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date, time, best places to see it and advice to protect your eyes and your mobile camera

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We are going to tell you everything you need to know about the total solar eclipse that will be in Spain next August, the first of these characteristics that we have in more than a century. And get ready, because this will only be the first of the total solar eclipses visible in Spain in the next three years. Let’s start blabla Date, time and why this time it is “against the clock” The total solar eclipse will take place next Wednesday, August 12, 2026. It will take place at sunset, and this is a fact that will determine the experience, because it will be quite a time trial. Globally, the phenomenon will start at 5:34 p.m. (Spanish peninsular time) in the Bering Sea, and will end at 9:58 p.m. in the Atlantic. It will last 264 minutes, although in Spain we will see it in its last phasesalmost with the Sun touching the horizon. These are the approximate schedules on the peninsula: Start of the partial phase: around 7:30 p.m. Whole: between 8:27 p.m. and 8:33 p.m., depending on where you are. End of partial phase: around 21:20-21:22. To give an example, in A Coruña the eclipse begins at 7:31 p.m., its maximum is at 8:28 p.m., and ends at 9:22 p.m., with a totality 76 seconds and the Sun only 12 degrees above the horizon. This is a first key, which is going to be something very quick. And the other key is that Spain is at the end of the totality zonemeaning that the total eclipse will be when the sun is very low. This will make vision difficult if you live in mountainous areas, and you will need to be in a place with the clear horizon to the west. Mountains, buildings, or even a row of trees could prevent you from seeing the eclipse properly. The positive part is that, being in August, the chances of clear skies are higher in much of the country. At least if we compare it with other times of the year, although it will always depend on the weather during that specific day. How to know if you are going to see the total or partial eclipse All Spaniards will see something of the eclipse, but not all of us will see the same thing. The totality strip of the eclipse does not cover the entire countryso depending on where you live or where you go to see it you will see one thing or another. This strip of totality, which is what the area where the total eclipse will be seen is called, crosses the country from west to east, from A Coruña to Palmapassing through capitals such as Oviedo, León, Burgos, Vitoria, Logroño, Zaragoza, Teruel, Castellón, València and the Balearic Islands. Outside that band, that strip, in cities like Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Seville, Malaga or Murcia the eclipse will be partial. This does not make it not a spectacle, but it is not as impressive as total eclipses. At Xataka we have done this definitive map of the eclipse. In it you will be able to see the strip of totality, as well as the peninsular area through which it will pass. you also have the official eclipse map in which you can also find information, although all of it is also on the map that we have made. How to protect your eyes from the eclipse It is very important protect your eyes properly If you are going to look at the sun during the eclipse if you don’t want to finish with sore eyes or with any serious eye injury. The most important thing is to search approved glasses who have the registration EN ISO 12312-2:2015. In addition, if you buy in the European Union, the CE marking must also be visible. Come on, don’t buy glasses from the first person who tells you they are for the eclipse. It is important to look at the approval to know that they will protect you correctly. If it has approval everything will be fine, but if in doubt, buying them from planetariums, astronomical associations or scientific entities will guarantee that they are reliable. It is also vital make sure they are not broken or damaged. Make sure the filter is not scratched, loose or bent, and also that some areas are not lighter than others. If there is any sign of deterioration in the area that covers the eyes, it is best not to risk it and look for other glasses. And not, sunglasses don’t workthe glasses that you use the rest of the year to protect your eyes from solar radiation do not protect you from the direct radiation that occurs under the conditions of an eclipse. Sunglasses only meet their own safety criteria for protect us from scattered lightbut not to look directly at the king star. In fact, they don’t block as much UV radiation as eclipse glasses, but enough so that you don’t have to squint, which exposes you to more, making wearing them even more dangerous. Here, remember that it doesn’t matter if 99% of the sun is coveredEven if only 1% of the sun is visible, you must use approved glasses. That certain darkness that occurs during the event does not protect you, but rather makes you more vulnerable. Therefore, I repeat, Always check that your glasses are well approved to enjoy the eclipse safely. How to protect your cell phone if you are going to take photos Of course, many of us will want to take photos of the eclipse. But in a situation as complex as this phenomenon, doing so can also put our device at risk. Of course, let’s start from the basis that we shouldn’t do itmost experts recommend don’t do it neither with a mobile phone nor with a professional camera. Beyond the fact that it is recommended enjoy the event in first person Instead of distracting you by taking photos, a solar eclipse can … Read more

why 3 euro cardboard glasses protect your eyes from an eclipse better than 100 euro sunglasses

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If you have in mind see the solar eclipse this August 12you may have already started searching approved glasses. Many shops they have jumped on the car and they are launching offers at a very reduced price. Although the truth is that, honestly, it is not necessary to lower the cost much, since the price of eclipse glasses is extremely cheap. And of course, for some people, it is very shocking, since they insist actively and passively that conventional sunglasses do not work for us, but how can my 100-euro Ray-Ban not be worth it and some cardboard glasses that cost me 3 are worth it? With this, as with many things in life, we see that price is not everything. They are not lying to us when they tell us that sunglasses are worthless. They also don’t scam us by selling us eclipse glasses for only 3 euros. The inflated prices of brand name sunglasses can sometimes hurt us like a scam, although everyone is free to set the prices for their brand that they see fit. But let’s focus on the science of approved glasses. How can something so technically necessary be so cheap to produce? There is not so much technical complexity. Eclipse glasses are designed to be used once in a very long time, if at all. Normally, the person who wears them just look at the sky and, at most, around it. You don’t have to drive, walk, or read anything. You just stop and look at the Sun. For this reason, all you need is a very basic frame, sometimes made of cardboard, and two filters, one for each eye. Sunglasses, on the other hand, must be functional, which requires greater technical complexity. If they are graduated, It is necessary that they have an adequate curvature. This is not necessary in itself for non-prescription sunglasses, but it is often also done to give them a more enveloping effect, especially if they are aimed at sports. On the other hand, the glass of the sunglasses is carved, polished and treated to improve visibility and prevent scratches. For this reason, their manufacture is more expensive, while the price of eclipse glasses is very low. Simple but essential filters. The really important thing about approved eclipse glasses is that they have good filters. These must comply with the regulations EN ISO 12312-2:2015which ensures that no more than 0.00032% of visible sunlight is allowed to pass through. Sunglasses, on the other hand, are designed to avoid indirect damage, but not to look directly at the Sun, so a transmittance of 3% is sufficient in the highest protection categories. The filters used to achieve this great light blocking in eclipse glasses are manufactured with a black polymer or resin with carbon particles. The most used polymer is reflective Mylar.. Then, on top of the polymer, they have thin layers of aluminum, chrome or silver, which help optimize filtering. They are not difficult materials to obtain in the necessary quantities, so the final price is not exorbitant. There is no exclusivity, another reason for the price of eclipse glasses. Even if cheap materials are used, the filter still costs money. The thing is that, unlike what usually happens with sunglasses, eclipse glasses are usually produced on very large scales. Exclusivity is not sought nor does anything happen because there are many identical glasses. That, in the end, reduces costs a lot. Furthermore, with sunglasses we often pay for the brand and that is something that, logically, does not matter with glasses approved for viewing the eclipse. Even given as gifts. Producing these glasses is so cheap that some brands, businesses and institutions are already giving them away to ensure that we all see the eclipse on August 12 safely. In Spain, this will be the first of three eclipses in three consecutive years; So, contrary to usual, you will need these glasses again very soon. Whatever you buy, don’t get rid of them. Of course, if you see that the filter is broken or scratched, the protective metal layers may be damaged and good filtering is no longer guaranteed. In that case, buy others. After all, they are justifiably very cheap. Image | Magnific/NASA In Xataka | A third of Spain will be completely dark for a minute or two. The astronomical event of the century is approaching

How to protect your WhatsApp username with a PIN so that only whoever has this password can write to you

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We are going to explain how to configure WhatsApp so that Only someone who has a password can write to you using your username. The WhatsApp usernames They allow other people to contact you using a name, and thus not need to give your phone number. But what happens if your username gets spread? That’s when you can apply this layer of security. With it, in addition to knowing your username, it will also be necessary write a PIN so I can send you a message. Something perfect for when you see that it has gotten out of hand and anonymous people start writing to you. This does not apply to every time they want to write to you, but for when they want to send you a message for the first time. When you reserve your username you will see this option to choose from, but we will explain how to configure it later. A PIN to be able to contact you with your username on WhatsApp To configure your PIN once you already have a usernameyou have to go to the WhatsApp settings and click on the section Accountwhich appears with a key icon. Once inside the section Accountyou have to click on the option User namewhich you will find in the section Your account. You will go to the screen where you will see and be able to edit your WhatsApp username. Once you are here, click on the option Contact me by usernamewhich is the only one that appears. Here you will be able to define who can contact you using your username. By default it will be configured so that anyone can do it, that is, if you want to apply a security PIN, click on the option People who know my password. This will take you to a screen where a PIN code is displayed. You will be able to click on Get another key to regenerate it and give you another. When you are satisfied with the PIN that you have assigned, press the button Save key. From now on, in addition to knowing your username, you will also have to know your PIN to be able to write to you for the first time. In Xataka Basics | Send WhatsApp messages to yourself: How to do it and 11 uses for the function

In the nineties many people had a cactus next to their computer. It wasn’t for decoration, it was to protect yourself from radiation

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A few days ago we were talking about a myth circulating that says that if you put a coin on top of the router improves WiFi. It’s as stupid as a temple, but it’s the typical easy-to-do trick that ends up going viral. In the nineties we did not have social networks and the word viral had a completely different meaning, but myths of dubious credibility were also spread, such as the one that said you had to have a cactus next to your computer to absorb its radiation. The origin of the myth. It is believed to come from from an observation made at the geobiology institute in Chardonne, Switzerland, in 1987. It was not a formal experiment, but rather the perception of the institute’s employees who claimed that placing a cactus next to the monitor reduced their symptoms of fatigue and headache after spending many hours working. To that anecdote was added, without links or details, the reference to “a NASA study.” There is no evidence to support any of this, but the use of institutional names was enough for the myth to spread with a semblance of scientific rigor that it never had. Fear of radiation. The word radiation acquired a very negative tone especially after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. However, not all types of radiation are harmful. “Bad” radiation is ionizing radiation, such as x-rays or gamma rays, but in the case of a computer, it is low-frequency electromagnetic radiation, non-ionizing and incapable of altering our cells. This and other myths (such as related to 5G) arise from the false belief of associating any type of radiation with something dangerous and harmful. Why a cactus. The fact that a cactus is recommended and not any other plant has to do with the fact that they have a high water content and of course, like water absorbs radiation since it is assumed that the cactus will also do it. It can absorb radiation, yes, but no more than any object: by that rule of three, a watermelon or a jug of water next to the computer would achieve an even greater effect. In addition to the fact that the electromagnetic field that a computer can emit is not harmful, it goes out in all directions, so to protect us from it, we would have to surround the entire machine with cacti, not place one next to it and that’s it. Efficacy not found. In 2018, a group of Turkish scientists set out to check if changes occurred in the electromagnetic field by placing a cactus nearby of the screen. They were made with LCD monitors and old tube monitors, as well as different varieties of cacti, including some large ones. They measured the electromagnetic field by placing the cactus in various positions and came to a clear conclusion: the effect was null. Although this trick has been refuted, the popular belief has remained and there are those who have taken advantage of it. Who is it? The cactus sellers. Image | Magnificent In Xataka | We could assume that the plant world was one of the last AI-free corners. we would be wrong

how to protect pets from heat stroke in the midst of a wave of extreme temperatures

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Nobody likes a record heat wave. Not even the summer fans who like to spend hours and hours on the beach, lying under the umbrella and with the murmur of the waves in the background. When we talk about pets, however, the heatwave can become a death trap. So much so that the veterinary colleges and even the government They remind us that we must be responsible when taking care of our animals in summer. Failure to do so can not only end in an avoidable tragedy, it also leads to consequences legal. That’s why it’s good to review some guidelines. Veterinarians on call. Few groups know the needs of animals better than veterinarians. That is why it is significant that, with the summer having just begun, the Spanish referees have not taken long to publish posts and guides on the same topic: how to care for pets during the dog days. In recent weeks, professionals from Barcelona, Lion, Madrid either Alicanteamong other regions, in addition to veterinarians on a private basis and the bosses from pet food manufacturers, ANFAAC. Even the Ministry of Social Rights launched a guide a couple of years ago “to protect pets from heat waves.” Just like him College of Veterinarians of Madrid (Covelma). The idea is very simple: make people aware that their tolerance to heat and that of their pets does not have to be the same and there are tragedies, such as heat stroke, burns or dehydration that are easily avoidable. It often comes with paying a little attention. Are they so common? There are not many studies on the subject, but we do have some data that helps us understand the insistence of veterinary colleges and authorities. There are those who estimate, for example, that episodes of heat stroke in pets they shoot up 35% during the months of July and August, although some sources say that in the clinics they see up to five times more cases of this type when the mercury shoots. As a reference, the British Veterinary Association (BVA) estimates that during the dog days of 2022 51% of the country’s veterinarians treated animals requiring treatment for heat-related illnesses. A percentage to reflect on. These are worrying data if we take into account that only survivors 50% of dogs that suffer from heat stroke, a critical situation during which their body overheats and even loses the ability to self-regulate temperature. What’s more, it only takes a few minutes (just 15) in that situation for the consequences to be fatal. As Colvema recalls, the normal body temperature of a dog is around 38.5º and at 43º the internal organs begin to fail. It is not that much of a difference: there can only be a 6º difference between the interior of a white car and a black car. What needs to be taken into account? If we want to protect our pets, it is important to keep several key pieces of information in mind. From the outset, as I remembered recently the Italian veterinarian Giuiliano Pellegrini in The Worldthat “dogs and cats have a limited ability to dissipate body heat.” Hence they are “particularly vulnerable” during episodes of extreme heat. When temperatures rise, your cardiovascular system is forced to work harder and if our pet suffers from heart pathologies, they may worsen. Heat also does not agree well with respiratory or kidney ailments, something that we must take into account with older, obese or brachycephalic. In general, to avoid heat stroke, veterinarians recommend four very simple guidelines: avoid the hottest hours, walk in shady areas, always carry water and be attentive to the animal’s behavior. If you are breathing hard, feeling down, and have your tongue sticking out, it is better to pay attention. Vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, a change in the color of the tongue and choking breathing are reasons for alarm, so you should go to a veterinary clinic. The decalogue of heat. To avoid scares, a few years ago the Ministry of Social Rights published a decalogue with very simple tips. For example, it warns of the risk of leaving animals locked in the car or approaching walks with our dogs more carefully, thinking for example where we will go, what time we will do it, how far we will travel and how to cool down. It is not a minor issue. For example, you may be wearing sneakers or sandals, but (depending on the time of day) your pet may end up walking on heated asphalt. more than 60º and end up with injuries to the pads. Below are the 10 pieces of advice from the Government: Don’t leave your pet in the car. In summer, temperatures soar and leaving your pet alone, inside a vehicle, can end very badly. “A closed car can reach very high temperatures in a few minutes that are potentially fatal,” warns the ministry. The walks, in the fresh air. Try to avoid the hottest hours and make the longest (and most exhausting) walks the first and last thing in the day. For a large, elderly or brachycephalic dog, temperatures exceeding 30º can be dangerous. From 32º, the risk increases for all dogs, so it is better that they do not do exercises that exhaust them. You wear shoes, he doesn’t. Keep it in mind. When walking next to you, your dog passes over manhole covers, paved streets, concrete esplanades, tiles… surfaces that get hot in summer. Veterinarians remember that during critical hours the asphalt can exceed 60ºC. Hydrate yourself, hydrate him. Authorities and doctors insist that in summer we must hydrate. The same thing happens with your furry companion. In summer you have to change their water more frequently and if you take them out for a walk it is advisable to take a bottle and a water bowl with you. Racing for winter. Physical exercise is fine, but during the heat of the heat it is best to avoid excessive exertion. If you want to play ball … Read more

Italy planted millions of fir trees to protect the Alps. 90 years later they have discovered that biodiversity has been reduced by half

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The ecologist Aldo Leopold wrote a phrase that would end up defining all modern conservation in 1949: “maintaining each piece is the first rule of ecological intelligence.” He said it decades before science could measure it, but today studies like the one in the Alps Italians demonstrate the extent to which removing pieces of an ecosystem can seem invisible… until generations pass. A forest that seemed like a solution. In the 1930s, Italy by Benito Mussolini He decided that the best way to stabilize the Alps was to cover them with trees. The logic seemed impeccable: stop erosion, ensure wood for the future and display an image of order and national productivity. For this they chose norwegian sprucea fast-growing conifer, straight trunk and profitable wood. Thousands of hectares of alpine meadows and native forests were razed to plant dense, homogeneous rows of this species. For decades, that decision was sold as a forestry engineering success. From afar, those green forests looked healthy. But almost a century later, science has discovered that beneath that appearance a silent impoverishment was hidden. Ninety years later, the ecological bill. The studyled by ecologist Gianalberto Losapio and published in the journal Ecology, analyzed two areas of the Italian Prealps, near Lake Como: Monte Bisbino and Vicere Alp. There, the researchers They compared three habitats Neighbors: spruce plantations, native deciduous forests and traditional alpine grasslands. During five months of field work they identified 136 plant species and 201 arthropod species. The results were devastating. In plantations there was a median of only seven plant species per plot, compared to 18.5 in native forests and 37 in grasslands. Translated: more than 50% less diversity than in natural forests and almost 75% less than in the pastures. The problem of planting only one type of tree. The big mistake was believing that more trees automatically equaled more nature. Monoculture works well to produce wood, but It’s an ecological trap. When a landscape is filled with a single species, complexity disappears, because each plant, insect and microorganism plays a role in the ecosystem. Reducing this variety implies reducing resistance to diseases, pests or extreme phenomena. In the Italian Alps, diverse landscapes were replaced by uniform blocks coniferousand the result was a brutal simplification of the ecological network. What seemed like reforestation ended up being a substitution of biodiversity for productivity. A: Location of the study sites. B: Satellite image of the Monte Bisbino site. C: Satellite image of the Alpe del Vicerè site. Satellite images B and C represent the location of the fixed plots. “SM” = monoculture spruce plantations, “DF” = native deciduous forest and “GR” = grassland (prairie/mountain grassland). Map data: Google, Maxar Technologies Darkness as a silent weapon. The norway spruce It has a key characteristic: it is perennial. While beech, maple or chestnut trees lose their leaves and allow light to reach the ground in spring, the spruce maintains a closed canopy all year round. It is not trivial. In fact, that difference changes everything. Many alpine plants flower precisely in that window of early light, before the forest canopy closes. Under a spruce plantation, that opportunity disappears because the ground remains in constant shade and many species simply cannot survive. That is, it is not an open competition, it is a physical and permanent exclusion. The ground was also transformed. There is more, because the damage did not remain on the surface. Spruce needles acidify the soil as they accumulate over decades. The researchers found 25% more organic carbon in these plantations, although that did not mean greater fertility. It was just the opposite: organic matter decomposed more slowly, a sign of lower biological activity. Not only that. The balance between carbon and nitrogen also I was upsetindicating slower and less efficient nutrient cycling. In simple terms, the forest continued to accumulate remains because the system had lost the capacity to recycle them. It was a stuck ecosystem. A poorer and more fragile forest. Beyond the number of species, scientists measured something even more important: the “functional uniformity”that is, how ecological roles are distributed within the plant community. In spruce plantations, this index was 30% lower than in natural forests. That means less balance and more vulnerability. It’s not just that there are fewer species, but rather that entire functions within the system are missing. Some niches were left empty and many ecological jobs stopped being done. In other words, the forest is still there, but it works worse. It didn’t even create a new ecosystem. The researchers of the study said that one of the most revealing findings was verifying that these plantations they did not generate a new community adapted to the spruce. In fact, no specialized boreal species appeared nor a new equilibrium built. No, what they found was a version mutilated of the original forest: the same species as always, but less numerous and diverse. The spruce did not bring new life, it simply eroded what already existed. The insects resisted better, but with nuances. The only less alarming data appeared in the soil arthropods. Its diversity barely varied between plantations and natural forests. Reasons? Scientists believe that this due to their mobility and their ability to move between nearby habitats. Be that as it may, even here there is caution among experts. Soil chemistry suggests that microbial activity and the finer network of underground life have also changed, although they were not directly measured. The surface may give an image of partial recovery, but the subsoil continues to tell another story. The global lesson that comes too late. If you also want, what happened in Italy is not a historical rarity. Today, a good part of the global reforestation commitments continue exactly this model: plant quickly, cheaply and uniformly to meet climatic and accounting objectives. According to previous studies cited by the authorshalf of the areas committed to forest restoration in the world are monocultures of non-native species. Although it is an efficient formula in the short term … Read more

how to protect your files with post-quantum encryption today

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Quantum computers will acquire the ability to break classical cryptography in a relatively short period of time. At the end of last March, a group of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of California at Berkeley and the emerging company Oratomic published a scientific article preliminary in which he explored the capabilities of quantum computers of neutral atoms. These machines are an alternative to quantum computers with superconducting and ion trap qubits, and are still in an experimental phase. These scientists have estimated that Shor’s algorithm can be implemented using a quantum computer equipped with between 10,000 and 20,000 qubits of neutral atoms. In fact, in their article they even propose a design with which in theory it would be possible break bitcoin encryption in a few days using 26,000 qubits of neutral atoms. In any case, these researchers are not the only ones who in recent months have alerted us to the ability of quantum computers to violate classical cryptography. In that same period, the group of artificial intelligence Google quantum published a study in which he demonstrates that the elliptic curve encryption used by Bitcoin or Ethereum, among other cryptocurrencies, can be overthrown using far fewer resources than initially estimated. According to these researchers, a quantum computer with less than half a million physical qubits will be able to decipher the algorithms used by current cryptocurrencies in a few minutes. In short, the scientific community has agreed that classical encryption technologies will be vulnerable before the arrival of large-scale quantum hardware. We can now protect our data Cryptography is the art of protecting our information through mathematical transformations. In this way, an encrypted message is incomprehensible to anyone who does not have the correct key. For decades, Internet security has rested on a seemingly solid principle: certain mathematical problems are so difficult to solve that no conventional computer could attack them in a reasonable amount of time. Post-quantum cryptography brings together a set of cryptographic algorithms designed to resist attacks from both classical and quantum computers. However, as we have seen, quantum computers are going to overturn this premise sooner rather than later. Fortunately, we have the post-quantum cryptographycommonly known as PQC due to its English name (Post-Quantum Cryptography). This technology brings together a set of cryptographic algorithms designed to resist attacks from both classical and quantum computers. The most important thing is that these algorithms run on conventional hardware. They do not require quantum computers to operate and are designed to replace current standards on the same processors we use today. In 2024, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published an initial set of standards that includes a post-quantum key exchange mechanism and several post-quantum digital signature schemes. The three standards published by NIST have clear functions. ML-KEM is based on the CRYSTALS-Kyber algorithm and is a key encapsulation mechanism. Its function is to establish securely encrypted communication channels, replacing the classic protocols that the browser and the operating system use today to protect our connections. On the other hand, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA are digital signature schemes. They serve to verify that a message or file comes from who it claims to come from, without any quantum computer being able to falsify that signature. The three standards rely on mathematical problems that quantum computers cannot solve efficiently with current knowledge. The good news is that we don’t have to wait for our operating system to update. Some of the most used applications have already incorporated these standards in a way that is transparent to the user. Encrypted messaging app Signal implemented ML-KEM-1024 in its PQXDH protocol in 2024. Since then, every conversation protects session keys with post-quantum cryptography without the user having to configure anything. It is the clearest example that the transition has already begun, and that it can be completely invisible to users. How to encrypt your files with a certified tool To protect the files stored on our computer, the most accessible and audited tool available today for home users is VeraCrypt. It is free, open source and compatible with Windows, macOS and Linux. Its encryption is based on AES-256, a symmetric algorithm that NIST maintains as a standard and that remains resistant to quantum attacks. And the quantum threat does not affect all cryptography equally: Shor and Grover’s algorithms effectively attack asymmetric cryptography (RSA, elliptic curves, etc.), but symmetric cryptography with 256-bit keys retains sufficient strength against any quantum computer. In practice, AES-256 offers quantum security equivalent to 128 bits – enough to protect any personal file for decades. Using VeraCrypt takes just a few minutes. Once we have downloaded it from its official websitethe process involves creating an encrypted container: a file that acts as a password-protected virtual disk. On the main screen we will select Volumes/Create New Volumeand then Create an encrypted file container. The strength of symmetric encryption ensures that no next-generation quantum computer will be able to access content by brute force Next, we will choose the location and size of the container, select AES as the encryption algorithm, and set a strong password. Once created, that container is mounted as if it were another unit of the computer. In this way, any file that we drag inside is automatically encrypted. When you unmount the volume, the data is unreadable to any person or machine that accesses the disk without the password. To protect our passwords, the most reliable domestic option is KeePassXC. It is an open source manager, without connection to external servers and with periodic independent security audits. Stores all passwords in a locally AES-256 encrypted database that is only opened with a master password or additional key file. The cloud alternative is Bitwardenwhich also encrypts the data with AES-256 before sending it to the server. In both cases, the strength of symmetric encryption ensures that no next-generation quantum computer will be able to access the content by brute force. Whoever wants to complete this strategy can do so … Read more

During World War II, a bell was buried to protect it. A farmer found it in 2024

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One morning in August 2024, Laurynas Družas once again passed his metal detector around his village, Antašava, in northern Lithuania. But this time, unlike the previous ones, he was lucky: He found something he had heard about all his life. In fact, explains This farmer by profession, who bought his first metal detector when he was 18. There it was, two meters underground, the bell of his town’s church. The bell tower of the Jackaus church had been without a bell since 1942 because someone had kept it safe in the middle of the Second World War. Maybe too good, because getting her back had become a chimera. Saving the San Jacinto Bell. In 1942 Lithuania was occupied by the Nazis within the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The previous year, the United States had joined the fray and Germany had failed in its attempt to conquer the east in Operation Barbarossa. In this scenario, the bell of Saint Hyacinth of Antašava disappears. Druzas account that the townspeople risked their lives to hide it from the occupiers with all the sense in the world: it is worth remembering that the Nazi party issued a decree to confiscate the bells and melt them for war purposes. And be careful because at that time there were no tractors: they did it with a horse, a cart and brute force. Quite an act of resistance, protection of heritage and a truly dangerous mission to hide a bell that weighs more than half a ton behind the backs of the Nazi occupiers. The bell became a legend. And time passed, Antašava said goodbye to the Nazis, Lithuania ceased to belong to the USSR to become independent in 1990 and the bell was still missing. The problem was that, as the years went by, those who knew where the bell was buried began to forget the exact place: the landscape changes, bushes grow and memory becomes blurred. But people knew that there was a bell in the bell tower and that it was hidden and the story was passed from generation to generation. In fact, Laurynas’ grandmother knew approximately where she was because as a child an uncle showed her the area. Grandma forgot the exact location, but not the idea of ​​finding it. He passed that “obsession” on to his grandson who, 82 years later, found it. A bell with 100 years of history. The bell of the Antašava church was cast in Poland in 1908 in a foundry that, as confirmed by the Polish “campanologist” Dr. Piotr Jamski, is still active today in the hands of a different family than the original. After 82 years underground, its state of conservation It was almost perfectneither the bell nor the wood show any signs of deterioration, as Laurynas Družas himself described after the discovery. The only thing missing was the clapper, which according to oral tradition was dismantled the same night the bell was buried and kept separately in a house in the town, although it is still missing. When the discovery came to light, heritage professionals they took care to verify its authenticity and origin. Back to the bell tower. In August 2025, a year after the discovery, the bell he returned to his houseto the church of San Jacinto. Polish technicians installed the system to make it ring next to the other bell that was already in the bell tower. Vidmantas Družas, Laurynas’s uncle and church bell ringer, account that the two bells are now connected and ring by pressing a button. In Xataka | We have found a fortress from the Bronze Age: it had been hidden under the Romanian forest for almost five millennia In Xataka | Some 5,000-year-old tombs went unnoticed for millennia. Until we look from the sky Cover | Authorius Vilensija and Vadym Alyekseyenko

Orange’s “life insurance” to protect the internet

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More than 95% of international internet traffic travels over cables that are at the bottom of the sea. Africa and Europe start from very different positions, but they are essential to sustain essential services on both continents, such as the cloud or financial systems. Thus, while Africa It is the continent where demand grows the most bandwidth in the world and faces the problem of relatively old cables designed for much lower traffic than the current one, Europe has consolidated strategic nodes in places such as Marseille, Lisbon or the south of England, but is still exposed to the same risks of concentration and aging. Via Africa is born from both needs, the new submarine cable that Orange and an open consortium of seven operators have announced. The Via Africa cable. Via África is a new submarine fiber optic cable that will connect southern Europe with South Africa bordering the Atlantic. It will have European connection points in the United Kingdom, France, Portugal and the Canary Islands. On the western African coast, its nodes will be in Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Nigeria, although both the final complete route and other points in southern Africa are still pending definition. In any case, The reason for this cable is improve the diversity and resilience of international communications between both continents. Sketch of the layout. Orange Why is it important. To start with, this cable is the answer to that veteran and undersized infrastructure of the African continent and its growing demand at a time when cloud services, artificial intelligence and teleworking are skyrocketing traffic. Furthermore, the African Atlantic coast has some critical points due to the high concentration of marine infrastructure, such as the Ivory Coast, where several cables converge in the same physical place. This example is not coincidental: in March 2024 they failed the four cables that were there at that time at the same time due to a rockslide. The result? 13 West African countries with connectivity at minimum levels for weeks. But the problem is not only African: when these cables fail, Europe loses traffic capacity to the continent, dragging down operators, companies and cloud services that depend on that route. What Via Africa proposes is precisely a geographically different route, that is, an alternative that breaks that dependency. Six cables, the same physical point in the Ivory Coast. Submarine Cable Map Context. The African Atlantic coast is already served with cables such as SAT-3/WASC (2002), WACS (2012), ACE (2012), MainOne (2010) or Google’s Equiano (2023), but some of these systems are aging or have proven to be vulnerable. This new cable adds to a wave of investment in African submarine infrastructure, such as the recent 2Africa in Meta (2025) or the Medusa in the Mediterranean (2026). Orange needs few introductions: it manages more than 450,000 kilometers of submarine cables around the world through its subsidiary Orange Marine and in fact, last year charge two new cable carrier vessels to reinforce its maintenance and deployment capacity in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, with delivery scheduled in 2028 and 2029. How are they going to do it?. At the moment the only thing that there is closed It is a Memorandum of Understanding for its construction by a group of investors among which are CanalinkGUILAB, International Mauritania Telecom, Orange Group, Orange Côte d’Ivoire, Sonatel and Silverlinks. From here, the process starts with a route study to determine the optimal route in terms of resilience, technical feasibility and economic efficiency. Likewise, the business consortium will prepare the bidding process to select the cable manufacturer, the next step. Yes, but. The announcement is a memorandum with big names behind it, not a construction contract, which means that the stage of the operation is extremely early: it could take years until it is operational or even never materialize. In this sense, logically there are still important unknowns pending that range from the total layout and its length, all the nodes, the manufacturer and installer and the route sheet with a date for its entry into operation or the cost. Furthermore, Via África is going to enter a space that is not free: Google already operates Equiano on the same coastal strip and Meta has its own cable circumnavigating Africa with the very long 2Africa of 45,000 kilometers. In short, it will have to compete with the infrastructure of the large hyperscalers. 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 | Bryan Christie Design and Orange

After deploying its data centers in Aragon, Amazon wants to protect Zaragoza from floods

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On July 6, 2023, a torrential storm collapsed the Barranco de la Muerte in Zaragoza, leaving the Z-30 under two meters of water and causing damage valued at 125 million euros, as collects The Herald. Among the affected structures, the high-speed train between Madrid and Barcelona and the capital’s main ring road. This natural disaster made it clear that Zaragoza lacked hydraulic infrastructure capable of absorbing extreme weather events, increasingly frequent with climate change, such as explains AEMET. In response, the City Council made a plan structured in three phases and began conversations with Amazon Web Services, the hyperscaler that Aragón has chosen for its data centers in Spain: the result is a public-private alliance that combines hydraulic infrastructure and real-time monitoring technology with the aim of turning Zaragoza into a European benchmark for urban resilience. Zaragoza, flood-proof. The Zaragoza City Council and AWS with the collaboration of the Government of Aragon and the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation have agreed implement a global technological and hydraulic strategy for environmental risk management. Amazon will contribute 13.8 million euros, distributed in three annual installments. The collaboration has two legs: a physical one, with the construction of hydraulic infrastructure in the Barranco de la Muerte; and another technological, with the deployment of an intelligent early warning platform based on the AWS cloud. Why is it important. This system will benefit more than 700,000 people who live in the Aragonese capital, in addition to protecting critical infrastructure for the city such as the Z-30, the train and entire neighborhoods such as Parque Venecia, today exposed to intense storms. Beyond the scope of the work, this is one of the few cases in Spain where a large technology company directly finances public civil protection infrastructure as a condition of its installation in the territory, which puts a question on the table: what the companies that consume the most resources can and should contribute to the cities that host them. Context. AWS maintains one of the largest investment plans in digital infrastructure in Spain: in 2024 announced an investment of 15.7 billion euros in Aragon over the next decade to expand its cloud infrastructure and new data center campuses in Villanueva de Gállego, El Burgo de Ebro and Huesca. This expansion has a B side: enormous pressure on the territory’s electrical, water and transportation networks. The Barranco de la Muerte is not an isolated case: the Valencia DANA of October 2024 left more than 220 dead and politically accelerated the demand for drainage infrastructure in vulnerable urban areas. Zaragoza, with active ravines and a climate prone to intense convective storms, is one of them. How are they going to do it?. From the point of view of hydraulic works, it is a lamination of avenues combined with sustainable urban drainage enhanced with real-time monitoring. The plan is divided into three technical phases. The first, financed by the council and already underway, consists of a perimeter canal and a retaining wall around the Barranco de la Muerte. The second, financed by AWS, adds a storm tank next to the Torrero Cemetery with a capacity for 20,000 cubic meters, five lamination dams and the improvement of the existing ones upstream of Z-40. The third would bury the ravine as it passes through Z-30 with a collector that would double the current drainage capacity. Added to this is a cloud platform that will combine sensors, artificial intelligence and real-time analysis to monitor flows and launch early warnings. That is to say: the physical infrastructure retains and laminates the water, and the technological infrastructure anticipates when and how much will arrive. AWS support is not only financial: it provides digitalization and predictive hydraulics that multiply the effectiveness of physical infrastructure. Yes, but. The collaboration is a real advance for the city, but it raises uncomfortable questions. The first is obvious: Amazon does not pay for these works out of altruism: its data centers in Aragon are voracious consumers of water and energy, so building water infrastructure in the city is a win-win: it minimizes the risk of supply failures in the event of potential natural disasters and improves its image while strengthening ties with the authorities. Water management is one of the thorny points of data centers and with its proliferation increases scrutiny and protests over the consumption of a scarce good, such as Amazon has already suffered itself in Aragon. On the other hand, for the alert technological platform to be useful, it will be an essential requirement that it be accompanied by proven evacuation and response protocols, which turns an alert into a real solution. How they plan to do it is something that has not been publicly disclosed at the moment. In Xataka | Zaragoza is so full of data centers that Amazon has decided to take one to… a town in Teruel with 900 inhabitants In Xataka | Quietly, Aragón is becoming a data center “powerhouse”: now it has taken a crucial step Cover | David Vives and AWS

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