Spain

Today this tree is one of the trees that breaks the most pipes and sidewalks in Spain

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The tree that appears above these lines surely sounds familiar to you because you have come across it many times, either because it is in your city or because while walking on vacation through any municipality on the Mediterranean coast it was there, in its most stately gardens. A clue in case you don’t recognize it at first: its seeds have a kind of wings, which helps them spread further and better. It is no coincidence: the ailanthus (Ailanthus altissima) arrive from Southeast Asia two centuries ago for its size and presence, but also because it grew quickly in practically any soil. Today is prohibited by law: It is an invasive species that kills other plants and loads the sewage. Ailanto the colonizer. It can measure up to 30 meters, has gray bark and the leaves are made up of many elongated leaves placed in a row. Its fruits are like seeds with wings, hanging in clusters. One way to recognize it is the (bad) smell: if you tear off a leaf and rub it, it stinks. Since its arrival, ailanthus has spread throughout much of the peninsula, with special intensity in Catalonia and the Valencian Community. This tree colonizes ditches, slopes, degraded banks and abandoned gardens, wherever there is a free piece of land, there is the ailanthus: a single adult specimen It is capable of producing up to 350,000 seeds winged per year and thanks to their wings and the wind, the ailanthus continues to expand. The environmental impact of ailanthus. According to the official MITECO fileailanthus alters the functioning of the forest ecosystem and modifies the chemistry of the soil where it settles, making life difficult for other species. Thanks to its rapid growth and dispersed shape, it competes for space and light in areas close to rivers (rich in vegetation), releasing toxic substances that prevent other plants from growing around it. This environmental study by the Junta de Andalucía It confirms that where there is ailanthus, there is up to 35-40% less vegetation than in areas without it. The impact is not limited to vegetation: the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge points out which can also cause damage to urban infrastructure for one reason: its long and reticulated roots, capable of extending up to 15 meters from the foot. These roots look for cracks and gaps to spread, cracking pipes, sewers, foundations, buildings, and other structures. Context. The ailanthus comes from China, and although there is evidence that it was cultivated as an ornamental tree since the 18th century, the Ministry of Agriculture of Spain gives it as naturalized at the beginning of the 19th century. In the middle of that century, Marcelino Sáez de Sautuola, discoverer of the Altamira caves, wrote a letter to the French Acclimatization Society in which he commented on the success of planting ailanthus, at that time highly appreciated for its ornamental and medicinal qualities. Ailanthus is not only “a fugitive” in Spain, wherever it goes, it has problems. It is present and is classified as an invasive species in almost all the world. In the EU it appears in the list of invasive alien specieswhich forces member states to take coordinated control measures and is common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, the Danube basin and practically all Mediterranean countries. The ban and fines. That is included within the Spanish Catalog of Invasive Exotic Species regulated by Royal Decree 630/2013 means that possession, transport, trafficking and trade are prohibited by law throughout Spanish territory. The fines are quite large: from 100 to 3,000 euros for minor infractions, from 3,001 to 200,000 euros for serious ones and up to 2 million euros in the most serious cases. That is state regulation, because each community may have its own additional regulations. What happens then with the ailanthus that there are? This Royal Decree contemplates an exception: those specimens that were already planted in private gardens, urban parks or botanical gardens before the entry into force of the rule. As for those planted in public gardens, administrations must progressively eliminate them. How to keep them at bay. Eradicating them is difficult and expensive. The MITECO report explains Cutting the tree is useless, as it stimulates the appearance of new shoots: the most effective way is to combine the mechanical removal of young seedlings with specific chemical treatments applied to the leaves or stumps. It is what is being done in the Montes de Málaga and the Sierra de Cazorla. Looking to the future, research points to biological control as a more sustainable alternative: the mite Aculus taihangensis has shown be an effective specific agent. In the United States, USDA investigates a soil fungusVerticillium nonalfalfae) that is offering promising results. In Xataka | Spain planted millions of eucalyptus trees to have cheap wood. 90 years later, we have confirmed that they are a green desert In Xataka | The Iberian Peninsula is being invaded: more than 1,200 exotic species have come to stay Cover | Marina Torres

rural Spain is turning blue at night

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In 2023, data from the Chinese SDGSAT-1 satellite made it possible for the RALAN-Map EU project, of the Complutense University of Madrid and the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, to develop the first high resolution calibrated map of the Iberian Peninsula and the archipelagos of the Canary Islands, the Balearic Islands and Madeira. Thanks to the level of detail of this cartographyyou can see how the artificial brightness changes and what type of light predominates in each region at night. And observing the color temperature of light sources has revealed something unexpected: hundreds of small towns have changed the warm tone of their traditional lighting for a bluish light. I have seen a light. The map reaches an unprecedented resolution in this type of study, 40 meters, which has made it possible to verify that while large cities maintain warm tones, municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants present colder and bluish lighting. The reason? A change in infrastructure: many municipalities in rural Spain have left behind the old lighting with LED streetlights to save energy, and this update translates into a different color, noticeable even from space. The RALAN-MAP 0 map of light pollution Why it is important. Both the UCM and the SINC Agency They agree that the map represents, in the words of the university itself, “a significant advance” to more accurately evaluate the environmental and health impact of light pollution, and opens new avenues for the management of lighting and the protection of the night sky. The reason is that blue light, in addition to looking different, has a wavelength that spreads further into the atmospherewhich increases nighttime glow and worsens sky visibility for astronomical observations, including summer classics like the Perseids. Besides, There are studies that support that this type of light interferes with the biological rhythms of species such as pollinating insects or migratory birdswhich orient themselves at night. Context. The SDGSAT-1 was launched in 2021 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a satellite designed to monitor the progress of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which gives it a nighttime detail capacity unprecedented until now. The RALAN-Map EU project is also part of a broader line of research on light pollution that astrophysicist Alejandro Sánchez de Miguel and his team have been developing for more than a decade, including Previous studies on the energy consumption of public lighting in Spain using satellite data. In detail. The map is publicly accessible and can be consulted online, allowing anyone, whether a city council, research or urban planning, to precisely identify where blue light predominates and prioritize changing streetlights there. The geographical pattern is clear: it is precisely small municipalities, many of them surrounded by protected natural spaces, that have renewed their lighting the most in recent years, prioritizing energy savings over the ecological or astronomical impact of the chosen color temperature. Thus, warm sodium lights have given way to white lights rich in blue components. In Xataka | NASA has looked at Torrevieja from space and has seen a huge mass of pink water essential to finding life on Mars In Xataka | Europe has been watching Colombia for a decade from space and what it has seen is a tragedy: the death of a glacier Cover | KEVIN CLYDE BERBANO

A Galician helped make the metric system used throughout the world. Spain left him lying

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Today we measure a room in meters, weigh coffee in grams and calculate distance in kilometers. And we assume that things work like stars fall. For centuries, each kingdom and sometimes each guild used its own unit of measurement. The cubit of Castile was not like the cubit of Aragon. The Galician vara had nothing to do with the Castilian vara. Commerce was chaos and we better not talk about science. Someone had to put order. And among those who did it, there was a Galician farmer from Lalín who, according to what they say, had a sublime head. His name was Pedro Xosé Rodríguez González. History remembers him as the “Mathematician Rodríguez”, or the Mathematician of Bermés, after the parish of Lalín where he was born on October 25, 1770. He was the seventh child of a family of farmers from Pontevedra. Without money, without contacts, with the options that destiny reserved for the children of the Galician land of the 18th century: the countryside, emigration or the Church. How does a peasant child come to redefine the way of measuring the world? Studious and without a cassock. His uncle, a well-read ecclesiastic, paid for his studies at the College of Humanities of Monforte de Lemos. From there he went to Santiago de Compostela at the age of 17, receiving a scholarship from the Colegio de los Jerónimos. There he studied grammar, Latin, philosophy, theology, subjects that opened doors to the priesthood. But the young man preferred math, studying self-taught, because the cassock did not fit among his concerns. In 1798 he was already a substitute professor of sublime mathematics at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Santiago. “Sublime“because it was literally the name of the degree: in the 18th and 19th centuries, the subjects of differential and integral calculus were grouped under this curious seal. In two years he won the chair by competitive examination. The court that examined him sent the following words to King Charles IV: “Rodríguez is one of those geniuses who from rare to rare forms the providence for sublime knowledge.” What a letter of introduction, great praise and confirmation that not even the Spanish Academy knew very well what to do with Galician. What does a genius do in Spain in 1803. Well, ask for permission to go to Paris and continue learning. Rodríguez asked for it, got it and arrived in the French capital at the age of 33. There he entered the circle of the best scientists in Europe. He studied astronomy and mathematics under the tutelage of Jean-Baptiste Biot (we owe him knowledge about the polarization of light, meteorites, magnetic fields, etc.). He established a relationship with Pierre-Simon Laplace, who would end up becoming president of the Academy. That network was decisive. In 1806, the Spanish government appointed him commissioner in an international expedition led by François Aragó and Biot himself. The mission was to extend the measurement of the Paris meridian arc, already drawn between Dunkirk and Barcelona, ​​to the island of Formentera. The reason was deeper: that measurement would be the basis for establishing the exact length of the meter. The ten millionth part of the quadrant of the meridian passing through Paris. A measure taken from nature, not from any king’s span, by the way. The Mediterranean is getting complicated. Now comes the part about the war, the espionage and an episode that seems straight out of an adventure novel. The team was going well, it formed geodesic triangle number 17, with vertices at the peaks of Camp Vell in Ibiza, La Mola in Formentera and La Mola del Esclop in Mallorca. It was the first time that a large geodesic triangle was measured over the sea. But in 1808, with Napoleon’s troops on the peninsula and the war of independence underway, scientists launching light signals from mountain peaks became immediate suspects. Aragó, who was French, stayed in Mallorca to close the last triangle. The islanders said he was a spy. A Spanish member of the expedition ran to tell him. Aragó disguised himself as a peasant, went down the mountain and was about to capture him. He ended up detained in the Bellver castle, in the cell that Jovellanos occupied days before. Rodríguez maneuvered to help him out. The episode cost months of lost work. At least, measurement data was saved. Is the Earth round or not? Neither round nor quite. In 1809, Rodríguez traveled to England on a government assignment: to examine British scientific establishments. What he did there was correct one of the most prestigious geographers of his time. Lieutenant Colonel William Mudge claimed, with his calculations of the Greenwich meridian, that the Earth was flattened at the Equator. Isaac Newton had said it the other way around decades before: flattening is at the poles. Rodríguez took Mudge’s observations, recalculated them with Delambre’s method and found a latitude error at the Arbury Hill station, Northamptonshire. Mudge’s error was demonstrable and Newton was right. On June 4, 1812, the communication was presented to the Royal Society of London under the title ‘Observations on the measurement of three degrees of the meridian’. His friend José de Mendoza y Ríos, a Spanish sailor and member of the institution, read it. It is probably Rodríguez’s most important individual contribution to science: empirically demonstrating, and with greater accuracy than any other mathematician, the true shape of the Earth. From there he went to Göttingen to study crystallography under the supervision of the mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner. There he met another star of the time: Carl Friedrich Gauss. In Paris, in 1817, the father of modern crystallography, René Haüy, gave him a collection of 1,024 crystallographic models carved in wood. That collection is today in the Natural History Museum of the University of Santiago de Compostela. And it’s amazing. A grave without a name. And we come to an ending that should make us ashamed. Tsar Alexander I offered him the direction of the Saint Petersburg Astronomical … Read more

Spain wants to have its own “sovereign” AI. The first step is called Sherpa.ai, and the State is already a shareholder

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The Basque company Sherpa.ai, specialized in AI and data privacy, closed at the beginning of July an $18 million financing round. This has some relevance, since the State itself participated in the round through the American fund Forgepoint Capital, being the first time that the Government has become a shareholder in the company. What has happened? Sherpa.ai, founded in Erandio (Vizcaya) by Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, has closed its first round of financing since 2021, the year in which had raised 8.5 million dollars. In this new injection of capital, the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), the public vehicle linked to the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service, enters as an investor. Known as the “digital SEPI”, it is the way that the Government has to invest in technology companies. Who is behind. The fund leading the operation is Forgepoint Capital, a Silicon Valley firm specialized in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence that, as share From El Mundo, he had already invested in two other Basque companies in the sector, Maisa AI and Multiverse Computing. Along with Forgepoint, there are repeat investors who were already in the capital of Sherpa.ai: the Mundi Ventures fund, from investor Javier Santiso; Ekarpen, the Basque Government’s venture capital vehicle; and Allegra Holdings, one of the investment companies of the Losantos Ucha family, precisely the owner of the largest fortune in La Rioja. In detail. Sherpa.ai has been operating for more than a decade and it is one of the Spanish companies with the most experience in artificial intelligence. They focus mainly on what they call “data sovereignty”, that is, the possibility of training and using large language models without the information leaving the client’s servers. It is an approach that is increasingly in demand in this sector, since no company likes having their data flying around while they use AI. Among its clients are Indra, which in fact was close to buying the company two years ago, the United States National Institute of Health (NIH), Caja Laboral, Unicaja and Prosegur, according to they count from the middle. Why does it matter? The entry of SETT into Sherpa.ai is part of the distribution of European funds that the Government has been allocating to technology companies considered key to strengthening Spain’s digital sovereignty. According to collect El Mundo, this operation is one of the last in which the digital SEPI has participated with this item of European funds, since the deadline to commit the capital expired on June 30. In recent weeks, this same route of public financing has also reached another Basque company, Multiverse Computing, which received more than 100 million euros, as well as Openchip. The founder and CEO of Sherpa.ai, Xabi Uribe-Etxebarria, explained that “this round allows us to accelerate our vision: to develop and commercialize a secure and scalable artificial intelligence platform that allows companies and governments to harness the full potential of AI without giving up control, privacy and sovereignty of their data.” Investigation. The company assures having also reinforced its scientific activity in parallel. And at the beginning of July he presented a study on how to train large language models with private data distributed among different organizations, without the need to share them, which reinforces this commercial discourse of technological sovereignty with the intention of favoring sectors such as health, banking or public administration. Basque Country, on fire. With the new funds, Sherpa.ai plans to accelerate the development of its platform and expand its international presence, especially in sectors such as healthcare, finance, cybersecurity and government. Furthermore, the Basque technology ecosystem is gaining traction, as several AI companies in the region have received capital injections these last weeks from the digital SEPI (the aforementioned Maisa AI and Multiverse Computing), just before the deadline to commit European funds. In Xataka | Amancio Ortega breaks his personal purchase record in Europe: more than 800 million euros for offices in Paris

We believed that “you don’t live anywhere like Spain.” This world ranking of quality of life does not have the same opinion

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“Where is it better to live?” The question is, obviously, subjective no matter how you look at it. But in the case that concerns us even more: the The Wharton School’s 2026 Best Countries Index takes as a basis How citizens around the world perceive the quality of life in different countries. That is, it is a study of brand perception and reputation (brand = country) that classifies the states that are considered to offer the highest quality of life in the world. This index classifies 85 countries according to 73 attributes grouped into such varied categories that range from entrepreneurship or openness to business to power or cultural influence through the generic “quality of life” and in its preparation more than 15,000 people from 33 countries have been surveyed. The report is almost 100 pages long, but Visual Capitalist has summarized it in a much more condensed and visual graph. Although the report has no trace of parameters such as GDP, investment in infrastructure, education or health, the brand image has its point: it makes the country more attractive for investment or tourism. For example, a button: the United Arab Emirates has gone from 17th place in 2024 to 10th place in 2026. Investing in improvements to its airport or the 2022 World Cup pays off. Simply put, having a country appear to have a high quality of life helps foreign investment or talent. Obviously, cultural biases and geopolitics also play a role. What countries seems who have a better quality of life The perceived quality of life. Visual Capitalist with data from the Wharton School The list is dominated by Europe, with 20 of the top 30 positions occupied by states from the old continent and the Nordic countries at the top. As a curiosity, Canada sneaks into the bronze and you have to look much further down to find its neighbor the United States: it is in 27th place, the last of the G7 economies and surpassed by Australia, Singapore, Japan, the Arab Emirates or China, which is just above. At the bottom of the table are Ukraine, Iran and Lebanon, places devastated by war or sanctions. The maxim “As in Spain you don’t live anywhere” seems to have its weight more within the Spanish state than outside: Spain scores with a 56.7 out of 100 scored by Sweden, placing it in 19th place out of the 30 best, immediately after Poland and just before France. It is far from the Nordic countries, but presiding over the Mediterranean countries. The lifestyle scores worse than the solidity of northern Europe. And despite this, Spain attracted almost 100 million tourists per year past, according to INE data. In any case, it is worth remembering that this is an index of perception and not real living conditions, so stereotypes and biases outweigh the daily experience of those who live there. Furthermore, the sample is relatively small to evaluate over 85 countries. In Xataka | Longevity experts are clear: “120 minutes of strength per week is associated with lower mortality” In Xataka | The largest expat platform in the world has chosen its three favorite cities to live. And they are all Spanish Cover | Visual Capitalist

Spain has just fined Ibai and Jordi Wild for it

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The National Markets and Competition Commission has just hired a Portuguese company to track covert advertising on social networks. The three fines that he has managed to impose with this newly released surveillance add up, now with the discounts for prompt payment and other mitigating factors, to 2,877.91 euros between Ibai Llanos, Jordi Wild and Nachter. They are just crumbs in the context of how much these people earn. influencers with their activity. Three reasons. Ibai Llanos, Jordi Wild and Nachter have been sanctioned for different breaches of the General Law of Audiovisual Communication: unidentified advertising, content without protection of minors and irregular promotion of medicines. It cost Ibai Llanos 710 euros, reduced to 568 for advance payment, not to point out that several videos published in The Evening They showed a beverage brand without differentiating it from the editorial content through the optical, acoustic or spatial mechanisms required by the standard. Jordi Wild has paid 1,543.44 euros, reduced to 1,241.95, to broadcast extreme fighting matches from the Dogfight Wild Tournament on YouTube without age ratings or the minor restriction mechanisms offered by the platform. Nachter has received the highest fine: 1,779.94 euros, reduced to 1,067.96 after acknowledging responsibility, for promoting anti-flu drugs on networks without complying with the requirements that the law imposes on the advertising of medicines. The three are equated due to their special relevance with traditional television providers, by exceeding certain thresholds of income, audience and activity. The comparison. These are low fines in general terms, but they are even more surprising if we compare them with what a pharmaceutical company pays for similar errors. The Supreme Court confirmed in March 2025 a fine of 90,001 euros to a laboratory that omitted the price of a medicine in a communication addressed only to doctors and pharmacists, not even to the general public. Months earlier, the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid had ratified another fine of 90,000 euros to a pharmaceutical company for advertising in the press a prescription drug. Nachter promoted over-the-counter flu medicines directly to millions of followers on social networks, without health professionals involved, and has ended up paying eighty-odd times less than those two companies for an infringement aimed at the general public, not health professionals. New surveillance. On July 14, the CNMC formalized three contracts with the Portuguese company Primetag for 32,800 euros to analyze for twelve months the content published by particularly relevant users of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube in search of unidentified commercial communications. Until now, this surveillance was manual and sporadic. The order arrived weeks after the CNMC required—without sanctioning— to Sofía Suescun, Tamara Gorro, Peldanyos, Samantha Vallejo-Nágera and Lola Lolita for unidentified advertising, after separate complaints from the Association of Communication Users. The organization opted for the requirement and not the fine in those cases because those publications were prior to the interpretative criteria that the CNMC itself established in June 2025. In the case of Lola Lolita, in addition, it was established for the future that content can be considered advertising even if there is no direct payment. But this surveillance of influencers is not new. History of a crawl. For example, In 2022 the CNMC proposed equating streamers with televisionone year later Spain approved its own streamer registry and in 2024 a law of influencers that it was said that would only affect 5% of creators. In between, a consumer study detected that 77.75% of the profiles analyzed failed to comply with the obligation to identify their ads. Twitch, the platform where Ibai Llanos concentrates a good part of his audience, It doesn’t even have its own parental control system. beyond the possibility of closing accounts of minors under 13 years of age. Covert advertising on networks. It is not a new phenomenon nor exclusive to these three cases. There are the aforementioned 77.75% of the reviewed publications that failed to comply with the obligation to indicate advertising content. There were creators with more than ten million followers and the Ministry of Consumer Affairs warned that, under the Unfair Competition Law, fines could exceed 100,000 euros. That came at a time when streamers like Ibai, More fines. There is room for those fines to increase. For serious infractions committed by large providers, the law contemplates sanctions of up to 5% of annual turnover with a limit of 750,000 euros, far from the 2,877.91 euros of this week’s fines. The Evening of the Year, the event that organizes Ibai Llanos alone Since it broke its partnership with Gerard Piqué, it generated in its fifth edition, in 2025, income over eight million euros: about five million in ticket sales, about three in sponsorships, and around an additional million from subscriptions and advertising on Twitch. Jordi Wild, for his part, is already billing more than two million euros a year through its production company, with a net profit of around one and a half million and which in 2024 grew by 40% compared to the previous year. That is to say, we can describe these fines as merely symbolic and even dangerous: if they are nothing more than a trifle for those who receive them, they can almost be interpreted as a declaration of unofficial impunity. In Xataka | The El Xokas and Burger King controversy proves something: brands need streamers but they do not tolerate what they really are

Spain has more and more forests and fewer resources to prevent fires. Their solution: fire donkeys

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Over the last decades, the fight against fires has been reinforced thanks to the use of drones, satellites and AI camerasbut in some regions of Spain they are proving that there is a simpler and more effective tool: “firefighter donkeys”. As the fire becomes a major problem, devastating hectares of forest and populated areasmore and more areas of the country see herds of horses as a valuable ally against llamas. Nothing our ancestors didn’t know. Fire donkeys? As is. It is not about using chicks to carry water drums, shovels or hoses, but rather taking advantage of the skills of these animals to keep the forests cared for, clear the undergrowth and, in this way, prevent forest fires from advancing uncontrollably. Its role is so important that there are those who already use that expression directly: “firefighter donkeys”a graphic and powerful way to claim its function. What exactly do they do? Pasture. Give free rein to your voracious and insatiable appetite. It may not seem like a big deal, but when we talk about groups of dozens and dozens of donkeys that advance in packs along hectares of forest, feeding on grasses and bushes, their effect is crucial. Their ‘crews’ help keep the fields clean, which, in the event of a fire, makes it difficult for the flames to find fuel to feed them and help them spread. As they advance, the donkeys create firebreaks in areas that are not always easy to access with machinery. What’s more, they do it so well that they are already being used to maintain firewalls. And where are they used? One of the clearest examples is found in Catalonia. Over there six years ago Joan Cedó Sans laid the foundations for what it is today Tivissa Donkey Firefightersa non-profit organization that pursues a double objective: to give abused or abandoned horses a chance and, at the same time, take advantage of their voracious appetite to keep the mountains cleared. A textbook “win-win” that guarantees the animals a peaceful existence, care and good nutrition and, in the process, prevents you from mounting them (every time most affected due to depopulation) become flammable traps. How did it start? The Catalan initiative started in 2020 with a bunch of donkeysalready had 28 animals in 2022 and is now around 60 individuals, a large herd that moves through the mountains of the region cleaning public and private lands. The headquarters of the organization is in Tivissa, Tarragona. “The 2013 Tivissa fire happened very close to where I have the horses and I thought the animals could help clear the undergrowth and prevent fires,” explained Joan Cedó a few years ago Diary of Tarragonawhere he remembered how the project began with only three horses from a Swiss couple who wanted to return to their country and did not know what to do with the animals. Does it only apply in Catalonia? No. In fact, Donkey Firefighters It was not even the first initiative of that type in Spain. Years before they had started doing something similar in Andalusia, where since 2014 a group of horses from the association The Happy Burrito is dedicated to carrying out a similar work in the surroundings of the Doñana National Park: they graze, devouring dry brush, grass, weeds… elements that at first glance may seem harmless but that, in the event of a forest fire breaking out, represent food for the flames. In Galicia either The Basque Country It is also possible to find similar initiatives. It’s not surprising at all. More and more organizations are demanding the role of herding and the cattle to keep areas that have been affected by depopulation clean. In 2022 Barcelona itself activated an experiment with more than 200 sheep, goats and lambs to keep the Collserola undergrowth at bay and reduce the risk of fires. Nothing they haven’t already tried in Portugal. Why donkeys? That’s the million dollar question. Beyond the value of giving abused or abandoned chicks a second chance, why turn to these animals and not other smaller ones, such as sheep or goats? Cedó makes it clear on CNN: “The work that donkeys do, neither goats nor sheep can do.” Not only do they weigh more than sheep, which allows them to crush and compact the dry grass in their path, equids are also characterized by their insatiable appetite. They move slowly, but constantly and they do not dislike the dry grass that becomes so dangerous with fires. Images | Julio Romero (Flickr) and Gabriel Fdez (Flickr) In Xataka | The mere existence of donkeys has been a mystery of natural history for decades. One we have solved

the great meteorological divergence of Spain this summer

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The current heat wave, the third of the summerhas especially hit the Spanish southeast, although it is also hitting the rest of the south, the east and the center of the peninsula, as well as the Balearic Islands. On the other hand, in the north, where they did suffer the effects of the two previous heat waves, they have been spared this one. In Asturias, for example, mercury It has been rising to about 24-27ºCquite fresh, compared to the more than 40ºC that are suffering in many places in the south and east of the peninsula. That doesn’t mean this summer isn’t being unusually hot in the north, like the rest of the country. However, at least as far as this heat wave is concerned, it is being much more bearable for them. Right now, all of us who live in the red areas of the map are thinking the same thing about Asturians. How lucky! But in reality it is not luck, but meteorology. Why is the north spared from the heat wave? According to the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET)the current heat wave is due to “a blocking pattern, made up of a stationary DANA in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsulatogether with the presence of a high at medium levels over North Africa.” All this “is giving rise to the intrusion of a mass of warm, dry air with suspended dust over the southeast of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands”, which little by little has been spreading over a good part of the rest of the Spanish territory. But not so much in the north. What was mentioned by the AEMET, together with “the sunshine typical of this time of year and the generalized subsidence” is what has caused this increase in temperatures. So far so good. But what happens in the north? To begin with, we have seen that it all starts with a DANA in the northwest. The area that is getting rid of the heat. This meteorological phenomenon is due to a low pressure zonewhich rotates counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere. This, in the DANA area, causes atmospheric instability marked by showers, storms and cooler temperatures. On the other hand, we have the anticyclone coming from Africa. It is an area of ​​high pressure, whose effect is completely opposite: very warm and dry air. And what happens when the two get together? Broadly speaking, the DANA gyre itself pushes the hot African air towards the southeast, so that the northwest is spared from its arrival. In short, the DANA is like a kind of protective wall, which pushes heat in all opposite directions. Why did the other two heat waves affect the northwest? The first two heat waves of summer They were very similar to this one. We had a blockage caused by a DANA, and hot air coming from Africa. However, there was one big difference: DANA took place to the west, not the northwest. When this occurs, it is rather in the Atlantic Ocean, not directly over the Galicia area. The blockage occurs at sea and the hot air can spread throughout the peninsula. Therefore, in that case there were unusually high temperatures in these parts of Spain that are now being resolved. The areas that are not free The autonomous communities on alert for this third summer heat wave are Andalusia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands, Castilla – La Mancha, Catalonia, the Community of Madrid, the Region of Murcia, Navarra, La Rioja and the Valencian Community, as well as the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Galicia, Cantabria, Asturias and other points in the north, on the other hand, have typical summer temperatures, but they are not suffering from the suffocating heat wave that is raising the mercury to extremely dangerous levels. Even in the west they have been spared this time. Even so, it would be better if they did not store the fans that many were bought for the first time just a month ago. This summer is coming strong. Images | AEMET In Xataka | Sea temperature continues to rise and experts are clear: “It is partly favored by the start of a new El Niño phenomenon”

This map shows you all the active fires in Spain in real time, and can alert you if there is one near your home

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We are going to tell you what it is and how it works firespain.esa website with which you can see all active fires in Spain. Thus, whether you are planning a trip you will be able to know if there is one at your destination, and if you have it close to home you will be able to receive warnings if it starts to be dangerous for you. We are going to start by explaining to you what exactly this website is, the data it offers and where it obtains its information from. Then we will tell you how to set up a notification to notify you when there is a fire approaching your house. What is IncendiosEspaña.es and where does it get the data from? firesespaña.es is a website that unifies and shows information on all fires on a map that are taking place in Spain. It shows them on a map where you can see the number of fires, active outbreaks, their location and even their severity. You will have them all on a map where you will be able to navigate as you wish, zooming in on the areas that interest you and clicking on the different icons to expand the information. There are icons that indicate confirmed fires, and there are others that indicate outbreaks. When you click on one of these icons you will obtain data such as the type of fires, the place where they are, the municipalities affected, and even start time and assigned resources. It will also give you other information such as its radius, radiative power (FRP), detection confidence level, road closures, wind, and more. And as for sources, the website obtains data from the emergency services of several autonomous communities, as well as heat photos detected by the NASA satellites FIRMS, EUMETSAT and Copernicus/EFFIS. This information is updated in near real time, every 5 minutes for utilities or 15 minutes for satellites. The website also has a left column where you can organize the data by selecting the time period you want to analyze or searching for populations. you also have a list of outbreaks by province with which you can navigate directly to those that interest you. How to configure alerts If you want to set up alerts To be notified if a fire appears near your house, you have to go to the bottom of the screen. When you close the cookies text, a message will appear inviting you to activate the alerts, and in it you must click on the button Activate alerts. This will take you to a web page where you simply have to enter your email, zip code and notification radius. Thus, if a fire appears and the town belonging to the zip code is within the warning radius that you have configured, an email will be sent to you with the alert and also telling you your risk level. In Xataka Basics | How to know where there are fires with Google Maps

Poland has 500 kilometers of train to build and 32 billion euros saved. And Spain wants to take over them

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Spain is a railway power. It is because we are the second country in the world in high-speed roads. But also because our companies are among the most sought after when it comes to carrying out a new project. We have examples of all kinds that point to all the processes necessary to start a train on the track. That is why Poland has trusted Spain for an investment that should completely change its infrastructure. 32.2 billion euros. This is what Poland will invest to move forward Port Polskathe project that wants to completely change the image of the country to turn it into a key axis in central European mobility. With the intention of completely renewing the way its citizens move, Poland has launched a series of investments that include road improvements but, above all, an intermodal center a few kilometers from Warsaw. This space will house a new airport for travelers that also wants to offer itself as a strategic place for the transport of goods and serve the military forces of the European Union and NATO. But, above all, it will be the nerve center of a new high-speed train network. Polish trains. The project includes building 480 kilometers of high-speed roads that will connect four of the five most populated cities in the country. From Port Polska you can travel to Warsaw, obviously, but also to Lodz, Poznań and Wroclaw (Wrocław). The network will have the capacity for trains to reach 350 km/h but they will move at a maximum of 320 km/h. In this way, an infrastructure is developed that is considered key to the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T)the same one that is committed to the development of Madrid-Lisbon high speed. The first section, between Warsaw and Łódź, is expected to be operational in 2032 and the line to be fully operational in 2035. And Spain? One of the countries most involved with the project is ours. In fact, Óscar Puente (Minister of Transport) met a few days ago with Dariusz Klimczak (Minister of Infrastructure) in relation to the investments that Spanish companies have there. This meeting has been accompanied by a second one in which Adif, Renfe, Acciona, Aldesa, CAF, Elecnor, Idom, Indra, Lantania and Talgo have met. And all of them are seeking entry into this 32.2 billion euro project, either in terms of the construction of the necessary infrastructure, its management or the contribution of the trains that must pass through the tracks. Among the latest major advances, Adif renewed its agreements underwriting the company’s work in “the design, construction and maintenance of railway infrastructure, the transfer of knowledge and skills, as well as the development of “local content”, in order that the greatest possible part of the technical knowledge and the benefits of the investments made remain in Poland”, They explained from the Polish embassy. Waiting for news. At the moment, ACS, Acciona and Ferrovial each lead one of the six consortia that aspire to take the first batch of investments to build the Polish high-speed train, they explain in Expansion. In addition, Ayesa will supervise the 17-kilometer stretch from Lodz to Wrocław. Ineco and Adif collaborate, as we said, in the design of the high speed and Idom is immersed in the airport’s ICT services. They are not the only ones. In addition to the development of this new high-speed rail infrastructure, Renfe also operates in Poland. And with the help of Leo Express, the Czech company of which Renfe has been the majority shareholder since 2021, the Spanish company offers its services between Warsaw and Krakow. Besides, In February they announced that they were increasing cross-border services and that they would put more trains on the route between Prague and Krakow given the good results. Photo | Port Polska In Xataka | César Franco, engineer: “If we spend hundreds of millions to circulate three AVEs a day, we are making a mistake”

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