Meters

It already has more than 672 meters

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The ‘Mayrit’ tunnel boring machine It is already in its first months of operation under the basement of Madrid with the aim of expand Metro Line 11. The gigantic machine has already left behind the first 672.6 meters of gallery from the future Comillas station and, according to data made public by the Ministry of Housing, Transport and Infrastructure shared by El Debate, confirm that the machine is already gaining quite a bit of momentum. Progress figures. In less than two months of activity, Mayrit has extracted 46,676.2 cubic meters of earth, as stated by the media, the equivalent of filling about 19 Olympic swimming pools. In addition, 389 of the 3,076 concrete rings that will end up covering the 5,227 meters of tunnel planned between Comillas and Conde de Casal have already been placed. Each ring is made up of seven voussoirs, rhomboidal pieces that are manufactured in Noblejas, Toledo, in a plant specifically built for this work. How extracted land is managed. The tunnel boring machine tears up the ground with its cutting wheel and the earth travels along a network of conveyor belts that lengthen as the machine advances. These ribbons cross the interior of what will be the Comillas station until they reach the surface, where the earth falls into a pit. with capacity for 8,500 cubic meters. From there, several backhoes load it into a fleet of about 150 trucks that are responsible for the final transfer. All this extracted material is being used to restore half a dozen mining operations and even an abandoned landfill. The start. The first month of work was slower than normal because the machine was still in the adjustment phase. Those first 200 meters were done with Mayrit filming. From now on, according to the ministry’s own forecasts, the tunnel boring machine should move between 400 and 500 meters per month, around 15 meters per day, working 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The next stop. The Ministry’s forecast is that the section between Comillas and Madrid Río, of 1,114 meters, be finished next June. When Mayrit arrives there, it will stop for about two weeks so that the operators can carry out a technical inspection. Then it will continue to Palos de la Frontera, Atocha and, finally, Conde de Casal, the final point of the route and headquarters of the future interchange. The general director of Collective Transport Infrastructure of the Community of Madrid, Miguel Núñez, calculate The complete excavation will take between 13 and 14 months, which puts the end of drilling around May or June 2027. Material at large. To complete this section of tunnel, 32,000 tons of steel, 210,000 cubic meters of concrete and more than 25,000 segments will be needed. Just like they count From El Debate, 50 workers work in the Noblejas factory, producing 42 segments a day, equivalent to six complete rings, which are transported to Comillas in vehicles prepared to support up to 38 tons of weight. The investment in this phase exceeds 740 million euros and the overall progress of the works already exceeds 50%. A bigger project. This entire operation is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. The future Line 11 will be ‘the great diagonal’ of Madrida 33.5 kilometer stretch from Cuatro Vientos to Valdebebas, with 20 stations that will connect key points such as Atocha, the airport, Zendal Hospital or the future Formula 1 circuit in Ifema. When it is finished, it is expected that traveling Madrid from end to end without passing through the center will take around one hour and six minutes. The total investment in the project exceeds 2.5 billion euros and the works will be carried out in phases until 2031. Cover image | Community of Madrid In Xataka | Madrid has just become the spearhead of a technological transformation in Europe: robotaxis

After the Titan millionaire submarine disaster, China plans to take more rich tourists 1,000 meters under the sea

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The depths ofto Mariana Trench or exploration from the deep ocean It has always been a thing for scientists and remotely controlled machines. China wants it to stop being so and already has an ambitious plan in motion: taking wealthy tourists to 1,000 meters deep, where sunlight does not reach and where there is no turning back for an engineering failure. The project comes three years after the Titan tragedythe OceanGate submersible that imploded in June 2023 while I was visiting the remains of the titanic in which its five occupants died. Far from stopping its efforts, China is moving forward with a proposal that, unlike the Titan, is backed by decades of naval engineering developed with the support of China. Four highly sought-after seats. Ye Cong, director of the China Naval Scientific Research Center, counted to ChinaDaily that “after more than four years of research, engineers have finalized the structural design” and that, once the prototype is built, “they will carry out sea trials and then improve the design based on the results.” The submersible will have enough space to accommodate four peoplepilot included, so, to begin with, the availability of places is very limited. This shortage of vacancies is expected to contribute to skyrocketing prices for filling each seat. One of the most complex problems of the small submarine has already been solved: the panoramic viewfinder. Your designers they describe it as “one of the most difficult structural codes to decipher on a deep-sea submersible.” And it makes sense since at 1,000 meters deep the pressure is about 100 times greater than on the surface, and that window has to withstand it without giving way. An unprecedented leap into the abyss. This is not the first submersible that Chinese engineers have operated. However, such andhow do they count in South China Morning Post The new projects that are being tested far exceed the depths at which current submersibles operate, which do not go below 20 meters deep. They are used for lakes, reservoirs and shallow coasts, so going from there to 1,000 meters is multiplying the operating depth by 50. The same naval engineering center that is now building this new generation of manned mini-submarines already built The Huandao Jiaolong 1 and 2, two tourist submersibles with capacity for seven passengers and a limit of 40 meters. However, on that occasion, immersion operations were suspended due to regulatory restrictions, but everything learned then has been applied to the new design. China plunges into the field of underwater exploration. The West has been designing submersibles for decades for deep dives. Companies like Deep RoverTriton and U-Boat Worx have been manufacturing submersibles over 1,000 meters since 1985 and until now had no Chinese competition in that segment. The new project developed by the China Naval Scientific Research Center changes that scenario supported by the previous experience of the Jiaolongthe Deep Sea Warrior and the Fendouzhe, three ships that last year completed more than 300 dives around the world and accounted for more than 50% of all manned deep-sea expeditions on a global scale. Ye Cong assured the Chinese news agency that the submersible: “will be a valuable asset for cruise lines, high-end tour operators and oceanographic researchers. It will offer the most demanding travelers an unforgettable experience in ocean exploration.” The prototype should be ready before the end of 2026, with the commercial debut expected before 2030. Much more than a tourist “toy”: it is a key strategy. This submersible is not just a mere product intended for tourist use of millionaires with adventurous concerns. It is part of China’s strategy to become strong in the blue economy, the sector of economic activities linked to the sea, a developing sector in which China seeks to play a leading role in the future. The Asian giant already leads manned deep-sea exploration and wants that this technological advantage is amortized in the form of a private business for their companies. After the Titan catastrophea good part of the luxury underwater tourism industry came to a screeching halt. China is the first to step on the accelerator again in this area, and this project is supported by State resources, which gives it a considerable advantage over projects that, like the Titan, are developed with private funds and investors. In Xataka | There is a new chapter in the Titan submarine tragedy: the memory card of its camera survived the implosion Image | CSSC

A gigantic tunnel boring machine 16 meters in diameter is devouring the sea floor under Genoa. It is your solution against traffic

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Under the port of Genoa, the largest in Italy, there is a machine that aims to devour the sea floor meter by meter. And it does so from the bowels of the earth, 45 meters deep and without interrupting the traffic that passes above it every day. The key is a 16 meter diameter tunnel boring machine that is drilling into the seabed like butter. This is how Italy is solving one of its most entrenched mobility problems, and in the process building the first underwater tunnel of the history of the country. A problem that has been unsolved for decades. Genoa is a city trapped between the Mediterranean Sea and the foothills of the Apennines. It has no room to grow. Its historic center is a labyrinth of narrow streets, and east-west traffic has always been a headache. The solution adopted in the 1960s was to build a gigantic elevated highway, the Sopraelevata Aldo Moro, which crosses the city like a concrete scar. for her About 80,000 vehicles pass through each daybut at a high price: it blocks the view of the sea, generates constant noise and, for many citizens, is a barrier that separates the city from its own port. Its demolition has been stalled for years because no one knows what to do with that traffic in the meantime. Tragedy. The tunnel project was born from an agreement between Autostrade per l’Italia, the Italian Ministry of Transport and local administrations as compensation to the city after the collapse of the Morandi bridge in 2018. That collapse, which claimed 43 lives, left Genoa without one of its main accesses and put the highway concessionaire company under the spotlight. As part of the repair agreement, signed in October 2021, Autostrade per l’Italia, the Liguria Region, the Western Ligure Sea Port System Authority and the Municipality of Genoa agreed to build this underwater tunnel. It is, in practice, the great work of compensation for a city that suffered a tragedy. What is being built. The total route is 4.2 kilometers, of which 3.4 run under the sea floor. It will consist of two separate galleries, one in each direction, each 16 meters in diameter, and will reach a maximum depth of 45 meters below sea level. When completed, it is expected to be Italy’s first underwater tunnel, the largest in Europe (with pardon is being built between Germany and Denmark) and the fourth largest in the world by diameter. Next to nothing. The key: a Hydroshield TBM. Excavating under an active port without interrupting its activity is a monumental challenge. The solution is a TBM tunnel boring machine (Tunnel Boring Machine) Hydroshield type. Each of the two main galleries will be constructed by mechanized excavation with a Hydroshield type back-pressure armored TBM milling cutter, with an excavation diameter of approximately 16 meters. Why this type and not another? In a Hydroshield TBM, the balance in the excavation chamber is maintained through the pressure of water or bentonite slurrywhich stabilizes the excavation face. The extracted material is mixed with these sludge and transported to the surface through pipes. It is the ideal technology for unstable terrain with the presence of water: it allows you to continue drilling without the sea floor crumbling and without the sea entering the gallery. The port above is still working. The gallery measures 15.4 meters in diameter on the outside, but the useful space for circulation is somewhat less, 14.3 meters, because the walls are considerably thick. These walls are built by assembling prefabricated pieces of concrete, as if they were the staves of a giant barrel, joined together with screws and sealed with rubber gaskets so that water does not enter. As if that were not enough, an additional layer of concrete is added inside that further reinforces the impermeability, especially in the sections that are just below the port. The result is a practically airtight tube capable of withstanding the pressure of the sea on its walls. lto logistics of the work. You can’t just place a tunnel boring machine on the seabed and run it. First you have to prepare the ground. The tunnel boring machine was thrown from an attack pit in the San Benigno areaon the west side of the city. To free up that space, Autostrade first had to move a port railway line that ran through there. The railway route, about 700 meters long, has been moved about 70 meters to the south with respect to its previous position, running parallel to the port sopraelevata until passing under it in its final section. Deadlines. Preparation works started in 2023, and work began in March 2024. However, the full tender for the construction of the two main galleries was not approved until January 2026. The specifications set a period of 75 months to complete the entire work. According to the latest Autostrade documents, the TBM will complete excavation work in October 2030, with full completion of the work planned for 2031. Budget. The project started from a budget of 700 million euros, although the mayor of Genoa, Silvia Salis, confirmed that Autostrade now places the cost at more than 1,129 million euros. An escalation of costs that, according to the original agreement between the parties, is covered by a mechanism linked to national highway tolls. Transformation. When the tunnel is completed, it will allow the creation of new green areas (10 hectares, distributed in three public parks) and pedestrian routes that reconnect the city center with the sea. In the San Benigno area, on the new railway gallery already in use, the Lantern Park will be built, which will connect that sector with the city’s historic lighthouse through a bicycle and pedestrian path. In Xataka | Mexico touches the sky with a new and elegant skyscraper of 484 meters and 99 floors: it will be the tallest in all of Latin America

two satellites have come within just 3 meters and no one knows why

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Two russian satellites They have been observed carrying out very sophisticated behaviors that attract attention for two reasons. On the one hand, due to its commendable technical difficulty. On the other hand, because they could have a hidden purpose that, for the moment, has only been possible to speculate on. It’s not a coincidence. The American space monitoring company COMSPOC has been the one that has caught red-handed Russia carrying out this curious maneuver. As they have explained in your X accountOn April 28, the Russian satellites COSMOS 2581 and COSMOS 2583 approached to within 3 meters of each other. This requires great precision, but also gives a lot of food for thought. More satellites involved. Both satellites were launched together with COSMOS 2582 into low Earth orbit last February 2025. All of them participated in the maneuvers that led to the approach on April 28. Even a subsatellite called Object F was also part of this satellite dance. However, it is true that COSMOS 2582 remained in the distance, just under 100 kilometers away. In a simulation carried out by COMSPOC the entire maneuver can be seen perfectly. spying on spies. Russia launched these satellites with some secrecy. At no time was it indicated what its function could be. However, now that this curious maneuver has occurred, there are certain suspicions. And, in reality, everything is reminiscent of what COSMOS 2542 was seen doing in 2020, another Russian satellite that was detected following a US spy satellite very closely. It is not clear if these new satellites are being tested for the same purpose, but it is undeniable that there could be military objectives behind the mission. If the suspicions are corroborated, considering how much they have improved in accuracy, they would be much more dangerous in that sense. Other countries. In reality, Russia is not the only country that tries this type of maneuvers. As explained from Spaceother great powers have satellites with similar capabilities. For example, Chinese or American satellites have been seen closely following satellites or probes from other nations. Basically, spies are spied on too. Other possibilities. It should be noted that, in reality, proximity maneuvers They can also have other purposes. For example, they can be used to carry out maintenance work from one satellite to another or to remove debris. In fact, it is a very useful maneuver to being able to clean up space debris that is a bigger problem in low orbit every day. In short, we have no idea what those Russian satellites were doing. There has been a lot of room for speculation, but it could be anything from a hidden military mission to something completely harmless. Image | Bill Ingalls In Xataka | Russia wants to know how trips to Mars will affect us, so it is going to launch a thousand flies and 75 mice on a rocket

They measure 85 meters, have no anchors and are connected to Starlink: the gigantic "Roombas" sailors who want to save AI from the blackout

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The rise of artificial intelligence is devouring the capacity of electrical grids around the world, skyrocketing consumption and carbon emissions. And this is just the beginning. As Garth Sheldon-Coulson, CEO of the startup Panthalassa, warned, in an interview with CBS News: “We are still at the beginning of this lawsuit.” To solve this bottleneck, the heaviest investors in the technology sector are looking to the sea. Peter Thiel, the controversial billionaire co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, just led a $140 million injection into Panthalassa. But what exactly is Panthalassa? To understand it, you have to erase the traditional image of an industrial warehouse full of servers. Sheldon-Coulson described it with a rather peculiar metaphor: “It’s like ‘a giant Roomba,’ an autonomous, self-propelled system that sails without anchors across the Pacific.” The anatomy of a marine colossus. Panthalassa will use this newly raised $140 million to complete its pilot plant in Oregon and accelerate the deployment of its new model, the Ocean-3which will be tested in the North Pacific in 2026 with a view to commercialization in 2027, as detailed ESG Today. We are not talking about small buoys. The proportions are colossal. As explained Financial Timesthese solid steel structures measure about 85 meters long. To give us an idea, they are almost as tall as the iconic Big Ben of London or the building Flatiron from New York. In Xataka There is a company that has grown 3,000% in the stock market, even beating the performance of Nvidia: Sandisk The engineering behind. Just as described Tom’s Hardwarethe nodes are shaped like a “lollipop”: a huge white sphere floats on the surface, while a long tubular structure submerges vertically under the water. As the waves pass, the structure rises and falls. This relative motion forces seawater up the pressurized tube into the spherical chamber, where it spins a turbine. Being a continuous cycle powered by an ocean that never stops, the system generates electricity 24 hours a day. But this is where the real twist of the project lies. Historically, the big problem with wave energy has been the enormous cost of laying underwater cables to bring electricity to the coast. According to GeekWirePanthalassa solves this in one fell swoop: it doesn’t send power to shore, but uses it directly on board to power the AI ​​chips. Once the information is processed, the results (inference tokens) are sent back to clients on the ground via low-orbit satellite connections, such as SpaceX’s Starlink network. The end of terrestrial bottlenecks. This approach represents a radical paradigm shift in technological infrastructure. “Panthalassa’s idea transforms a power transmission problem into a data transmission problem,” explains to Ars Technica Benjamin Lee, computer engineer and architect at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to inexhaustible energy, the ocean offers another vital advantage: cold. Traditional data centers spend fortunes and consume millions of liters of drinking water just to prevent servers from melting due to heat. On the high seas, the story is different. As detailed BusinessWirethe ocean provides “free supercooling,” solving one of the industry’s biggest engineering challenges and extending the life of chips. Added to this is the growing citizen resistance. As pointed out Tom’s Hardwarelocal communities are increasingly rejecting the construction of these huge land-based industrial warehouses due to noise, land grabbing and energy diversion. On the ocean, there are simply no neighbors to bother or urban planning plans to navigate. Besides, as highlighted Finance TimesBeing a closed water circuit without external engines or emissions, the impact on marine life is minimal, underpinning its ecological appeal. The challenge of taming the ocean. As revolutionary as the idea may sound, transforming the ocean into a global supercomputer has titanic obstacles: The connectivity bottleneck. As he warns Ars Technicarelying on satellites is fine for “inference” (i.e. returning real-time responses to ChatGPT users or similar), but satellites have limited bandwidth and latency. If multiple ocean nodes are required to coordinate to train a heavy AI model, satellite connectivity simply won’t measure up against traditional fiber optic cables. The fury of the sea. Data Center Dynamics emphasizes that these nodes They will have to survive extreme conditions: hurricanes, corrosive saltpeter and perpetual motion for more than a decade without human intervention or maintenance. They are not alone in the idea of ​​​​wetting the servers. According to Ars Technica, Microsoft has already tested submerging data centers in the seabed with its Project Natickand Chinese companies already operate underwater infrastructure near Hainan Island. However, Panthalassa is much bolder: being floating, autonomous nodes without grounded cables, they completely break the umbilical cord with the continental electrical grid. {“videoId”:”x9sjece”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”CHINA is WINNING the TECH WAR because they planned it that way 10 YEARS AGO”, “tag”:”china”, “duration”:”721″} A bet at the height of desperation. Despite investor optimism, transforming the Pacific into the next computing cloud will not be a cake walk. $210 million (the company’s total funding to date) may seem like an outrageous amount to throw servers into the sea, but it needs to be put into perspective. As highlighted Ars Technicathis figure is anecdotal if we consider that large American technology companies plan to spend $765 billion building terrestrial data centers in 2026 alone. Faced with the desperation of the sector – which has been exploring since reopen abandoned nuclear power plants until setting up servers powered by solar panels in space orbit—the option of floating in the ocean seems reasonable. The ultimate goal of Panthalassa, as shared by its CEOis to deploy thousands of these nodes far from the coasts. If they can tame the waves and satellite bottlenecks, they could have found the Holy Grail of AI: “The cheapest energy on the planet, infinite, clean and beyond the reach of Earth’s bureaucracy.” Image | Panthalassa Xataka | Old chips never die: companies that made “boring” chips are riding the dollar (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news They … Read more

the day the US stole a Soviet nuclear submarine 5,000 meters deep

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In the 1970s, a gigantic American ship sailed slowly through the Pacific while several Soviet ships they watched him a few meters away, taking photos and listening to every conversation. On deck, the sailors talked loudly about rocks on the seabed and collected samples so that everything seemed routine, without anyone suspecting that, right under their feet, one of the most unusual operations of the entire Cold War. An impossible robbery. At the end of the 60s, in the middle of the Cold War, the United States secretly located the Soviet submarine K-129 sunk to more than 5,000 meters deep in the Pacific, a distance that made any recovery attempt practically unfeasible. Even so, the strategic value it was hugesince the submersible carried nuclear missiles, codes and key technology that could tip the balance at a time of nuclear parity between superpowers. With that goal in mind, the CIA launched the Azorian Projectan operation so ambitious that for years only a small circle within the Government knew of its existence. Context. In reality, the mission, which lasted more or less six years, had begun in 1968, when the K-129 loaded with ballistic missiles disappeared without explanation somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The situation was not entirely strange if we think that, at that time after the Cuban Missile Crisisboth American and Soviet submarines patrolled the high seas with nuclear weapons on board, prepared for possible war. Model of the sunken and deteriorated submarine K-129 The sinking. There are reports indicating that it was due to a mechanical failure, such as the missile’s engine accidentally starting, while the Soviets suspected for a time that the Americans had acted in bad faith. Be that as it may, and after two months, the Soviet Union abandoned the search for the K-129 and the nuclear weapons it carried, but the United States, which had recently used Air Force technology to locate two of its own submarines sunken, located the submarine 2,400 kilometers northwest of Hawaii and 5,030 meters deep. According to the declassified history of the project by the CIA decades later, “no country in the world had managed to recover an object of this size and weight from such depth.” Sherman Wetmore, chief engineer of the Glomar Explorer, looks at an oil painting of the ship refloating the Soviet submarine The great theater of lies. Once Washington found its location and in order to hide the true purpose, one of the more elaborate covers of history: an alleged underwater mining mission led by the eccentric millionaire Howard Hugheswhose reputation made any extravagant project credible. As? The enormous was built Hughes Glomar Explorerpresented to the world as a ship capable of extract manganese nodules from the seabed, while in reality it hid inside a secret system designed to capture the submarine. The operation was so convincing that even influenced markets and universitiesfeeding for years the illusion of a new mining industry that was never actually the objective. Details of the construction plan of the Glomar Explorer (reproduction), from 1971. In the lower central part of the ship, you can see the plans of the so-called “lunar pool”, into which the claw could introduce the submarine The giant claw. The heart of the mission was, possibly, the most exciting part of an already incredible story. It was a device hidden under the boat: a gigantic mechanical “claw” capable of descending kilometers to the ocean floor, hugging the hull of the submarine and raising it through a complex system of pipes and cables. The entire process had to be executed out of sight, using an internal opening in the ship (the called “moon pool”) that allowed working completely hidden, even under the constant surveillance of suspicious Soviet ships, but they couldn’t prove anything. There is no doubt, the operation required extreme precision, withstanding colossal stresses and maintaining the ship’s position in the open sea for days, something that in itself already represented an unprecedented technological challenge. Everything (almost) ready. In the summer of 1974, after years of preparation, the CIA managed to reach the submarine and hooked it with the claw, at which point he began to slowly raise it towards the surface, in an operation that lasted days and kept the entire crew tense. However, halfway through the ascent, the structure gave way and much of K-129 fell back to the ocean floor, leaving only a recovered section. Even so, they managed to rescue remains of the helmet and bodies of several Soviet sailors, who were buried with honors at sea, while the real loot (the missiles and secret codes) was shrouded in uncertainty and absolute secrecy by the United States, since many of the details remain classified today. “We neither confirm nor deny.” The biggest twist in history came when the operation came out in 1975 after leaks and thefts of documents linked to the business cover, forcing the US Government to face a most delicate diplomatic situation. However, instead of admitting or denying the theft of a Soviet nuclear submarine more than 5,000 meters deep, Washington adopted a response that would go down in history: “We neither confirm nor deny”a formula designed to avoid direct tensions with Moscow and which has since become a standard in intelligence matters. That calculated silence It encapsulates the essence of the entire operation: a gigantic mission, almost impossible on paper, visible to everyone in appearance, but whose true purpose and results remain, to a large extent, hidden from the general public. The legacy. Although he Azorian Project did not recover the entire submarine, it left a deep mark on history of espionage and engineeringamong other things because it demonstrated that it was possible to operate at extreme depths and execute missions of a unprecedented complexity. Of course, it also demonstrated the extent to which the Cold War promoted radical technical solutions and operations that bordered on the improbable, in a race for gain strategic advantage at any price between both sides. Decades later, it remains one … Read more

Mexico touches the sky with a new and elegant skyscraper of 484 meters and 99 floors. It will be the highest in all of Latin America

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For decades, it seemed that “the sky is the limit” applied to architecture was a maxim that only Asia and the Middle East reached. In fact, in recent times the world has witnessed a frantic race to see who has the biggest (skyscraper) between Dubai and Saudi Arabia. But there are some notable exceptions like the one that is about to premiere in Monterrey: the Tower Risea skyscraper that will not only be the tallest in the Central American country, but will also lead the skies of all of Latin America. If we open the range to the entire continent, it is only overshadowed by the mythical One World Trade Center in New York. The project. The Rise Tower is a mixed-use skyscraper that is being built in Monterrey (Nuevo León). It will have a height of 484 meters, of which 408 make up 96 residential floors and the remaining 76 make up the architectural spire that crowns the structure. More specifically, it will house residences, offices, a hotel, commerce and leisure facilities in a single structure, as is usual in skyscrapers of these characteristics, thus turning it into a city within a building. It will be located in the Obispado neighborhood, on Constitución Avenue in front of the Santa Catarina River, in one of the densest and most representative urban corridors of the city. The project is in charge by Nest and Ancore Group, has been designed by the Ancore architecture team and Mexican architect Esteban Ramos. Pozas Design Group and Next are responsible for its luxurious interior. Rise Tower layout diagram. Rise Why is it important. The Rise Tower will surpass the Torres Obispadowhich is also in Monterrey and is still the tallest skyscraper in the country. But once completed, it will officially be the tallest building in Latin America, a title that gives Mexico symbolic and technical leadership in the urban and architectural sector. Without going any further, it also moves the Great Santiago Tower in Chile. The building also positions Mexico in the world leagues of vertical architecture, a race dominated by Asia and the Middle East. For Mexico it is also a demonstration that the region can conceive, finance and execute projects at the scale of the world’s large urban centers and at the metropolitan scale, it can function as an engine for the repopulation of the urban center that favors investments in infrastructure. Context. Monterrey has been consolidating itself as the laboratory of vertical urbanism in Mexico for two decades. Without going any further, the construction of the Obispado Towers in 2020 had already surpassed the 300-meter barrier that defines it as “supertall.” The Rise Tower itself has been evolving since its first plans, when he aimed “only” 350 meters. The project is part of the trend of mixed-use supertalls that began to emerge in Asia and the Middle East since the 2000s and is now beginning to materialize in Latin America. Monterrey is in an area with wind and seismic activitywhich adds a layer of technical complexity to any potential design. In figures. Some numerical data of this stratospheric construction: 484 meters high: 408 habitable meters and 76 meters from the spire It will be the 13th tallest skyscraper in the world 35 levels of offices, 22 floors of apartments, 10 levels of luxury hotel 4,300 square meters of green areas and 8,000 square meters of leisure spaces. In detail. The tower has a rectilinear shape with a reinforced structural core and a perimeter framing system designed to withstand lateral loadssomething essential given that Monterrey is in a region where there is seismic activity and a lot of wind. The building envelope consists of a modular aluminum and glass curtain wall system, an aesthetically striking and effective combination for thermal control and management of dynamic wind pressures at high altitude. The concept of the façade is quite reminiscent of the architecture of mid-20th century skyscrapers. Points out The Civil Engineer The initial sketches suggested a more robust metallic aesthetic inspired by the historic Torre Latinoamericana in Mexico City (the grandfather of Mexican skyscrapers, built in 1956), but with the progress of construction, a greater presence of glass has become evident. In terms of sustainability, the project already has LEED Silver, Green Globes, Building EQ and Well certifications from the International Well Building Institute. For when? Construction began in 2023 and by March of this year the Rise Tower exceeded 306 meters and reached the 52nd floor, but there are still 170 meters left. The construction pace is high and in accordance with the governor’s statements from Nuevo León, Samuel García Sepúlveda, the inauguration is projected for the summer of 2026, before the FIFA World Cup. Nevertheless, other specialized sources They suggest that it will be delayed until the end of 2026 or even 2027. In Xataka | If the question is whether a skyscraper can be erased without demolishing it, Paris has the answer: yes, in exchange for a fortune In Xataka | Cancun has a huge bottleneck in its tourist area: Mexico is going to solve it with a megabridge Cover | Chorizowithegg and Rise Tower

We have found the real kraken. It measured 19 meters and reigned in the seas 100 million years ago

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The kraken has been in the ideology of myths for decades and was imagined as a gigantic sea monster capable of dragging ships to the depths with one of its tentacles. But the truth is that it was something completely mythological until now science suggests that in reality they did exist at some point in the history of our planet. When? If we wanted to see them, we would have to take a time machine and travel to about 100 million years ago, where colossal octopuses dominated the depths of the oceans, competing head-to-head with the large marine reptiles of the time of the dinosaurs. And just like points out the published study in Science This finding not only confirms the existence of these giantsbut forces paleontologists to rewrite what we knew about the food chain of the Cretaceous seas. How do we know? One of the biggest problems paleontologists face when studying cephalopods is that their bodies are soft. And, lacking an internal skeleton, it is extremely rare to find complete fossils of octopuses or squids and so the question here is obligatory: how do we know that this giant existed? The answer is in their jaws. Here the team of researchers did not find fossilized bodies, but rather 27 mandibles known colloquially as beaks and similar to those that parrots have. These were found in sites in Japan and Canada and through advanced digital prospecting techniques and analysis of the wear of these pieces, scientists were able to digitally reconstruct the owners of these lethal hunting tools. The species. The taphonomic analysis of these remains has allowed the identification of two main species: Nanaimoteuthis jeletzkyi and Nanaimoteuthis haggarti. But it is the latter that takes all the attention of science. The point here is that by extrapolating the size of the fossilized jaws and comparing them with the proportions of current cephalopods, experts estimate that N. haggarti It was able to reach a length of between 7 and 19 meters, which would far exceed the giant octopuses that are currently in the Pacific, which rarely exceed five meters. The food chain. Until now, the classic view of Cretaceous marine ecosystems placed large reptiles (such as mosasaurs or plesiosaurs) at the undisputed top of the food pyramid, relegating cephalopods to the role of simply being abundant prey. However, this published study changes the rules of the game. It is now known that these octopuses were not just food, but were great predators. Here the level of wear on their jaws has been key to seeing that they had an aggressive diet and that, therefore, they occupied a place at the top of the oceanic food web. The evolution. If we look back, in the Cambrian period we find the humble Nectocaris pteryxwhich was nothing more than a primitive cephalopod which barely measured a couple of centimeters and which serves as a baseline to understand where these animals come from. From here on, millions of years later, evolution had given these animals a large size and tools to become the “krakens” of the Cretaceous. Images | freepik In Xataka | We have stuffed the Gibraltar monkeys with Doritos. His solution has been to eat dirt as if it were omeprazole

95% of intercontinental internet traffic goes through submarine cables. China has just proven that it can cut them at 3,500 meters

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The world is connected through the “invisible”, almost omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent internet. But it turns out that 95% of data traffic runs through cables that, although not visible, are very tangible: the submarine fiber optic cables that run around the world. This strategic infrastructure is inherently vulnerable due to its vast extent in unmonitored environments. Until recently, threats were limited to random accidents in shallow waters, but sabotage are the order of the day. In this scenario, China has just marked a technical milestone that is a warning to sailors: has tried successfully a submarine cable cutter who plays in another league. Thus, it is capable of cutting with high precision and operating at depths of up to 3,500 meters. The tool. The system that China through its Haiyang Dizhi 2 scientific vessel is an electro-hydrostatic actuator (EHA), a compact device that integrates the hydraulic system, the electric motor and the control unit in a single piece, a combo that as explained The South China Morning Post allows you to get rid of the external oil pipe common in this type of system. The Ministry of Natural Resources of China explains for the Chinese media that last Saturday, April 15, its first mission in deep waters was carried out. This is not the first deep underwater cable cutter we have seen from China, in fact it has them to cut even deeper seabeds: the China Naval Scientific Research Center (CSSRC) and the State Key Laboratory of Deep Sea Manned Vehicles also developed a little over a year ago a vessel that uses a diamond coated grinding wheelcapable of operating at depths of 4,000 meters. Why is it important. We have already glimpsed in the intro that currently, practically the entire of intercontinental data traffic travels over submarine cables. He Center for Strategic and International Studies gives an example of its importance: in the financial environment, approximately 22 trillion dollars move per business day through these systems. Any disruption can unleash chaos on entire countries, leading to digital isolation, collapsing financial systems, degrading military capabilities… much more than a simple cyberattack. Underwater cables are inherently vulnerable due to their exposure and with these types of systems not even depth is a guarantee. Furthermore, repair at a depth of 3,500 meters is slow and expensive, requiring specific vessels that are not plentiful. context. Since 2024, China and its vessels have become common suspects in cases of alleged sabotage. Two examples: is in the Baltic and is in waters near Taiwan. These events have generated growing concern in NATO on the security of these essential undersea cables from hybrid warfare tactics. China, for its part, justifies this development as part of its scientific research and deep-sea mining program through the Chinese Academy of Sciences: the ability to cut cables is necessary for the recovery of stuck equipment, cleaning marine debris, and preparing the seabed for deep-sea mining. However, it is inevitable to think about the duality of its functions. chow they do it. In 2020, a team of engineers from Lishui University, in the coastal province of Zhejiang, opposite Taiwan, developed a device for cutting underwater cables by drag (one of several patents in recent years made in China) and in the patent application The team said that “The traditional cutting method requires first detecting the position of the cables, then excavating and recovering them to cut them. The process is complex, a lot of expensive equipment is needed, and the cost is too high. A fast and low-cost cutting device for submarine cables is needed to perform this task.” These new tools seek to solve this as they operate directly on the cable on the seabed without the need for extraction. In the 30-day mission of the Haiyang Dizhi 2 vessel, in addition to testing the cutting tool, they also tested an autonomous underwater vehicle called Hai Ma, recovered 16 self-developed measurement probes and deployed China’s first deep-sea winch with 11,000 meters of coaxial cable. Yes, but. The fact that there are patents and tests on tools to cut marine cables at great depth and efficiency does not mean that they have been used in these incidents, although it does indicate an interest in cutting them. China has a known official position, as we saw last year when a similar tool came to the fore. At that time Liu Pengyu, declared that the device is used in marine scientific research and that both the United States and several European countries have similar technology. Likewise, it highlighted the importance that China gives to protecting underwater infrastructure and its commitment to the international community to protect them. In Xataka | The submarine cables belonged to the teleoperators, and now the big technology companies are controlling them In Xataka | The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it Cover | seatools and CCTV

almost a kilometer to climb 242 meters

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I lived in Bilbao for a year and I remember perfectly the little walk to go up to Solokoetxe. When I was living in Madrid, getting from Arganzuela to Sol or taking a walk along the Rastro involved going up a pretty steep hill. Even in my Pamplona, ​​to go from Txantrea or Rotxapea to the old style you have to exercise your legs. But there are hills and hills and there are cities where they are simply at another level. This is the case of Wushan, in Chongqing (China). And if in Pamplona we solve it with elevators, in China they don’t mess around (literally): they just inaugurate the longest escalator in the world, one with which to shorten a journey from an hour to just 20 minutes. The project. The staircase is called Shénnǚ Dà Fūtī, something like “The Great Escalator of the Goddess” and runs along the vertical axis of the Avenue of the Goddess (Shennü Avenue), for 905 meters in length to overcome a difference in level of 242.14 meters, the equivalent of an 80-story skyscraper. As can be seen in the images, it is not a single flight of stairs, but a network made up of 21 escalators, eight elevators, four moving walkways, two pedestrian bridges and two overpasses, all connected to overcome the urban slope of the center of Wushan. Why is it important. The construction of this megainfrastructure has several relevant plans, the most direct being the improvement of access for those who live or travel through the area by solving an access problem. Likewise, it represents a vertical urban planning model different from the classic one of demolishing and flattening. On the other hand, it is evidently an engineering milestone that shows the technical power of China, its application to the improvement of urban infrastructure and also breaks records: there is no other urban system of these characteristics, surpassing that of Central Hillside Escalator Link from Hong Kong (800 meters and 135 meters of altitude difference). It has only been in operation for a few weeks and is already one of its most recognizable structures. Huang Wei, chief project designer of China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group explains that “Our goal was for the infrastructure itself to become a destination. It’s not just a way to get from point A to point B, but to make it part of the experience of the city.” Context. Chongqing It is a directly administered Chinese municipality as large as many European states (more than 30 million inhabitants). Its eponymous capital is not called “Mountain City” by chance: it is built on and around a series of steep hills at the confluence of the Yangtze and Jialing. But this rugged geography is not exclusive to the center: it permeates the entire territory. In Wushan, a town in the northeastern corner of the municipality nestled in the Three Gorges of the Yangtze, the Gaotang neighborhood suffered the consequences of the topography in an extreme way: getting from there to the rest of the town meant a journey of almost an hour winding along steep slopes, which in practice meant isolation. It is right there where the staircase has been built. The Gatang neighborhood in Wushan, seen from Google Maps in relief Why a ladder? The idea of ​​​​building vertical transportation for Wushan dates back to 2002when a new urban area was completed, but at that time there was a shortage of funds and technical limitations. The idea came back on the table in 2022 and was seriously considered by authorities. As details the project’s chief designer “the key question was what type of transportation system best suited a mountainous city like Wushan.” After considering other options such as cable cars or trains, they chose this system by weighing factors such as capacity, safety, life cycle costs, adaptability to steep slopes and visual impact. Engineering challenges. We have already seen that the great escalator of the Goddess runs through densely populated urban neighborhoods, highways and pipelines. According to Huang, modular design is key to adapting to the fragmented terrain and integrating into what is already built. According to the construction managerZhang Jie, the escalator ascends a slope with an average inclination of 40 degrees, and some sections exceed 60 degrees. In these conditions, operating with heavy machinery becomes complicated. A very touristy staircase. Set up an infrastructure like this at a reasonable price (in the testing phase it is free, but then the intention is charge a fee) to cross Wuhan on foot sounds good, but the intention of turning it into a tourist attraction has been present since its conception. In fact, there are parts with transparent glass facades to reduce the visual volume and have new panoramic views and there are points with lighting installations, turning the staircase into a kind of snake that moves between hills. In addition to, of course, facilitating movement through leisure places. In Xataka | 125 kilometers of water separate 140 million inhabitants. China is going to solve it with a mega railway tunnel In Xataka | Where you see a mountain, China sees a pile: it is building a 2,100 MW mega hydroelectric plant in Tibet Cover | China News Service YouTube

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