Three in the morning. 27 degrees.

This was the lowest temperature recorded by Barcelona’s thermometers during the night of 28-29 June 2026. Such tropical nights have ceased to be a summer anomaly, becoming a symptom of a more far-reaching transformation: climate change is no longer just an environmental phenomenon but also a public health crisis of the first order.

The figures bear this out. In the summer of 2024 alone, over 62,700 people died from heat-related causes in Europe, according to a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) published in Nature Medicine. To analyse this new reality, the report Extreme Heat,

An HIV infection attacks the immune system of those affected. Although HIV can now be effectively treated and prevented through antiretroviral therapy, there’s still no cure that’s fully applicable and accessible for the general population. That’s why finding a definitive cure remains one of the greatest challenges facing modern medicine. 

Nevertheless, there are cases that offer a glimmer of hope regarding this goal, namely patients who’ve achieved viral remission after undergoing a stem cell transplant to treat haematological cancer. To further our knowledge in this area, the international consortium IciStem, coordinated by IrsiCaixa (a leading research center for research on infections and immunity), has spent over a decade monitoring 40 people with HIV who’ve received this kind of transplant.

The fluid and abstract forms in nature have the power to inspire both scientific breakthroughs and avant-garde art. This month’s Snapshot straddles precisely that boundary; an image depicting a key discovery in the regulation of human fertility, yet one which, to the artistic eye, evokes the organic growth of Jean Arp’s sculptures.

To analyse this snapshot, which forms part of a study published in the journal Science, we draw on a combination of artistic and scientific perspectives. The scientific focus is provided by Eva González Suárez, the study’s director, researcher and Leader of the Transformation and Metastasis Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO),

Disease X

This was the name given in 2018 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to a disease which, although not yet known (and perhaps not even in existence), could cause a serious epidemic or pandemic in the future. 

Barely two years later, what could be considered the first example of this so-called ‘Disease X’ arrived: COVID-19. 

Since then, the constant barrage of headlines about new pathogens, alerts and outbreaks (avian flu, monkeypox, Ebola, hantavirus, etc.) has once again fuelled fears in view of the inevitable question: ‘Are we on the brink of a new pandemic?’. This is followed by an attempt at reassurance: ‘But… after everything we’ve learned from COVID-19,

Lemon water; ginger, turmeric and cinnamon ‘shots’; a Mediterranean diet with matcha tea and kombucha; sleep routines and daily exercise; intermittent fasting; ice baths; even red light devices and walking barefoot to reconnect with the earth.

These are just a few from the long list of anti-inflammatory strategies that seems to be growing by the day. They promise to ward off not only cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer but also more everyday complaints such as tiredness, stress and general malaise. In recent years, inflammation has moved outside the laboratory to take its place in public discourse as one of the most recurring – and perhaps most promising – concepts in the health debate.