Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

Early this morning, the Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, declared a state of emergency of national interest in the Community of Madrid and the province of Ávila due to the forest fires in Villa del Prado, San Martín de Valdeiglesias and Burgohondo. According to Carlos Novillo, the Regional Minister for the Environment, Agriculture and the Interior of the Community of Madrid, the fires were beyond the capacity of the fire services to extinguish and posed a serious threat to the population. The Madrid 112 Security and Emergency Agency has reported that, although the night-time firefighting efforts have been effective, the fires have still not been contained or brought under control. More than 10,000 people remain evacuated.

To date, more than 6,000 exoplanets — planets orbiting a star other than the Sun — have been discovered, but no moon outside the Solar System — known as an exomoon — has ever been definitively identified. Now, a study published in Nature presents evidence of what could be an exomoon orbiting a brown dwarf — an object halfway between a star and a planet. By analysing radial velocity data from observations made by the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope, a team has identified a signal indicating the presence of a satellite with a minimum mass of 0.9 times that of Jupiter and an orbital period of around 170 days. “Although it is unclear whether this exosatellite will meet the criteria—yet to be defined—for being considered an exomoon, it represents an important step towards that first indisputable detection,” the authors state.

Data from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) show that, as of 22 July, 119,458 hectares have been burnt in Spain. The average number of hectares burnt from 2006 to 2025 up to this date stands at 35,736 hectares. The fire in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, which has scorched more than 30,000 hectares and is still active, together with numerous fire fronts in other provinces and the fire in Los Gallardos (Almería), in which 13 people died, have caused the total area burnt to soar.

The range of CRISPR tools for genome editing can extend beyond nature-inspired designs thanks to proteins designed using artificial intelligence. A new study by Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna’s team, published in Science, describes the design of synthetic RNA-guided nucleases, with sequences substantially different from those found in nature, which match or exceed the activity of their natural counterparts whilst offering novel properties.

The wildfire in Los Gallardos (Almería), which broke out on Thursday evening, has so far claimed 13 lives. Initial investigations suggest that a fallen power line may have been the cause of the fire. The blaze has burnt more than 3,000 hectares and has left 1,400 people displaced.

Targeted marine cloud bleaching is a proposed geoengineering method to increase the amount of light reflected by clouds and reduce the heat reaching Earth. A US team has taken advantage of a natural experiment that generated this effect—through aerosols produced by the massive Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020—to study the possibilities and risks of using it to modify an extreme weather event like El Niño. According to the models used in the study, its early application could weaken El Niño, but it could also have unintended consequences, such as altering the timing and increasing the magnitude of the subsequent La Niña event. The work is published in Science Advances.

Two Copernicus services have independently confirmed that global sea surface temperatures have broken records for this time of year. Daily data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service exceeded the 2024 levels on 21 June, reaching 20.86 °C, higher than the 20.83 °C recorded in 2023 and 2024. Data from the Copernicus Marine Watch Service show temperatures of 21.0 °C on 21 June, beating the 2023 and 2024 records by 0.1 °C. This unprecedented warming is linked to the onset of El Niño (announced by the WMO and declared by NOAA on 11 June) and to record-breaking sea surface temperatures in the North Pacific; consequences are anticipated for weather patterns, the global climate and marine ecosystems.

An article published in Nature describes how the first use of precision editing has shed light on a gene essential for embryonic development. The authors caution that the clinical application of genome editing in human embryos requires rigorous ethical analysis and oversight, as well as broad public debate and support.

An article published in Nature shows that the last Neanderthals in northwestern Europe exhibited greater genetic variability than previously thought, which, according to the authors, could call into question the idea that this was one of the causes of their extinction. The study included genetic data from 27 Neanderthals dating back about 52,500 years, found at ten sites in France and Belgium. The genome of a 45,000-year-old Neanderthal found in Belgium was also sequenced. According to the results, these Neanderthals lived in large, well-connected groups, as they showed no signs of inbreeding. Although they temporarily coexisted with early modern humans in that region, the study found no evidence of interbreeding with them.

A meta-analysis published today in PNAS shows that, globally, the loss of agricultural production due to insufficient pollination has declined since the 1980s, primarily thanks to the use of honeybees. The research includes 165 studies published between 1950 and 2019, the results of which showed that fields without managed pollinators did not exhibit a clear reduction in this loss of productivity. According to the authors, this type of pollination has mitigated yield losses, but the heavy reliance on a single pollinator species—the common honeybee—poses risks to agriculture.