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Spain wants 90% of the people on this map to have an AVE station 30 minutes away. There is small print

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The Ministry of Transport and Urban Mobility wants to turn the train into one of the great mobility axes of our country. To this end, the objective has been proposed to promote the use of high speed in the west of the Iberian Peninsula. The project has a clear headline: an AVE station half an hour away for 90% of the inhabitants of the Atlantic corridor. What has been announced? 9% of the population of the Atlantic Corridor will have access to a high-speed station within half an hour in 2030. This is the conclusion reached by the Territorial accessibility analysis carried out by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobilitythrough the Office of the Commissioner of the Atlantic Corridor. If the plans are fulfilled, the Ministry assures that in less than five years a total of 62 high-speed stations will be ready, spread across 28 provinces and 11 autonomous communities. The jump will have to be substantial because right now there are 33 stations available with high-speed service distributed in 8 autonomous communities and 19 provinces. What is the Atlantic Corridor? Within the mobility of the European Union, the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) defines nine major corridors to define your roadmap and investments. These corridors are large spaces through which a very important part of the citizens of the European Union and their goods move. In the different corridors, therefore, all mobility nodes are taken into account, from ports and airports to railways and roads. In the case of the Atlantic Corridor we are talking about a set of communication nodes that link the south of Germany with Paris and the entire west coast of France with Spain (on its western slope) and Portugal, culminating in the Cádiz area. In these moments, the Atlantic Corridor as it passes through our country offers the following data: 5,400 kilometers of railway tracks 2,900 kilometers of roads Nine seaports Five international airports Nine intermodal stations Four cross-border crossings with Portugal or France And it is linked to 13 autonomous communities and 40 provinces By train. Among the infrastructures designed to facilitate movement through all these places is the train. And, specifically, the boost to high speed that the European Union wants to give to encourage the use of this means of transport instead of the plane. These investments, according to the Ministry of Transport, will have to be completed before December 31, 2030 and represent an investment of 3,123 million euros. It must be taken into account that the European Union has been demanding better connectivity by train from Spain and Portugal than should crystallize with a Madrid-Lisbon in 2030. But It won’t be until 2034 when this line is completely a high-speed route. What does it imply? In order to achieve the milestone set by the European Union, it will be necessary for Spain to complete the “Basque Y”, the high-speed project that has been underway for more than 20 years to provide the region with a qualitative leap in railway connections. that seem not to arrive. Additionally, the entire project will need to be completed to connect Spain with Portugal through Extremaduraa journey in which, at the moment, it is not always possible to travel at high speed. And it will also be necessary to bring high speed to Huelva. 90% with small print. The big headline, as we said, is that 90% of the population of the Atlantic Corridor will have a high-speed station less than half an hour from their home… as long as such a station exists in their province. Here is the headline’s trick, if the province does not have a high-speed station, the percentage drops drastically in some cases. For example, in the press release no reference is made to Salamancaone of the conflicting points when talking about high speed in the Atlantic Corridor. The European Union roadmap marks a connection between the Spanish city and Porto but there is little progress in this regard. Another of the region’s usual demands is also discarded: recover the Vía de la Plata railway. The truth is that this project is neither here nor expected. Other data must also be taken carefully. The Ministry of Transport says that 100% of the inhabitants of the Basque Country will have access to a high-speed train station… but in this case less than an hour away and not 30 minutes. La Rioja will also make a qualitative leap, from the current 14% to 99% although no high-speed train stops in the region. These data lead us to the fact that, in 2030, 70% of the population of the Atlantic Corridor will have a high-speed station less than an hour from their home. The Ministry of Transport puts this number at 26.8 million people. Some controversies. However, having a high-speed line close to home does not mean that we have a high-speed train that is always accessible. Spain, the second country with the most high-speed roads in the world (second only to China), is a good example of how a poorly studied growth ended with high speed stations with very little traffic. Nor does living in a provincial capital guarantee that the train always stops. A paradigmatic example of this is Zamorawhere they fight so that more high-speed trains that cover the Galician corridor stop at their stop. And sometimes, The best solution is to offer high-speed stations in the middle of nowhereas a link between large populations. Increasing the number of high-speed stations does not automatically mean having ample schedules to take a high-speed train. However, this shouldn’t be bad in and of itself. A good example is Japan’s dense high-speed network where there are trains that stop exceptionally between origin and destination and others that dot their journey with more or fewer stops. Of course, there the density of passage in the number of trains facilitates mobility and the connection between “fast” trains and those that stop more frequently. Photo | Adif In Xataka | High speed in Madrid … Read more

the map that divides the continent in two through its two large hydrographic basins

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Neither the intention to vote nor the football team nor of course the borders: Europe is divided from east to west and from north to south by an invisible line that divides the old continent in two to answer a question: where each and every one of them travels. the drops of rainwater that fall in Europe. Because each white line that crosses the map represents one of the many rivers that run through each and every state and its color reveals where it will end: the northern slope in blue includes the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea or the Baltic Sea and the southern slope in red, for the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Adriatic Sea or the Caspian Sea. Although the line from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Ural Mountains and the distinction between the frigid open water masses of the north and the inland seas of the south is clear, the practical reality is intuitively more blurred: the difference between one destination and the other can be only a few meters in altitude in the Alps. This map displays the hydrographic basins of Europethat is, the geographical areas where all surface water converges towards the same drainage point, in this case the seas and oceans that surround the continent. That line is the great divide continental, in this case simplified compared to its most rigorous version to reduce it to the north and south slopes. The author of the map is the French cartographer Pierre Remonté from the source Natural Eartha public domain vector mapping project developed by the North American Cartographic Information Society (NACIS). A more exhaustive alternative to the continental divides in Europe. Kimdime The great watershed of Europe On the northern and western slopes, the very long Rhine stands out, 1,230 kilometers long, which originates in the Swiss Alps and flows into the North Sea through Rotterdam, in addition to the Elbe, the Oder and the Vistula, which end in the Baltic or the Seine and the Loire that flow towards the Atlantic. Mighty rivers that have historically been commercial arteries of central Europe to reach the Atlantic and the Baltic. On the southern and eastern slopes, the absolute protagonist is the Danube, with 2,860 kilometers, which passes through 10 states and empties into the Black Sea. It is accompanied by the Dnieper that goes to the Black Sea, the Po that reaches the Adriatic or the Rhône and the Ebro that end in the Mediterranean. This basin is characterized by more variable water regimes and a geography marked by the large southern peninsulas. The Great Continental Divide, by Pierre Remonté The shape of this divide is not random: it is the direct consequence of millions of years of tectonic processes, mainly the collision between the African and Eurasian plates. The areas where the color changes coincide with the peaks of the Alps, the Pyrenees and the French Massif Central, which act as “roofs” that divert runoff to one side or the other. From a geological point of view, this map is a reflection of the structural relief of the continent. On the high peaks of Switzerland or Austria, the direction of the wind or the inclination of a rock of just a few centimeters can decide whether melted snow will end up on the coasts of the Netherlands or in the Danube delta in Romania. Some curiosities. One of the most interesting situations occurs in Munich: a drop that falls in that German city will reach the Isar, then the Danube and then travel more than 2,000 kilometers to the Black Sea. However, less than 100 kilometers away, a drop that falls there will end up in the North Sea. In some parts of the Alps, this divide means that extremely close geographic places belong to basins with final destinations thousands of kilometers apart. In the Iberian Peninsula there are also rarities: the longest and largest rivers flow into the Atlantic, but there is a notable exception that breaks this trend, the Ebro. Thus, situations arise such as that of Pamplona, ​​located less than 100 kilometers from the Atlantic (Cantabrian Sea): a drop that falls in the Navarrese capital will reach the Arga and from there to the Ebro to end up in the Mediterranean. In Xataka | The best 7 printed or digital maps that the European Union gives away and you can get for free In Xataka | The entire history of Europe year by year, explained in a video of just ten minutes Cover | Perrin Remonté

someone has built a map with more than 7,000 letters

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At its peak, the Roman Empire It covered three continents: from Great Britain to the Carpathians in Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor, an immense terrain under the umbrella of the same civilization. The Romans They had more roads than we thoughtbut to govern, negotiate and maintain power at a distance they used cards. Precisely these epistles have served to document how that civilization faded away, but also how they lived and thought. The problem is that these letters were scattered, in Latin and in academic editions, which in practice distances them from most mortals. So a dev has thought of changing it with a website that collects more than 7,000 letters from the late Roman world: Roman Letters. What is Roman Letters. It is a website that brings together 7,049 letters from 100 to 800 AD and constitutes the largest corpus of late Roman correspondence in English, with 54 collections of epistles by individual authors. In reality, the project tells a story in eight chapters, from the fervent connection of the 11th-century Empire to the silence that falls on the West after the year 600. And it does so precisely with those letters translated and accompanied by a map of the correspondence, a graph of networks between characters, an academic thesis and the source code on GitHub. The good thing is that the same can be used for academic research, to analyze networks or specific periods, since the project is registered in the CERN academic repository and can be cited, but also as complementary material in teaching or mere curiosity. Letter 1001, from Pliny the Younger to Septitius Who has done it. The project is carried out by Craig Vander Galiena software developer who was inspired by Patrick Wyman’s doctoral research on the fall of Rome to develop it. The dev signs both the data corpus and the academic thesis that supports it. There is no university behind it or institutional funding, but rather it is an individual work. The result is impressive, but the effort is even more so: it has 3,123 translations into English made for the first time, which means bringing some of this material closer to the Anglo-Saxon world. Why is it important. Because the decline of Rome can be seen graphically: in the period of greatest correspondence activity (the years 350 and 390) 2,112 letters survive per generation. In the year 600, that number drops to 182. When the roads deteriorate, the postal system disappears and literacy is concentrated in the monasteries, then it is the end of letters. This project demonstrates it with testimonies, maps and graphs. On the other hand, it shows that historians such as Peter Brown They are right: the Eastern Roman Empire did not collapse in the 5th century, since thousands of letters continued to be sent. It came to an end two centuries later, with the Arab conquests. Roman roads and communication flows. Roman Letters How to use it. If you enter out of curiosity, the easiest thing is to access the main page, scroll down and let the eight chapters tell the story from ‘The connected world’ to ‘After the letters stopped’. Each letter takes you to the author’s collection, where you can see the complete available letters and their context. If you prefer something more visual, you can use the ‘Maps’ sections to view the cartographies with Roman roads and the flow of superimposed charts, being able to filter or move the timeline. For more advanced use, the network graph in ‘Network’ shows who was writing to whom and who were the central nodes of the system. And a recommendation to contextualize everything better: take a look at Vander Galien’s methodological thesis. The fall of Rome, in letters The decline of the Empire, in letters. Among the very interesting topics in which the correspondence is classified, there are some such as plagues and famine or women, but there is a common event that marks a before and after in the perception of the Romans about their destiny: the sacking of Rome in 410. An example: Epistle 127 of Jerome of Strydon. One of the voices that best captures the end of the West is Sidonius ApolinarGallo-Roman aristocrat and bishop of Auvergne who, with more than 100 letters, constitutes a first-hand source for knowing the history of the 5th century in Gaul. Yes, but. It is worth remembering that despite the effort and size of the project, this corpus only includes what has survived and what remains is a biased sample: a good part are from ecclesiastical figures or from the high aristocracy, so there is a lack of voices that are not from the upper class (whether they knew how to write or not) to better understand what their society was like. The decrease in the number of letters shows the collapse of the elite’s communication networks, which can be extrapolated to the entire society. On the other hand, those unpublished translations are valuable, but the peer review process is missing. Not that they are incorrect, but they should be taken with caution like any other unreviewed source. In Xataka | Someone has created the definitive interactive map of the roads of the Roman Empire: there are more than we thought In Xataka | The death of one empire is the birth of another: the graph that reviews the history of civilizations from 4,000 years ago Cover | János Szüdi and Cover | Valentin de Boulogne and Tataryn

everything that the new Adif map has to say

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Yes, we knew that our high-speed trains did not always run at their maximum performance. But it was not until after the accident in Adamuz (Córdoba) that the controversy over speed limitations arose. Who sets these limitations? Why do you decide to drive at a specific speed and not another? How many are there? Adif has just resolved this last question. The map. It is public and very easy to consult. Adif has published a map which is updated in real time with all active speed limitations on the railways in Spain. The map is very easy to access and intuitive. A number on a green circular background shows the maximum limit at which the train can run. As can be seen in the images that we will detail throughout the text, the limitations are very numerous and are distributed throughout the national territory. It is important to know that they are temporary limitations, that is, they are limitations that have been imposed for safety measures but where the train passage should be greater. The map, of course, does not arrive without controversy either. And a group of train users set up their own website in which all the speed limitations were collected. Adif managed to knock her down in just a few hoursciting security reasons. Today, Adif has its own map. More than 1,000 limitations? It is the figure that has been popularized in the media, referring to all the conflict points that are registered on the map. However, it is worth clarifying something: not all limitations are active for high-speed lines. Some of them refer to medium and long distance lines, others are Cercanías and others are for freight lines. And, as we can see in the following image, in addition to the map it is also included with a legend in which we read the start and end point of the limitation, as well as whether the type of road on which it is active (high speed, goods…), its width or the direction of circulation. Speed ​​limitation for freight trains Limitation for high speed trains Why now? Since the occurrence of Adamuz accident in Córdoba where a Renfe train derailed after, everything indicates, slightly colliding with an Iryo train that was traveling in the opposite direction and which in turn had derailed due to a fracture in one of the tracks, the debate about whether the Spanish railway network is safe has been on the table. The truth is that after the accident and in a fateful week with another deceased in the Rodalies network in Catalonia and, later, a landslide next to the AVE tracks in the province of Malaga has caused its closure for monthsspeed limitations skyrocketed in our country for various reasons. Since then, these speed limitations have been part of the debate because, for example, in the Madrid-Barcelona match they complicated traffic so much that today trains continue to take much longer than expected to cover the journey. But, above all, the trains accumulated days and weeks in which they arrived late to their destination complicating connectivity between both cities on a line that had functioned without major problems. The vibrations. Part of these limitations were put in place after videos became popular in which obvious vibrations in trains Spanish high-speed trains. These vibrations, as confirmed by experts consulted by Xataka they do not cause a derailment by themselves but they do prematurely wear out rolling stock and infrastructure. To this we must add that the Madrid-Barcelona line was already in the spotlight because the AVLO trains used by Renfe, delivered by Talgo months before, ended up suffering from cracking problems and have had to be removed from circulation. Notices. These vibrations also generate obvious discomfort for passengers and the workers themselves. And the drivers, beyond the limitations indicated on the map, can reduce speed if they consider it necessary to circulate safely or with a minimum of comfort. These reductions must be notified to the corresponding control center and justified in a subsequent report why they are carried out. A train driver confirmed Xataka that they had been warning for a long time of these vibration problems and requesting temporary speed limitations at some points. However, they claim that these pleas were ignored and that it was not until the Adamuz accident that Adif took their complaints much more into account. Speed ​​limitations on Córdoba-Seville, Córdoba-Málaga and the branches to Cádiz and Algeciras Speed ​​limitations in Rodalies Catalonia Speed ​​limitations in the Basque Country Speed ​​limitations in the vicinity of Madrid The most affected. As can be seen in the images above, Andalusia is one of the most affected regions in terms of speed limitations. The sections between Córdoba and Seville and Córdoba and Málaga accumulate temporary restrictions for a good part of the route. Also noteworthy is the branch to Algeciras, which is medium distance and used by freight trains. Another area in which criticism has accumulated in recent months is Rodalies in Catalonia. There, the lines that connect with Barcelona suffer daily problems with delays or breakdowns. The Rodalies lines (red) present many more problems than the high-speed lines (blue) with temporary speed limitations that are chained together. They are also not exempt from continuous speed limitations on approaches to Bilbao and San Sebastián. Above all, arriving at the first of these cities is accepting that you are constantly traveling at a speed lower than what could be reached no matter how complicated the terrain. And finally, The approach to Madrid is not very differentwith constant speed limitations for medium-distance and Cercanías trains, wherever they arrive. Photos | Adif and Pablo Nieto Abad In Xataka | After the Adamuz accident and the high-speed chaos, the consequences arrive: 30% fewer train travelers

the secret is in the hidden map of the nose

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We have known for decades how what we see, what we hear and what we touch works. Science has been mapping these senses for a century, so that each sensory signal has a known direction, a path traced from the organ to the brain. A couple of examples: this retinal map either east of the cochlea. There was one pending subject: smell. Not because no one had looked for it but because the olfactory system has enormous complexity: more than a thousand different types of receptors and twenty million neurons in the nose of a mouse. A biological chaos that a Harvard research team has managed to draw a map. What the map says. The scientific team has discovered that olfactory neurons are not distributed randomly in the nasal cavity, but rather form a spatial code based on overlapping stripes organized by the type of receptor and distributed from the upper to the lower part of the nose. This pattern is practically identical in all the animals studied, so it is a conserved and reproducible biological architecture. The most surprising thing is that this banding arrangement is a mirror of the map of the olfactory bulb in the brain. That is, there is topographic continuity: the position of a neuron in the nose determines exactly which area of ​​the brain it will send its signal to. This means that the brain “reads” odors based in part on the geographic location of the cell that detected the molecule. havard Why is it important. Because it is the missing piece to understand neuroplasticity and the regeneration of smell. In practice, because the loss of smell currently lacks effective treatments: by knowing the original design of the system, researchers can now understand why connections fail after trauma or a viral infection, something that revealed COVID-19. If the architecture of the system is not understood, regeneration goes blindly. As Sandeep Robert Datta, a neurobiologist at Harvard’s Blavatnik Institute and principal investigator of the paper, points out, without understanding this map, attempts to develop new treatments are doomed to failure. Context. Mammalian olfaction is a complex system. In the case of the mouse, it has 20 million olfactory neuronseach expressing one of more than a thousand different receptor types. To get an idea, human color vision is only supported by three types of photoreceptors. This complexity meant that for decades science tended to associate the distribution of receptors randomly. Linda Buck and Richard Axel discover olfactory receptors in 1991 it earned them the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2004but that told us what detected the odors, not where or how they were organized. The good news is that with the advances in molecular biology today it is possible to analyze individual cells in their original position using techniques such as spatial transcriptomics. How have they done it. The Harvard team analyzed approximately 5.5 million neurons from more than 300 mice by combining two techniques: single-cell sequencing to know which receptor each neuron expresses and spatial transcriptomics to know exactly where it is located in the tissue. The study also identified the mechanism that builds that map: retinoic acid. By manipulating the chemical gradients of retinoic acid during embryonic development, they observed that the stripes of these receptors shifted, confirming that this acid functions as a kind of molecular GPS that tells each neuron where to position itself and which receptor to express. Yes, but. The first major limitation of the study is evident: it was done in mice, so as the research team itself acknowledges, they still do not know if the same organization applies to humans. Although the olfactory system of mammals is mostly conserved, humans have significantly fewer functional receptors (approximately 350 compared to more than 1,000 in the mouse) and a different nasal anatomy, so the existence of these stripes in humans still needs to be validated experimentally. Furthermore, although the map explains the wherestill does not fully explain the because of that specific order. We do not know if the stripes are grouped by the chemical structure of the odors or by their biological relevance, for example the smell of food versus odors of danger. Resolving what logic obeys that order is the next big challenge. In Xataka | We have been wondering for decades why Neanderthals became extinct. So we’re studying your nose In Xataka | Nasal strips are back in fashion in sports. Science has already passed judgment on them Cover | Angela Roma and Data Lab

Wolves, bears and wild boars are dividing up the map of Spain and the real battle is between the rural world and the cities

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Wolves, bears, vultures, cormorants, wild boars, lynxes… When, a few months ago, Christian Gortázar, professor at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, was asked about Spanish wildlife, his words were tremendously accurate: “the problem is everywhere.” And dozens of species are being redistributed throughout traditional territory while rural and urban society confront each other over something extremely basic: what the hell nature is and what it is for. Why are we talking about this? Complaints from the agricultural sector about wildlife have been with us for years. However, in recent months (and spurred by the African swine fever crisis) the “mismanagement” framework has been gaining weight in public debate. But the truth is that the idea that “there are many animals and no one controls them” is not innocent. It is, in reality, a ‘discursive umbrella’: an idea-force that brings together very heterogeneous demands (the cuts from the future CAP, the fears derived from the Mercosur treatybureaucratic burdens, rising costs, rural identity, etc.). That is the main reason why the political debate does not fit with the scientific one, but not the only one. How to survive the end of the field. Talking about Spain being emptied today is almost obvious: 62% of Spanish municipalities has lost population since the nineties. In Castilla y León and Asturias that figure is around 85%. For the urban population it is only a sociological question, for the rural population it is an existential question. And in that context, the wolf has expanded to the southeast, the bear has doubled its area of ​​influence and the wild boar has sneaked into towns and neighborhoods (causing a complete economic and health earthquake). Regardless of the real effect of conservation measures on the rural world, it is easy for the feeling of general abandonment to curdle into an aversion to this way of seeing the countryside. A legitimate debate. From an ecological point of view, species recovery makes sense (as long as it is done properly). Degraded ecosystems lose the ability to adapt and become much more fragile: recovering species is the simplest and most cost-effective strategy. But we must not forget that these species return to a world completely different from the one they left and that the gaps they left are now occupied by “de facto powers” and realities historically established in the countryside and that still survive. And those powers They maintain that the ‘intervention’ of cities In their world it is counterproductive. The debate, as I say, is legitimate (and even healthy). And then? The real problem is not the discussion about whether the resources allocated to recovery measures would be better invested in other policies. The problem is that in the public debate the data and arguments are missing; and everything has become a partisan quagmire that is very difficult to manage. But the wildlife is still there. And the farmers too. In fact, all the actors who have taken us here are still there. The fundamental question is whether there is a future that can be understood as a solution. Image | Nancy Stapler In Xataka | Wolf hunting throughout Spain depended on a red button that changes its status. And Europe has decided to press it

High-speed train coverage in Europe, in a revealing map

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Japan may already have carriages with noise cancellation, windows with 5G and his bullet train is a veteran and that China has the most futuristic trains and supersonic, but the network European high speed railway It represents one of the most advanced transportation infrastructures in the world. This system has transformed the continent’s mobility since 1981, when France laid the foundation inaugurating its first TGV line. Today, high-speed trains have a route of approximately 65,000 kilometers, transporting 2.5 billion passengers a year with 4,900 trains, according to data from the International Union of Railways (UIC). But since a picture is worth a thousand words, it is better to see them displayed on the map of the old continent. This map of Europe’s high-speed rail network is the fruit of the collaborative effort of several Wikimedia Commons users, who update it annually with new projects from from official UIC data. Of course, macro data is one thing and the reality of this train grid is another, because within the network there are huge differences between some areas and others. Even within the “high speed” classification itself. The map uses a color code based on the maximum operating speed allowed on each section, with black for non-high-speed lines: The lines in pink represent the maximum high speed category, 310-320 km/h. State-of-the-art infrastructure with wide curvature radii, controlled slopes and advanced signage. The red lines are the European speed standard: 270 to 300 km/h. The yellow and orange lines are for those trains that reach 200 to 260 km/h, generally on sections with topographical limitations. The dotted green lines correspond to roads under construction or updating, essential to glimpse the future evolution of the network. Europe by high speed train Broadly speaking, Western Europe concentrates the highest density of this infrastructure, especially highlighting the axis that connects Spain, France, Germany and Benelux, while Eastern Europe maintains significantly less development. High-speed lines operational in Europe in December 2025. Wikimedia Because as we move east on the map, the colored lines disappear and space out, evidencing a dramatic infrastructural gap: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic countries practically lack operational high-speed infrastructure, depending on slow conventional lines that severely limit the competitiveness of the railway. And boy does it show: according to the Romanian Ministry of Transportthe Budapest-Bucharest high-speed project with a 590-kilometer line would reduce the current trip from more than 11 hours to approximately 3.5 hours. The project dates back to September 2024 and has an estimated budget of 17 billion euros. With 3,974 kilometers in service (September 2024 data) Spain holds a title: is the high-speed rail network largest in Europe and the second in the whole world, only surpassed by China. And as you can see on the map, it continues to grow. From a technical point of view and as is usual in the state, it has a radial model focused on Madrid. His constructive efficiency is remarkable: Spain has developed the second high-speed network in the world with one of the lowest construction costs per kilometer compared to the rest of the countries with this mode of transport and the lowest among the countries of the European Union. Among the most notable connections is the Eurostar, which connects Paris and London in approximately 2 hours and 16 minutes through the Channel Tunnel. It may not have as much fanfare as crossing a sea, but the Figueres-Perpignan line constitutes an essential 44.4 km link that connects the Spanish railway network with the French network and the rest of the European states, with a double-track section in UIC gauge. The main bottlenecks They are concentrated in mountainous border crossings and pending connections between national networks. Between Austria and Italy, the Brenner Base Tunnel is under construction to improve the Berlin-Palermo railway axis, connecting northern and southern Europe through the Alps. The Pyrenees are another critical point: although there is a Figueres-Perpignan connection, at the border crossing there is a single platform to concentrate everything. From an engineering point of view, the fundamental problem is the saturation of infrastructures that absorb mixed traffic of goods and people. In any case and although the EU since 2000 has invested large sums in high-speed railway infrastructure, faces a heterogeneous and fragmented scene insofar as it cannot force member states to build lines, which, together with the diversity of signaling systems, electrification and national technical standards, constitutes the true structural bottleneck of the European high-speed network. In Xataka | The countries with the most kilometers of high-speed train, displayed in a graph with a brutal dominator: China In Xataka | The big problem of the AVE that Japan has already solved: a bullet train with windows with 5G and noise cancellation to travel in peace Cover | Bernese media via Wikimedia

the map that divides Spain in two through its two large hydrographic basins

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This curious map that divides the Spanish state into blue and red could represent political or administrative borders, but the partition is much more curious and striking: it shows the final destination of each drop of rain that falls in Spain. Each line you see is one of the many rivers that run through this part of the Iberian Peninsula and its color reveals where it will end: in the Mediterranean Sea or in the Atlantic Ocean. The result is one of the most beautiful and revealing hydrological portraits of the Iberian Peninsula. Based on data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, the cartographer and GIS consultant Joe Davies has put together This map of watersheds that reveals the invisible spine that runs through the state, the continental watershed. The result is surprising to say the least. In addition to the colors, the route is more or less marked depending on the flow of the river, thus revealing which rivers are the largest. That invisible line slides approximately through the Iberian System and the Pyrenean foothills, dividing the territory into two water worlds. There are several things that draw attention to the image: the first thing is the proportion. The Atlantic takes up about two thirds of the territory. But also that although Spain “looks” towards the Mediterranean, its rivers flow mostly to the west. There is a geological reason that explains it: the Central Plateau It tilts slightly towards the Atlantic, a legacy of the Hercynian tectonics that shaped the Iberian base 300 million years ago. The curious layout of the continental watershed in Spain He Ebro river is the great traitor: Born in Cantabria, just 20 kilometers from the Cantabrian Sea. By geographical logic one would expect it to be Atlantic, but no: its entire large basin is painted the color of the Mediterranean, where it empties after traveling almost a thousand kilometers. The Pyrenees functioned as a barrier and the Iberian and Catalan Systems as a funnel, so the river was forced to flow westwards. A striking example of how the orography is capable of hijacking a river and taking it to another sea different from the one where it would belong. Another river that constitutes a curious case is the Segura: it originates in the Sierra de Segura in Jaen, more than 300 kilometers from the sea. Afterwards, it travels an enormous distance to empty into Alicante with a low flow, something that can be seen in comparison with neighboring Gualquivir. The explanation lies in the extreme aridity of its basin and the intense agricultural pressure. Where does each drop of rain that falls in Spain go. Joe Davies with data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge As one might expect, Galicia is very red on Davies’ map: it is a truly dense tangle that contrasts with the rest, especially if we move away from the Cantabrian coast. Galicia receive between 1,500 and 2,000 mm of annual precipitation, on a substrate of practically impermeable granites and slates, so the water does not filter, it drains. The result is that density of rivers and streams, all Atlantic, short and mighty. It is the region that best illustrates the direct relationship between geology, climate and river network. If the map were of all of Europe, Galicia would still stand out. The map also gives us unthinkable colorslike Pamplona being colored in Blue despite being a northern city extremely close to the Cantabrian Sea: its waters go to the Mediterranean through the Ebro and its tributaries. Madrid is red: the Manzanares-Jarama-Tajo takes it to the Atlantic. It has the continental divide very close, less than 80 kilometers away. On either side of that barrier, the water that falls in the same downpour ends up in seas separated by thousands of kilometers. 3D version with inverted colors. Joe Davies with data from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge In Xataka | The definitive tool for a historic year of astronomy in Spain: the light pollution map In Xataka | Much more than tourism, cars and oil: the entire industry that Spain exports to the world, gathered in one graph Cover | Joe Davies

The map of Spain where you can see how healthy the tap water in your town is

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Water management in the Spanish state has several fronts: from the purely hydrological to the increasingly frequent shortage scenarios to the quality of this. Yes, the water that reaches the tap has passed through a water treatment plant and is therefore suitable for consumption, but there is a pollutant to keep an eye on: nitrates. The filtration of nutrients from the industrial agricultural activity so widespread in Spain brings about the degradation of ecosystems and also jeopardizes the security of public supply by saturating the self-cleaning capacity of aquifers and exceeding, in many cases, the treatment capacity of local water treatment plants. Although checking the quality of the water that reaches your tap is a resource accessible to citizens through platforms such as the National Consumer Water Information System (SINAC), the reality is that sometimes databases are too technical and dense, so someone has thought of converting the information from the Ministry of Health into an interactive map that is understandable to everyone. Is “the water of your town“and is a public consultation tool so that anyone who wants to know the quality of tap water of your municipality regarding nitrates, you can do so without needing technical knowledge through an interactive map that is easy to interpret. The map in question has been developed by DATADISTA based on official data from SINAC, which depends on the Ministry of Health and collects the analytical results of all drinking water supply networks in Spain. It is important to highlight that the last reading dates from April 2026 and does not contain real-time measurements, but rather the frequency varies depending on the supply area. Thus, while those networks that distribute more than 10 cubic meters per day have to report, those that are smaller the report is voluntary. Hence, some small rural towns appear without data. To make it easier, it comes with a direct search engine. Datadista The map shows the Spanish state with an OpenStreetMap map and points distributed throughout the territory on a color scale that goes from red for those who do not comply with the regulations to green for those who comply, passing through intermediate tones for risk or surveillance situations. In addition to being able to zoom and move the map or the Canary Islands having its own button to center the image on its archipelago, in the upper area are the layers that we can activate to view information such as the Nitrate Vulnerable Zones declared by the autonomous communities or the chemical state of the underground aquifers. In the lower left corner, the legend that explains the limits. If you prefer not to search on the map, at the top of the website there is a search box that speeds up everything and a brief summary of those critical areas. How good (or not) is the water in your town? Municipalities that fail to comply, critical points and control points. Datadista At first glance, a clear correlation is obtained: the most affected areas are concentrated in areas of intensive irrigated agriculture, especially in the interior of the peninsula. If you also activate the aquifer layer, transparent white and in the bottle: there is one direct relationship between agricultural intensity and water pollution underground with which the population is supplied. The categories in which the municipalities are classified are four: It fails to comply when any network registers 50 mg/L or more of nitrates, which is the parametric value set by European regulations and the Royal Decree 3/2023. Critical point: nitrates consistently exceed 30 mg/L. It is 60% of the legal limit and obliges the operator to develop a Water Health Plan with corrective measures. Control point, for those municipalities where high episodes have been detected but on a punctual and non-sustained basis. Complies, for municipalities that do not present a relevant risk due to nitrates. Be careful because there are 201 municipalities and almost 91,000 people supplied within that “non-compliant” range and 885 municipalities and more than a million people who drink tap water in critical areas. It is important to consider that the final state of a municipality is always determined by the worst state of all its supply networks. The nitrate problem. Nitrates reach the water due to the excess of nitrogen fertilizers and livestock manure, which, applied to the field (whether directly or not), are oxidized by bacterial action, transforming into nitrate, a very soluble anion that the soil does not retain and that easily infiltrates into the aquifers and rivers from which the population is supplied. The 50 mg/L limit was set by the WHO between the decades of the 50s and 60s to prevent acquired methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome) in infants due to high levels of nitrates in well water, the use of uncontrolled groundwater for infant formulas is not recommended. But science has shown that the problem is more serious than that legal limit. Without going any further, a Danish study from 2018 showed that there is a greater risk of colorectal cancer from just 3.87 mg/L, the MCC-Spain project found links to aggressive prostate tumors even below that current limit. In fact, in 2025 an international group of science professionals recommended lower this safety threshold to 6 mg/L, a figure that is very far from what comes out of the taps of numerous municipalities in the state. In Xataka | Much more than tourism, cars and oil: the entire industry that Spain exports to the world, gathered in one graph In Xataka | Someone has created a simulator where you can see if sea level rise is going to reach your house or not. Cover | Infowater

The entire global electricity grid, in an impressive interactive map that shows the evolution of the energy transition

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There are few infrastructures as complex and essential to living in the world as we know it as the electrical grid, which in practice for most mortals is reduced to touching a switch or connecting a plug to the socket and it works. Behind the world’s electrical infrastructure there is a huge conglomerate of equipment, careful planning and uses that are changing (among other things, due to the now so famous data centers). It is not the only thing that is being transformed: the energy transition is making it possible for those resources that once supplied the electrical grid to give way to renewable energies. But not all countries in the world have the same density of electrical networks or the same sources, because in fact there are real black holes in this very complete world map of the electrical network. Is called OpenGridWorks and is an interactive map of the entire world’s electrical infrastructure, from a small solar plant to the great lines that cross continents. And we already told you that it attracts attention not only for the beauty of the chromatic compositions, but also for practical purposes: from planning an engineering project to analyzing energy policy. Opengridworks This map is actually a web platform for geospatial visualization of electrical infrastructure. All its data comes from OpenStreetMap, the world’s largest open, collaborative geographic database, maintained by volunteers and experts on an ongoing basis. This guarantees global coverage, constant updating and completely free access. But for network and infrastructure data it uses information from Global Energy Monitor or the United States Energy Information Administration, among others. Its purpose is to show, in a clear and interactive way, where electricity is generated, how it travels through the grid and where consumption is concentrated. It is worth stopping at the layers and all the information it shows because as we warned you before it is very complete, so if you leave all the options activated you will find yourself in a mess. If you move on the map and get closer, you will be able to see information such as: What technology provides the energy in the form of a colored bubble: blue for hydroelectric, red for thermal, yellow for solar, green for wind and purple for nuclear. The size of each bubble represents the installed capacity in MW Transmission lines are drawn thicker the higher their voltage (from 100 kV to 765 kV) and substations appear as nodes where these lines converge. Data centers also appear in the shape of a white diamond as they are points of intensive consumption. On the other hand, easement strips (ROW) appear as shaded areas around lines and facilities. Opengridworks But you will also be able to see additional information when you hover the pointer over any of the points. An example: when touching the Montes de Cierzo wind farm in Tudela, we will see that it is in operation and the energy it provides. What the global electrical map reveals about the energy transition Playing with the zoom and scrolling you quickly discover that there are areas of saturation and others that are a desert of infrastructure. From an engineering point of view, the map allows you to search for the closest interconnection point for a new project or detect nodes whose failure would leave regions without supply. Beyond engineering, it is an energy policy tool: it highlights the electrification gaps in developing countries, shows the real progress of renewables compared to fossil fuels, and allows the resilience of different national networks to be compared. AND abysmal differences are observed. Opengridworks The densest networks They are concentrated in the United States, central Europe and China, while sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia show very poor coverage that reveals an electrical blackout. In South America, the areas with the most infrastructure are on the Atlantic coast, although there are also some timid points on the Pacific coast. However, inside we barely find more than a fade to black. The colors of energy sources also change on the map, still dominated by thermal generation, although in Western Europe and China the advance of solar and wind power is a reality already perfectly visible. This map also reveals curiosities such as that nuclear plants always appear next to rivers or coasts due to cooling needs and hydroelectric plants are concentrated in the large river systems of the world. The data centers are also not placed at random, but are clustered near large transmission nodes to ensure supply. In Xataka | How much electricity each country on the map produces with renewable energy, displayed on a graph In Xataka | The amount of nuclear energy generated by each country, detailed in this interactive map Cover | OpenGrid Works

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