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It’s been more than 50 years since we saw the Moon like this. Artemis II has already left new historical images

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Looking at the Moon again as we are seeing it now is not something that happens every day. More than half a century after the Apollo era, Artemis II has completed its lunar flyby and it has already left a visual trail that returns us to that type of trip that we believed almost from the past. At this time, with the mission progressing as planned, NASA points out that the Orion ship would have already left the lunar sphere of influence and would have begun its way back. How we knewthere has been no lunar landing, but what we have seen during these hours, those images captured by the crew, places us again in front of the Moon from a manned perspective that we have not seen for decades. From here, the key is what this overflight has left us. During their passage through the lunar environment, the Artemis II crew has photographed the Moon at different phases of the journey, capturing both surface details and broader scenes of the surrounding space. All this material is already being organized and published by NASA in your multimedia repositorywhere you can consult images, videos and other content of the mission. We are not talking about a specific selection, but rather an archive under construction that will grow over time. The Moon as we had never seen it again Among the material that NASA has already begun to disseminate there are especially powerful scenes, with the Moon dominating the frame and the Earth visible in the background in some shots. The image conveys the scale of the trip very clearly.with our planet reduced to a luminous sphere in the face of the massive presence of the satellite. In the photographs published by the agency, this play of distances is well appreciated, but also the contrast with the surroundings, that completely black background that surrounds the scene. This is where the images gain strength, because they not only show two celestial bodies, but also the relationship between them seen from a position that very few humans have reached. If we look closer, what appears is an enormous level of detail. In photographs taken during During the flyover, large craters, ancient lava flows and structures that run across the surface such as cracks and reliefs can be clearly seen.. The Artemis II crew described these formations as they observed them, also pointing out differences in brightness and texture that help to better understand the composition of the terrain. It is not just an aesthetic issue: each of these details provides information about the geological history of the Moon. The craters on the eastern edge of our satellite Our planet, in the crescent phase, passing behind the Moon Dark spots of ancient lava on the Moon There are moments of the flyover that go beyond the still photography and that help understand the complete sequence of what happened. During the passage through the far side of the Moon, the ship was temporarily without communication with the Earth, a planned section in which one of the most unique moments of the trip also occurred: the so-called “Earthset”, when our planet disappears behind the lunar horizon from the perspective of Orion. Later, when communication was resumed, “Earthrise” arrived, the moment in which the Earth appears again on the other side. These events occurred within a very measured sequence of observations which also included an eclipse seen from the ship. The Moon completely eclipsing the Sun Another image of the total solar eclipse captured by the Artemis II mission Astronauts also use glasses to view eclipses, just like we would on Earth! Here we see the astronauts capturing images through the windows of the Orion spacecraft Not everything we’ve seen happens outside the ship. Part of the disseminated material also allows us to look inside Orion and understand how this section of the journey was experienced from the inside. In the images shared by NASA you can see the crew working in a compact space, surrounded by screens, controls and onboard systems. There are no grand gestures, but a constant sense of activity and coordination, with the astronauts documenting what is happening as they continue with the flight plan. Although the ship has already left the lunar environment behind and is moving towards its return, there is a part of the mission that begins now. All the material collected during the flyby, as we say, will be analyzed in the coming days by the scientific teams, which will seek to extract information from the images, audio and data captured by the crew. As explained by NASA, these observations will be reviewed in detail once the data download from Orion is complete. Meanwhile, the agency has already made part of this content available to the public on its multimedia platform, where the images can be consulted in high quality. Images | POT In Xataka | Artemis II has five different hot sauces on board: the reason is a radical change in what we consider “space food”

Fish has been in a deep crisis in Spain for years. Mercadona believes it has the formula for that to change

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He video It is from October 2024, but it could have easily been recorded yesterday, today or even tomorrow. In a piece lasting just under a minute, Jana Quiles, tiktokerrecounts his disastrous time at a fishmonger: “I just wanted a piece of fish for dinner and, because I didn’t know what to order, I ended up buying 25 euros worth of hake.” Your case is interesting because it connects with a phenomenon shared by many other young people on networks and that is reflected in the statistics from the Government: Spanish households buy less and less fish. Mercadona has taken note and has decided to step on the accelerator in a bet that it’s been a while implementing: the move from the fishmonger to the trays. What has happened? That Mercadona wants a “new fish sales model” in its stores. The chain itself announced it in a statement posted on its website, a note that, beyond its corporate tone, stands out for two things. The first, the message. The company advances its intention to complete the transformation of its sections, betting 100% on the packaged product. “We transfer all products to trays, guaranteeing quality and freshness.” The second thing that draws attention is the images. Mercadona’s statement only shows photos of fish already packaged, labeled and arranged in open refrigerators. Not a counter. Not even a stand with fresh goods and fishmongers to consult about the goods or a special cut. Nothing, in short, that can lead to experiences like the one that Jana Quiles lived in her day. @janaquiles This happens to me as a beginner 😂🐟 ♬ original sound – Jana Quiles Is it something new? In a way. Although Mercadona seems determined to complete its “reengineering” of fish, in reality the change comes from behind. Does more than a year There was already talk of the chain’s desire to find a more efficient model for the section, betting on the consumption of clean merchandise arranged on trays. The idea, how it progressed TOB.C. in January 2025: greater offer in packaging, with items ready for consumption, and much less assisted sales, moving away from the model that prevails in traditional markets. From the traditional image of customers browsing the hake, turbot and mussels displayed on ice, with the fishmonger on the other side of the counter, we move to a more functional one in which there is only the customer and the tray. Why this change? Mercadona argues who wants to “adapt” to how we consume in our homes and defends the benefits of the new model: “The key is to reduce as much as possible the time that passes from when the fish comes out of the water until you consume it.” To older claims that the trays allow it to reduce waiting times in stores, offer an “assortment adapted to real consumption” and work with merchandise “clean and ready for consumption.” In short, selling merchandise made almost to measure for a clientele that has lost the habit of buying fish and no longer has the vocabulary and the keys to ordering fresh goods. Again the case by Jana Quiles is paradigmatic. His experience with hake is not something isolated, it connects with an entire generation that has not acquired the habit of going to traditional fishmongers. That’s all? No. To these advantages are added others that Mercadona does not cite and directly affect its production costs, logistics and even the management of spaces in the store. In January the company already made it clear In any case, the change in model would not imply dispensing with employees, they would simply be assigned new roles. “The entire fishmonger’s team continues to be part of Mercadona. Their work adapts to other needs in the store.” Does it only affect fish? No. The focus may now be on fish, but it is only part of a much larger Mercadona strategy that connects with two of its main bets. One is food ready for consumption. For years, the chain has aspired to be more than just the place where you buy products to fill your refrigerator and pantry; It seeks to be directly the space in which you feed yourself. The clearest reflection of this slogan is the section “Ready to eat”but the commitment to trays of fish that are clean, cut, filleted and practically ready to put in the oven goes in that same direction. And the other bet? The ‘Store 9’the new local format that the Valencian chain wants to bet on. Your goal is optimize processes and improve efficiency, but in practice that translates into moving even further away from traditional counters and moving towards already packaged merchandise. Interaction with staff during purchases is reduced to a minimum. No chats with butchers, fishmongers or fruit sellers, like in traditional supermarkets. Speed, efficiency, and functionality prevail, which in turn leads to handling and packaging tasks being removed from public areas. Is this just about Mercadona? Not at all. Roig’s chain has managed to gain a considerable market share in Spain, close to 30% in terms of value, so their decisions affect thousands and thousands of families. However, the changes in fish consumption go further and partly connect with the Quiles video that we mentioned at the beginning of the article. We Spaniards buy less and less fish. The official data of the Government show that per capita consumption of fish (both fresh and frozen) in homes has been plummeting for years. And it doesn’t get better. He latest reportfrom November, shows interannual falls of between 4 and 5.5%. With its latest movements, Mercadona seeks to position itself in the part of the business that performs best. While Fedepesca talks about the closure of thousands of fishmongers Since 2007, there are businesses in the sector more focused on the sale of ready-to-buy merchandise, online orders and home delivery that they keep growing. Fish consumption itself is leaving homes to focus at leisure. Now Mercadona aspires to carve out … Read more

We have been debating for years whether it is better to go to the gym in the morning or in the afternoon. Physiology finally has the answer

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In the world of sports there is an eternal debate about the best time to exercise. On the one hand, there are those who defend tooth and nail that get up early to train At six in the morning it activates the metabolism for the rest of the day. On the other hand, there are those who claim that the body only performs at its maximum after leaving work late in the day. Who is right? The answer, as is often the case in exercise physiology, has different nuances, since if we turn to scientific literature, recent studies and controlled trials, we will discover that the best schedule depends on the biology, objectives and internal clock of each athlete. And something that is already known is that our biology does not function in a flat manner during the day, but is governed by circadian rhythms. Here, science already indicates that body temperature and neuromuscular performance reach their maximum peak in the afternoon, generally between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Although the key here is whether this can translate into more muscle in the long term. The concrete studies. In 2019, a group of scientists public a meta-analysis that confirmed that, indeed, baseline muscle strength is greater in the afternoon. However, for early risers, they also pointed out that, if consistency is maintained at the same schedule, the long-term gains in strength and muscle mass are similar, regardless of the schedule, because the human body ends up adapting to what is asked of it. But there is a fairly clear exception, as stated in a study published in 2016. Here, after 24 weeks follow-upit was shown that there is a greater gain in muscle mass in the legs if training is done in combination of bodybuilding and weights. The morning situation. If the goal you have set is not to lift the maximum weight possible, but rather to improve cardiovascular health or combat insulin resistance, the balance tips towards the morning, as confirmed by a study published in 2024 that analyzed patients with metabolic syndrome who performed intense aerobic exercise. Here it was seen that training in the morning achieved a reduction in systolic blood pressure of 4% compared to only 1% in the afternoon group. Additionally, the early risers group experienced a 14% improvement in insulin resistance, compared to 4% for the evening group. Furthermore, narrative reviews suggest that morning exercise helps advance sleep phases and improve the lipid profile. It depends on each person. But beyond what the population averages say, we must take into account the genetic and behavioral component of each person, and above all their chronotype. In this way, people who get up early naturally perform better in the morning, while those who perform better at night, if they are forced to train at six in the morning, the truth is that they will have greater fatigue and a worse perception of effort. The conclusion. Although science finds specific metabolic benefits in the morning and performance peaks in the afternoon, general reviews agree on an insurmountable rule of thumb: the best time to train is the one in which you can maintain long-term adherence. The hormonal peak in the afternoon is of no use if your work obligations prevent you from going to the gym regularly or it means a great sacrifice to radically change the routine you are following. Images | Drazen Zigic In Xataka | Science already knows what is the best “gasoline” to create new neurons: physical exercise

This map shows what the Earth will be like in 250 million years. If it comes true, Spain will be very lucky

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About 200 million years ago, the last supercontinent began to break up. The division of Pangea It gave way, very little by little, to the current geological composition. But what was separated will come together again. The continents keep movingcrashing into each other, and one theory suggests that it will be within 250 million years when another supercontinent will emerge. We have named it as Pangea Ultimaand the truth is that it will not matter exactly which countries we have as neighbors. Pangea Ultima. plate tectonics It is curious because they continue to move one under the other, and that is what has led to the theory of continental drift. These movements are studied to understand the past, as well as to decipher the future, and one of those scholars is Christopher Scotese. This American geographer is the creator of the PALEOMAP Projectwhich seeks to show not only how the elements have moved these last 1,000 million years, but is also attributed the prediction of that future supercontinent. and Scotese elaborated this map: What is it that has inspired the one who opens this article: Curious neighbors. According to this, within about 50 million years North America would have rotated so much that Alaska would be at a subtropical latitude and Eurasia would also rotate, but in the opposite direction, making Britain closer to the North Pole. Africa will move closer to Europe and Arabia, both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean will disappear and, within 100 million years, the Atlantic will begin to shrink. It will be in 150 million years when the Atlantic will disappear as a result of being sucked in by the American continent, bringing America and that block composed of Eurasia and Africa much closer. And the culmination will occur within 200 million years when this new supercontinent is formed, with the Indian Ocean as a central sea and a curious neighborhood mix. According to this model, Latin America would be more or less the same, but with African neighbors to the east. Cuba would be attached to the United States, Greenland would be next to Canada (bad luck, Trump) and Spain would continue to border France and Portugal, but also with Italy, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. England would also be close to France and Korea would be in a curious sandwich between Japan and China. It will make exactly the same. But the truth is that it doesn’t matter what your new neighbors seem to you, not because, obviously, you won’t be there to suffer them, but because humanity may have become extinct by then. Not because we sometimes put effort into it, but because the conditions will not be the most ideal for the life of mammals. In a study Published in Nature, researchers predicted that 92% of the Earth would be uninhabitable for mammals. The reason is that, in a simulation of the climate of this new supercontinent, it is estimated that the temperatures of a large part of Pangea Ultima will be more than 40ºC, but in addition the amounts of CO₂ will make the life of mammals… complicated. Due to the number of collisions between plates, there will be great volcanic activity that will increase the CO₂ emissions into the atmospherea, not only warming the planet, but also encouraging the levels of this CO₂ to double the current levels. In addition, the Sun will be 2.5% brighter at that time because its nuclear fusion rate will have increased and this is something that will also contribute to making the planet drier. Spain not so bad. It’s not a very encouraging outlook, to be honest, since plant life will also experience mass extinction, but researchers point out that conditions may not be so bad in all parts of the new world. Thus, those closest to the top of the North Pole could have cooler conditions that facilitate better adaptation to life. And Spain, Portugal, Morocco or England are in that scenario. It is also possible that we become specialists in desert environments, becoming nocturnal animals in something similar to what was seen in ‘Dune‘. Alexander Farnsworth, one of the researchers who have simulated the climate conditions of that future, also analyzed From the most serious point of view, how life makes its way in the climate of Arrakis and points to this parallelism with the Earth in 250 million years. one more. Is this what the Earth will look like in 250 million years? Namely, but there are several hypotheses formulated in recent decades that, in one way or another, point to the existence of that supercontinent. One is Novopangeawhere the Pacific will close. another is Auricawith the closure of both the Atlantic and the Pacific. And another model is Amasiawith the union between Asia and America. And it doesn’t matter the model, they are still similar to the last Pangea and, after this new supercontinent, the estimate is that the Atlantic will open again, separating the countries and beginning a new cycle of rupture. What will happen to life? Well, it will make its way, as the great Jeff Goldblum already said in ‘jurassic park‘, because mass extinctions… there have been several. Image | Coffee In Xataka | The Earth has moons that we don’t know about: exploring them is key to revealing the secrets of our solar system In Xataka | This map is a journey through time: this is how the Earth has evolved for 750 million years A version of this article was published in 2025

We have been obsessed with measuring deep sleep with a watch for years. Science says what matters is dreaming vividly

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The reality is that waking up feeling like you’ve fallen asleep like a dormouse is one of the greatest pleasures in life, since it makes you start the day in a very different way. Until now, sleep science has told us that to achieve that feeling of rest we had to maximize deep sleepbut now the rarity and the intensity of dreams They are also gaining a starring role here. A new study. A recent published research in the prestigious magazine PLOS Biology by an Italian team has revealed that vivid and immersive dreams are directly related to a greater subjective sense of deep sleep. And most fascinating: this occurs even when the brain’s electrical activity tells us that we are in a phase of light sleep. How they have done it. To reach this conclusion, the researchers did not settle for morning surveys, but rather They took 44 adults healthy people to a sleep laboratory for four consecutive nights. Here they simply had to be connected to a high-density electroencephalogram to monitor their brain activity in real time. The methodology used was quite methodical, since all of them were awakened repeatedly, reaching the figure of 1,900 awakenings in total throughout the entire study. But they were not waking them up at any time, but rather sleep phase N2 which is what belongs to non-REM sleep and is what is considered relatively light sleep, where the biological need to sleep usually decreases as the night progresses. But the important thing is that, after each awakening, the participants had to describe their previous mental experiences and rate, from 1 to 10, how deep they felt their sleep had been just before opening their eyes. The result. By crossing the data from the dream stories with the EEG activity and the subjective perception of the participants, the scientists found a pattern that indicated that when the participants reported vivid, strange dreams, with high emotional intensity or very visually rich, they reported having been immersed in a very deep sleep. In contrast, if the mental activity before waking up was abstract, vague, or the participants had “meta-awareness,” which is thinking about real problems or being aware that they were sleeping, they felt that their sleep had been very superficial. A change. In this way, this sensation of dreamlike depth challenged the electroencephalograms themselves. And the fact is that, although the EEG showed that the participant’s brain activity was dangerously close to wakefulness, if he was immersed in an intense dream plot, his brain interpreted that he was resting peacefully. Memory doesn’t matter. One of the most interesting details of the study points to a situation that can be frustrating: waking up knowing that you had an incredible dream, but unable to remember the entire plot. Here the scientific study demonstrates that narrative memory is not necessary for rest, since the participants continued to rate their sleep as deep and restorative despite not remembering it. In this way, the simple fact that the brain has been “disconnected” from the physical environment and immersed in its own virtual world seems to be enough to preserve the subjective perception of rest. What does it mean? This discovery opens the door to new treatments for sleep disorders, since, in the case of insomnia, the problem could not only be in the clinical architecture of sleep, but in an alteration of dream activity or a lack of mental disconnection from the environment. And this is precisely where science has to begin to investigate. Images | iam_os In Xataka | Waking up at 3 in the morning is totally normal: sleeping straight through is a modern invention, not an evolution

A rural community lived isolated in caves for 500 years in Burgos. Their DNA revealed a dark history of inbreeding and smallpox

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In the year 711, an Umayyad army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and put an end to the Visigoth kingdom in less than a generation, starting a great upheaval in the Iberian Peninsula with many changes. Kingdoms that were born and died, power struggles and great mobility that began to shape the foundations of modern Europe. However, north of Burgos, a small group of people seemed to know absolutely nothing. Where. The rural site of Las Gobasin northern Spain, offers a vision of life far from those centers of power. One of the most outstanding medieval rock communities on the peninsula, located in the county of Treviño, near the town of Laño. Here the inhabitants dug churches, homes and graves directly into the limestone, where they began to live and die there for five centuries. And now we know that they did it with their backs to the world. How do we know? At the moment we do not have any time machine to see what happened in the past, but a scientific study revealed the secrets of this enigmatic Iberian community. Here the archaeological excavations in the cemetery They discovered the remains of 41 individuals from whom an attempt was made to extract their DNA. In this case they used all the tools available to reconstruct who they were, how they were related and what diseases they carried. What we knew is that the settlement existed from the mid-6th century to the 11th century and Las Gobas had a cemetery that was used continuously from the 7th to the 11th century. But the surprising thing is that it seemed like they were always the same people. Marry each other. The most striking finding of the study does not have to do with any virus or any fractured skull, but rather that approximately 61% of the individuals with sufficient genomic data showed signs of consanguinity, so this population was quite likely to practice inbreeding. And it was not something slight, since in some cases the researchers saw that there were marriages between siblings or even between parents and children. In this way, the only source of genetic variability that could be had in this population was only the women who arrived from abroad to marry. Although the truth is something quite scarce. There was no peace. It may be thought that isolation guarantees absolute peace in the population, but the first centuries of occupation were marked by brutality. The study of the bones in this case has found clear evidence that there was interpersonal violence, including serious bone injuries consistent with direct sword impacts. An invisible enemy. If swords weren’t enough in this case, the 10th century brought with it a lethal, microscopic threat. The metagenomic analyzes carried out have made it possible to detect pathogens and zoonotic diseases, identifying traces of smallpox. Although what is fascinating about this discovery is not only that We are facing the oldest documented evidence of smallpox in southern Europe, but where it came from. Although the south of the peninsula was a commercial hotbed dominated by the Islamic world, smallpox did not reach the south from the Gobas. But the truth is that its genetic signature is similar to the Nordic and European strains of the time. How did it arrive? That a disease from the Vikings or one that was present in Central Europe reached some isolated caves in Burgos is no coincidence. Here the researchers pointed to the nascent European pilgrimage routes, specifically to the first steps of the Camino de Santiago, as the entry route for the pathogen. And although the inhabitants of Las Gobas avoided mixing with their neighbors to the south, the incipient religious and commercial traffic from the north ended up breaking, at least on an epidemiological level, their isolation bubble. Images | Wikipedia Trevino County In Xataka | After 114 years, a scan of the Titanic shows a key fact about its crew: the bravery with which they fought until the end

60 years ago, NASA took a look at the Sahara from space and found a very strange “perfect eye”

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Although we tend to think that the unknown is in space and we focus our exploration on what is outside the Earth, our planet continues to surprise us: from the 50,000 volcanoes hidden in the seabed to shapes and constructions that seem too curious to have appeared out of nowhere… especially when we see them from space. It is the case of Great Dam of Zimbabwe (which by the way, is not a dam). We are not leaving the African continent because there is another scar of land with a shape so precise that it is disconcerting. It can’t be seen from the ground, but as you gain height it can be seen better. However, it is from space where it is best appreciated, as NASA has already photographed. There it is simply shocking: it is the inexplicable eye of the Sahara. It is a kind of giant eye that looks at the sky engraved in the rock of the Sahara, it is actually called Richat structure. As says French astronaut Thomas Pesquetalmost all astronauts have taken a photo of it from space simply because it can’t be missed. The Britannica Encyclopedia assures that World War II pilots used it as a reference point. Tap to go to the post After all, they are almost 50 kilometers in diameter. To get an idea, if we moved it to Madrid, it would cover the entire city and reach surrounding municipalities. However, it is in Mauritania, at the western end of the Sahara. More specifically, it sits on the Adrar plateau, on the northwestern edge of the Taoudenni basin, about 500 meters above sea level and in an inhospitable area. As a curiosity, the closest town is Ouadane, it is about 17 kilometers from the edge of the structure and it is not just any city: it was founded in 1147 by the Idalwa el Hadj Berber tribe and its old part has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. The first time we “discovered” it (that is to say, because it was already there) was in the 1930s and 1940s and the person who studied it in depth at that time was the French geographer Jacques Richard-Molard. Later, astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White, aboard the Gemini IV mission, were the first to photograph it from space in 1965. However, the image that illustrates the cover was taken on July 10, 2020 by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, during the Expedition 63 mission, with a Nikon D5 camera with a 50 millimeter lens. Richat’s structure from the inside. Clemens Schmillen What is the Richard Structure and how was it formed? From that orbital height the image shows something that would be impossible to capture from the ground: a series of perfect concentric rings, like the waves left by a stone when it falls into water, but petrified in the desert. The tones of that figure range from ocher to bluish gray, from almost pristine white to rusty red. Each color is a different rock and belongs to a different era. Surrounding the structure, a sea of ​​dunes: on the right, longitudinal dunes that stretch in long parallel tongues and on the left, transverse dunes, wider and more arched. The set is truly strange to have formed naturally. POT Because it is not a lake that has dried up over time. It is neither a volcano nor the crater of a meteorite (the hypothesis which was most popular initially). It’s something much slower but just as violent: is the result of millions of years of geological forces working silently beneath the planet’s surface. And although the group as such was formed about 100 million years ago, those rocks are up to 2.5 billion years old. Or in other words, the Eye of the Sahara was forged in the Cretaceous, but the rocks belong to the time when there were no animals, only bacteria and algae. The Richat Structure is a deeply eroded geological anticline dome that was formed by a subsurface igneous intrusion, which deformed the overlying sedimentary rock layers, exposing concentric rings with the oldest rocks in the center. In a simplified way, a bubble of rock that never burst: the magma from inside the Earth pushed up the layers of rock above it and cooled without reaching the surface. The passage of time eroded that bubble as if it were an onion, exposing the rings of each layer. The hardest rocks resisted and formed the relief, the soft ones disappeared. Hence the circles. The most recent studies They confirm that there was also hot water circulating inside the structure, which accelerated and modeled the final shape. In Xataka | A 2.5 billion-year-old geological wonder: Zimbabwe’s Great Dam seen by NASA from space In Xataka | This is the impressive interactive map to see the Earth in 4K live from space and monitor satellites Cover | POT

a journey of 550 years of colonialism through an illuminating graphic

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On August 14, 1415 in Ceuta, a Portuguese troop under the command of King John I landed in the North African city and conquered it in less than a day. This overseas adventure would mark the starting signal for an aggressive policy that would mark the world geography for centuries to come: that of European powers permanently taking possession of a territory outside the old continent with a clear will to squat itkeep it and exploit it. Colonialism. The Oxford University-linked project Our World in Data has some magnificent open access work such as this either this which are worth stopping and taking a look at. The data from the last come from Colonial Dates Dataset and are prepared by researcher Bastian Becker from the University of Bremen and are the ones Visual Capitalist has condensed in the form of an infographic, synthesizing the data of the best historians of colonialism. In short: a lot of information in a single image that shows the rise and fall of many European empires. Visual Capitalist. Data from Our World in Data – Colonialism Portugal, it all started with you. Officially we can frame the Portuguese empire in a time frame between 1415 and 1999. Portugal was not so much interested in expanding but rather have access to the gold of West Africa, to the spices of the East and to seek Christian allies against Islam. His sequence of conquests was unstoppable: in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope, in 1498 Vasco da Gama arrived in India, in 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral touched Brazil. Its model was that of a network of coastal enclaves, although it also had large territorial colonies such as Brazil, Angola and Mozambique. Visual Capitalist. Data from Our World in Data – Colonialism The Empire where the sun never sets. A short time later, the Spain that was being formed after the wedding of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon and the conquest of the strategic and independent Kingdom of Navarra. The empire where the sun never sets (referring to the period of Charles I and Philip II) is formally delimited between 1492 and 1976. Spain opted for territorial control: in a matter of a few decades it had overthrown the Aztec and Inca empires in blood, fire and smallpox. In the 18th century the Spanish empire covered 13.7 million square kilometers and was made up of viceroyalties, House of Contract, Councils of India… a display of global governance that got out of hand. France, Great Britain and the others. The real furor of this policy came in 1914, at which time there were 101 colonies. The spotlight fell on Great Britain, where the Industrial Revolution constituted a true differential advantage in the form of capital, railways and weapons to lay the foundations for the largest empire in history. In fact, at that height more than half of the colonies were theirs. France focused mainly on Africa and Southeast Asia, while others such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy were left with some succulent leftovers scattered mainly in Africa, but also in Asia. The mechanism of colonization in its maximum expression was synthesized in the Berlin conference (1885) where the European powers literally divided up Africa without any African people being present. Visual Capitalist. Data from Our World in Data – Colonialism The B side of colonization. The graph shows numbers, curves and colors, but the real story is much darker and not only because of the looting. The academic project “Dartmouth & Slavery Project” of the famous Dartmouth University reflects that 74% of the indigenous population of the Americas was annihilated between 1492 and 1800, either by direct violence or by diseases to which they were not immune. In Africa things were no better: between 25 and 30 million people were torn from their homes to be enslaved, as explains Amnesty International. The consequences are not only historical: colonialism generated racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia, as recognized the Durban Declaration in 2001. The great absence: Russia. The graph tracks overseas colonies and there Russia appears marginal, but because where others expanded by sea, the Russian Empire did so by land: over time it covered Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Eastern Europe. This study of Loyola University Chicago concludes that the Russian Empire was “a colonial empire in denial,” with essentially colonial practices, especially in Asia. The end of empires: decolonization and inheritances. The colonization process went slowly but surely until it reached its peak and then it collapsed. The two world wars exhausted the powers economically, militarily and also morally (their population) and at that juncture the independence movements found the perfect moment. The Napoleonic Wars were the ideal occasion for the decolonization of Iberian America and in the 20th century, the wave of decolonization swept Africa and Asia in a few decades, although today some overseas territories still persist in special conditions that, although they are no longer considered colonies in the strict and traditional sense of the term, still have self-determination on the table. In Xataka | Africa has more than 30,000 kilometers of coastline and one country has managed to control them without anyone noticing: China In Xataka | The death of one empire is the birth of another: the graph that reviews the history of civilizations from 4,000 years ago Cover | Visual Capitalist

the shipwreck from 2,000 years ago that reveals the “luxuries” of the Roman legions in Switzerland

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Few products of Mediterranean gastronomy are as iconic as wine or olive oil. In fact, if we take a look at current exports of the Spanish statewe will check that both are still at the top. This is not something new: two millennia ago, the Roman Empire had already converted the Iberian Peninsula into one of its great strategic pantries. One of the most compelling evidence is It is Monte Testaccioa 50-meter-high artificial hill in the center of Rome made from the remains of ceramic amphorae, 80% of which came from Baetica (today, Andalusia) and brought olive oil. It wasn’t just trade: it was logistics on an imperial scale, organized and sustained for centuries. That this network reached very far is something that the archaeological record continues to confirm: one of the latest and most impressive finds is in the depths of the Swiss lake of Neuchâtel. The discovery. In the Swiss lake of Neuchâtel they have found the cargo of “the wreck of the Eagles”, a ship sunk between the years 17 and 50 AD, in the middle of the Roman Empire. From 2024 to the present the Octopus Foundation has recovered approximately 600 pieces: hundreds of almost intact plates, platters, bowls and glasses, two large fragments of amphorae for oil or wine, a wicker basket preserved in the lime of the lake with the crew’s kitchen utensils, metal tools, harness and shooting equipment, four cart wheels, legionary weapons, among other elements. Why is it important. The most interesting thing about this discovery is that the Roman Empire had a primitive globalization insofar as they were able to distribute their lands throughout the length and breadth, which was not small: It covered three continents: from Great Britain to the Carpathians in Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor. The Roman soldiers in Switzerland did not only eat local products, but also had access to the flavors of their land. On the other hand, it is worth highlighting the exceptional conservation, something that has been helped by the cold waters and the lack of oxygen at the bottom. Furthermore, the archaeological context is intact, allowing the reconstruction of its organization on board and the combination of evidence of civil tableware, land transport equipment and military weapons. Context. The hypothesis The one on which the research team is working points to the Legio A constant supply was needed to maintain a legion of about 6,000 men. Thus, the cargo would have traveled by cart to the Roman port of Yverdon, south of the lake and from there it would have crossed it to the north. As the cause of the sinking, the team points to a gust of wind when approaching the Thielle channel. That there are swords suggests that it was not a military ship but a merchant ship under armed escort. Be careful, no structural traces of the boat have been found, only its cargo, hence the team does not rule out that the boat did not sink at all or that it did so in another place. The only thing we are clear about that was lost at the bottom of the lake was the cargo. Octopus Foundation Oil or wine? At the moment the Octopus Foundation describe the amphorae only as containers intended for the transport of oil or wine, without further precision, which is why further analysis is pending to clear up doubts. Today olive oil and wine may be associated with more select consumer products, but in ancient Rome they were essential items: liquid gold was used for almost everythingfrom cooking to lighting with lamps through personal hygiene and even for sports, medicine and rituals. And the wine, even if it was diluted with water, formed part of the daily diet of all social classesincluding troops. Octopus Foundation How it is being excavated. The detection of the cargo was aerial, using a drone in winter, when the visibility of the lake is greater. Thanks to 3D photogrammetry they were able to generate maps of the site, which they then divided into grids to determine the exact position of the objects found. They then photographed each piece and recorded it in situ before being extracted individually. The site was kept secret during the year between the two campaigns and was monitored with underwater cameras developed expressly for the project. The urgency to act came from a real threat: the sediments that had protected the cargo for centuries had eroded as a consequence of the hydraulic corrections of the Jura in the 19th and 20th centuries, leaving the pieces exposed to currents, anchoring of recreational boats and looting. What’s coming now. The extracted pieces are being analyzed in the Laténium laboratory with the aim of identifying pottery workshops, determining the content of the amphorae using residual organic chemistry and reconstructing trade routes. Once these doubts have been unraveled, its final destination is a public exhibition at the Neuchâtel archeology museum. In Xataka | The Romans were thirsty for oil and we have just found in Tunisia the second largest press of the Empire In Xataka | The most polarizing and divisive scientific debate of the moment has to do with wine. With one 1,700 years old Cover | Octopus Foundation and Rahime Gül

It turns out that there is a Soviet submarine at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea releasing radiation for 40 years

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On April 7, 1989, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-278 Komsomolets sank in the Norwegian Sea after an uncontrolled fire fruit probably short circuit in the electrical panels of compartment 7, which led to a massive and uncontrollable deflagration because the atmosphere was critically enriched with oxygen due to failures in the air regeneration system. Of the 69 people on board, only 27 survived. It wasn’t just any submarine: it had a double titanium helmet that allowed him descend to unreachable depths for his rivals of the time. Its cutting-edge technology hid a dangerous core: a nuclear reactor and two plutonium warheads that have since lain at the bottom of the sea, 180 kilometers southwest of Bear Island, in the Svalbard archipelago. And according to the most complete study carried out to date, published a few days ago in the scientific journal PNASthe Komsomolets remains an active source of radioactive contamination in the Arctic. The discovery. In 2019, a Norwegian research team went down with the Ægir 6000 underwater robot to thoroughly inspect the submarine using cutting-edge technology. As they approached the ventilation tube they found a visibly distorted column of water, as if it were smoke, as you can see in the video immediately after this block. It is a leak with intermittent behavior. They took samples and the results were overwhelming: concentrations of Cesium-137 800,000 times the normal radiation of seawater in the area and Strontium-90 400,000 times. Both isotopes are direct products of nuclear reactor fission. The analysis shows that the radiation comes from the propulsion system (the nuclear reactor) and that the reactor fuel is in the process of corrosion with the environment. Why is it important. The good news is that this radioactive leak does not come from the nuclear warheads: two torpedoes with atomic warheads. For now, that threat is under control: the Soviets sealed the torpedo compartment with titanium plates in the early 1990s and judging by analysis, the sealing continues to work because they have not detected weapons-grade plutonium in the marine environment. The bad news is the reactor. It does not explode or disappear, but simply the zirconium cylinders that protect the uranium and plutonium are corroding, leaking these isotopes into the sea in a slow and invisible leak that is diluted in the ocean. Fortunately, samples taken in relatively close areas show that dilution is rapid, as they return values ​​close to normal. In fact, the hull is full of sponges, corals and anemones and its samples contain low traces of cesium-137, but without detectable damage. Context. Man-made radioactivity in the oceans has three main sources according to the International Atomic Energy Agency: the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 60s and 70s, the Chernobyl accident and the authorized discharges from the Sellafield and La Hague reprocessing plants, in the United Kingdom and France respectively. The sunken nuclear submarines, where the Komsomolets would enter, have a marginal contribution. Their importance is more qualitative than quantitative: they are point sources, localized and that tend to worsen over time. After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the Soviet Union came under great international pressure. When the Komsomolets sank three years later, Moscow organized inspection missions with MIR submersibles. When he confirmed that the warheads had been in contact with sea water, he acted: in 1994, with the economy in free fall and western funds involvedRussian technicians they sealed the cracks of the torpedo compartment with titanium plates. Since 2007, Norway has undertaken regular monitoring of the wreck as part of its nuclear safety responsibilities in the Arctic. Current risk status. For now the nuclear warheads are contained, their sealing works and there are no signs of weapons-grade plutonium in the water. The reactor is the active problem now: the fuel is corroding, the emissions are real, and the research team does not understand why they are intermittent or what the rate is. Any attempt to recover or physically manipulate the submarine would probably be more dangerous than leaving it where it is, since if the radioactive materials reached the atmosphere, the contamination could reach land with worse consequences than today. . A nuclear laboratory under the sea. The research team has two goals ahead: to understand why the leak is intermittent and whether that corrosion rate is accelerating over time. Inadvertently, the Komsomolets is now a natural laboratory to study what happens to submerged nuclear reactors in the long term. Information that is not trivial, given the number of nuclear devices that sleep on the seabed. In Xataka | Russia’s most advanced nuclear submarine was a secret. Until Ukraine has revealed everything, including its failures In Xataka | The Soviet Union needed to save millions of people from hunger so something was invented: the art of making sausages Cover | Karina Victoria

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