<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>

<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comTue, 19 May 2026 10:35:42 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[The biologist who survived a shark bite: ‘We must end the myth of killer sharks’]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-10-20/the-biologist-who-survived-a-shark-bite-we-must-end-the-myth-of-killer-sharks.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-10-20/the-biologist-who-survived-a-shark-bite-we-must-end-the-myth-of-killer-sharks.htmlMon, 20 Oct 2025 12:49:03 +0000No film has done more damage to an animal’s reputation than Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. It premiered in the summer of 1975, but the fear it instilled in people remains rife 50 years later. For the marine biologist Mauricio Hoyos, however, it had the opposite effect. “It made me fall in love with the great white shark and dedicate my life to working with these incredible animals,” admits the Mexican scientist, who receives this reporter at his mother’s house in Mexico City, where he is recovering from the serious accident he suffered a few weeks ago in Costa Rica waters.

]]>Nayeli Cruz<![CDATA[The Mexican neuroscientist who is revolutionizing care for patients with psychosis]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2025-09-21/the-mexican-neuroscientist-who-is-revolutionizing-care-for-patients-with-psychosis.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2025-09-21/the-mexican-neuroscientist-who-is-revolutionizing-care-for-patients-with-psychosis.htmlSun, 21 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000It was a patient with psychosis who shaped Camilo de la Fuente’s professional career. Who would lead him to become obsessed with unraveling the link between certain brain alterations and that loss of contact with reality, to design new ways to predict the success of schizophrenia treatment, and to revolutionize its approach. It was a patient with psychosis who would lead him to become the renowned neuroscientist he is today. “I was doing a psychiatric internship, and I was fascinated. It made me ask questions, also on a philosophical level: Why does this patient hallucinate this and another hallucinate something else?” he explains.

]]>Aggi Garduño<![CDATA[US vessel that fished illegally in Mexico reveals gaps in environmental law enforcement]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-06-06/us-vessel-that-fished-illegally-in-mexico-reveals-gaps-in-environmental-law-enforcement.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-06-06/us-vessel-that-fished-illegally-in-mexico-reveals-gaps-in-environmental-law-enforcement.htmlFri, 06 Jun 2025 09:02:21 +0000In 2017, the Revillagigedo Archipelago became the largest fully protected marine reserve in North America. That year, the Mexican government granted it the most restrictive conservation status under its legislation, and prohibited both fishing and natural resource extraction across its 14,808,780 hectares. The move was quickly hailed as a global example of sound conservation policy.

]]><![CDATA[Opossums, axolotls and lichens in Chapultepec: The largest urban forest in Latin America takes inventory]]>https://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-09-05/opossums-axolotls-and-lichens-in-chapultepec-the-largest-urban-forest-in-latin-america-takes-inventory.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-09-05/opossums-axolotls-and-lichens-in-chapultepec-the-largest-urban-forest-in-latin-america-takes-inventory.htmlThu, 05 Sep 2024 13:30:21 +0000On the morning of the first Monday in September, under a cloudy sky, small groups of individuals carrying binoculars, magnifying glasses, butterfly nets, tweezers and jars are moving slowly through the greenery of the first section of Chapultepec Park, in Mexico City. Wearing field boots, they stop along the paths that cross the Botanical Garden, very attentive to what they can find under the serrated leaf of an agave, the low branch of a tree or the bark of a fallen trunk. They are the explorers who make up the team in charge of making an inventory of all the biodiversity that inhabits the most iconic park in the Mexican capital, and they have 24 hours to do so.

]]>Fernando Llano<![CDATA[Closure of US-Mexico border during Covid pandemic increased HIV transmission]]>https://english.elpais.com/health/2024-05-15/closure-of-us-mexico-border-during-covid-pandemic-increased-hiv-transmission.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/health/2024-05-15/closure-of-us-mexico-border-during-covid-pandemic-increased-hiv-transmission.htmlWed, 15 May 2024 12:45:43 +0000The border crossing that separates Tijuana in Mexico from San Diego in the United States is one of the busiest routes in the world for drug trafficking and migration. It is a dynamic human corridor shaped by deportations, inequality, prostitution and marginalization that the authorities decided to close in 2020 to contain infections from one side to the other when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.

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]]>Gladys Serrano <![CDATA[Puerto Escondido: the Mexican tourist paradise that doesn’t want to be like Acapulco]]>https://english.elpais.com/travel/2024-03-30/puerto-escondido-the-mexican-tourist-paradise-that-doesnt-want-to-be-like-acapulco.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/travel/2024-03-30/puerto-escondido-the-mexican-tourist-paradise-that-doesnt-want-to-be-like-acapulco.htmlSat, 30 Mar 2024 15:00:00 +0000“It was paradise back then, like a dream. The beaches were dotted with the tiny wooden houses of fishermen, and there wasn’t a soul on the sand,” said Lorenzo Castillo, remembering his childhood growing up on the beaches of Puerto Escondido, now one of Mexico’s top international destinations. From January to November 2023, this charming coastal enclave in Oaxaca, home to around 25,000 permanent residents, welcomed over 800,000 visitors.

]]>ANDREA J. ARRATIBEL<![CDATA[Lack of access to clean water threatens Bajo Papaloapan, cradle of the Jarocha culture ]]>https://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-02-09/lack-of-access-to-clean-water-threatens-bajo-papaloapan-cradle-of-the-jarocha-culture.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-02-09/lack-of-access-to-clean-water-threatens-bajo-papaloapan-cradle-of-the-jarocha-culture.htmlFri, 09 Feb 2024 23:30:43 +0000Like the pre-Hispanic peoples who settled thousands of years ago in this region of the state of Veracruz, Mexico, the residents of Mano Perdida, a rural community located among the wetlands of the Alvarado Lagoon System, are governed by a water calendar. In it, two seasons mark a way of life linked to the cycles of nature: the rainy season, which usually arrives at the end of September, with the turbulent, greenish currents, when the roads that interconnect the municipalities are flooded, “and the dry season, which begins in April or May, in the months when we consume the most water and get the most profits from fishing,” says Felipe Ramírez, 72 years old. The gaze of the old man, who protects himself from the sun with a cowboy hat, is fixed on a circular map that is spread out on the table where the fishing cooperative he presides meets.

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]]>seila montes<![CDATA[How plastic is flooding the Mexican coast]]>https://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-01-07/how-plastic-is-flooding-the-mexican-coast.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/climate/2024-01-07/how-plastic-is-flooding-the-mexican-coast.htmlSun, 07 Jan 2024 16:24:51 +0000In Mexico, the majority of waste that is not collected is plastic, which ultimately finds its way to the coast. It is the debris that is carried by ocean currents until it accumulates on the shores, later returning out to sea and carried by the waves. Or it lies fading in the sun and brackish water, tangled in the roots of mangroves, in ecosystems that have become impromptu garbage dumps.

]]>Cortesía<![CDATA[The dangerous impact of ‘fake news’ on the lives of Spanish speakers in the United States ]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2023-12-26/the-dangerous-impact-of-fake-news-on-the-lives-of-spanish-speakers-in-the-united-states.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2023-12-26/the-dangerous-impact-of-fake-news-on-the-lives-of-spanish-speakers-in-the-united-states.htmlTue, 26 Dec 2023 15:04:08 +0000Lies usually have greater reach than truths. They spread much faster, a phenomenon that has been exacerbated by globalization. Misinformation spreads more and more quickly across countries and continents through social media and other channels of information. Hoaxes tend to create a lot of media confusion around current events, such as the war on Gaza and the geopolitical tensions between Israel and other countries, the recent elections in Argentina, or the announcement of new immigration laws in the United States. Events that currently have the world in suspense can be twisted by fake news.

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]]>Arkadiusz Warguła<![CDATA[Born with a heart malformation: The children forgotten by the Mexican health system ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-26/born-with-a-heart-malformation-the-children-forgotten-by-the-mexican-health-system.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-26/born-with-a-heart-malformation-the-children-forgotten-by-the-mexican-health-system.htmlThu, 26 Oct 2023 20:23:02 +0000When Nevith was five years old, her heart began to hurt. She used to tell her mother that “it beat fast, as if it was going to jump out of her little chest. When she walked fast her heartbeat quickened, but sometimes it also happened when she was asleep, and she woke up scared,” says Lleida Carrillo, from Monterrey, Mexico. The years went on and her daughter was not growing or gaining weight. She did not understand what was happening to her. “Until Nevith was able to express herself, and we took her to my neighborhood clinic,” says the woman. They could not diagnose her there; she needed a pediatric cardiologist. “But we didn’t have the money to pay a specialist. So my husband and I started to save money for her tests,” she says.

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]]>The Washington Post<![CDATA[How a Japanese-run wastewater treatment plant in Mexico shamelessly polluted ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2023-09-03/how-a-japanese-run-wastewater-treatment-plant-in-mexico-shamelessly-polluted.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2023-09-03/how-a-japanese-run-wastewater-treatment-plant-in-mexico-shamelessly-polluted.htmlSun, 03 Sep 2023 15:42:26 +0000Hydrogen sulfide, a dark brown acidic substance which gradually eats away at iron and steel structures, is dumped directly into the rivers. This is how the residents of Ixtaczoquitlán, a municipality in the Mexican state of Veracruz, describe the effects of the Alto Río Blanco Wastewater Treatment Plant that has been operating in the area since 1995. “But the worst thing is the horrible smell,” says María Ramírez, a farmer who lives close to the plant. “The children get sick all the time.”

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]]>seila montes<![CDATA[Gabriel Trujillo, the US botanist murdered in Mexico while doing field research]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2023-07-06/gabriel-trujillo-the-us-botanist-murdered-in-mexico-while-doing-field-research.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2023-07-06/gabriel-trujillo-the-us-botanist-murdered-in-mexico-while-doing-field-research.htmlThu, 06 Jul 2023 11:06:16 +0000The common buttonbush, also known as guayabillo, is a toxic plant with multiple medicinal uses. Native to eastern and southern North America, it grows in temperate climates and in different habitats in Mexico. One of these habitats is the forests of the Mexican state of Sonora, where Gabriel Trujillo was found dead on June 21.

]]>Roxanne Cruz-de Hoyos<![CDATA[Ayahuasca in hair and psychotropic trade routes: How drugs were used in pre-Incan civilization]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-05-31/ayahuasca-in-hair-and-psychotropic-trade-routes-how-drugs-were-used-in-pre-incan-civilization.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-05-31/ayahuasca-in-hair-and-psychotropic-trade-routes-how-drugs-were-used-in-pre-incan-civilization.htmlWed, 31 May 2023 14:37:16 +0000Thousands of years ago on the coast of southern Peru, the head of a child was given as a sacrificial offering to worship the ancestors, call for the rains and implore the gods to make the land fertile. It was a sacrifice that might have served as a gift for the god Kon, the source of all creation, or for the goddess that embodied Mother Earth, represented with prominent breasts and wrapped in iconography of animals and plants: These are the most prominent deities of the pre-Inca civilization that traced the giant geoglyphs that can still be seen on the pampas of Jumana, in the present-day Ica region, 500 kilometers south of Lima.

]]><![CDATA[Aspirin doesn’t have the same effect on a Norwegian as it does on an indigenous Mexican]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-04-24/aspirin-doesnt-have-the-same-effect-on-a-norwegian-as-it-does-on-an-indigenous-mexican.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-04-24/aspirin-doesnt-have-the-same-effect-on-a-norwegian-as-it-does-on-an-indigenous-mexican.htmlMon, 24 Apr 2023 17:18:23 +0000Mexican Huichols, Tzeltals and Tarahumaras, Peruvian Aymaras, and Costa Rican Chorotegas and Guaymís are all part of a pioneering study on the effects of certain drugs on over 6,000 indigenous people in Latin America. It is the largest cohort and number of ethnic groups ever studied for this purpose. Forty research groups with over 200 experts from various countries have taken part in the study, analyzing blood samples to determine almost conclusively that aspirin doesn’t have the same effect on a Caucasian Norwegian as it does on an indigenous Mexican. All the physical features such as skin and eye color that make us unique come from our DNA, which also influences how a person will react to a drug and how enzymes are metabolized. Pharmacogenetics is a rapidly developing scientific field in some parts of the world, but has so far focused on narrow, mostly white population sectors.

]]><![CDATA[Mexican city removes stingers from stingrays to keep tourists happy]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-07/mexican-city-removes-stingers-from-stingrays-to-keep-tourists-happy.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-07/mexican-city-removes-stingers-from-stingrays-to-keep-tourists-happy.htmlFri, 07 Apr 2023 13:13:27 +0000The Mexican city of Huatabampo, in the state of Sonora, has removed stinger spines from stingrays to prevent the animals from stinging tourists during Easter week. In a video shared by animal activists, workers from the local government’s ecology department are seen capturing a stingray, pulling out the spines located in its stinger, and releasing it back into the water. In another video, a Huatabampo City Council worker says that he is removing the spines so that tourists can “swim, have fun, and at the same time, not worry about any accident happening.”

]]><![CDATA[A strange worm emerges from one of South America’s longest rivers]]>https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-10-21/a-strange-worm-emerges-from-one-of-south-americas-longest-rivers.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-10-21/a-strange-worm-emerges-from-one-of-south-americas-longest-rivers.htmlFri, 21 Oct 2022 15:04:18 +0000A couple of years ago, biologist Carlos A. Lasso did a double-take when he examined what turned out to be a strange-looking worm with a magnifying glass. He thought that the object could have possibly been “the root of a plant, a vegetable stem, or another unknown organism.”

]]>Alessio Romeo-La Venta<![CDATA[The crossing of ‘El Jefe’: Famed jaguar circumvents US-Mexico border wall ]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-08-25/the-crossing-of-el-jefe-famed-jaguar-circumvents-us-mexico-border-wall.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-08-25/the-crossing-of-el-jefe-famed-jaguar-circumvents-us-mexico-border-wall.htmlThu, 25 Aug 2022 14:58:58 +0000For seven years, his fate was a mystery: no one knew what paths he had prowled, what prey had perished in the vice clamp of his jaws, or if he was even still alive. Some wondered if he had left any offspring in his wake. Many suspected he had died in some remote corner of the borderlands – a vast and tangled wilderness. But then, in early August, the jaguar known as El Jefe (The Boss) was photographed by a trail camera in northern Mexico – the first sighting of the famous feline since he was last spotted in the mountains south of Tucson, Arizona, in 2015.

]]><![CDATA[Sargassum, the brown tide that is invading the Caribbean]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-08-18/sargassum-the-brown-tide-that-is-invading-the-caribbean.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-08-18/sargassum-the-brown-tide-that-is-invading-the-caribbean.htmlThu, 18 Aug 2022 01:04:48 +0000More than six centuries ago, the first European expeditions that crossed the Atlantic to reach the American continent sighted a phenomenon known as sargassum. While documenting it, some of those explorers feared that their ships would get stuck in that brown tide. Now, in the last decade, sargassum has been invading the Caribbean coasts, destroying its ecosystem and becoming a threat to the tourism sector.

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