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There is a scientific scale to measure how much you enjoy watching pimples explode and many people have high scores

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The paths of the Internet are inscrutable. Sometimes, the videos that set trends on social networks are more than understandable. For example, who isn’t going to like kitten videos? However, on other occasions, there are videos that divide society. It is the case of the videos of exploding pimples. For some users, they are as pleasurable as exploiting them in person. For others, precisely those who can’t stand it in real life either, they are the height of unpleasantness. But what is it about the act of popping pimples or seeing it on the screen? Why are there so many people who enjoy it? Actually, with psychology in hand, it is not so strange. The problem is that, if we change psychology for dermatology, it can be dangerous in some cases. Although not as much as we think Why do we enjoy popping pimples so much? For starters, our penchant for popping pimples is related to dopamine. Humans experience pleasure when a surge of dopamine is released in our brain. In reality it is a much more complex process, but we can keep that in a simplified way. It is the hormone that dominates reward systems. That is, those who They are set in motion when we do something that is beneficial to us as a species. For example, sex is beneficial, because it helps us perpetuate the species. Eating chocolate is beneficial because it gives us energy. The brain does not distinguish between energetic and healthy, so it also generates that feeling of pleasure that makes us want to repeat. If we have a lot of sex it will be easier for us to reproduce and if we eat a lot of chocolate we will have a lot of energy. That’s the summary of how reward systems work. Unfortunately, not everything that activates reward systems is always good. Drugs, for example, can replicate that feeling of pleasure, despite not providing us with any benefit. Leaving that aside, stopping feeling pain also gives us pleasure, logically. It’s good for us. Furthermore, from a much more superficial point of view, what is beautiful and aesthetic is equally pleasant. For that reason, there are people who get so much pleasure from exploding pimples. With a single gesture of her nails, they are removing something painful and unsightlyso they get a good shot of dopamine. What about the videos? The case of videos that circulate on social networks is not exactly the same. There we are only spectators. We are not directly exploiting the pimples. Even so, just take a look at the visualizations to see that they cause a sensation. A feeling that, in fact, is not new. In 2021 already There was a team of Austrian scientists who were interested in the reasons why so many people enjoy these types of videos. They carried out an investigation with 80 women, of which 38 reported that they enjoyed these videos and 42 indicated that they did not. Their brains were analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they watched several of these videos, so it was observed that, indeed, those who enjoyed them showed greater activity in brain regions associated with pleasurelike the nucleus accumbens. Later, in 2024, these same scientists They developed scales that they called the Grain Exploitation Enjoyment Scale. (PPES) to evaluate people who enjoy this guilty pleasure. The study was carried out through two experiments. In the first, 104 people participated and were asked questions aimed at evaluating the PPES scale. In addition, they were made to watch videos of people exploiting pimples, with complete freedom to move the video forward or backward if they saw it necessary. Thus, the scale was found to be appropriate, since higher scores corresponded to a lower probability of forwarding the video. Many people watch videos of exploding pimples because of the controlled risk Then, with the scale already evaluated, a second experiment was done, this time with 501 people, who were asked questions to score through the PPES scale, but also through other personality scales. The objective was to check what type of traits lead someone to enjoy these videos. Thus, it was seen that, mainly, people with higher PPES scores are those who feel pleasure with situations of possible death or discomfort in controlled and non-threatening situations. It should be said that this does not mean that possible death is pleasurable, but the adrenaline of risky situations does, when seen from the outside, without real danger. People who enjoy these situations also tend to be lovers of horror movies, for example. To a certain extent, this human tendency is also linked to the survival of the species. Enjoyment in risky situations leads us to observe them conscientiously and learn in case, when the time comes, we find ourselves in a similar scenario in real life. It is true that exploding pimples is not fatal, but it does pose a certain risk, so seeing it from the outside, in a controlled way, can cause a feeling of pleasure. If we add the dopamine from seeing something unsightly removed, we can understand the fury of these viral videos. What are the risks of popping pimples? We have seen that people who enjoy pimple popping videos do so because they see a certain dangerous situation. It is not doing bungee jumping, but it has its risk. Now, to what extent is it dangerous? To find out, I have contacted Rosa Tabernerdermatologist at the Son Llátzer Hospital (Palma de Mallorca) and member of the Spanish Association of Dermatology and Venereology. To begin with, he explained something very interesting to me: the reason why in viral videos (and in reality) you see those yellow threads when removing the pimple. The key is in the keratin that accumulates in the pores of the skin. “Pimples or blackheads correspond to what dermatologists call open comedones,” he begins. “When this opening is more dilated than normal and sebum secretion is increased, keratin accumulates in that pore.” Keratin … Read more

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Especially if you are a bacteria on Mars

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Today, astronauts They usually quarantine before traveling to space to ensure that they do not carry with them any unwanted pathogenic microorganisms. This is for two reasons. On the one hand, it prevents them from getting sick at such a distance from a doctor who can treat them. On the other hand, we do not know how these microorganisms may behave beyond our planet, so it is better not to carry any. The problem is that, when lunar and Martian colonizations arrive, it will not be so easy to make this type of controls. Sooner or later it is likely that some pathogenic bacteria will reach there, so it is important to know what we should expect. Several studies have been done in this regard, but one of the most interesting and recent is the doctoral thesis of astrobiologist Tommaso Zaccaria, from Radboud University. In this thesisstudies how four species of bacteria would behave on Mars. Thus, he discovers that not only could they survive. They could also become much more dangerous to humans. Four pathogenic bacteria. The study was carried out with four species of non-extremophilic pathogenic bacteria. That is, disease-causing bacteria that are not naturally prepared to resist extreme conditions. Those chosen were Klebsiella pneumoniae, Serratia marcescens, Burkholderia cepacia and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. First, Zaccaria exposed them to a simulated Martian environment, with conditions such as very low pressure, desiccation, very high ultraviolet radiation and high concentrations of perchlorates. There were two that held up especially well: Klebsiella pneumoniae and Serratia marcescens. For this reason, they were chosen for a second phase of the research, in which they were exposed to human immune cells. The results were quite worrying. Martian superbacteria. When exposed to bacteria that had remained in Martian conditions, it was seen that the immune cells lost their ability to produce cytokines, proteins that are part of the defensive response. They also didn’t produce as many reactive oxygen species, which are also produced as a result of an inflammatory immune reaction. In short, it seems that Martianized bacteria become much more elusive for the human immune system. The reasons. Zaccaria thinks that, in part, the bacteria’s resistance is due to the influence of the martian regolith. And it has nooks and crannies where water can accumulate that would help with desiccation. In addition, it protects them against ultraviolet radiation. At the same time, they themselves develop resistance mechanisms, which help them defend themselves against Martian inclemencies, but also against the human immune system. They become superbugs. The regolith doesn’t help at all. We have already seen that the regolith becomes a protector of bacteria. But the thing doesn’t stop there. In his study, Zaccaria exposed both live mice and human epithelial cells to simulated lunar and Martian regolith. Thus, it was seen that regolith damages the epithelial cells that normally cover the airways and, in addition, enhances inflammation and the activation of genes for mucus formation and pulmonary fibrosis. Let us remember that one of the bacteria that survives Martian conditions is causing pneumonia. That the regolith sensitizes the lungs does not help at all. Although it should be noted that the lunar regolith turned out to be worse than the Martian one. The effects are not comparable. ‘Klebsiella pneumoniae’ Heroin yeasts. Finally, this scientist has verified how Martian conditions affect eukaryotic microorganisms. Bacteria are prokaryotes because they do not have a delimited nucleus. Yeasts, for their part, are eukaryotic microorganisms. One of the yeasts tested in the study, Rhodotorula frigidalcoholisshowed great resistance to Martian conditions. It is capable of stopping its cell cycle and repairing DNA, so that dangerous changes do not continue to spread from one cell to another. Learning more about this mechanism could help us protect ourselves in our future as space colonizers. After all, our cells are eukaryotic. This doesn’t end here. Zaccaria wants to study some bacterial defense mechanisms, such as the formation of biofilms or the synthesis of certain pigments. In addition, he hopes to be able to analyze how Martian conditions affect bacteria that are beneficial, such as those of the intestinal microbiota. With all this, we will be able to have a much more precise photograph to prevent the possible evils of future colonizers. When quarantines are not enough, it will be better to have a well-researched action plan. Image | NASA | Ajay Kumar Chaurasiya In Xataka | Chernobyl was filled with mushrooms after the nuclear accident. Thanks to them we discovered a “new form of photosynthesis”

We have been heating water to make coffee for a century. It wasn’t necessary: ​​just ultrasounds

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For many people, making coffee is practically as important a ritual as drinking it. Because by the way: anyone can make coffee, but not everyone does it well. Following scrupulously the Specialty Coffee Association recipe, To make the canonical espresso you need 7 to 9 grams of coffee and force the passage of water at 90.5 – 96.1ºC at 9 – 10 atmospheres of pressure. The coffee grind should be such that the extraction time is 20 to 30 seconds. That’s what any barista or super-automatic machine should aspire to. Next to nothing. Although the coffee maker is not on the list of appliances that increase the electricity bill at home the most, on an industrial scale things change: this process of bringing the water to those temperature and pressure conditions represents a significant energy cost. So an Australian research team has found another way to do it without the need for heat: ultrasound. The invention. To make coffee with ultrasound and without heat, the first thing you need is a filter holder tuned in an ultrasonic reactor where high-frequency sound waves induce acoustic cavitation. It sounds backwards, but in practice the ultrasonic coffee maker that the University of New South Wales has patented looks like a normal coffee maker with a small accessory. Let’s go back to the acoustic cavitation. Roughly speaking, the waves create thousands of tiny bubbles within the water that, when collapsing with the ground coffee, act as if they were a hammer: they break the surface of the heat and release what is inside, that is, flavors, oils, aromas and caffeine. The result is an espresso with a concentration equivalent to conventional espresso in less than three minutes. Why is it important. Because you can make coffee consuming much less: for the same amount of drink, this ultrasonic system consumes only 24.3% of the energy required by a conventional espresso machine. On a domestic scale the savings are small, but for a factory that 75% saving is significant. And it has another win-win for the industry: the coffee obtained comes out cold and concentrated, so there is no need to wait for it to cool (or chill it), it is ready to be mixed directly with milk or water in a factory, which saves time, energy and money. Context. Although it sounds exotic, ultrasounds are not new in the food industry. Without going any further, They have been used for decades for the processing of juices, oils or dairy products. In fact, its application to coffee is not new either: at least two manufacturers have brought similar infusion devices to the marketbut they didn’t go that far: the UNSW project goes one step further. Thus, it is the first that has achieved an espresso (not a diluted cold brew, your previous job) that passes for a conventional espresso in a sensory tasting with 100 participants. In detail. The study analyzed the influence of variables such as grind size, extraction ratio and duration of ultrasonic treatment. And he came to the conclusions that a finer grind managed to extract the flavor more efficiently and an infusion time of between 2.5 and 3 minutes gave the best results. For sensory tasting, the team conducted random blind tests with four beverages: traditional espresso, ultrasonic espresso, traditional filter coffee, and ultrasonic filter coffee. In the case of espresso, those who participated were unable to clearly distinguish which had been prepared traditionally and which had been prepared ultrasonically as there were no significant differences in aroma, flavor, bitterness or overall rating. Curiously, for filter coffee the ultrasonic version was preferred. Yes, but. The first limitation of this peculiar way of making coffee is time: compared to less than half a minute, with ultrasound the process lasts up to three minutes. A time that can be interesting (due to energy savings) on an industrial scale, but not for hospitality and homes. On the other hand, and although it comes out with flying colors in the blind tastings, they have not analyzed the presence of healthy compounds in coffee, such as polyphenols or antioxidants, nor their proportion. Drinking coffee is a pleasure that also has health benefits. Finally, the ultrasonic coffee maker is currently a prototype: the enormous leap from the laboratory to the industrial scale remains to be made. In Xataka | Coffee doesn’t just wake you up: science now suggests that it also improves your mood (even decaffeinated) In Xataka | Drinking coffee is not harmful, but for science there is a very clear limit that should not be exceeded

“We are doing something pleasant, but producing, and our brain loves that”

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Like any social media user, over the last few years I have been continually bombarded with posts from people who have gone to all kinds of workshops. of art. From making clay bowls to painting tote bags, anything is worth taking the required photo while having a glass of wine or snacks with friends or strangers. All for the modest price of a piece of kidney. That’s how I saw it. A little piece of capitalism wrapped in glitter and pastel colors, together with one more check in the list of photos that any good Instagram user of the 21st century should have. However, over time I began to think that perhaps there was something more. The fever for ceramic or painting workshops It’s lasting long enough to be a simple fad. What if it actually had some use that is hooking all those people who not only dare to do it once, but often repeat it? It is clear that it has a relationship with capitalism. But what if, beyond being just another part of the machine, it was a way to relieve the stress and anxiety generated by illness? hyperproductivity of that capitalist society in which we live? I talked about it with the health psychologist Amanda Ortiz Gabaldonwho told me that, indeed, my thoughts were not wrong. That’s why I decided to do one of these workshops. I have always considered that crafts are not my thing. Honestly, my soul hurt for spending 50 euros in a ceramics workshop to make an amorphous vase. That’s why, when I found out that the Andalusian Neighborhood Site in Almería, where I live, was organizing a free ceramics workshop, I didn’t think twice. It was time to take the test. The benefits of ceramic workshops For Ortiz Gabaldón, there are three key reasons why ceramic workshops and other artistic activities are so fashionable. To begin with, human beings are social animals, but today we live in an individualized society. We have a visceral need to interact with other people and that is something that ceramic workshops can give us. “We are super disconnected and these are ways to meet new people.” On the other hand, ceramic workshops and other artistic disciplines are a way of mindfulness. “It is a way of being present, of forcing ourselves to stop.” During the duration of the workshop, there are no emails to answer, no work to do or shopping lists to prepare. It only remains be present on site and concentrate on the task. We can also do this at home. We can even set ourselves the daily task of doing nothing. We can sit on the couch and meditate, read, or just stop. But of course, this requires a concentration that we are not always able to achieve. That is why the third reason why, according to Ortiz Gabaldón, these types of workshops succeed is so important. “We are doing something pleasant, but producing, and our brain loves that.” That’s right, although we are disconnecting from the tasks that stress us, we are also producing. We are manufacturing something. That calms that feeling of having to continually do things that causes us so much anxiety. The ideal would be to be able to sit and do nothing; but, while we get there, this is an ideal middle ground. Shape to not think about anything In 1999, a psychologist from the Kyoto University of Education named Fumio Kayo saw something that caught his attention when visiting a kindergarten in that city. Both children and teachers were focused and enjoying the simple task of making mud balls. But they didn’t just roll balls. They used a technique that consists of taking wet sand to mold it and adding dry soil little by little, with great patience, until they obtained a soft, hard and shiny ball. The technique is called Hikaru Dorodango and Kayo saw it as an opportunity to work with children beyond that school. Upon studying it in depth, he discovered that it is very useful for children’s intellectual development for many reasons. There are the obvious reasons, such as improving fine motor skills. But there are also deeper reasons. Spending so much time shaping helps children improve concentration and perseverance through trial and error. Furthermore, they manage to overcome the immediate gratification drive which is increasingly ingrained in both children and adults. They don’t get a dopamine hit from watching a 20-second video. They must sit and concentrate on that ball of clay that is forming in their hands until, with time and patience, they get a nice marble. After Kayo published several articles about herthis technique crossed barriers to the West and became a form of meditative art that is also successful among adults. In a way, you achieve exactly the same thing as with ceramic workshops, but without more incentives such as a snack or interactions with other people. Whatever the case, it is increasingly clear that these activities have a great use against anxiety. In 2024, for example, a study was published in which 53 university students were surveyed regarding their mental health before and after completing a series of art therapy workshops. It was found that self-perceived anxiety levels decreased significantly with the workshops, especially those in which clay modeling was involved. It is true that normally these types of studies They are done with very few participants, but the reality is that they all point to very similar results that fit with what we have already seen. I have corroborated it Lately I’ve been going through a time of enough stressso I threw myself into the ceramics workshop hoping that it would really work for me as the psychologists say. And the truth is that yes. It was almost three hours on a Sunday morning molding an Andalusian lamp. Three hours in which, indeed, I focused on the here and now. I won’t deny that from time to time my mind wandered to everything I had … Read more

Centuries ago someone thought it was a good idea to paint over a Rembrandt painting. The question is why the devil erased a man with a turban

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The fact that he has been dead for more than three and a half centuries does not prevent him from Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijnone of the great geniuses of baroque painting, continue to surprise historians. And in the most unexpected ways. In 2014, one of his youthful works appeared by surprise at an auction held in Cologne. Now, with your attribution already confirmedthe experts in charge of cleaning the canvas have had another surprise: under a subsequent layer of paint they have discovered a man with dark skin, a black beard and a large turban. It was once painted by Rembrandt himself, but someone decided to retouch the figure to turn it into a venerable old man with a white, wrinkled face, gray beard, and a traditional Dutch cap. The question is obvious: Why? Isn’t that a Rembrandt? The painting Let the children come to me It was probably painted around 1627, when Rembrandt was 21 years old. However, it did not rise to fame until almost 400 years later, well into the 21st century. To be more precise, we must go back to May 2014, when the canvas was included in an auction held in Cologne with a fuzzy business card. Its owners presented it as a piece of the “Dutch school” dating back to the mid-17th century and sold it for 1.5 million euros. It was a good pinch, but it ended in pocket change when some time later it was confirmed that in reality that anonymous 125 x 109 cm canvas (with frame) was neither more nor less than a work from Rembrandt’s youth. Recently Sotheby’s he put it up for auction again with an estimated value of between 9.3 and 14 million of euros. The work before the restoration, with the added modifications. And the (other) surprise arrived. Such a record would have been enough to give the painting a prominent place in Rembrandt’s legacy. Recently, however, Sotheby’s revealed that the canvas hid another secret. What we have seen so far was not exactly what the Leiden artist painted, but rather a version adulterated by a hand less skilled with brushes, a contemporary artist by Rembrandt. There are those who even have a name: Claes Cornelisz Moeyaert. Given that experts believe that the Dutch painter left the work “partially unfinished”, working hard on the upper part of the painting and sketching the lower part, it is understandable that someone would want to finish it. The intriguing thing is that in doing so that anonymous hand did not simply follow Rembrandt’s design. In addition to finishing the canvas, he repainted it, erasing, adding and modifying it to taste. We know this because in recent years technicians have studied the work with X-rays and have dedicated themselves to carefully eliminating overlapping layers. Does things change that much? Yes. It comes with taking a look at the photos that were released on the day of the painting and those disclosed by Sotheby’s following the last auction to prove it. The motif of the painting is the same: the biblical scene, collected in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Lucasin which Jesus uttered his famous phrase: “Let the children come to me.” If we look closely, however, differences can be seen between its status in 2014 and 2026. The elimination of the repaintings changes the color, has made some figures emerge and eliminated others. A boy in the foreground who was wearing an ocher suit now looks how Rebrandt must have seen him, with his back bare. However the most powerful alteration It is another: we now know that one of the central figures in the scene was a dark-skinned man with a turban who the artist who retouched the work completely modified, turning him into a venerable old man. For some unknown reason, the original exotic turban ended up becoming a red Dutch hat and the black beard became a long, gray beard. The work already restored and as presented by Sotheby’s. More than a detail. That detail has attracted attention of media from half the planet. And it’s normal. There are those who believe that if Rembrandt initially opted for a man with a turban, surely Muslim, it was not for an aesthetic reason. He wanted to capture what he saw in part in his own country in the 17th century, a multicultural environment, marked by religious rivalries, the coming and going of thousands of refugees and the social tensions that this generated in the streets. As remember historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, “in 1627, when Rembrandt began the painting, Leiden was going through a humanitarian crisis.” “The Thirty Years’ War was at its peak and hundreds of thousands of people arrived as refugees in the Dutch Republic,” he adds. It is estimated that in 1626 alone approximately 10,000 refugees arrived in Leiden. …and more than paint. Was that context transferred to Rembrandt’s canvas? Did you want to capture the spirit of what you saw on the streets of your city, the position that in your opinion should be maintained towards refugees arriving from other places? “It depicted a mass scene of Christ welcoming children and families. It was very controversial at the time. There were people in Leiden who did not want to receive them,” Graham-Dixon abounds. “What we gather is that Rembrandt was on the side of humanitarian aid. So I think this is more than just a painting. It’s a statement of his moral stance.” The truth is that in the work we see a crowd in which religion is represented. Jewish and Christian. “It looks familiar”. The figure wearing a turban is not the only surprise. Experts have identified in it a self-portrait of Rembrandt himself, who represented himself at the top, as a young man who appears to be looking at the scene perched on a pillar, although in reality he is looking at us. “His physiognomy is familiar to us thanks to the numerous painted self-portraits, drawings and engravings that he made over … Read more

is going to spend 500 million on the chips of the future

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If you have traveled to Asia to countries like Japan, China or Singapore, it is possible that along your journey you have put your butt on a smart toilet. And it is also likely that that smart toilet was from the TOTO brand. The Japanese firm is famous mainly for its toilets, but the fact that its core is china allows it to be on the front page in the midst of the AI ​​boom and that is not so well known: it has been in the chip business since 1984, manufacturing high precision ceramic components employed in semiconductors. It is not NVIDIA or AMD, but to give us an idea of ​​how serious Toto is and its level of competition, it has just invested a fortune with one goal: to scale its production to the most advanced one-nanometer chips. It should be remembered that IBM just achieved the first chip of that very small size. Towards 1nm chips. Already in February the Pallister Capital fund (one of the largest shareholders of Toto) qualified to a company as “the most undervalued and overlooked beneficiary of AI memory”, highlighting that its chip component manufacturing segment already accounts for more than 50% of its profit. What he also blamed on the Japanese company is the lack of transparency. A few months later, Toto has picked up the gauntlet: just announced an investment of $495 million over five years to scale its business to the most advanced technological horizon in the chip industry: supporting next-generation manufacturing technologies in the nanometer range. Why is it important. The rise of data centers and AI is fueling demand for advanced semiconductors in search of increasingly smaller and more efficient chips. Without advanced materials like those made by TOTO, the miniaturization needed for one-nanometer technology would not be possible. And this diversification is very profitable for Toto. Nikkei Asia collects its astronomical projected figures for this segment: operating profit of 27,000 million yen (146 million euros) for the fiscal year ended in March 2026, an absolute historical record and 32% more than the previous year. It is already what makes the most money for the toilet company. At the state level, this investment is part of Japan’s effort to strengthen its domestic semiconductor supply chain in a context where several countries wish to reduce their dependence on Taiwan and South Korea. Context. Toto began research in the field of advanced ceramics in the 1970s, as Japan’s period of rapid post-war growth was winding down. As relates Toto ceramics business planning department manager Junji Kameshima said, “We wanted to use our ceramics experience to create high-value products.” In 1984 that area was officially established and in 2020 it went from artisanal and low-performance production to playing in the first division. The jump was thanks to Nakatsu’s highly automated plant, with AI systems trained to detect minimal defects: it went from a performance of 50-60% to more than 90% and delivery times were reduced from 180 days to just over 40. Its product portfolio within the semiconductor area was consolidated around three main products: the most important are e-chucks, ceramic discs that hold the silicon wafer during the etching of NAND memory chips. The second are aerosol deposition components, which protect internal walls of the etching chambers. The third are highly durable structural parts used in large LCD panel manufacturing equipment. The three take advantage of a skill acquired making ceramics for the bathroom: ceramic firing of high precision and purity. In detail. This investment of 495 million dollars over five years has three specific lines of action: Expand the machinery at its Oita and Fukuoka plants, already operating at full capacity. Reorient R&D at its Kanagawa plant toward logic semiconductors. Build a new cooking building in Fukuoka, scheduled for January 2027. Part of the investment has already been decided, but the rest will be available depending on market conditions. Thus, if the demand still cannot be met, Nikkei Asia leaks that Toto will consider the construction of a new plant from scratch. Yesyes, but. It seems that days of wine and roses are coming for Toto, based on its solid figures, but there are aspects to take into account. The first is that NAND memory already collapsed a few years ago and could do it again before the Japanese company recovers the investment. On the other hand, this optimistic speech comes from Pallister, one of those interested in Toto doing well (he is an investor). Also, Toto has very few large clients, so a slowdown from any of them can be a severe blow. In Xataka | The fascinating world of Japanese electronic toilets: sensors, microchips and what’s to come In Xataka | Welcome to the AI ​​duopoly: the sector already has a turnover of 80 billion a year, but OpenAI and Anthropic take 89% of the revenue Cover | Toto and Igor Omilaev

buy businesses that are going under

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Bending Spoons is now listed on Wall Street, something it was pursuing for five years. The Italian company has managed to raise $1.68 billion in its IPO in the US. It has done so with an initial price of $29 per share, well above the range that had been initially set. That makes its market capitalization at that time $18.4 billion, when in 2025 the valuation was $14.5 billion. The curious thing is not its growth, but the way to achieve it. A tribute to ‘The Matrix’. Founded in Milan in 2013, Bending Spoons takes its name from a famous movie scene science fiction from the late 90s. In it a child explains to Neo that we should not try to bend the spoon, but rather understand that the spoon does not exist. The company was born from the ashes of Evertale, a failed Danish startup of its same founders, including its current CEO, Luca Ferrari. Buying companies that are going bankrupt. The company is dedicated to buy companies in trouble. Throughout its history it has purchased more than 50 stagnant apps and websites, including Evernote, WeTransfer, Meetup, Vimeo, Eventbrite and, the most important of all, AOL. Your relentless recipe for success. He always does it with the same strategy: identify a popular product but in decline, he buys it, redesigns it and completely rewrites your technology if necessary and then convert your existing users into customers of a subscription model. No matter how uncomfortable or crude it may seem, the business works: in the first quarter of 2026 it already declared a net profit of $27.5 million on $601 million in revenue. Last year it lost $112 million on revenue of $259 million. The growth is enviable: it has gone from 111 million active users at the end of 2023 to 500 million in March 2026, and paying users have gone from 3 to 9 million in the same period. An easy company to hate. The Bending Spoons pattern repeats over and over again: after acquiring a company carries out a drastic staff cut and it also tends to raise the price of subscriptions to the services it purchases. With Evernote virtually fired to the entire original workforce, with WeTransfer got rid of 75% of employees and after buying Vimeo too made numerous layoffs of the video equipment. In fact, in 2025 Bending Spoons allocated more than $78 million to restructuring expenses after absorbing the staffs of AOL, Eventbrite and Vimeo. AI as a driver. Although Bending Spoons does not present itself as an AI company, it does highlight that it uses AI as an efficiency driver. Like others in recent times, the company boasts that around 90% of its code is already developed with the help of AI. According to its CEO, Luca Ferrari, this has allowed it to double its income per employee up to 2.57 million dollars in 2025, a figure that even exceeds that of giants like Apple. The company actually pays high salaries to its European engineers while continuing to buy companies at bargain prices. Source: Investors’ Chronicle. And they will continue to buy. The CEO of Bending Spoons has made it clear that this money raised on the stock market is not the end point of the activity, but rather it is fuel to continue buying companies in trouble. The company aims for between three and five new acquisitions per year. The curious thing is that we are at a time when this strategy is promising, because AI has already made it clear that the threat to SaaS businesses (Software as a Service) is notable. And Bending Spoon will be there to take advantage of its moment. Image | Warner Bros. In Xataka | Technology companies have laid off 92,000 employees to invest in AI. The problem is that the layoffs are costing them a fortune.

“I have chosen automobiles as a symbol of extreme freedom for man”

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“The upper classes dedicate their leisure time to sports or activities that often involve bizarre risks. (…) The upper classes of the liberal order, among whom there are no bricklayers, love any leisure activity that involves challenging time, one of the capitals they have in abundance. And one of the ways to challenge time is speed. In turn, speed (which has nothing to do with haste) is synonymous with status“. Raquel Peláez in I want and I can’t: a story of the posh people of Spain. Enzo Ferrari was born in the 19th century. Yes, in the death throes of the century, but still in the 19th century. It was 1898 and less than a decade remained for the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti collected in The Figaro he Futurist Manifesto. This most likely explains much of Enzo Ferrari’s life. Il Commendatore He was born in Modena and a year before a handful of artists subscribed to the aforementioned text he was able to see his first car race. It was 1908, I was ten years old. In the next eight years he would lose his brother and his father and would join the ranks of the army in the Great War. In those days, Enzo Ferrari had already done his first jobs as a mechanic and tried to get his skills taken into account to fix military vehicles although he was unsuccessful in the attempt. Upon his return to a destroyed Italy, he headed to Turin with the dream of joining Fiat, where he was rejected. Despite everything, it didn’t take him long to find a place as a mechanic and with the money he saved he bought an Alfa Romeo and modified it to fulfill one of his dreams: competing. He was then part of the staff of CMN (Costruzioni Meccaniche Nazionali) where he was promoted to racing driver, which was a springboard to Alfa Romeo, for whom he competed until the early 1930s. Only the birth of his son Dino removed him from competition and put him in charge of managing the company’s competition department. Enzo Ferrari in his years as a driver A running escape Those years, as we said, coincided with futurism and all kinds of avant-garde movements. The West had entered a wild race that was betting on speed, on the development of faster and more capable machinery. The races multiplied. In 1924 the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in 1927 the Mille Miglia. Fascist culture carried this search for technical perfection and the cult of movement to its maximum expression, to the point that in Germany the Rekordwoche were born, races on huge highways with closed traffic to show who was faster. In those first Autobhan, Mercedes even proposed reach a top speed of 750 km/h with your Mercedes T-80. The crazy race for speed attracted, of course, the wealthiest classes. Thorstein Veblen already in his Leisure class theory of 1899 puts on the table that the wealthy need to prove that they have money. That is, it is not enough to have it, you have to show it to the world. Much of that demonstration was done by showing that one had free time. The worker, he worked. The rich man had free time and enjoyed it. And in those early years of the 20th century it became fashionable to demonstrate it by driving cars at full speed. It is no coincidence that the aforementioned Mille Miglia was an endurance race open to traffic. That love of speed was doubly attractive because it triggered the risk and the sensation of going beyond the limits that humans had had until then. Man moved faster than ever, speed records on the ground or in flight were constantly being broken. The Second World War only accelerated everything. The States put all their resources to overcome the rival with more capable vehicles. Without a doubt, without the advances of those days, the technical demonstrations that arrived in the 50s cannot be understood. In between, The Scuderiathe racing team created by Enzo Ferrari when he took over the competitive side of Alfa Romeo, broke ties with his mother at the beginning of the race. His work was therefore suspended but he recovered it very soon and Already in 1947 it appeared in a minor race as its own team separate from the clover mark. The following year, The Ferrari 166 Inter was launched as the company’s first road car.. It was also the first of the historic 12-cylinder Ferraris. “I have chosen automobiles as a symbol of extreme freedom for man”Enzo Ferrari would say in some words recorded by Vincenzo Borgomeo in The myth of the Rossa as stated in the Italian encyclopedia Trecanni. That phrase perfectly sums up what the Ferrari brand became over time. The Maranello company occupied its own space between aristocrats and the nouveau riche who wanted to drive faster than anyone else. Pure muscle that exploded in the 1950s with the development of some of the fastest cars in the world. Risk, speed and the supposed search for freedom coincide in the death of Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Ángel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, Spanish pilot better known as Alfonso de Portago and (as you can imagine) Marquis of Portago, who would lose his life on Italian roads aboard a Ferrari that burst a tire while traveling at 250 km/h. His accident was, in fact, the death of the Mille Miglia, which would not be run again in the wild conditions of the time, at full speed dodging cars in open traffic. The Spanish was the living image of playboy that Enzo Ferrari could have in mind when he sold his cars. He drove for the company in five Formula 1 grands prix and had moved to the endurance team when he took the wheel of the Ferrari 335 Sa beast for the time with V12 engine and the ability to reach 300 km/h top speed. … Read more

The best time to buy an electronic device was yesterday. The second best time is today

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I want the Steam Machine and, precisely for that (and for the more than 1,000 euros for the power it has), I am assembling a PC in pieces. I started choosing components and told myself “when I get paid, I’ll get it.” Two days later I happily looked at my payroll, went to Amazon to formalize the payment and found a surprise: almost 200 euros more. Guilty? The RAM and the GPU and I asked myself something: Do I jump through the hoop or wait? I commented on that same question a few days ago at the third meeting between editors and subscribers of Xataka Xtra and we draw three conclusions. The first is that everyone spends money on what they want, that’s what we work for. The second is that everything is very expensive and it is difficult to foresee the moment when the situation will change. If it does, of course. The third conclusion is that if you need any device or think you are going to need it in the short term, there is only one possible path: buy it now because it is already late, but tomorrow it will be even more so. Apocalypse wrapped 2026 First of all, a short review and at the bottom (although if you read us, you already know perfectly well what this nonsense is about). The consumer market has gone to hell due to the rise of AI. The two concepts are related because AI requires a lot of RAM, as well as storage, and the big problem is that there are very few companies that manufacture these components. Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron (who have been denounced for seeking to take advantage of the situation) are the ones that have the capacity to manufacture the majority of necessary components and, since AI is so gluttonous, Big Tech has launched itself to create data centers and pay whatever price is necessary, all three have pivoted their production from the consumer segment to only that of hyperscalers. Consequences? If they don’t make chips for DDR5 memories, prices go up, but they don’t make NAND chips for consumer SSDs either, so prices go up. As they have turned to fast memories, They have abandoned the DDR4 and LPDDR4 memory production lines and, again, prices rise. They not only rise for consumers, but for companies. Samsung or Apple are two examples, with the latter announcing two days ago that They are going to increase the price of iPads and Macs by an average of 20% because they have no memory. Sony is looking for how to create a PS6 that costs less than 1,000 euros; Nothing saying that It’s not going to release some phones this year.; Raspberry Pi increasing its price A LOT and Microsoft rethinking its next Xbox because it gets out of hand. These are just a few examples, I think the idea is clear. That is, it is not that assembling a PC in parts is more expensive, it is that even routers are more expensive because they have some NAND chip inside. When being an early adopter is a good idea (and it shouldn’t) In the conversation with subscribers we decided to bring up the topic of early adopters. This term has been used (sometimes pejoratively) to refer to those who buy hardware on launch day, even knowing that you are going to pay more for a product that is worse than the revision they will release a year or two later. The case of the consoles is very revealing. The first models of PS3 and Xbox 360 were expensive (especially PS3, I still remember the 600 euros at launch with a controller and no games), but objectively worse than the ones they released two/three years later. Sony revised the design and released the PS3 Slim for 300 euros that heated up less and made less noise, and Xbox also launched a 360 Slim without red lightswith more internal storage and WiFi. You paid less, they were better, but you played later. If you weren’t in a hurry, absolutely nothing happened. The problem is that things have changed and with Xbox Series and PS5 The opposite has been seen: the consoles have been rising more and more in price. Now it has a certain justification because the crisis and such, but both ate one or two increases before any crisis. And so I come to the conclusion of this article. In January, when prices were already crazyI thought “I’m going to build a PC in pieces.” I didn’t do it because it was like “bah, I don’t 100% need it right now.” Now, I would travel back in time to give myself a couple of kicks. January was the best time, then February, then March and then… the 1,700 euro PC from two days ago. Because the easiest thing, and this is what the market trend is telling us, is that within a week, two or a month, those 1,700 euros will easily disappear and the same hardware will be more expensive. If it’s still available, that’s another matter. Lenovo already said in February that, if you needed something, you bought it as soon as possible. And given what I’ve seen, I recommend the same thing: if you need something new or if you think you’re going to need it in the short term, tomorrow is too late. We are jo….robbed Because, speaking of Lenovo, they also just say that the prices of some components They will never return to the pre-AI situation. You will think that it is an exaggeration, but in the world we live in it is something that makes all the sense in the world. Although there are segments in which declines in sales are being noticed (PlayStation has had the worst May in its history since the one registered in 2001), those that control the component market because they are the ones that have the capacity to manufacture them They are going … Read more

what it is, what you can do with it and how to use it

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Let’s explain to you what it is and how you can use ChatGPT Codexthe ChatGPT scheduling agent. This is an option with which artificial intelligence is not limited to answering questions or generating code, but can work more autonomously on programming projects. We are going to start the article by explaining to you what exactly it is, so that you can understand that nonsense that it is a AI agent programming or software engineering. Then we will make a small list of what you can do, and we will finish by explaining to you in a basic and simple way how to use it. What is ChatGPT Codex Codex is one of the functions within ChatGPT, a programming agent. AI agents are programs that use AI to work autonomously. Instead of having to guide it step by step to do a task, you tell it what you want, and the agent will run in the background making decisions to do what you ask on its own. In this case it is a scheduling agent. This means that you can ask him to write code and create a programbut also analyze project code, make modifications, or run tests to make sure everything is working correctly. It is capable of working in the cloud on your code repositories, executing each task in an isolated and secure environment. Codex was launched in 2025 as an agent within ChatGPT, and evolved until in 2026 it began to have its specific application for computers. Below, uses specialized GPT programming modelsspecifically trained to understand and be able to analyze the code of complex projects, execute commands or verify their own work. What you can do with Codex In practice, Codex can work autonomously by performing multiple programming related tasksfrom writing code to reviewing it or testing it. These are the things you can do with this tool: Program without writing code: The most basic thing you can do with Codex is ask it to create an application, web or script. You define what you want and what you would like it to do, and this agent will write the code, test it in an isolated environment, and give you the result for you to review. Work on your GitHub projects: You can connect Codex to a repository to assign tasks such as fixing bugs, adding features, writing tests, or doing migrations and refactorings. Codex will deliver the changes to you in the form of pull request that you can accept or reject. Answer questions about code: You can give Codex a code, and then ask it questions related to it. You can ask it how it works, what a specific part of this code does, where it can make a mistake, or whatever you want. No longer to make changes, but to receive information. Review code and security: Codex can do code reviews to detect issues before they reach production, and in March 2026 OpenAI introduced Codex Securityan agent specialized in detecting and proposing corrections to vulnerabilities. Automate repetitive tasks: If you use Codex in its desktop application, you can schedule automations at specific times to perform tasks such as generating daily reports or reviewing bugs, and whose results reach a review queue. Control your computer: Newer versions of the desktop app allow Codex to use applications on your computer and browse the web to complete tasks. Of course, every time he has to take a delicate step he will ask you for explicit permission to do so. Knowledge tasks that are not code: May perform prototyping, documentation, data analysis, or research. Codex is evolving to not only be a programming agent, but can also help you with “office tasks.” This is because almost everything a computer can do can be solved with code. How to use Codex Codex is included in all ChatGPT subscriptions, including its free version. Of course, access from the free version and the cheapest subscriptions is limited. You have two methods to download Codexsince it works as a standalone desktop application. You can go to the download page by clicking on the option Codex from the left column of the website or by entering directly on the page chatgpt.com/codex. you also have the option to use Codex in the cloud with the website of chatgpt.com/codex/cloud. Here, you will be able to connect the tool on GitHub and interact with your projects. Once inside Codex, you’ll see a text field with options to code or ask questions. One is to ask him to do programming tasks, and another to ask him questions related to the code of a project you have. When you ask Codex to do a task and finish it, will not apply the changes directly. It will show you what it has done with the records of everything executed, and you are the one who will have the final say to accept the result, request modifications or discard it. If you have connected GitHub, changes to a repository will arrive to you as a pull request to review. In Xataka Basics | 64 free AI courses with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot created by your own companies

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