One of the many ways in which public universities in the State try to attract talent and entice high-level researchers to develop their research here are the Ramón y Cajal contracts. This program from the Ministry of Science and Universities has served for 25 years as a tool for the beneficiaries researchers to eventually obtain, after a few years, a stable job position. However, this objective of ending up with a stable position is what various researchers are now denouncing is at risk.

Few times has an astronomical phenomenon concentrated so much popular expectation and scientific interest at the same time. The total solar eclipse next Wednesday, August 12, will not only be a milestone for millions of people who will have the opportunity to contemplate one of the most extraordinary spectacles that nature offers. It will also represent an exceptional opportunity to test instruments, validate scientific models, and obtain data that, under normal conditions, are simply impossible to achieve. Catalonia and the Peninsula will be the global epicenter of astronomy.

Make the most difficult easy: getting science, and especially everything related to the universe, to awaken the curiosity of those who listen. And not only that. He is capable of spreading his passion for the cosmos and, in turn, for life. With only a few days left until the total solar eclipse that can be seen from Catalonia, Joan Anton Català, astrophysicist, quantum chemist, and science communicator, is the most sought-after man, but he makes a space in his busy schedule to explain to us how extraordinary this phenomenon will be that we will be able to see on August 12. The eclipse of the century (Cossetània) is the guide it has published for those who do not want to miss any detail.

The scientific community is once again surprising with an unprecedented discovery about the main star of our planetary system. The scientific journal Nature published this Wednesday the sharpest images of the sun ever taken, which have allowed the observation of a phenomenon unknown until now. Specifically, the photos reveal that on the surface of this star there are small vortices that, collectively, form swirling patterns reminiscent of the night sky in Vincent van Gogh's painting The Starry Night.

Tintin, Professor Calculus and Captain Haddock are on the pyre, waiting for the Incas to light it with a large magnifying glass to concentrate the sun's light. But Tintin addresses the king of the stars and asks him to cover himself with a veil if he does not wish for his death. The sun darkens completely, causing panic among the Incas. Tintin asks the sun to shine again. The star lights up and the three are freed.

A sign from the gods, a bad omen, a cosmic wonder, an evidence that mathematics governs the visible world... Eclipses have fascinated humanity since the dawn of time. And at each historical stage they have been interpreted in different ways. Today we know that an eclipse is "the total or partial occultation of a celestial body by the interposition of another celestial body between it and the observer". But perhaps it was more romantic to believe that a dragon devoured the sun, as they thought in China in the 8th century BC.

Scientists from the University of Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University have revealed a new secret in the history of the human species: they have found traces from two unknown ancestral lineages in human DNA. These are lineages we did not inherit from Neanderthals or Denisovans, but rather from older species. However, their appearance, where they lived, or which species they belonged to are questions still without an answer.

Good doctors treat everyone equally. However, from time to time they receive comments from relatives who use their social status to request special attention. Are there still, distinguished patients? Well yes, at least there are those who consider themselves so. I think about it when I am in one of the "distinguished patients" rooms at the mental health center named after Pere Mata (doctor, politician, professor of forensic medicine... and writer). Mata was the mayor of Reus and held positions of responsibility in Barcelona and Madrid, from which he promoted laws that, years after his death, made it possible to open centers like the one I am visiting today. The room is located on the first floor of the Pere Mata Institute, built in a clearly modernist style by Lluís Domènech i Montaner. It is a large room for a single person, and well decorated (walls, ceiling, and floor included). It has not been used for a long time; it is only visited. The rest of the facilities, on the other hand, are not open to the general public: they continue to be a health center.In this room for distinguished patients, what strikes me most is a blurry mirror: it is made on purpose. This way they could not see their faces and did not "collapse". Next to this room, there is another one, "smaller": much smaller and without windows. It was for the night caretakers. Although, exceptionally, some distinguished patients had their own service, there were "third class" patients who performed service tasks for the "first class" or distinguished ones. And they received remuneration (by the way, the Pere Mata Institute had its own currency). Next door there is a room with a single piece of furniture: a bathtub. Quite a luxury! "Hygiene and hydrotherapy were essential here. Electrotherapy was also practiced. Furthermore, light, ventilation, and contact with nature were considered elements of care," remarks Maria Adzerias, from Còdol Educació, a company that for years has been bringing the heritage of the Tarragona regions closer to citizens. Everything was designed for the emotional well-being of the patients. "Emotional well-being, which contributes to physical well-being, is very important. They were truly advanced here," says my wife, Elisabet, a doctor, who accompanies me.Maria reminds us that one of Pere Mata's illustrious patients was the painter Joaquim Mir. "On a trip to Mallorca with a group of painters, among whom was Picasso, Mir fell off a cliff. When he returned, he hadn't fully recovered. That's why his parents decided to admit him," explains Maria. Elisabet, a painting enthusiast, immediately searches on her mobile for paintings by Mir made when he was here. There are some very beautiful landscapes.Maria tells us all about this during a guided, theatrical tour. She plays the role of a housekeeper who, throughout the entire performance, introduces the Pere Mata Institute project to potential collaborators, and sings its praises, while waiting for Doctor Briansó, the Institute's promoter, to arrive. "Briansó achieved the objective of creating a quality, cheerful, and spacious center, far from the asylum of the painting Casa de locos, by Goya," says Maria. Elisabet immediately searches for it on her mobile and shows it to me – the madmen are crowded and with little light – while Maria reads from a document some words that Briansó pronounced about Pere Mata's project: "Does it not represent a lot, a great deal, in the moral order, the relief that we propose for the most unfortunate beings of humanity?". These are expressions that would now be nuanced, but they denote a way of thinking. Have we improved? "}The excellent guided theatrical tour places the public at the beginning of the 20th century, when the first cars, electricity, the telephone arrived... A time when progress accelerated. The visit has a final musical surprise, recalling the importance given to music therapy: on Sunday afternoons, patients, medical staff, and sometimes some relatives attended the concert.On the upper floor, behind an iron railing covered with colored glass cylinders – a solution that Domènech i Montaner himself would later develop at the Palau de la Música Catalana – a singer, accompanied by a pianist, performs pieces from the era. As I listen to the dancing notes, I notice a chestnut tree – a symbol of strength – etched on the wall. Vegetation is a recurring element in this center. Roses are abundant here, a flower that is also found on the coat of arms of the city of Reus."Domènech i Montaner –who also gave his all in another building in Reus: Casa Navàs–, was the conductor of a group of artisans, who made the furniture, the stained glass windows, the lamps...", emphasizes Maria Adzerias.The prestigious modernist architect designed this complex with pavilions. It is a precedent for the model he would later develop at the Hospital de Sant Pau. The project – unfinished – provided for pavilions differentiated by sex, social class, type of illness... In the interior spaces, he ensured that the furniture and many other elements had rounded shapes; this reduced the risk of bumps or injuries. Furthermore, the main staircase has no railing, so that patients could not grab it and injure themselves, nor a well in the staircase, to avoid the temptation to jump.As with Casa Navàs –Reus's other Modernist jewel, also by Domènech i Montaner–, construction costs were high: the architect had no budget limits. "Domènech i Montaner erects buildings with the same speed as he demolishes fortunes," it was said.We finish the visit to the garden, which is a little elevated. The stone wall surrounding the enclosure seems easy to cross. But if we approach it, a notable drop appears. It is known as the “lob's leap”. In this way, the patients did not have the feeling of being locked up, even though they were. After the visit, the actress shows me documentation that she used to create the script for the theatrical visit. There is a poster with the image of the Institut Pere Mata that says: Manicomio de Reus. Instituto Pere Mata, and then Casa de curación de padecimientos mentales y nerviosos. The two main names are the doctor Emili Briansó and the priest. One healed the body and the other the soul, and everything was sorted. The word asylum has fallen into disuse. This center no longer houses "madmen" or "lunatics", but rather people with mental illnesses. At least in name we have improved.A 14th of April with two kingsKing Alfonso XIII visited the Pere Mata Institute in 1904 and wanted to greet the patients. One of them claimed to be the "king of Spain". When he was presented to the monarch, the patient told him: "With whom does the king of Spain have the honor of speaking?". Alfonso XIII, despite being surprised, improvised: "With another king". "And where are you king of?". Then Alfonso XIII renounced his homeland: "I am the king of England", he let him know. La Vanguardia –monarchist newspaper– collected the anecdote, and not precisely applauding it. Perhaps the fact that there were Catalan flags displeased the chronicler of that act on April 14th... the day that, a few years later, the Republic would be proclaimed.

Let the majesty of orcas not deceive you: they are intelligent, strategic, and relentless predators in the oceans. An investigation published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Ethology has recorded and documented for the first time a never-before-seen behavior in these cetaceans in the Gulf of California, Mexico. As can be seen in the images, the orcas coordinate to hold and ram a prey, throwing it into the air.

Interstellar sugar. An international team of scientists has found the presence of erythrulose in space for the first time, a sugar composed of four carbon atoms that on Earth is found in raspberries – and is added to self-tanning creams – and which is considered a key piece for the construction of genetic material such as RNA. The finding, published yesterday in the journal Nature Astronomy, marks a turning point in astrochemistry because it suggests that an extraterrestrial molecular cloud "bombarded" our planet about 4 billion years ago and gave rise to the first forms of life as we know them.Sugars had previously been detected in asteroids and comets that impact the Earth's surface, but it has now been confirmed that erythrulose forms naturally in space. The samples were found in a giant gas cloud in the center of the Milky Way called G+0.693-0.027, which acts like a chemical laboratory. The identification was made possible thanks to two radio telescopes located in Yebes (Guadalajara) and Granada, in work coordinated by Izaskun Jiménez-Serra, a researcher at the Center for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA). Astrophysicists calculate that these sugars form on the small grains of dust and ice in space and are incorporated into asteroids and comets. When the Earth was just forming, there was a massive bombardment of meteorites that delivered between 0.5 and 50 million tons of erythrulose, which spurred the origin of life. What does this discovery mean? Knowing that complex and vital elements like sugars did not originate on our planet, but rather come from space millions of light-years away.

It all started more than three years ago. The company Iltirta, dedicated to disseminating knowledge about archaeology and a collaborator of the University of Lleida, designed a simple card game to liven up one of the days of the Iberian weekend that is convened annually at the archaeological sites of Catalonia. It was an incipient proposal, made with domestic and limited resources, with no other pretension than to provide a good time for tourists and enthusiasts.

New or classic

Mom is going to Antarctica, by Anna Cabré Albós and Mariona Tolosa Sisteré (Zahorí Books, 2020).

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Alzheimer's disease probably does not have a single cause. For this reason, the scientific community continues to study the changes that occur in the brains of affected people to determine if they are the origin of the disease or a consequence of the neurodegenerative process. Currently, two hypotheses concentrate a good part of the research. The first, dominant for decades, points to the accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques, deposits of protein fragments that accumulate between neurons. The second focuses on the Tau protein, which forms aggregates within neurons in the form of tangles and is associated with neuronal death. A study published this Monday in the journal Cell by the University of Utah Health —with the support of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the United States— delves into this second hypothesis. The work indicates that a brain protein called Arc can facilitate the spread of Tau from diseased neurons to healthy neurons.

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"We are living in a time when science is more necessary than ever," explains Cristina Sáez, the science specialist at ARA and now also director of the monthly supplement Va de Ciència, which publishes its first issue this Saturday.

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Within mammals there are several orders, such as primates, to which humans belong; cetaceans, such as whales or dolphins, or carnivores. Now, a team from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) has discovered a new species of microorganism in Blanes, in the Selva region. This is a finding that, relatively speaking, could be equated to the discovery of a new order within mammals, as it adds a new branch to the evolutionary tree of this group. In this case, however, we are talking about amoebas, unicellular microorganisms that maintain a dynamically stable shape, can have more than one nucleus, and move by forming "false feet or pseudopods through extensions of the cell membrane.

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For decades, the eye has been one of evolution's great enigmas. Charles Darwin said that thinking about the origin of such a sophisticated organ made him shudder. How could a structure capable of detecting light have been built in such a way that the brain could form three-dimensional images with which to interpret the world, from the accumulation of small and gradual changes? A new scientific hypothesis published in the journal Current Biologyproposes a surprising answer. Our eyes could come from a single ancestral eye located in the center of the head in very simple marine animals. Perhaps it is no coincidence that so many ancient mythologies imagined cyclops, beings with a single eye in the center of the forehead. Long before vertebrates with two lateral eyes existed, our ancestors might have actually had a single primitive central eye.The research, led by neurobiologists Dan-Eric Nilsson (Lund University, Sweden) and Tom Baden (University of Sussex, England), suggests that about 560 million years ago, the ancestors of vertebrates had a single central photosensitive system, similar to a “third eye”. Over time, this organ split into two, which gradually specialized to give rise to modern retinas.

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That you, reader, are now reading this article or that, while you read it, there are beings as fantastic as whales crossing the Mediterranean or tritons splashing in streams of Montseny surrounded by beeches, firs, holm oaks and oaks is thanks to a history of microbial promiscuity forged over millions of years, including viral infections.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) data centers will skyrocket water and electricity consumption and condition the lives of billions of people worldwide. The United Nations (UN) released a report this Wednesday on the environmental cost of this revolution by 2030, and the projections are worrying. Researchers for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) anticipate a sharp increase in energy consumption, an intensification of water conflicts, and land overexploitation. At the same time, scientists warn that most consumption occurs when large systems like ChatGPT or Gemini respond to our queries and urge the use of the "concise mode": fewer words, getting straight to the point, to obtain shorter and more direct, energetically more efficient responses.

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May 28th is the World Day for Women's Health. This year, the Catalan Society of Health with a Sex and Gender Perspective, of the Academy of Medical and Health Sciences of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, has coincided its annual conference with it: Healing Gazes. As I head there, a figure I read the other day chills me: in the United States, in 2024, Black women were more than three times more likely to die during childbirth than white women. The African American maternal mortality crisis is difficult to digest, yes, but Dr. Kemi Doll, a gynecological oncologist and equity scientist, proposes a broader perspective. She reminds us that women spend most of their lives not pregnant, and yet, women's healthcare is mainly for reproductive health. And it is precisely in this long journey (from the first menstruation to beyond menopause) where a silenced suffering accumulates: fibroids, underdiagnosed endometriosis, bleeding that leaves anemic women walking around – as if it were normal – and, at the end of the journey, endometrial cancer. The “uterus crisis,” as Doll calls it.What makes the argument powerful is not just the denunciation, but how it strikes at the heart of science itself. The standard protocol for detecting endometrial cancer is based on measuring the thickness of the uterus by ultrasound when bleeding occurs. It sounds objective, neutral, universal. It is not. This method works worse in Black women, who have more and larger fibroids. This fact generates detection errors and, therefore, late diagnoses and, consequently, fewer treatment options. A seemingly impartial algorithm hid a bias built on who had been included (and who not, of course) in the trials that validated it.Here is a lesson that goes far beyond the United States and skin color, and that the Glances that heal workshop highlights. All research that forgets a part of the population ends up producing medicine that fails precisely those who need it most. It is the heart of sex bias in science. For decades, the male body has been the norm and the female body, a little-studied deviation. Women's health has shrunk to mean almost only pregnancy, contraception, and little else, as if the uterus only mattered when gestating.When we talk about "women's health" thinking only of maternity, we leave out chronic diseases that affect millions of people and that carry a historic deficit of funding and research. When public debate reduces contraception to an ideological issue, we forget that many of these medications treat endometriosis or fibroids. Demonizing them has a real health cost.The challenge now is for science not to fall behind or cede ground to disinformation. Because recognizing biases does not weaken rigor; it improves it. And listening to the whole bodies of women, throughout their lives and not just when they are pregnant, is not a concession. It is, simply, doing the job well.

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Donald Trump's crusade against academia and science does not stop. The US president has summarily dismissed the twenty or so experts on the independent council overseeing the National Science Foundation, the key agency for planning resources allocated to scientific—especially basic—and technical research in the US. Two recently dismissed members of this body—which has a budget equivalent to 8.5 billion euros—have made public that last Friday they received an email sent by the Office of Presidential Personnel, "on behalf of the president," thanking them for "their service" and dismissing them. According to them, "no other argument" was provided.

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