people

Because of climate change, by 2100 we will lose the equivalent of what 2 billion people eat each year in crops.

by

We all know that climate change affects crops. the drought, global warmingextreme rainfall and many other related weather phenomena can seriously endanger agricultural activities. Given that these are the main livelihood of millions of people around the world, it is a situation that is worth analyzing carefully. It is precisely what has done recently a team of scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. After comparing historical episodes of extreme heat with crop yield data from the FAO, they observed that we have been gradually losing crops for several years and that this, as climate change progresses, will only get worse. So much so that by 2100 losses of 160 billion dollars annually are estimated. Only three crops. The situation is even more worrying if we take into account that the data has been analyzed for only three crops: cornsoybeans and wheat. These were selected because there was sufficient data from FAO to carry out both phases of the statistical analysis. The first, calibration, was carried out with data from 1974 to 2004. On the one hand, historical records on episodes of extreme heat and drought were taken and then they were confronted with the existing information on the yields of these crops in different countries around the world. Thus, it was possible to obtain a formula on the correlation between climate and crops. This formula was then validated with data from 2007 to 2019. The objective was, with the climate information for that period, to calculate how it would affect crop yields. For the validation to be positive, the results should coincide with the true performance that was recorded at that time. And so it was. The data coincided and were not at all encouraging, as the first losses began to be detected. Specifically, there was a 3.5% decrease in crop yields. It may seem like little, but as explained to New Scientist one of the authors of the study, Kai Kornhuber, are relevant figures about a global impact, which could even trigger serious crises at a regional level. In fact, there are already annual losses of 20 billion dollars. A worrying situation in 2100. With the model already validated with known data, these scientists ventured to analyze an unknown future. What they saw when entering data for a scenario high emissionswith current trends, was very worrying. According to their calculations, global yields will fall by around 35% by 2100, with annual losses exceeding $161 billion. Another of the authors of the research, Yi Ling Hwong, explained in May at a meeting of the European Geosciences Union that the losses would be roughly equivalent to what around 2 billion people consume in a year. Crops affected by climate change around the world. The calculations have been made at a global level. There would be losses in all countries, including developed ones. However, these scientists warn that the situation will be especially serious in developing countries, where many people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. It can be solved. The positive part of all this is that, according to the authors of the study, you can try not to reach those figures. Kornhuber recalls that climate scientists make these statistical calculations with the goal of making people react and their predictions ending up being wrong. Therefore, they hope that this data will be disseminated and will help farmers to find ways to adapt, choosing new crops, according to the climatic conditions of each area and customizing irrigation. Limitations. This study on how climate change affects crops has limitations that must be recognized. Firstly, only three crops have been calculated. Others could be related to worse or better data, so it cannot be extrapolated to everything that grows on earth. On the other hand, only climate data related to extreme heat and drought are taken into account, but not with the floods or hail, for example. These are also phenomena associated with climate change that affect crops to a large extent. In addition, some scientists outside the study consider that the statistical calculations used may be good for making short-term forecasts, but not for the end of the century. Some even believe that the data may be overestimated. Even so, the authors of the study insist that it is better to be somewhat alarmist so that measures are taken than to underestimate the data and, with the truth in the face, it is too late to take action on the matter. Because that is the great reality of all this. Something has to be done. Data can be the push needed to get started once and for all. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | Google has shown with its AI that the prediction of storms and hurricanes is outdated. This is how your new model works

Psychology says that people who thank drivers when crossing the street don’t do it just out of gratitude.

by

When a car stops at a pedestrian crossing to let us pass, it is normal, almost instinctive, to raise our hand in gratitude. However, this gesture goes a little further than being polite to the other person, or at least that is what psychologists maintain. According to the experts’ conclusions, much deeper mechanisms hide behind this peculiar habit. Why pedestrians wave at drivers when crossing the street It’s no secret that traffic is not pleasant. It is usually synonymous with rush, stress and nerves, especially at certain times of the day. That’s why the simple act of raising your hand in gratitude is so striking. It is something that drivers also do, but it is much more evident in pedestrians when a car gives way to them. Psychologists classify this gesture as a prosocial behaviorthat is, small selfless actions that are perceived positively in our interactions with others. This type of behavior includes other options, such as helping to carry shopping bags, sharing a location with someone from outside, or comforting. Image | Jacek Dylag on Unsplash Experts associate this behavior with kindness, one of the traits of the Big Five personality model. This model establishes that human personality is made up of five main traits, namely: Openness to experience. Responsibility (or thoroughness). Extraversion. Kindness. Neuroticism (or emotional instability). Theoretically, people who automatically greet drivers when they let them pass show higher levels of empathy, warmth, friendliness, and willingness to cooperate. They adopt an altruistic attitude in their daily relationships with the rest of society. It is the combination and intensity of each of these factors that ends up defining our character. By making this gesture towards the driver, the pedestrian also shows, unconsciously, that he is aware of the people around him. This type of behavior serves to remind others that public space is a place shared by everyone, and a friendly greeting can be enough to reduce the tension of a stressful situation on the road. Via | Gry-Online Image | Gry-Online

Spain prepared thousands of young people for university by passing the PAU. Four out of ten ended up doing a vocational training degree

by

Every July the same scene of thousands of teenagers leaving school is repeated. any of the exams of what was once called Selectivity and, for now, is known as the University Access Test (PAU). For decades, this ritual almost always ended at the same door: the a university. However, in recent years something has changed. The students who take this test no longer do so trusting that your future is assured after a university degree and no longer see Vocational Training as the way out for those who do not want to study. The twist that no one announced. For years, passing the PAU and not going to university was experienced almost as a failure. A waste of talent. Today that stigma has been broken. According to the report Education Panorama 2025prepared by the OECD, 39% of those who enter the economy for the first time Spanish higher education They do so through a higher degree vocational training cycle and only 47% opt for the university route. The figure more than doubles the organization’s average, where only 16% choose this route and 78% go directly to university. These percentages undoubtedly represent a change in mentality more than a statistical anecdote. The FP is no longer the “ugly duckling” of the educational system in Spain. The figures that support the change. According to the latest data collected by the Ministry of Education in the report Vocational Training Student Statistics 2024-2025there has been an increase of 23.5% in the student body in the previous five years, especially highlighting the number of students enrolled in higher grades, which receive 29.8% more students. The contrast with Europe is striking. In Spain, higher vocational training as a gateway to higher education is 33.3%, tripling the European Union average, which remains at 10%. This shift towards training oriented towards learning a profession responds to a specific request that comes from companies. Why young people choose FP and university. According to the report ‘Infoempleo Adecco 2024: Job supply and demand in Spain‘, 47% of the job offers published in Spain, asked for some vocational training degree. It is a figure that grows every year and that begins to compete face to face with the requirement of a university education. Marisa Bermejo, director of Sanitas Campus FP Madrid, declared to The Spanish that “After PAU, young people have to understand that there are several ways to get into a profession.” And he adds that vocational training “allows the development of technical skills from an early stage.” According to data From the Ministry of Education, the employability of Vocational Training is 73%, and with some sectors touching 90%, which places it as a direct access door to the labor market for young people. The sectors that use FP the most. Not all training families grow equally. Administration and Management leads the number of offers, closely followed by Health, with constant demand in laboratories and clinical areas. Commerce and Marketing is also pushing forward, driven by the rise of digital commerce. The fastest growth is carried out by Computing and Communications. It is one of the families with the highest job placement among Higher Degree graduates, where 54.7% find employment before completing two years after graduating. according to the data of the Ministry of Education. In Xataka | Europe is very clear that there are many graduates in Spain. The problem is that they are not what companies need. Image | Unsplash (ThisisEngineering)

there are people playing for hours to feed the online betting houses

by

At 4:30 in the morning, an “Amsterdam” goalkeeper leaves the field to recover a lost ball on the next court. In the next room, separated from the previous one simply by a curtain, another game is played, with other teams. In a while he will also play there, perhaps with another team. There is no emotion or expressiveness on his face, he simply picks up the ball and returns it to his court. We could be looking at a suburban sports center, but there is something liminal and dystopian in mechanical gesturesalmost official, with which this athlete faces the game. Because to begin with, the result is the least important. The important thing is to never stop. The panorama. The collective Bellingcatin collaboration with the football research magazine Josimarpublished on October 21, 2024 a article about 1xBetthe Cyprus-based sportsbook that broadcasts thousands of amateur matches a year live from audience-free gyms in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The analysis detected 1,297 “short football” matches (a variant of indoor football played by teams of between two and five people) in a single 24-hour period in September 2024. It is more than the Bundesliga, the Premier League and LaLiga play together, in a full season. Every year, 1xBet’s figure is around half a million matches. The important thing is to participate. The players change shirts between games: “Barcelona” becomes “Manchester City” half an hour later, and teams with the name of a European club that do not actually exist compete against each other. A Russian football blogger, Viktor Kravchenko, had already denounced in 2021 that these footballers were recruited to play in shifts and that the matches were agreed in advance. Josimar collected the testimony of a young man who received cash for playing from nine in the morning to two in the afternoon, one game after another, for the 1xBet cameras. The other porn. Ismail Vali, then CEO of the analysis firm Yield Sec, explained to Bellingcat why 1xBet remains active a machinery that hardly moves any money: almost no one bets large amounts on a Ukrainian children’s basketball game at three in the morning. These matches serve to keep the user hooked and push them toward products with a higher margin, and we are not just talking about sports bets that, legal or not, yield between 9% and 10%. The casino, however, brings up to 50% profits for the bookmaker. “Crime only invests in more crime,” says Vali, even though legal gambling is not technically a crime. Nothing morbid here, everything normal. Bellingcat traced three of the headquarters to specific locations. One is the Alexander Stepin football school, in the Russian city of Bryansk, which according to the website was active in 2024 (today it is missing), had links with the ruling United Russia party and with Gazprom, the state energy company. In photos published on the web, children posed with weapons in the same facility where the games were recorded. 1,700 kilometers away, in Severodvinsk, Bellingcat identified a party of floorball feminine in which girls of 14 and 15 years old played; There is no way to know if they knew that the match fueled a betting market. In Saransk, the same sports center that hosts matches for 1xBet is also used for weapons training courses. Image: Josimar May your left hand… Meanwhile, 1xBet is listed as a sponsor of two of the biggest clubs in Europe. FC Barcelona renewed its agreement with the betting house until 2029 in July 2024, months before the investigation was published; When consulted by Bellingcat, the club declined to comment. Paris Saint-Germain, sponsored by 1xBet since 2022, went further: in September 2025, almost a year after the report became known, extended the agreement until 2028. …don’t know what the right is doing. In May 2026, online gaming regulatory technology company Gaming Compliance International encrypted the global market of unregulated online betting at $5.9 trillion during 2025, with illegal operators accounting for 78% of the sector’s gross revenue. In the United States, where sports betting is regulated in most states, legal operators managed almost $150 billion in bets during 2024 and generated $13.71 billion in revenue. And it is only a fraction, obviously, of what moves outside of what is legal. Farms are just the surface. In Xataka | Goodbye to Polymarket and Kalshi in Spain: the Government blocks “predictive markets” for not having a gaming license

There are people who think that Europe should recover the military. What happened in Germany offers them an unpleasant surprise

by

It is still early to know whether or not Germany will be successful with its new volunteer ‘military’but one thing is clear: the German authorities have revived a figure that was in the doldrums for years, the conscientious objector. Although Berlin does not apply a mandatory recruitment system, thousands of young people in the country have wanted to improve their health by starting the procedures to benefit from their constitutional right to not have to hold a weapon. More requests have been registered during the first six months of the year alone than in all of 2025. It has even surpassed 2011, the year in which the mandatory military service ended. What has happened? That the Bundesrat has achieved something unexpected (or not) with your new law of voluntary military service. Its purpose was to give a boost to recruitment so that the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) would go from its current around 184,000 troops to between 255,000 and 270,000 in 2035, but everything indicates that they have activated a mechanism that pushes in the opposite direction: more and more young people declare themselves conscientious objectors, that is, they appeal to their constitutional right not to be forced by anyone to use weapons or be a soldier. That does not mean that the new German ‘military’ is not working (to affirm such a thing it would be necessary to handle updated recruitment data), but it does mean that its future will not be as peaceful as the Government of Friedrich Merz would like. Are there so many objectors? Yes. The data has advanced them Redaktions Netzwerk Deutschland (RND) and show that the figure of the objector is experiencing a real boom in Germany. During the first half of 2026 alone, the Federal Office for Family and Civil Society Affairs received 5,862 applications from citizens who wanted to declare themselves conscientious objectors. There are almost a thousand each month, but the data stands out above all when put into context. Throughout 2025 the Government noted 3,867 requests and in 2024 they were only 2,249. In 2011, the year in which the mandatory military service was suspended, 4,348 were registered. The balance of the first half of the year not only shows a clear rebound, it also suggests that young Germans are increasingly concerned about the issue: 60% of these applications were submitted between April and June, when the country was shaken by several controversies related to the new military law, as if men need authorization to leave the country for more than three months. But is there or isn’t there ‘mili’? Yes. And no. There is no mandatory service like the one that existed in Spain until 2001 or that applied in Germany until 2011, but there is a new legal framework with which Berlin aspires to gain voluntary recruits. To understand it you have to go back to December 2025when the Upper House of the German Parliament approved a military service bill that began to be applied on January 1, 2026. Its objective is very simple: add thousands of new soldiers to the country’s Armed Forces (Bundeswehr), although with a lot of pedagogy and initially appealing to voluntariness. In practice, this means that right now Germans who come of age are only required to go through two relatively harmless and simple procedures. “Men born in 2008 or later must participate in the military registration process. This includes filling out a questionnaire and passing a medical examination by medical personnel,” explains the Bundeswehr. Do we know anything else? Yes. The military explains in detail how it will implement the system. The idea is that all young Germans who come of age (some 650,000 each year) will receive an online questionnaire asking whether or not you are interested in military life. The men are obligated to respond. For women it is optional. If the answer is yes, the Armed Forces invite volunteers to a recruitment center to continue the process. The system is still being implemented, but at the end of last year the German press was talking aboutIn a second phase, late in 2027, 18-year-old men must also undergo a medical examination that will be mandatory whether they opt for voluntary military service or not. “No one forces you to do anything, except to fill out a questionnaire that reflects the recorded data and pass a medical examination that does no harm to anyone,” claims the German Defense Minister, the social democrat Boris Pistorius. “The State does not protect itself. That has to be done by people who are willing to defend it and not sit idly waiting for others to do so.” What is the objective? We pointed it out before: turning the German army into a European reference. And that happens by arriving in the mid-2030s with 460,000 troopsbetween active personnel (260,000) and reservists (200,000). Not bad if you take into account that in 2025 184,000 soldiers were serving. In Germany already throw out the idea that, if this objective is not achieved through voluntary recruitment, the Government could go further and opt for a mandatory model. In any case, that would require a new parliamentary procedure. For now, in view of the changes being promoted by the Merz Executive, the threat from Russia and the rearmament discourse fueled by Donald Trump, more and more young people are choosing to declare themselves objectors. Curiously, there are also people who take the opposite path, although less: the daily Neue Osnabrucker assures that during the first quarter 233 people waived their right to refuse military service. They join the 781 that did so in 2025. Images | Simon Infanger (Unsplash) and Filip Andrejevic (Unsplash) In Xataka | In Spain, 1,149 young people lost their lives in the same place between 1983 and 1989. All of these “accidents” could have been avoided.

NASA is looking for four people who want to live a year on Mars without leaving Earth

by

Space travel can leave no room for improvisation. Especially if the destination is a place as inhospitable and unexplored as Mars. Or even the Moon. Therefore, before the first astronauts set foot on the red planet and a new batch of humans walk on our satellite, NASA has decided to carry out a dress rehearsal here on Earth. Of course, it will not be done with astronauts, but with a group of volunteers willing to spend a year in a simulated environment of both the confinement conditions of the trip and the subsistence with limited resources that will mean staying at a base in either of these two places. The mission is expected to begin in 2027, no earlier than August, so the search for volunteers is still underway. Two missions in one. The mission, named by NASA as Moon and Mars Exploration Analogis a mix of two other previous missions: HERA and CHAPEA. Both consist of the use of facilities that simulate the extreme conditions of a trip to Mars or the Moon. CHAPEA’s facilities are larger (158 m2), as they simulate what the installed base would be in either of these two locations. HERA, on the other hand, consists of a smaller environment (60 m2), which simulates the confinement conditions of space travel. Therefore, what will be done is to dock the vehicle, based on HERA, to a larger, but isolated environment, in which there is everything from private accommodation for the crew to a common work space, including a recreation room, cultivation area, medical room, food preparation area, airlock and two bathrooms. They are not astronauts, but almost. NASA has announced that it is looking for volunteers, possibly because its astronauts are busy with other tasks. However, not just anyone can apply. To start, they must be US citizens or green card holders, between 30 and 55 years old, with a good command of English and a height that does not exceed 1.88 meters. On the other hand, they must have a degree in engineering, biological sciences, physical sciences or mathematics. Basically, just like astronauts. In fact, it is preferable that they have these qualifications at an advanced level. Finally, they should not have special dietary needsnor require help to sleep. Furthermore, in relation to sleep, they should not be sleepwalkers either. Of course, added to all this is that they will have to pass a series of tests, both physical and psychological. Come on, they’re not astronauts, but almost. Training for a fake trip to Mars. The four selected volunteers will have a pre- and post-mission phase dedicated to data collection. Additionally, before embarking on this year-long simulation, they will have to train and prepare for what will come next. In total, all this will last two months. All simulations. For one year, these temporary astronauts will live and work in isolation and confinement while simulating both interplanetary travel and operations on the planetary surface, including spacewalk simulations. It is expected that the results will be useful for missions as imminent as those of the Artemis programbut also for future even more exotic trips, including the long-awaited Martian colonization. Image | Magnificent | POT In Xataka | We knew there was water on the Moon, but not why some craters were empty. Finally we have the answer

In South Korea they offered $14,000 to young people in exchange for them getting married. The young people didn’t care

by

With $14,000 you can plug holes, take a few months off to travel the world or invest in that business that has been on your mind for years. What you won’t be able to do is pair two South Koreans to get married, start a home, and have children with whom to help the country get out of the crisis. deep crisis birth rate in which it has been immersed for years. We know this because in Korea there are administrations that already they have pulled the checkbook and reached those figures (more than 10,000 dollars) in their efforts to act as matchmakers. All without success. What’s more, this effort by administrations to encourage couples is having a peculiar effect: it has made singleness a real business. A matter of love… and money. In its efforts to get out of the demographic slump in which South Korea has been mired for some time, it has not hesitated to draw on its checkbook. Their reasoning is simple: if the birth rate can be encouraged with money, the Government is willing to put it on the table. In recent months, the country’s authorities have proposed handing over large ‘baby checks’ to its citizens, offer tax incentives to families with children, expand the parental leave or even guarantee that new mothers have access to select food. Another of the country’s great bets has been to match its young people. And that has been so much to create dating programs specifically designed for singles to find love and make it easy for them financially, offering them money so that the cost of a romantic dinner is not an obstacle. It may sound exaggerated, but there is one fact that explains it: in South Korea couples and birth rates go hand in hand. So much so that less than 5% of babies are born out of wedlock. How much money are we talking about? Very much. Many of South Korea’s matchmaking programs come from regional organizations, so photography can vary from one area of ​​the country to another; But it comes with taking a quick look at Google to see news about cities or districts that are trying to raise their birth rate with very expensive matchmaking programs. Recently we were talking to you of the case of Seoul, where the Metropolitan Government was studying giving 700 euros to couples who get married there. It’s a lot. Although not as much as in other cities. In Busan, one of the main metropolitan areas of South Korea and which is suffering the effects of the demographic crisis in a way particularly hardhave gone a step further by blessing new couples with hundreds of dollars. What does that translate into? In which money stops being an obstacle to finding a girlfriend (or boyfriend). In June Korea Herald informed that one of Busan’s districts, Saha-gu, was planning a pilot project with local singles born between 1981 and 2001, offering them $360 (to spend on dates) just to ‘make match’ with someone That is, each couple that left the event holding hands and with plans to see each other again would add $700 to their romance. One figure: $14,000. Those $360 per person to enjoy as a couple were just the first part of Saha-gu’s program. The idea was to increase support as the relationship progressed until reaching the big wedding gift: 20 million won in advance for couples who say ‘I do’, about $13,600. The district was even willing to offer newlyweds a larger deposit if they decided to buy a house or help them with rent. Such a bet is better understood in light of the demographic tables of the metropolitan city of Busan: if at the beginning of the 90s it exceeded 3.8 million inhabitantsin 2010 it was at 3.4 million. The trend does not clash with that of the country as a whole, which at the end of 2024 became a “super-aged society”, with 20% of its population over 65 years of age. Do these aids work? That was the big question that was left hanging… and it just answered The Wall Street Journal (TWSJ) with a report in which the title is almost a sentence: “Not even a $14,000 government aid can get South Korean singles to get married.” Despite the promise of a $14,000 wedding gift, Saha-gu’s program was not very successful. TWSJ assures that no participant demanded that reward. And Saha-gu is just one of the aids that couples can qualify for. TWSJ recalls that not all support comes from the administrations and that there are also companies or religious organizations that are trying to reverse the country’s demographic crisis. Two examples are the construction company Booyoung Group, which offered $75,000 to employees who have a child; and the Yoido Full Gospel Churchwhich grants its members almost $1,400. The big question. With such incentives the question is obvious. Why don’t South Koreans get married? Why does your birth rate continue? far below from years ago? Part of the answer is social and cultural changes. TWSJ cite a survey recent study that shows that three-fifths of employed South Koreans do not see the slightest problem in not going through the altar, a factor to which are added other economic factors, such as long working hoursthe increase of cost of living or how burdensome it is the upbringing of children in a society characterized by its level of demand and competitiveness. Another key is the difficulties that women encounter when re-entering the labor market after becoming mothers. In fact, there are dating programs that have ended up being suspended precisely because they could not bring together a sufficient number of interested women. Other young people rule out registering simply because of the heavy bureaucracy that accompanies this type of initiative. “It’s more problematic than you imagine,” recognize one to TWSJ. Is the Government a good matchmaker? That is the other big question, especially if you take into account that programs like Seoul or … Read more

Guadix was one of the last corners of Europe where people lived in caves. Today they have become a climate refuge

by

Moors, outlaws and expelled populations occupying caves, carrying pickaxes and candles. That was the realityunromantic, from Guadix. The rural escape chic It would take three centuries to arrive. Visiting the streets and hills is free, of course; spending the night there is something else. In Granada, Andalusia, going down the A-92, next to the Zalabí Valley and at more than 900 meters above sea level, there is a town that looks like something out of Star Wars. Guadix, “the town of the cave houses”, is actually a city that converted flight, poverty and climatic rigor into bioclimatic architecture. And, centuries later, in designer troglottourism. An entire neighborhood underground. Around Guadix, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, there are more than 2,000 homes excavated in red clay hills. “European Capital of Caves“, says the press of a neighborhood that was born around 1550 around the Maese Pedro Fountain and San Marcos Street. In fact, more than 4,500 Accitani live in this neighborhood alone. It is a landscape of hills literally emptied from the inside, whitewashed facades and chimneys that are lime fumaroles and appear like periscopes. And, to top it all off, an interior temperature that remains around 20 degrees all year round. It takes approximately three months for outside air to “seep” into the walls, which softens extreme winters and summers. And of course, this comfort and acoustic insulation has made this architecture passive. forward the letter one of the most requested tourist places in Spain. Today you will get on a tourist train and sleep in a cave house for prices ranging from 60-70 euros to more than 120 euros per night, depending on whims and jacuzzi. Your cave, my Airbnb. Airbnb and aggregators like cozycozy list the “hammam cave”, “la Tita del Pan cave” or “Casa Cueva Los Mosaicos”, with jacuzzis, swimming pools and outstanding ratings. 9.5 on Booking and 4.2 out of 5 on Airbnb. The region is sold under the premise of sleeping like a Neanderthal, but with Wi-Fi and a hot tub. Today, live in one of these caves It’s not easy. Renting it is something else: tourist trains, interpretation centers and guided routes are part of this troglottourism, under the coordinates of sustainability and introspective experience. What were once medieval shanties today stand as beautiful enclaves that defy the harsh climate. It was always there. Guadix has always been a territory of soft land and natural shelters, used since the Bronze Age. Archaeological studies identify human occupations that they used these bad lands or gullies on the edge and bed of the Guadix river to protect themselves from the elements. During the Middle Ages, this landscape intersects with the Nasrid front and, after the capture of the city by the Catholic Monarchs, it becomes a place of refuge: after the expulsions of 1570 and 1609, the hypothesis places the origin of the great neighborhood towards the end of the 15th century, when Moors, outlaws and populations expelled from the medina clandestinely occupied these caves and perfected, with pick and shovel, the technique of excavating entire hills following the knowledge of the builders. The Accitan historian Carlos Javier Garrido emphasizes that this refuge of persecuted people was also a social response to a city dominated by oligarchies. A silent rebellion. Confiscation and new rules. In 1920, the neighborhood housed 60% of the city’s population. It was not until the 1950s when massive excavations expanded and inaugurated new cave houses, already intended as normal homes in another neighborhood. The traces of the Civil War are also notable: the town was left without a hermitage. There is a lot to see, in any case: the Cathedral of La Encarnación, the Palace of the Marquises of Villaverde or the Islamic citadel itself, from the 11th century, added to the Ermita Nueva, in nuclear white and a chapel completely carved under rock. With the arrival of national roads bordering the mountains, electricity, television and emigration, local families converted these old nested slopes into a “summer house” to escape the heat. It was then that the neighborhood began to be seen from the outside more as a picturesque landscape than as a space of marginality. Progress arrived and the BOE. Until recently, in urban terms, cave houses lived in a limbo: they were housing, but they did not fit into the standard categories of the regulations. The new Law to Promote the Sustainability of the Territory of Andalusia (LISTA) and its regulations dedicate for the first time an entire title to the troglodytic habitat, defining what a cave is, what a cave neighborhood is and what a “troglodytic municipality” is (Article 421). The standard establishes minimum conditions of safety, health and habitability: water and sanitation services, minimum surface area of ​​30 m², sufficient ventilation, adequate drainage of rainwater and guarantees of stability of the excavated land. General management plans are now required to indicate measures for their protection, conservation and improvement, from maintaining the outer layer of soil to preserving natural rain drainage channels. See the caves. He average itinerary It includes a panoramic view of the center, the Roman Theatre, the Arab wall, the Alcazaba, the historic and Jewish neighborhoods and, finally, a stop of about 45 minutes in the troglodyte area to visit viewpoints, a unique cave church and the Caves Interpretation Center. Of course, whoever makes a reservation rules over whoever shows up randomly: visits to the cave neighborhood fill up, especially in the mornings and on weekends. The train usually operates with departures every 40–60 minutes in the morning schedule. The tour takes about 75 minutes, with recorded comments in several languages. He Interpretation Center It reopened in April 2026 with new hours: Monday to Saturday it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and on Sundays until 2:30 p.m. To sleep under the hill. The other experience is to literally spend the night underground. A night as a couple usually costs around 110 euros per … Read more

There are people covering the LED on Meta’s glasses to record secretly. The company has just made a drastic decision

by

Today it is relatively easy to know when someone is recording us with a cell phone: we see it raised, pointing towards us, becoming an almost universal signal. The same does not happen with smart glasses. They may look like normal glasses, be on the face of someone looking in our direction, and go unnoticed for those who don’t know what to look for. In this scenario, the small white light that turns on when capturing photos or videos is not a minor detail: it is the visible clue that allows us to understand that those glasses are recording. The problem begins when that clue disappears. That’s just what Meta is trying to prevent now. The company claims that its AI glasses, a category that already goes beyond the Ray-Ban Meta, will disable the camera if they detect that the capture LED has been physically tampered with or destroyed, not just if it is covered. Until now, Meta said that, since its second generation of glasses, the system already blocked photos and videos when it detected that that light was covered. The novelty is that the protection is extended to more aggressive attempts to override the visible warning. It is not an absolute guarantee against all misuse, but it is a direct response to a specific crack in the product. The problem with glasses was not just blocking the light Meta calls that signal “capture LED”: a white light on the front of each pair of glasses that flashes when content is being captured for the gallery. According to the company, in the case of a photo the notice appears for a moment, while on video remains throughout the recording. On paper, its function is simple: let people around you know that someone is taking an image or recording a scene. In practice, that small light carries an enormous responsibility: making visible a camera that, by design, can be confused with conventional glasses. The leap is that it wasn’t all about putting a piece of tape over the light. Meta acknowledges that it has seen attempts that went further: efforts to physically modify or destroy the capture LED. Media like 404 Media and BGR have documented those types of practices in more detail. The first published the case of a service that offered to modify the Ray-Ban Meta to make the light useless, while the second included more rudimentary methods and other more elaborate ones, from accessories designed to hide it to physical interventions on the indicator area. The underlying issue was clear: if the signal could disappear and the camera continued working, the safeguard lost much of its meaning. In Spain we have already seen how far this gap can go. At Xataka we have been counting for just over a year the case of a young man detained in Barcelona after recording hundreds of women with smart glasses without their knowledge, an episode that turned a until then diffuse concern into a much more tangible problem. The key was not only the device, but the lack of social alarm about it: many people still do not react the same to apparently normal glasses as to a cell phone pointed in their direction. The company presents the update as a new layer of privacy, but it is also an admission that the LED had become an attackable point in the system. If the visible notice could be obscured, modified, or destroyed while the camera continued to operate, the promise of transparency was weakened. Now Meta is trying to turn that light into something more than an indicator: a condition for the camera to operate. Images | Goal In Xataka | Meta already has its rival for Nano Banana 2. Its problem is the same as always: mercilessly invading our privacy

To the question of which Spaniard has the highest quality semen, the answer is clear: it is not the people of Madrid.

by

Semen also has geography. And in Spain, Madrid does not fare well. Let’s assume that semen quality has been declining for decades. In Spain it has fallen 28% in just 15 years, a 78% if we value the last two decades. That is to say, a concentration of sperm is produced so low that it is less than half of what it was in the 70s. And it continues in constant regression. With this breeding ground, the question is: and which region is coping best with this decline? Alcohol and coffee have nothing to do with each other. The investigation analyzed 386 men seen in seven Spanish fertility clinics—such as the Bernabeu Institute—between 2024 and 2025. After adjusting variables such as body mass index, exercise, and alcohol, tobacco, or coffee consumption, the authors observed that men from the north recorded the best seminal parameters, even when their habits were similar to those of other regions. This gives us a clue to talk about pollution, environmental inequality and public health. The results have been presented at the 42nd congress of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE). AND In it we can find clear differences in semen quality depending on the area in which the donors live. Those who win this game are the residents of the north, with Asturias and Cantabria far ahead of Madrid and the center of the peninsula. But there is fine print. More agile, faster. The total count of motile sperm is striking, almost double in the north than in the central area. In data: 94.35 million on average compared to 50.11 million in the central area. This index talk about health: “the northern region also presented the highest average sperm concentration (80.96 million/ml) and sperm motility (44.79%), compared to 55.4% in southern Spain and 53.4% ​​in the center.” If diet, exercise or substance use alone do not draw this map of semen quality, what does? The first conjectures point to a population that breathes worse, drinks and involuntarily incorporates into its body part of the atmospheric pollution, a mixture of industrial and agricultural toxins, where endocrine disruptors in plasticspesticides and everyday cosmetics. Out of the pot. Beyond Spain, the pattern repeats itself: studies with fertile men In cities such as Copenhagen, Paris, Edinburgh and Turku, they already showed in the early 2000s that the Finns had the highest sperm concentrations while the Danes recorded the lowest values, with also variations in mobility depending on the city. If we take a look at the retrospective analyzes of French donors found significant differences within the country itself in volume, concentration, and total number of sperm. The north wins again. In general, the men of the nordic west They have worse semen quality than those from the Baltic area, in parallel with a higher incidence of testicular cancer, another marker of male reproductive stress. Does better semen equal more pregnancies? Not necessarily, but almost. Let us keep in mind that, although the relationship with fertility is not linear, below certain thresholds of concentration and mobility, the probability of spontaneous pregnancy decreases considerably. To understand what “better semen” means, it is worth going down a level. According to the World Health Organization, reference values ​​are measured in concentration (millions of sperm per milliliter), ejaculate volume, percentage of motile sperm and proportion of sperm with morphology considered normal. It is necessary to distinguish between progressive sperm (the vanguard that advances efficiently), versus non-progressive and completely immotile ones. In morphology, the shape of the head, middle piece and tail (flagellum) is evaluated, since anatomical alterations can make fertilization difficult. Plastics and fertility. By the way: nitrile and latex gloves release plastic microparticles and contaminate environmental measurements does not invalidate that the presence of endocrine disruptors in human tissue does not affect male fertility. The evidence is solid. For example, a 2023 study that analyzed 6 human testicles and 30 semen samples found microplastics both in tissue and fluid: around 0.23 ± 0.45 particles per milliliter in semen and 11.60 ± 15.52 particles per gram of testicle, with sizes mostly between 20 and 100 microns, finding polystyrene in testicles and polyethylene and PVC in semen. The problem is broader. The taboo of male fertility, treated as a private matter, has obscured problems that can be investigated as a collective indicator. And this deterioration does not respond, or not only, to individual behavior. The greatest weight lies in the place you livenot in the genes you carry. A cardinal clue: of course smoking, drinking or moving more or less matter, but it does not depend so much on personal decisions. A debate that is more political than folkloric (and health and regulatory). A cocktail of bisphenol A, methyl, ethyl, propyl and butylparabens, benzophenones and phthalate metabolites is directly associated with significant reductions in total and progressive sperm motility. Therefore, Asturias beating Madrid is not something to celebrate, but rather to raise the alarm about the qualities of the water – it will not be that good -, what pesticides are used nearby and what mix of chemicals goes through daily life. The tip of an iceberg that does not lie in who comes out better off, but rather in the cost of those who come out worse off. Images | Unsplash (1, 2 and 3) In Xataka | We already know how much we Spaniards masturbate at work (and what is more important: which communities win) In Xataka | If you are worried about the quality of your sperm, science has a clear recipe for you: ejaculate more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.