We reproduce the statement issued by Robert Kirshner, Executive Director of the TMT International Observatory (TIO), regarding the decision by TIO partners not to accept the funding proposal put forward by Spain for the TMT site at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory. Statement from TMT International Observatory on Spain’s Financing Proposal “Following TIO's September 18 letter to Minister Morant, we want to share more about our decision. TIO’s partners gave Spain’s financing proposal extensive and careful consideration, and ultimately were not able to accept the proposal. Therefore, TIO

The international BEARD project, led from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of La Laguna (ULL), has used data from several telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, and computer simulations to explain how galaxies similar to the Milky Way have managed to survive the most violent stages of the history of the Universe. The present model for the evolution of the universe predicts an epoch dominated by important mergers of galaxies some ten thousand million years ago. “It’s a case of violent interactions, in which it is foreseeable that weak structures