French health authorities confirmed this Thursday the death of a man infected with the Shamonda virus, a pathogen transmitted mainly by mosquitoes to cattle, sheep, and goats, which until now was considered to have a low infection capacity in humans. In fact, this is the first documented and reported detection of this emerging disease in humans.

At least 2.2 billion people around the world have some form of visual impairment, even though many cases, practically half, could be prevented or treated simply, with glasses or surgery. Avoidable visual impairment continues to be, today, a major public health challenge in numerous countries. In Sahrawi refugee camps, in Mozambique, or in Bolivia, the difficulties in accessing specialized health services in vulnerable communities prevent prevention and early diagnosis and, therefore, the indication of treatments.

Isabel Lemus, Meritxell Jané, and Francesc Tarruella received, between ten and twenty years ago, a diagnosis of advanced cancer. Breast cancer with liver metastasis, colorectal cancer with liver metastasis, and melanoma with lung and brain metastasis... Treatments were scarce and the prognoses, not very hopeful. But on Tuesday, these three Catalans took the stage at the Llotja de Mar in Barcelona to explain how medical and scientific advances have allowed them to continue living for many more years. "I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 37 years old and now I am 54. I have been in remission for nine years thanks to immunotherapy," explained Jané. "When I started treatment, my oncologist told me: we will be seeing each other for a long time. And ten years have already passed," recalled Tarruella. The same thing happened to Lemus: "They gave me twenty months to live eleven years ago."

After the first anti-smoking law was passed, the percentage of non-smokers who breathed tobacco smoke dropped to 37.9%. The 2006 ban on smoking inside bars, restaurants, and workplaces drastically reduced exposure, and when this ban was extended five years later to nightlife venues, playgrounds, and healthcare centers, this overall percentage fell by half, to 21.3% in 2011. But now, fifteen years later, this decline has stalled, and exposure to smoke has even increased. This is confirmed by a study from the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (SEPAR), published this Tuesday in the journal Tobacco Control, from the BMJ publishing group. According to the research, the terraces of bars and restaurants are the main risk spaces.

The rain has given a certain respite to Catalonia this Sunday, but the presence of the DANA Adam will cause a new day of persistent and widespread rainfall across much of the country throughout this Monday. Within 24 hours, the downpours could leave accumulations of more than 100 liters per square meter. The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has warned that the risk associated with this cold drop is still "not over" and has requested maximum caution in the face of the forecast for this new episode. According to meteorological predictions, however, at the moment there is no area marked with a red warning and the rainfall is expected to be less intense than that experienced this past weekend. However, the affected territory still needs to be "calibrated" and these phenomena have a point of uncertainty that does not always allow for anticipating them with so much lead time.

Life expectancy in Catalonia is very high: the most updated data (2024) place it at 86.6 years for women and 81.6 for men. But the demographic and social reality is complex. There are more chronic diseases and situations of dependency and frailty, more mental health problems and more socioeconomic inequalities, which is why the years lived in good health drop to 67 for women and 68 for men. In other words: Catalan women live 19 years of their lives with low or poor quality of life, and Catalan men 13. "The challenge now is not to live more years, but with more health, well-being and autonomy. This is the great change we are proposing," stated the Minister of Health, Olga Pané, during the presentation of the tenth Health Plan of Catalonia.

The history of Badia del Vallès cannot be explained without asbestos. When in the seventies the Franco regime promoted the construction of this city with thousands of social housing units to accommodate the population arriving from other parts of the State, prefabricated fiber cement parts with asbestos were used in different parts of the buildings, from the roofs to the downspouts and ventilation ducts. The speed and low cost offered by this construction system favored its use, but today the aging of the materials makes it necessary to remove them: it can be toxic to health. Half a century later, Badia del Vallès is beginning to rid itself of this legacy.

The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, explained this Tuesday that the Spanish government has registered 3,019 unaccompanied minors in Ceuta since the mass entry on July 30 and 31. After the Council of Ministers, the spokesperson for Pedro Sánchez's executive also specified that these 3,000 children are "registered and cared for," meaning they are in spaces enabled for minors and, therefore, separated from adults. Of these, 89 have been relocated to the Peninsula in application of the right to family reunification – with direct relatives or extended family –, and 173 more have been relocated to different autonomous communities in accordance with Article 35 of the Immigration Law.

The images of the Besòs river full to the brim and about to overflow a week ago have been one of the most prominent photographs left by the storm of recent days on the Catalan coast. A scene that had not been seen for decades and that not only made many in the area remember tragedies like the 1962 flood, but also put the spotlight back on the urbanization project around the Three Chimneys of Sant Adrià.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced this Tuesday that the winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Physics is University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Francis Halzen. Born in 1944 in Belgium, Halzen has been awarded for having laid the foundations for a radically new type of astronomy: neutrino astronomy. His contributions have been decisive in creating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica and in discovering high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin, which allows researchers from all over the world to learn more about the cosmos and its characteristics, some of which are still unknown.

Outbreak of tension at the end of the demonstration in defense of housing in the center of Barcelona. After a couple of hours of peaceful protests, the Mossos d'Esquadra charged against a large group of protesters – mostly made up of young people – who lit bonfires at the intersection of Gran Via and Passeig de Gràcia and threw stones, bottles, pyrotechnics, and street furniture at the officers. The operation, which featured a strong deployment of vans and Brimo agents, ended after midnight. The police carried out several identifications and arrested at least 13 people for public disorder, one of whom is a minor. Of all those arrested, eleven were brought before a judge this Tuesday morning and have already been released at the disposal of the courts whenever they are required. The minor was released at night.

The data does not allow us to state that Catalonia has fully entered an epidemic of respiratory viruses, but it does show that cases are on the rise at a fairly high rate. The Information System for the Surveillance of Infections in Catalonia (Sivic) confirms that in the last week with updated information (from September 21 to 27) there were 44,000 affected people across the country, predominantly by rhinovirus. This represents a 26% increase compared to the previous week. "At the clinic, we are seeing an increase in cases, but the truth is that we are still at minimum levels of transmission. In adults, cold viruses are basically circulating," explains Jordi Mestres, a family doctor at the CAP Sanllehy in Barcelona and a member of the Catalan Society of Family and Community Medicine (Camfic).

Health problems derived from intensive screen exposure are no longer a future threat for the youngest: they are a reality. The consequences vary according to the life stage, but the combination of risks over the years can favor the appearance of pathologies, some irreversible, among children and adolescents. From 0 to 6 years old, the inadequate use of technologies can cause them to start speaking later, develop myopia, or have motor difficulties. Between 7 and 11 years old, it can worsen sleep, favor overweight and the appearance of cavities, and affect academic performance. And from 12 to 18 years old, it can increase emotional distress, distort self-image, and increase vulnerability to patterns of violence and harassment, inside and outside of social networks.

Making a person control a prosthesis with their brain, developing implants capable of interacting with nerve tissue, or identifying patterns in brain activity using artificial intelligence. All of this is no longer science fiction: in many places around the world, the scientific community is striving to achieve a better brain-machine connection that, on one hand, deepens the knowledge of the most complex organ in the human body and, on the other, improves people's lives. Catalonia wants to be part of this neurotechnological race on a European scale, and the Government has chosen Cerdanyola del Vallès as a reference hub.

If there were a switch to halt the growth of tumor cells in the pancreas, it would be found in the RAS protein. Like the head of a factory, this gene sends cells the order to grow and multiply. In 90% of pancreatic cancer cases, this mechanism is altered practically from the earliest stages of development and the instruction remains permanently activated, which becomes one of the main drivers of uncontrolled growth. For decades, RAS was considered an "impossible to block" therapeutic target (in English, undruggable) due to its chemical structure. Now, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Rasonque (daraxonrasib), a drug that manages to act on multiple forms of RAS to interrupt growth signals.

The Spanish government and the autonomous communities have agreed to give the green light to an extraordinary 25 million euros to strengthen Ceuta's resources for the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors. This was unanimously voted by the Ministers of Childhood and Youth at the sectoral conference held this Thursday. However, the communities in which Vox holds these responsibilities after agreements with the PP were not present; that is, Aragon, Castile and León, and Extremadura. In fact, the Minister of Childhood and Youth, Sira Rego, explained that they not only failed to attend the meeting but also communicated in writing that they were against the extra budgetary allocation.

The announcement by Moderna and Merck (MSD) of a therapeutic vaccine to prevent metastasis of melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer, came as a surprise on Wednesday and sent shares of these pharmaceutical giants soaring. In a joint statement, the companies claimed to have obtained "positive results" in the phase 3 trial – the stage at which efficacy and safety are reviewed in patients before applying for marketing authorization. In the statement, they claimed to have achieved relapse-free survival and distant metastasis-free survival – to other organs or lymph nodes – in patients who had already undergone complete tumor removal. However, they did not provide any specific data on the vaccine. Nor is there, at the moment, an associated scientific publication.

Earthquakes continue to shake Granada. On Tuesday morning, in just under an hour, a series of seven seismic events —one of which reached a magnitude of 4.8— shook the Andalusian province. And at night there were six more, the largest at 3.4. But this Wednesday, about fifty have been experienced: the National Geographic Institute (IGN) has registered 55 seismic movements, most of low intensity. Only three were perceived by residents. It seems that Granada is experiencing a seismic swarm – several earthquakes have been concentrated in the same area and in a short period of time – since early Saturday morning there was a first tremor.

A series of seven earthquakes shook the province of Granada again this Tuesday. In just one hour –between 10:37 a.m. and 11:34 a.m.– numerous tremors occurred, one of which exceeded a magnitude of 4.8 on the Richter scale. Four days after the first one surprised the Andalusian population, each of today's earthquakes had a different epicenter –Gójar, Churriana de la Vega, Alhendín, etc.– and all of them could be clearly felt in the capital. The tremors have left three lightly injured people –including a minor– and an atmosphere of anxiety among the population, tired of the constant low-intensity tremors that have occurred since Saturday, although the vast majority are imperceptible.

The images of saturation on the platforms and crowds on trains to travel by train to the south of the country on the day of the eclipse continue to have repercussions. This Friday, two days after the chaos, the Government admitted that there was a "collapse" on Rodalies (commuter rail) during the afternoon of the astronomical phenomenon. But the Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure, Manel Nadal, defended that it only occurred on the way south and that, on the other hand, the return "was orderly". However, in the evening, scenes of queues to enter the stations, especially those in Tarragona, and platforms packed to the brim were repeated, and Civil Protection had to activate the Ferrocat plan for crowds in pre-alert.