Latest news with #Albi
Irish Times
a day ago
- General
- Irish Times
Sydney got the Opera House and we had Ardnacrusha. It's time for that kind of ambition again
The imposing cathedral of St Cecilia of Albi sits in the middle of a modest French town in the Languedoc region, towering over everything around it. Built as a fortress against heresy and rebelliousness and as a symbol of episcopal power, it is the largest brick cathedral in the world, with an estimated 25 million bricks used to build it. Constructing such a monumental symbol of authority takes time and immense resources. Albi Cathedral took 200 years to build. It is estimated that the cost of building it would have run to hundreds of millions if not billions of euro in today's money. READ MORE One study suggests that between 1100 and 1250 the building of Gothic churches in the Paris Basin alone consumed on average 21.5 per cent of the regional economy. Luckily Bishop Bernard de Castanet of Albi was able to sell spiritual indulgences to his parishioners which helped to pay for its construction. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were built at a time when the Catholic church was the dominant source of power in Europe and long before the nation state had emerged to shape and direct the aspirations of the masses. Many, if not most, of these remarkable buildings have also become cultural icons and house artistic and architectural treasures intended to inspire – and terrify – the parishioners into religious obedience. Nowadays it is impossible to imagine such a project. I'm guessing that present generations lack the patience or naivety to bet their faith and taxes on a project that would take generations to complete, and religious threats are unlikely to have much sway these days. Yet the 20th century saw the completion of magnificent megaprojects, the construction of which was often controversial at the time. One example is the Sydney Opera House. Originally commissioned in 1959, it took 10 years longer to build than originally envisaged and it went over budget by 1,360 per cent. The project was plagued by political interference, changes in government and constant budget scrutiny that ultimately led to lead architect Jørn Utzon's resignation in 1966. He left Australia and never came back to see the project completed. Yet within two years after opening, the Opera House had been paid for, thanks to a lottery that had been set up to fund it. The Sydney Opera House is now a Unesco world heritage site. In comparison to other European countries, Ireland has few modern standout buildings. Our national contribution to world architecture and engineering is modest and associated with colonial grandeur rather than public buildings or large infrastructural projects. There are compelling historical reasons for the impoverished state of Ireland's public infrastructure until independence in 1922, though perhaps the nation's railway network is an exception. One of the first initiatives of the Irish Free State was the construction of the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme in Co Clare, which was completed in 1929. At a projected cost of £5 million (which was about 20 per cent of the national budget in 1925), it was an enormous sum for a post-Civil War state. Critics argued for smaller, less ambitious projects or said the money would be better spent directly on agriculture. Today's megaprojects are more likely to serve functional rather than cultural needs, such as the national children's hospital or MetroLink , a tunnelled metro system that will connect the city centre with the airport and towns of Fingal. (I am a member of the board of Transport Infrastructure Ireland , which is the sponsoring agency for MetroLink.) Many large-scale infrastructure projects have been hugely damaging to the environment, for example the Three Gorges Dam in China. But large-scale projects do not necessarily need to be environmentally destructive. We need to think of supergrids, forests, bog restoration, metro and light railway schemes as megaprojects that are consistent with our climate goals. Nature restoration and climate adaptation, too, are a long-term, expensive endeavours that require government leadership and multigenerational financial commitments. Such megaprojects benefit the public good and the environment, and their economic benefits are spread widely. For this reason, committing to nature restoration, public transport and a renewable energy system is ultimately the hallmark of a mature democracy in the 21st century. The State (or its proxies) will have to plan for the future, acquire land portfolios and shoulder long-term investments that inevitably carry risk. Long-term, large-scale projects require a political vision combined with a strong administrative state to secure the funding to see them through to completion. Megaprojects are complex, expensive, high-risk but ultimately transformational. When MetroLink is ready to take passengers from the early 2030s, there will be no doubt it was worth the long wait. Sadhbh O'Neill is an environmental and climate researcher. She is writing in a personal capacity
Forbes
6 days ago
- Sport
- Forbes
2025 Tour De France Femmes: Everything To Know Before The Grand Départ
ALBI, FRANCE - JULY 28: (L-R) Sandra Alonso of Spain and Team CERATIZIT-WNT Pro Cycling, Wilma ... More Olausson of Sweden and Team Uno-X Pro Cycling Team, Veronica Ewers of The United States and Team EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, Ella Wyllie of New Zealand and Team Lifeplus Wahoo, Soraya Paladin of Italy and Team Canyon//SRAM Racing, Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini of Italy and UAE Team ADQ, Simone Boilard of Canada and Team St Michel - Mavic - Auber93, Demi Vollering of The Netherlands and Team SD Worx - Protime - Pink UCI Women's WorldTour Leader Jersey and a general view of the peloton competing through flowery landscape during the 2nd Tour de France Femmes 2023, Stage 6 a 122.1km stage from Albi to Blagnac / #UCIWWT / on July 28, 2023 in Albi, France. (Photo by Tim) The fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is fast approaching—the action gets underway on Saturday, July 26 in Brittany. This year, organizers have extended the race from eight days to nine, which will see the peloton cover 1,165km before a winner is crowned in the Alps. Last year's race treated fans to one of the most dramatic final stages in cycling history. Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto) fought on the difficult and mountainous final stage to win the yellow jersey, four seconds ahead of 2023 champion Demi Vollering, who has since moved from SD-Worx Protime to FDJ-Suez. Those four seconds mark the smallest margin of victory in men's and women's Tour de France history. 2025 Tour de France Femmes Fast Facts The 2025 Tour de France Femmes Route THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS - AUGUST 12: A general view of Charlotte Kool of The Netherlands and Team ... More dsm-firmenich PostNL, Marianne Vos of The Netherlands and Team Visma | Lease a Bike and Elisa Balsamo of Italy and Team Lidl - Trek sprint at finish line to win the stage during the 3rd Tour de France Femmes 2024, Stage 1 a 123km stage from Rotterdam to The Hague / #UCIWWT / on August 12, 2024 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo by) Like the 2025 men's Tour de France, the women's race takes place entirely in France this year. The peloton starts in Brittany before making its way east across the country, through the Massif Central and ultimately to the Alps for the final two days of racing. Notably, there is no time trial in this year's race. Further, the sprinters have few opportunities this year; though the official Tour de France Femmes website classifies stage two as flat, the route is packed with small hills that could prove too difficult for the pure sprinters. The riders will take on the first major mountains of the Tour on stage six. The penultimate stage is the queen stage—the most difficult in the race—and features a summit finish on the Col de la Madeleine. There are more mountains to climbs on the final stage, which features three difficult ascents and a climb to the finish in Châtel. Favorites For The Yellow Jersey TOPSHOT - Canyon//SRAM Racing team's Polish rider Katarzyna Niewiadoma celebrates after crossing the ... More finish line and winning the third edition of the Women's Tour de France cycling race, after the 8th and last stage of the Tour de France, a 149.9 km between Le Grand Bornand and the Alpe d'Huez, in south-eastern France, on August 18, 2024. (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP) (Photo by JULIEN DE ROSA/AFP via Getty Images) Niewiadoma and Vollering return to France each hoping to become the first woman to win the Tour de France Femmes twice since it was relaunched in 2022. Further, both women have been on the Tour's final podium each year since that revival. This season, Vollering has thrived on her new team, winning La Vuelta Femenina as well as several other stage races. She will also have a strong team around her including 2024 fourth-place finisher Évita Muzic and Juliette Labous, both of whom could finish inside the top 10. Meanwhile, Niewiadoma has had a quieter season, but placed third at the Tour de Suisse, her last race before the Tour. Neither Vollering nor Niewiadoma raced in July's Giro d'Italia Women, where Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) won her second straight title. Longo Borghini missed last year's Tour due to a crash before the race, but will surely be a factor this year, even with the quick turnaround from the Giro. Marlen Reusser (Movistar) and Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) rounded out the podium at the Giro and aim to back up those performances in France. 2024 Olympic mountain biking champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) has refocused on road racing this season. After several strong performances this spring, including a win at Paris-Roubaix, Ferrand-Prévot spent the summer focused on her preparations for the Tour. SD Worx-Protime, Vollering's former team, remains one of the deepest teams in the women's peloton. World champion Lotte Kopecky intended to focus on the general classification for the team this year, but the team's race preview announced it has 'abandoned its original plan to go for the general classification with Kopecky as its sole leader' after Kopecky withdrew from the Giro with back pain. Instead, the team arrives at the Tour in stage-hunting mode, though sports director Danny Stam left the door open for a general classification push depending on how Kopecky feels. Pauliena Rooijakkers (Fenix-Deceunick) had a career-best performance in the final stage of last year's Tour, which resulted in her claiming the final step on the podium. She and last year's white jersey winner Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceunick) represent their team's general classification hopes, as Cédrine Kerabol does for EF Education-Oatly. How Does The Tour de France Femmes Work? ALPE D'HUEZ, FRANCE - AUGUST 18: (L-R) Puck Pieterse of The Netherlands and Team Fenix-Deceuninck - ... More White Best Young Rider Jersey, Justine Ghekiere of Belgium - Polka dot Mountain Jersey, Katarzyna Niewiadoma of Poland and Team Canyon//SRAM Racing - Yellow Leader Jersey and Marianne Vos of The Netherlands and Team Visma | Lease a Bike - Green Points Jersey celebrate at final podium during the 3rd Tour de France Femmes 2024, Stage 8 a 149.9km stage from Le Grand-Bornand to Alpe d'Huez 1828m / #UCIWWT / on August 18, 2024 in Alpe d'Huez, France. (Photo by) There are 22 teams starting the 2025 Tour de France Femmes. All 15 of the UCI Women's World Tour teams were invited. Seven UCI Women's ProTeams make up the rest of the peloton, with the two best in the 2024 rankings earning an automatic invite and the rest selected by the Tour's organizers, Amaury Sport Organization (ASO). Each of these teams sends seven riders to the race. The riders vie for four individual classifications during the race, each marked by a specialty jersey. The most important of these—and the most coveted in the sport—is the yellow jersey. This belongs to the rider with the fastest cumulative time. The race leader on each stage wears yellow before the Tour's overall winner is crowned at the end of the race. The other time-based classification is that of the best young rider. The rider under the age of 23 with the fastest cumulative time wears the white jersey. The final two individual classification are points-based. First, the green jersey is worn by the leader of the points classification. Riders rack up points during each stage at the intermediate sprint and the finish line in this competition. This is typically understood as the 'sprinters classification' and the flatter the stage, the more points available on the finish line. Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) won this classification in 2022 and 2024 and aims for a third crown this year. The polka dot jersey is for the leader in the mountains classification, who is often called the 'Queen of the Mountains.' Riders earn points for cresting climbs in a top position and the higher the climb, the more points available at the top. AG-Insurance Soudal's Justine Ghekiere returns to defend her title from last year, which she won ahead of Vollering. The only individual classification with an eligibility requirement is the white jersey, and a rider can lead more than one classification at a time. There is also a teams classification, where the ranking is determined based on the general classification times of each team's first three riders on each stage. The leading team does not get their own yellow jersey, but they do wear yellow race numbers. The final major award on the road is the combativity prize. The most aggressive rider of each stage earns the day's combativity prize. The rider judged the most aggressive across the entire race wins the Super Combativity award at the final podium ceremony.
Fast Company
11-07-2025
- Automotive
- Fast Company
This stunning new bike and pedestrian crossing hangs off the side of an old railroad bridge
When the small French city of Albi needed a new bridge for cyclists and pedestrians, it didn't start from scratch. Instead, it asked architects to repurpose an old railway bridge. The viaduct, which spans nearly 600 feet across the Tarn River, is still in use by trains, so it wasn't possible to add a path on top. Instead, the new footbridge, which just opened, is attached to the side of the 19th-century structure. It creates a direct link to walk or bike from the car-free city center to a large park and growing development on the other side of the Tarn. In the past, the only options for crossing were narrow, car-filled bridges farther down the river. On the old bridges, 'there's a lot of traffic, and not much space for the pedestrians and bicycles,' says Matthieu Mallié of Ney Partners, the Brussels-based firm that designed the new bridge. 'The bicycles are in the vehicle lanes, so it's uncomfortable for them to take this road.' With the new passageway, 'you're in a dedicated area, and there are no cars,' he says. 'There's no pressure from motorized traffic.' The bridge is one part of the local government's broader climate plan, which includes goals to cut car traffic and boost cycling. And it illustrates how going beyond a simple utilitarian design can increase the likelihood that people will actually prefer to walk or bike. On the new bridge, it's possible to see the historic viaduct up close, something that wasn't accessible before. And the path includes extra space under each arch of the viaduct for people to linger and look at the city. 'It's like you're looking at the frame of a painting,' Mallié says. 'The existing viaduct frames the landscape. It helps you understand the city from an unusual point of view.' Adding on to the old bridge also made it cheaper to build, at a cost of around 5.5 million euros (roughly $6.4 million). 'From a structural and economical point of view,' Mallié says, 'it makes sense to reuse an existing structure.'
Identity
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Identity
Why Music Collabs Across the Arab World Matter More Than Ever
In 2025, Arab music is no longer confined by borders, or genres, or dialects, or even expectations. A new wave of collaboration is sweeping across the region, not as a passing trend, but as a cultural, strategic, and emotional necessity. Artists are no longer just making music, they're building bridges in a region that desperately needs connection. For decades, the Arab world's music scenes functioned in silos. Moroccan rap lived in Casablanca. Khaleeji pop stayed in the Gulf. Levantine indie barely made it beyond Beirut. Even the biggest stars often catered only to local audiences, shaped by fragmented media ecosystems and limited industry infrastructure. But those rules are dissolving, and fast. The shift isn't just about the sound. It's about who the music reaches and what it represents. When Amr Diab and Cheb Khaled dropped 'Albi,' it wasn't just two icons collaborating, it was Egypt and Algeria, two giants with decades of history and distinct sonic legacies, coming together in one track. It was a rare moment of musical diplomacy: pop met rai, nostalgia met evolution, and fans across North Africa and the Levant tuned in to a shared moment. That sense of shared identity feels even more powerful in tracks like 'Kalamantina,' where Saint Levant's smooth, diaspora-inflected flow collided with Marwan Moussa's sharp Egyptian cadence. It wasn't just a song, it was a conversation between worlds. Every listener could find a piece of themselves in the mix. And that's the point. Arab youth today aren't defined by national borders. They're fluid, global, political, polyglot, and their playlists reflect it. Collaboration now is more than creativity. It's a form of resistance. In a region where politics, censorship, and media often divide, music has become one of the few spaces where unity feels possible. When artists collaborate across countries, they unlock access, not just to fanbases, but to stages, festivals, and charts that would otherwise remain closed. Music now travels faster than policy. A producer in Beirut can DM a rapper in Casablanca, send a beat to Riyadh, and drop the song on TikTok the next day. The internet has erased the logistical excuses. What's left is choice, and artists are choosing each other. Most importantly, they're responding to demand. Arab Gen Z isn't passively consuming music; they're driving it. They want stories that reflect their reality: not neatly packaged national identities, but messy, mixed, multilingual ones. The success of these collaborations shows that fans are ahead of the industry. They're not asking for representation, they're curating it. So why do collaborations across the Arab world matter more than ever? Because they reflect the future that Arab youth are already living. Because they offer unity in a time of fracture. Because they bypass the broken and build something new. And because they prove, again and again, that even in a region of difference, the beat still brings us back to each other.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Your eyes can reveal the accuracy of your memories
We like to think our brains are reliable recorders—but reality says otherwise. From misremembered childhood moments to mistakenly 'recalling' that you took your pills when you didn't, false memories are surprisingly common. And in high-stakes situations like courtroom testimony, these errors can have devastating consequences. Wouldn't it be amazing if there were an objective way to measure just how accurate someone's memory really is? New research suggests we might be able to do just that—by watching the eyes. Scientists have known since the 1960s that our pupils tend to widen when we're thinking hard—whether we're remembering something, solving a problem, or paying close attention. But those early studies mostly looked at short-term memory, so it wasn't clear whether the same effect applied to long-term recall. Then came a curious discovery in the 1970s: people's pupils also dilated when they recognized something they'd seen before. This phenomenon, called the 'pupil old/new effect,' has since been confirmed in multiple experiments. But recent research has taken this a step further, suggesting that pupil dilation may not just reflect whether something feels familiar, but also how clearly and precisely it's remembered. In a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, researchers Ádám Albi and Péter Pajkossy from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics set out to test this idea. They recruited 28 volunteers in Hungary and asked them to study 80 two- or three-syllable words that are infrequently used in the Hungarian language. The words were presented to the participants on a screen at a specific point along the edge of an invisible circle. Later, participants were shown a mix of old and new words, this time centered on the screen. For each word they recognized, they were asked to recall where it had originally appeared. While participants responded, the researchers tracked their pupil size. The results were striking. When people recognized a word they'd seen earlier, their pupils dilated—and the effect was more pronounced when participants could precisely remember the word's original location. Even when people weren't sure where on the screen they had seen the word before but recognized the word as familiar, their pupils still dilated more than when they saw a brand-new word. This suggests our eyes reflect two layers of memory: a general sense of familiarity, and the precision of specific details, Albi tells Popular Science. So, what's actually going on inside the brain? 'To date, there is no consensus on the precise cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms that drive pupil responses during different forms of memory retrieval, such as recognition,' Albi says. But one leading theory centers on the concept of attentional salience—how much something grabs our focus. A vivid memory might not just come to mind; it demands attention. That memory could trigger activity in a region of the brain called the locus coeruleus–noradrenergic system, which regulates attention. When activated, this system also causes the pupils to dilate. This growing understanding opens up some exciting possibilities. 'Pupil dilation could serve as a non-invasive marker of memory quality in settings such as education, clinical assessment, or legal testimony—especially when evaluating the depth or reliability of someone's memory,' Mohamed El Haj, a neuropsychologist and professor at the University of Nantes in France, who was not involved in the study, tells Popular Science. And because pupil measurement is noninvasive, cost-effective, and methodologically simpler than other brain analysis techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or electroencephalogram (EEG), as Albi points out, it holds real promise for widespread use. Imagine being able to gauge the reliability of an eyewitness just by tracking their pupils. That future may not be far off.
