Is it truly a unique bird in the world? Is it bred at the North Pole? Does it grow up in nests high in the trees? Or is it a laboratory creature that doesn't even have any feathers? All sorts of legends have surrounded one of the most ubiquitous dishes on Brazilian Christmas tables for the past 30 years. There, many have heard stories about the origin of this super-chicken, the Chester, always shrouded in mystery that has given rise to the most outlandish theories (like the one about the beast without any feathers). Few can claim to have ever seen a live specimen, and that's why, when journalist Vitor Hugo Brandalise Junior, sitting among friends in a bar, blurts out, "My uncle was one of the inventors of the Chester," he knows he'll have the audience's full attention.

Twenty years ago, apple varieties were neither red nor crisp because they weren't adapted to the heat of the Lleida plain, and the meat exported from Catalonia to Asia could only stay fresh for about 60 days. Research has been proposing solutions to both agri-food problems, in these cases through genetic editing and technological sophistication, respectively. Currently, the underlying concern is the climate crisis, which not only requires us to rethink and adapt crops and livestock farms, but also pushes business leaders, administrations, and scientists to seek new food sources and strengthen surveillance of zoonotic (animal-derived) diseases that can impact human health. The Institute of Agri-Food Research and Technology (IRTA) wants to take action to get ahead of the curve and has announced that it will build a high-security laboratory for experimentation with viruses and pathogens.

When she was little, Maria Recasens, now 26, had many hobbies: in addition to school, she participated in the Lego robotics league, went to the hideout, went climbing and really liked reading and painting. She wanted to be an astronaut then and that's why she got into astronomy until a physics book fell into her hands. She found it so interesting that she set her mind to studying something that would allow her to understand it. Years later she graduated in physics at the University of Barcelona, ​​​​she has completed an interuniversity master's degree in quantum science and technology and has started a doctorate at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO). This career and everything she remembers thinking about science when she was little is what she shares this Tuesday in a talk at the Menéndez Pelayo Institute in Barcelona, ​​​​in front of 1st year ESO students. For the first time she has joined the #científicas program, which for seven years has brought science and research to schoolchildren.

The explosion in infections detected in recent weeks has not only been noted in health centres and hospitals; private centres offering antigen and PCR tests have seen demand increase exponentially. "There has been a very significant increase, between 30% and 40% more", commercial director of Teletest, Francesc Mestres, states. Dr Àngels Fortuño, manager at Eldine laboratory, corroborates it: "Every day we have people at our door, in a hurry, asking us to do a test. Whereas before private individuals represented 20% of the tests we do, they are now between 40% and 45%"