge the topographic gap between the two sides of the border. The Chinese side is being built by the state-owned company China Energy Investment Corporation and on the Mongolian side, Tavantolgoi Railway LLC. A corridor full of challenges. The delay of the railway corridor project due to financial and political issues is just the tip of the iceberg of other challenges it has faced, ranging from the engineering problem of the track gauge to the extreme climate of the Gobi: the Mongolian section passes through one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, with temperature ranges ranging from -40 °C in winter to more than 40 °C in summer. It is no longer that it is uninhabitable, it is that it affects the structure of the road itself. In Xataka | 125 kilometers of water separate 140 million inhabitants. China is going to solve it with a mega railway tunnel In Xataka | China has built the highest bridge in the world and has done what it must: turn it into a show Cover | Marcin Konsek and KUA YUE

450 kilometers above Earth

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The idea of ​​​​harvesting solar energy from space may sound like science fiction and, furthermore, it would make all the sense in the world for it to do so: Isaac Asimov already wrote about it in his story “Reason” of 1941. However, the scientific community has been ruminating on it since 1968, when American aerospace engineer Peter Glaser published the first technical article on this concept in Science magazine. Since then, entities such as NASA, the California Institute of Technology or the Japanese Japan Space Systems have explored the possibility. However, Japan is the closest to achieving what no one has yet achieved: generating electricity in space and sending it directly to Earth. Context. To begin with, the cost of launching rockets has become enormously cheaper since the idea began to be glimpsed. On the other hand, we are in the midst of global energy transition from mobile fuels towards renewable sources where there is one that stands out: solar energy. But solar energy requires space to deploy parks with photovoltaic panels, which is why China is choosing to assemble them in the open sea, Germany explores with lakes and Japan… Japan is an island with little space. On the other hand, solar energy has another important limitation: it only works when there is sun. However, in space there are no clouds or night and the sun shines without stopping. Why is it important. Because the business models that J-spacesystems is developing They are designed to generate about one gigawatt of constant power. To better understand the dimensions of that figure, it is the energy necessary to cover 10% of the consumption of a megacity like Tokyo and is also equivalent to the power of a standard nuclear reactor. We are facing a paradigm shift in energy density: a solar plant in space capable of ‘redirecting’ its energy beam towards different receiving antennas according to demand, whether within the country itself or the world. This opens the doors to sending energy to areas in emergency situations or meeting consumption peaks, something that is not possible with the current infrastructure. Japan Space Systems Scheme What is Ohisama. Ohisama is sun in Japanese and it is also the name of a Japanese satellite of 180 kg that has an integrated solar panel approximately the size of a door (70 cm x 2 m) is to orbit at 450 km altitude, where it will be able to generate 720 watts of electricity that it will then convert into microwaves. It will then launch those microwaves up to a 64-meter antenna in Nagano. If the energy arrives, it will be converted into electricity. The ultimate goal: light an LED. Yes, all this to light a light bulb. In reality, the important thing is not so much the power transmitted in the test (which is very small) but rather being able to validate that the transmission works through the ionosphere. It is the test of truth: in 2024 Japan has already tried it successfully from a plane seven kilometers high, but this is already a jump to a real orbit that will allow everything to be scaled (if it goes well). When and where. From now on, literally: The window for the third attempt began on February 25, with a backup date until March 25. The launch site will be the Kii Spaceport in the city of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, the first private rocket launch site in Japan. What comes next. If the experiment goes well, Japan would go on to implement those commercial models, which consist of 2.5 square kilometer solar panel arrays in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km with 4 km diameter receiving antennas on the ground. The estimated date for its commercialization is from 2040 and in addition to supply on land, Japan has in mind to use the system for energy supply in lunar exploration missions. Why is it so difficult. The first immediate risk inherent to the project is Kairos 5 of Space Onethe private Japanese company in charge of putting Ohisama into orbit: the two previous launches failed. Third time lucky? The possibility of another company from outside doing it is not an option (at the moment). As explains Yanagawa of J-spacesystems: “Although overseas rockets were an option, we selected Kairos following the national policy of supporting Japan’s private sector launch capabilities.” But even if the launch were successful, the big problem will be microwave diffraction: transmission over thousands of kilometers risks scattering, requiring huge transmitting antennas and very precise phase control. Japan has been working to solve this bottleneck for decades. In Xataka | Japan has just made a monumental bet on perovskite solar panels: they are its best chance against China Cover | Hunini CC BY-SA 4.0 and Nuno Marques

Valladolid and León have been longing for a highway that connects them for more than 25 years. 75 million will be spent to build 10 kilometers

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Valladolid and León are linked by 142 kilometers and a claim. Specifically, converting the N-610 secondary road into a two-lane highway in each direction. The project has received a small but important push. One that should culminate in the construction of a dozen more kilometers in a project that has been talked about for more than a quarter of a century. What’s new? That the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility approved last Tuesdayprovisionally, the connection between Villanubla and La Mudarra to continue advancing in the construction of the A-60 highway, which should connect Valladolid with León, currently separated by a national highway. Of course, the approval given by transport does not guarantee that these 10 kilometers will be carried out because, for the moment, any affected neighbor can present the appropriate allegations or observations in relation to the expected expropriations that are going to be carried out. To do so, interested parties have 30 business days. A new step. If consolidated, what will be built will be a 10-kilometer stretch between Villanubla and La Mudarra, a connection close to the Valladolid airport where, until now, the A-60 highway ends on its exit from this city. The project has an estimated budget of 74,750,633.16 euros. There seems little progress but if we take into account what has been done so far, the qualitative leap is more than evident. And right now, There are only 45 kilometers built of the more than 120 kilometers through which the highway is expected to run. That is, with those 10 kilometers, we would be close to reaching half of it and would represent around 10% of the total work. A 20th century project. The issue is especially painful for the neighbors because the project has been on the table for more than a quarter of a century. To find its origin, we must go back to 1997 when it was approved for the first time to deal with the matter in the Cortes. However, it was not until 2002 when the first procedures began, as stated in Europa Press. This last section, in fact, has been frozen for years and is now beginning to be processed urgently. In Valladolid newspaper They point out that the first time the papers were put on the table for these 10 kilometers that separate Villanubla from La Mudarra was 2017. However, the passage of time has caused the deadlines to expire, so it was not until the end of 2025 that a push was given again to the construction of this new section. The current situation. Right now, covering the distance that separates Valladolid and León represents an inappropriate expenditure of time for the distance that separates them. The short route is the N-610 highway, a secondary road with 142 kilometers that requires almost two hours of travel. There are also no better alternatives to reduce the time one needs. If you want to take a highway, there are not many options. The most obvious requires you to go from Valladolid to Tordesillas, there take the A-6 and then connect with the A-66. In this way, the driver is already forced to get closer (very close) to the two hours and add another 40 kilometers to the trip. Of course, the roads are safer. Security issue. Obviously, the construction of a highway between Valladolid and León would have an immediate impact on the security of the region. According to data from the DGT collected by Valladolid newspaper, In 2024, the N-601 recorded 41 accidents as it passed through Valladolid. That is, almost one accident per week was recorded. That year, nine deaths were recorded before the end of 2024 and in 2023 another 11 people died. Until now, the prevention plans for these accidents have focused on adapting the road to the large volume of traffic on it, with the 2+1 lane projection which should alleviate traffic jams in some points, especially those generated by heavy transportation. Photo | In Xataka | Spain built its roads thinking it was a hot country. Now that’s a problem

there was a “hybrid zone” of 4,000 kilometers

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For years we had a fairly clear narrative in our minds of what had happened to our ancestors. The specific story is that the Homo sapiens They left Africa, met some Neanderthals somewhere in the Middle East, had a couple of chance encounters of hybridization pulses and they continued on their way to conquer the world. A change. However, a massive new study that just appear on the bioRxiv preprint server suggests that that picture is too simplistic. They were not specific meetings, but rather a continuous interaction throughout a huge “hybrid zone” which spanned from the Near East to Central Asia and Europe. To get here, the study has analyzed an unprecedented amount of ancient DNA to draw the most detailed map to date of how we intermingled with our extinct cousins. and the result It is a gradient of miscegenation which extends for almost 4,000 kilometers. Lots of volume. The study has not been limited to a few bones that have been found in isolation, but has used computer simulations and a data set of 1,264 paleogenomes. Something that corresponds to thousands of individuals older than 10,000 years. Your conclusion. The Neanderthal DNA patterns that we carry today in our genetic material They are not well explained by “isolated pulse” models, but rather the symmetry found between the genomes of Europe and Asia indicates that there was prolonged contact. In this way, as modern humans expanded out of Africa, which is what we know as Out of Africa, about 60,000 years agowere pushing a demographic frontier. On this advance front, gene flow was moderate but constant. That is why it was not a one-day event, but a long geographical process. The how. To understand this you have to look complementary studies which suggest that the key is in spatial gradients. To visualize the concept, we can imagine a wave that advances as if they were the Sapiens who were moving and encountering the Neanderthals. But the key is that Neanderthal ancestry is not uniform. This means that the first sapiens in Europe had a high level of Neanderthal DNA, but later expansions, such as the arrival of Neolithic farmers from Anatolia, they “watered down” that Neanderthal heritage, especially in Europe, creating a notable difference with the populations of Asia. This is where the study presented in 2026 confirms that only a model of persistent expansion with gene flow can explain why we find signs of interbreeding almost 4,000 km from the point of origin in the Near East. When did it happen? This is where things get interesting when crossing the data with other recent studies, like the one published in Nature in 2024. And although the area was large, the time window was critical. Analysis of more than 300 early human genomes points to a “single window” of major hybridization between 47,000 and 43,000 years ago. This excludes previous theories that suggested multiple, very ancient pulses. And to go a little further, there was a moment, when our species was securing its dominance in Eurasia, when the barrier between species blurred across a huge geographic swath. A map of interactions. What this body of research suggests is that the hybrid zone encompasses almost all of the Neanderthal sites known as Western Eurasia, so it implies geographically extensive interactions. However, as is often the case in science, caution must be maintained. This study has yet to undergo a full review and has limitations in that it is based on demographic assumptions and that it does not model the natural selection that we have in the genetic world. Even so, the image is increasingly clear: we are not the result of one species that replaced another suddenly. We are, in part, the result of a long border of contact where, for millennia, the line between “them” and “us” was much more blurred than we thought. Images | Marc Tremblay In Xataka | Humans are evolving live on the Tibetan plateau. And understanding what happens there will be essential in space

four months at sea, kilometers of celluloid and a Trojan horse the size of a building

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We already have here the first trailer for ‘The Odyssey’ by Christopher Nolan, which, as expected, offers us an adventure that moves away from the environments that the director has frequented until now, but which nevertheless has a good part of the house’s trademarks: musical fanfare, impactful images and dense and solemn atmosphere. a genuine deli for devotees of the director. After releasing a six-minute prologue a week ago Exclusive to 70mm IMAX theaters, this new trailer takes us to the immediate aftermath of the Trojan War: a devastated battlefield where Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, kneels before a fully armored Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) and which some critics have already pointed out as unequivocal proof that historical rigor is clearly not going to be one of the film’s priorities. From there, pure icons of classic adventure: the hero and his soldiers crossing forests, navigating rough seas and entering dark caves. Damon’s voiceover tells that “after years of war, no one could come between my men and home. Not even me.” Significantly, we barely see Odysseus on screen. The trailer gives a good account of Nolan’s visual ambition: we see the Trojan horse being dragged from the sea by hundreds of unsuspecting Trojans, and how the warriors inside the gigantic structure experience it. We see a giant creature at the entrance to a cave, perhaps the cyclops Polyphemus. We see ships suffocatingly tossed about by real waves. An ambitious odyssey ‘The Odyssey’ represents an unprecedented leap in the use of the IMAX format. It is the first film in history shot entirely with IMAX cameras.something Nolan has pursued since he began incorporating the format into action sequences with ‘The Dark Knight’ in 2008. Until ‘Oppenheimer’, technical limitations (excessive noise, prohibitive weight, difficulty capturing dialogue) prevented its continued use. But for ‘The Odyssey’, IMAX developed a new generation of cameras 30% quieter and considerably lighter, making full filming viable. Principal photography lasted 91 days between February and August 2025touring Morocco (Aït Benhaddou to recreate Troy), Greece, Italy, Scotland and Iceland. The most reckless: Nolan spent four months in the open seawith the entire cast rolling on real waves. The budget amounts to $250 million, making it the most expensive film of his career. Nolan explained. that sought to identify absences in contemporary film culture. He concluded that Greek mythology had never received the big-budget Hollywood treatment with full dramatic credibility. Furthermore, he states, The Odyssey by Homer contains elements of horror, mystery, romance and thriller simultaneously. It is not a genre, it is the matrix of all genres. It is clear that Nolan wanted to put the emphasis on the physical: real ships almost submerged in the sea, armies of extras, the Trojan horse… at the moment we do not see the abundant mythological creatures that the story has (the Cyclops, the mermaids, the sorceress Circe), but possibly they have sought to contrast with the realism of the rest of the story. And we still have to see the bulk of the star cast (Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Mia Goth…). This Odyssey has only just begun.

A dog was lost in 2021 in the United States. Five years later it has appeared 3,700 kilometers from his home

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In recent years we have seen how the algorithm has taken over Christmasand Netflix to the head of the film industry competes to offer the most emotional miracle of the year, stories designed to reconcile us with chance, hope and those impossible endings. But this time, the story that best fits that mold does not come from a script or a streaming platform, but from real life, far from the screens and without special effects. The loss. The story has been collected by US media this weekend. Apparently, during almost five yearsPatricia Orozco lived with an unanswered question. Since Choco, the dachshund mix dog that he had adopted in 2016, disappeared in May 2021, his memory remained present in our daily lives. The uncertainty was constant: if he was still alive, if someone cared for him, if he had suffered. After months of posters, calls to shelters and no clues, the disappearance turned into mourning and a silent renunciation of having a dog again, as if accepting another company meant admitting that Choco would not return. The impossible message. Everything changed with an unexpected message from a microchip company. Choco had appeared, but not near Sacramento, where Orozco lived, but rather more than 3,700 kilometersin Lincoln, Michigan. At first, the woman thought it was Lincoln, California, just half an hour from her home. Surprise turned to disbelief when he realized that his dog had crossed practically the entire United States without anyone knowing how or when. Choco had been found tied to a fence in front of to a shelterand the photos confirmed what seemed like a mistake: it was him. The problem of bringing him back. The initial joy gave way to logistical anguish. With two small children, one of them barely four months old, Orozco saw no way to travel to pick him up. A message on social networks It activated an unexpected chain of solidarity. Volunteers, protectors and anonymous people began to look for solutions, from affordable flights to km donations (miles in USA). The possibility of someone traveling in his place took shape when Penny Scotta volunteer accustomed to complicated rescues, offered to make the trip. Orozco with his dog Choco, almost five years after he disappeared from his home in May 2021 A silent journey. The Washington Post told that Choco’s return was a small aerial odyssey. Scott flew from California to Detroit with stops and delays, picked up the dog thanks to the help of local volunteers and crossed the country again with the. A missed connection forced him to spend almost fourteen hours at the Chicago airport, where Choco, calm and docile, walked on his leash among travelers without a single complaint. For those who accompanied him, that behavior seemed to confirm that, despite everything, he was still the same calm and affectionate dog. The mystery of time. In the background of this most “Christmas” story, the great question: Nobody knows how the hell Choco ended up in Michigan or who he lived with during that time. The only thing that is clear is that he traveled through an entire country, far from the sunny climate that he had always known and that, according to its ownerI hated to leave. Now, at eleven years old, the dog had aged, but he had not lost his curious and affectionate character, the same one that led him to run away every time he found an open door. Return home. Finally, on December 3rd Choco came back to Sacramento. The reunion was immediate and left no doubt: when he got out of the car, he walked directly towards Patricia, as if he had never left. The same home from which he escaped years ago became his refuge again, yes, now withwith more precautions: a double door and the determination not to repeat history. For Orozco, the moment was unreal, a mixture of disbelief and relief that he still finds difficult to assimilate. A network and an idea. Beyond the happy ending, the story left a clear lesson. The microchip was the key piece that allowed us to close a circle that seemed broken forever, but so was the network of people who, without knowing each other, decided to act. Rescuers, donors and volunteers demonstrated that even after years and thousands of kilometers, a loss can be transformed into a reunion. For Patricia Orozco, there are not enough words to describe it: what happened, insistcan only be called “Christmas miracle”. A story with a happy ending that could be perpetuated on the big screen. The story of Choco and Orozco has all the ingredients to make the next Christmas list… in the home of the algorithms. Image | PexelsHelping Paws and Claws In Xataka | In 2019, Iberia lost a dog before flying. Now the European Justice says that it is worth the same as a suitcase In Xataka | The science behind your dog being able to find you 12 years after being lost

Less than 150 kilometers from Taiwan, the US does not stop accumulating missiles. It’s the closest thing to preparing for war.

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For some time now, the Taiwan position in it strategic balance global has become one of the main axes on which power competition is articulated between the United States and China. The island not only represents a point political identity for Beijing or a symbol of democratic commitment for Washington, but also a decisive geographical node in the military architecture of the Pacific. and then there is a narrow between both. The distances. Maritime access to the island, the air routes that surround it and the narrow strip of water that separates it from the Philippines and Japan define a good part of the board in which it is decided how far project Chinese strength and to what extent it can be contained from the outside. Thus, the crisis that is emerging is not made solely of declarations or doctrines: It is made up of specific islands, narrow maritime corridors, and political decisions made in small communities that suddenly become geopolitical borders. The war strait. It counted on a extensive Reuters report that the chain of continuous military exercises and the missile deployment anti-shipping in the northernmost islands of the Philippines reveal a US strategy that assumes that control of the Western Pacific straits is decisive in preventing the Chinese navy from operating freely in the open sea. And at that point, the province of Batanesuntil a few years ago a quiet territory dedicated to fishing and subsistence agriculture, has become a point of critical importance, due to its position in the extreme south from Bashi Channelthe narrow sea lane that connects the South China Sea to the western Pacific. Bashi is located between Mavulis Island and Orchid Island The arrival of an arsenal. The establishment of a rotating military presencebut practically permanent, with deployments of mobile missile systems capable of blocking the passage of surface ships, has transformed this territory into an essential component of the so-called First Island Chainthe containment line that the United States, Japan and the Philippines intend to maintain to limit China’s ability to influence beyond its coastal waters. Local populations, aware of the historical precedent from 1941live in fear of seeing how their daily lives can be suddenly interrupted by the logic of deterrence or escalation. Liaoning exercises in the Pacific The uncertainty of the Philippines. The Manila government operates in the paradox of a country that does not want to be dragged into a war, but that recognizes that geography makes inevitable any implications in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has unambiguously reopened military cooperation with the United States, granting expanded access to bases in Luzon and reinforcing the number and duration of joint exercises. Given the possibility of an attack or a blockade on Taiwanthe Philippines is preparing not only for defense operations, but for the forced return of tens of thousands of Filipino workers from the island. The prospect of a sudden influx of refugees, disruptions to supply routes and the need to operate under conditions of scarcity have led provincial authorities to raise contingency plans agricultural and logistical processes that return daily life to a state of cautious alert. China and reunification. For Beijing, the Taiwan question is presented as an internal matter which does not allow external negotiation. The Chinese leadership maintains that reunification is a historic address that sooner or later it will come to fruition, and that any foreign intervention constitutes an unacceptable violation of its sovereignty. Hence, the US military presence in the Philippines, the deployment of missiles and the intensification of exercises are interpreted by China not as defensive measures, but as deliberate attempts to restrict their margin of action and condition their ability to respond. The increase in Chinese naval operations through from Bashi Channelthe presence of aircraft carrier groups in the western Pacific and low-intensity pressure tactics against Philippine patrols are part of a carefully calibrated game of signals. Washington’s ambiguity. This week, Donald Trump has reiterated that Xi Jinping knows the consequences of an attack on Taiwan, while refusing to specify whether the United States would intervene militarily. This gesture of opacity, faithful to the doctrine of strategic ambiguity, seeks to simultaneously maintain deterrence against Beijing and the control over decisions of Taipei, preventing the island from declaring formal independence that could accelerate the clash. The difference with respect to the previous government’s approach is one of tone rather than substance: if Biden tended to explicitly verbalize the defense of Taiwan, Trump shifts the emphasis toward risk perception by Chinese leaders. Ambiguity not only preserves diplomatic margin; It also avoids automatically locking the United States into open war if an unexpected escalation occurs. Key islands. As it is, preparation for a possible conflict over Taiwan is not happening in abstract power centers, but in island territories where daily life depends on supply ships and where every Pacific wind brings with it the memory of past conflicts. The expansion of presence US military in the Philippines, Chinese pressure to break the limits imposed by the island chain, and Washington’s calculated ambiguity form an unstable balance that is already changing life in those communities. The future of the region will not be decided only in great summits diplomatic, but in the capacity of a few narrow territories to become a barrier, access or trigger for a greater change in the global order. Image | PiCryl, BORN, rhk111, Army Map Service In Xataka | China has asked Russia for an airborne battalion and training. That can only mean one thing: they are preparing a landing In Xataka | The US studied what would happen if it went to war with China: now it has begun a desperate race to duplicate missiles

8 kilometers of ice have been lost in two months and researchers only agree on one thing: it is something to worry about

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Predict their future the antarctic glaciers It is undoubtedly a great challenge for science, but the most important thing above all is to know How will it affect global sea level?. The worst of all is that the latest news we have at our disposal is not at all positive, since the Hektoria glacier It has retreated 8 km in just two months, which is an unprecedented speed in the modern era. Where we start from. Normally, the retreat of glaciers It is measured in hundreds of meters per year. It is one of the clearest metrics we have to be able to ‘measure’ global warming, and that is why now what a team from the University of Colorado Boulder has just recorded on the Hektoria glacier, on the eastern peninsula of Antarctica, plays in a completely different league. The measurement. In just two months during 2023, the Hektoria lost almost half of its mass. In total, 8 kilometers of ice disappeared. A speed of collapse that has never been seen in modern history and that, according to the authors of the study, is more typical of the end of the last ice age. Something that doesn’t add up in this case. Hektoria is relatively small by Antarctic standards (about 300 km², less than the city of Malaga), but its collapse was so sudden that it left researchers stunned. A coincidence. Ironically, the research team wasn’t even studying Hektoria. They were analyzing satellite and remote sensing data for another project when Ochwat realized that the glacier had essentially disappeared from the images. The measurements. This is where technology comes into play. The team had to combine data from multiple satellites to understand what had happened and, above all, how quickly he did it. “If we only had one image every three months, we couldn’t say that the glacier lost two and a half kilometers in two days,” explains Ochwat. In this case, by combining images from different satellites you can fill in the time gaps and confirm with evidence in hand how quickly the ice has been melting. But the key was not only in the images. They also used seismic instruments that have the ability to detect a series of “glacial earthquakes” that occurred exactly during the period of rapid melting. And these earthquakes are not measured for the sake of it, but to confirm something crucial: the glacier was anchored to the bedrock (and not floating) just before breaking. This is fundamental both for science and for the entire planet, since ice that is floating (such as an ice shelf) does not raise sea level when it melts, any more than an ice cube does in a glass of water. But ice that rests on land (or anchored to a seabed) and falls into the sea does contribute to the global rise in sea level by increasing its volume. Your Achilles heel. The collapse was not due to simple superficial melting. The cause was topographic, since many Antarctic glaciers rest on deep canyons or underwater mountains. The Hektoria, however, had the misfortune of resting on an “ice plain”: an area of ​​bedrock that was exceptionally flat and below sea level. This flat topography caused a gigantic section of the glacier to begin floating all at once, rather than gradually. The moment the glacier lost its anchorage to the ground (its “line of support”), it was exposed to the forces of the ocean, and therefore everything began to advance very quickly. The process was brutal, since it all began with the warmest ocean water that seeped underneath and began to open cracks from the bottom of the glacier upwards. At the same time, the glacier already had cracks on the surface. Eventually, the lower and upper cracks met and the glacier literally disintegrated. A warning for future glaciers. The Hektoria case is a first-rate warning. Scientists know that there are numerous glaciers in Antarctica that also rest on these types of ice plains. Until now, it was thought that their collapses would be centuries-long processes. Hektoria shows that they can be months, which should set us off due to the implications it would have on sea level. And while the collapse of a small glacier like Hektoria won’t dramatically change global sea level, it alone does demonstrate that a rapid collapse mechanism, until now theoretical or believed to be typical of past geological eras, is perfectly possible today. If this same mechanism is activated in much larger glaciers, sea level rise could accelerate very considerably and much sooner than expected. Images | Cassie Matias In Xataka | When glaciers melt, bodies appear: archaeologists are recovering them in a time trial

The countries with the most kilometers of high-speed train, displayed in a graph with a brutal dominator: China

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The train is the backbone of many countries. For centuries it has been key to mobility in Europe, in Japan it is essential, China has experienced a railway revolution and even the United States or Latin America begin to bet on passenger mobility by train. However, it is one thing to have a railway and quite another to have a rich high-speed network. And this graph shows the countries with the most kilometers of high-speed trains and their plans for the future. China, undisputed queen. The Olympics They are an event in which countries “sell” themselves to the worldbut in the case of China, it involved a profound renovation of its infrastructure. It was in 2008 when China launched its high-speed railway line: barely 120 kilometers between Beijing and Taijin, and 17 years later, it is the country with the most kilometers of high-speed lines in operation. According to the data of World Population Review and as we can see in the graph prepared by Visual CapitalistChina has more than 40,000 kilometers of tracks on which its trains go at 250 km/h or more. They have another 12,800 kilometers under construction and more than 11,000 planned. In total, some 64,000 kilometers of high-speed rail. In addition, they are moving forward to make their network the highest speed thanks to the maglev advancesmagnetic trains, with tracks that already link cities like Beijing and Shanghai to speeds of more than 430 kilometers per hour. And it is this network that is putting the airlines in check. Spain and Japan. The train is vital in a country as huge as China and the numbers speak for themselves, but there are two other countries that, without being the ones with the most kilometers in total (operational, under construction and planned), complete the podium of those with the most high-speed kilometers currently operating. There are no surprises here. Spain has a total of 5,632 kilometers of high speed, of which more than 3,700 are already operational, followed by China the country with the most kilometers of high speed currently holds. There are another 1,040 kilometers under construction and another 862 kilometers planned. For its part, Japan, another example when we talk about fast trainshas a total of 3,700 kilometers divided into 3,050 operational kilometers, 402 under construction and 193 planned. Promises, promises. At a time when the train is emerging as the alternative to international flights, especially to low cost and among short-distance points, it is striking that, in reality, there are no more countries with high-speed lines. In Europe, apart from Spain, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland or Italy, they have hundreds of operational kilometers, but outside of the ‘Old Continent’ and cases like South Korea, things are very different. For example, India. It is the second country in the graph, but of the 8,000 total kilometers, only 508 eare under construction and the remaining 7,400 are planned. They do not have high speed, and the same thing happens in Egypt (with 3,400 kilometers planned), Australia (1,700 planned) and European countries such as Latvia, Estonia, Norway or the Czech Republic: all with plans to create high-speed lines, but not one operational kilometer. America. And if in China the train is essential due to its dimensionson the American continent we should think that things are the same. And no, not at all. The United States, a gigantic country, has only 735 kilometers of high speed, 273 under construction and almost 5,000 planned, but nothing more. Spain tried to bring the AVE to the North American country and there are demands for high-speed trains to expand, but their internal mobility continues to have the plane as the protagonist. Canada has 1,500 kilometers planned and not one kilometer built, Mexico is in the same situation with 210 kilometers on the table, Brazil the same with 510 kilometers planned and Argentina does not even appear on the graph. But, although high speed is complicated on the continent, the truth is that there are many plans to expand the railway network, even creating international trains that go from one ocean to another, like the one planned between Brazil and Peru. And who is behind many of these projects? Well, who has gained experience at a forced pace in recent years ‘pulling’ thousands of kilometers of tracks: China. In Xataka | China wanted to be the queen of high-speed trains. So he built all the longest bridges in the world

Thus they can affect our health fires that occur thousands of kilometers

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The summer of 2025 has been marked not only by extreme heat waves, but also by numerous high range fires, fires that were charged At least eight lives. The fires not only kill with their flames, some of the people died as a result of accidents related to their extinction. However, large fires can also have a range that goes much further, and that was the case of Canada’s fires of 2023. Transoceanic risk. A new study has pointed out That the impacts on the health of the population of forest fires that ravaged Canada in the summer of 2023 not only reached vast areas of North America, also to other continents, including Europe. The fires of 2023. Canada suffered in 2023 the worst fire season that is remembered in the country. They occurred More than 6,000 fires that razed with about 150,000 km², a larger area than we would obtain by together Castilla y León, Extremadura and the Community of Madrid. The fires were of such intensity that the smoke The sky stained orange from New York City. However, the winds moved the smoke and volatile particles that toured thousands of kilometers to reach our continent. Exposed to pollution. According to the team responsible for the study, Canada’s fires caused important Picos in concentration of particulate matter 2.5 or PM2.5, small volatile particles of a diameter less than 2.5 microns. This resulted in a worsening in air quality. According to estimates, at the global level the concentration in the air of this type of particles grew by 0.17 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The same estimates indicate that about 354 million people in Europe and North America were exposed to PM2.5 levels above the limits established as insurance by the World Health Organization (WHO). Premature deaths. The study estimated that, adding these factors, the flames caused between 3,400 and 7,400 deaths acute in the American continent. However, the impact was beyond, and they point out that the number of chronic deaths was even greater: between 37,800 and 90,900 taking into account both North America and Europe. The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Nature. A growing problem. The fire scale in Canada can be unthinkable in Europe, but the study serves as a reminder that the risks involved in forest fires go far beyond the reach of the flames. Especially at the close of A season that has been primed with our environment and whose consequences are probably not only noticed in our forests, but also in our health. In Xataka | A town in Ourense has taken to the street to defend its new hero: the suspect of provoking a fire Image | NASA Earth Observatory, Lauren Dauphin

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